Inspiration

Jacob Prince

Grammar and Comp

1^st block

12-14-12

Ramin Karimloo: Inspiration From Afar

The child lays there before me, unaware or uncaring that his death seems imminent. This is the boy that is in love with my daughter and I owe it to him and to myself to see him safely home to her.  The other soldiers are making their ways to their place of rest, singing their sorrowful songs. I begin my prayer to God to watch over this boy and bring him home. Scene. The life that being an actor on a stage brings is one full of hard work, long hours, and stress. Lots and lots of stress. But it is also something that I wouldn’t trade for the world. Through my life I've had three true loves: Music, Les Misérables, and the Phantom of the Opera. These three loves have guided me and shaped my individuality. I know both of those musicals by heart and recently I discovered a singer/actor who shares and fuels my passions. Ramin Karimloo.

Ramin Karimloo is an Iranian-born Canadian actor who has had a miraculous career thus far. He is primarily known for his talents on the stage in the West End, which is essentially the Broadway of London. He has played roles such as Jean Valjean, Feully, and Enjolras in London productions of Les Misérablesas well as played the Phantom in the Phantom of the Opera which is what caused my interest in him. Andrew Lloyd Webber was so impressed with Ramin’s reimagining of the Phantom in the London and 25th anniversary edition productions that he cast him in his sequel to the most famous musical created, called Love Never Dies. Love Never Dies is less heard of, but diehard Phantom fans know it well. Ramin is a perfect phantom. You can hear the longings and passion in his voice, which by the way is entirely his own. He’s had no college education or vocal training all his life. He is self taught. This surprises people when they hear songs such as the opening number to Love Never Dies, Til I Hear You Sing, seen here in music video format made to publicize the production: 

http://www.cleanvideosearch.com/media/action/yt/watch?videoId=XegytVAM5WU

He inspires me to continue musical theatre in my future. He has accomplished so much in a short time with no training, no connections. Just himself and his voice. He is living the dream of children and striving artists everywhere. He got his break and has not stopped acting since.

Reader Response 5: The Way of Shadows

          I have recently begun reading a so far wonderful story called The Way of Shadows. It takes place in an imaginary country called Cenaria. Cenaria is the sort of place that has mass poverty, a broke and corrupted government, and hugely massive crime rates.
         

          So far the story is following Azoth, a young ten year-old boy who lives in the poor slums of the capitol called The Warrens. This is the area in which prostitution, theft, and muggings occur almost on a minutely basis. Among the slums are a plethora of orphan children who have to live in groups together, called Guilds. Azoth is a member of Black Dragon.

         

          In order to support the guild and be allowed to live with them everyone in the guild has to pay four coppers once per week after they turn eight. If you are unable to pay you are savagely beaten by the guild "hand", an older child in charge of keeping order. The hand for Black Dragon is a sixteen year-old named Rat. He is unfair to everyone and tells Azoth that he must pay 8 coppers to pay for Doll-Girl, whom everyone knows is not yet eight but is mute, so she can't say otherwise. Since Azoth can't pay, he gets beaten by Rat. His friend, Jarl, who never pays dues, is beaten as well. Azoth is then told in private that Rat plans to make him a hero, make him respected and looked up to, and then crush him so no one will ever disrespect Rat ever again. After this Azoth meets up with Jarl and Jarl shows him that he's been saving up money for four years, which is why he's never payed dues, and gives the money to Azoth so he can go apprentice with Durzo Blint, the best wetboy(which is like a more advanced assassin) in the country.

          I've fallen in love with this story up to now and the plot is an entertaining one. Azoth has begun the road toward killing Rat in order to take up an apprenticeship with Durzo, and I am anxious to read where this story will go. The characters are increadibly relatable and the story is overall fairly realistic.

“I’ll spend my life training just for the moment I have my chance at you. I’ll wait until you think I’ve forgotten today. I’ll wait until you think it was just a dumb guild rat’s threat. After I’m a master, you’ll jump at shadows for a while. But after you jump a dozen times and I’m not there, you won’t jump just once, and that’s when I’ll be there. I don’t care if you kill me at the same time. I’ll trade my life for yours.” - Azoth

This is what Azoth said to make Durzo consider letting him apprentice him.

Reader Review2: The Wizard Heir

During this last passage that  I read quite a lot happened. Seph wasn't allowed to leave the sanctuary borders because he would be in danger if he left them. So what does he do? He leaves the borders. Him and his new girlfriend go on a picnic and she drives him out of the town limits. During the picnic they get ambushed by three of Liecestors wizard students and Seph is outmatched until Ellen, one of his warrior friends shows up. She cuts one of the men nearly in half and wounds another. Then one of the wizards grabs Seph's girlfriend, Madi. He releases magic into her to try and subdue her and she ends up draining him of all his energy. This same thing happened to Seph before he knew her. We find out that she is something called an elicitor(meaning she is an anaweir, but she is immune to magic). Seph finds out later that everyone in the town essentially has been following him to make sure he stays safe. In this situation it was a good thing.
          After that ambush Seph discovers that the Wizard Council, the group of wizards, good and bad, that control the world of the Weir, will be meeting in Trinity(the location of the sanctuary). Seph loves this because of two reasons, the first being Liecestor is on this council and that means a revenge oppurtunity, and secondly because he hopes to make contact with an underground person called the Dragon. The Dragon is someone who is bent on exposing Liecestor to the world for his atrocities, but no one knows anything about him. Seph wants to join the Dragon in his mission.
          I am simply in love with Chima's writing style. It is such an easy to style to read and, fittingly, it reminds me of a J. K. Rowling. I lget upset when I realize that I'm almost done with this story, but I have another book in the series after this one, so I don't let mysellf get too upset.

Reader Review1: The Wizard Heir

The Wizard Heir is a story from a series of books written by author Cinda Williams China. The Wizard Heir is the third book in the installment in which I would highly recommend to fantasy readers. These stories take place in a fairly flexible timeline. It is presumably modern times. In this universe there are two different types of people living on Earth. Weir, and Anaweir. They are defined by a type of “stone” they are born with. Anaweir are the powerless. They don’t even perceive the mysticism around them. Essentially they are normal everyday people. The Weir, however, are people born with stones. They include groups such as Wizards, Seers, Warriors, and Enchanters, among others. In the past novels there has been an obvious divide between all the other guilds, and the Wizards. The Wizards, being the most powerful of all the other Weir guilds, have sort of put themselves at the top of the hierarchy they themselves created. So the plot, from what I’ve gathered from the first part of this story, is that the heroes(Who are all in high-school), two warriors(Jack and Ellen), an orphan Wizard(Seph McCauly), and a few others are going to try and change the covenant, which is essentially the magical rule book, held by the corrupted Wizards. The leader of these Wizards is a man named Gregory Licestor, who runs an all boy school designed to receive troubled teens to it, because usually untrained wizards are seen by the anaweir as delinquents, Seph was one of those students. Leicester gets his power by using old magic to bond these students who are wizards to him, in a sort of magical collection. They all share each other’s power. Seph is more powerful than all of the wizards Leicester has linked, however, but hasn’t been trained to control it. After a while of being in Leicester’s school Seph escapes and flees to a sanctuary(a city in which attack magic isn’t allowed) with Linda Downey, Jack’s aunt, and Seph’s legal guardian. Once there the wizards who work for Leicester are working on trying to get Seph to come out of the town because they can’t force him out while he’s inside the borders.

            This book is a relatively high tempo story that doesn’t leave much time for relaxation. There’s always something big happening and you have to be on your toes to know what is going to happen next. It’s a great read.

A School Story

Five years old and I walk into school for the first time.

Sherwood is a wonderful new experience.

It was a scary place,

But luckily I knew a lot of the other children.

I’m outgoing and make friends quickly,

And I have the time of my life.

I feel welcomed and at peace.

Fast forward and I am walking through the doors of Carver,

The school that dwarfs what I’m accustomed to but I’m not discouraged.

Confident in my movements and happy as can be to be moving up in the world at last.

I am feeling great about life and excited about what I’m doing.

Then I walk through the doors of Parkview,

Still feeling great about the world but very uncertain about what lies ahead of me as a freshman.

I allow myself to be consumed with jealousy for my best friend’s success.

I develop anger issues that I simply suppress.

My problem is solved.

Sophomore year breezes by without many frustrations.

I turn my life away from Debate which has grown old and move on to my future.

I leave the friends I made behind and take a step forward.

Junior year and I join theatre which provides me with a sanctuary and a place of acceptance.

I feel a part of things immediately and have a surplus of people who love me

I have finally found my home,

With the people I love in the place I love.

Senior year and I crush it all.

The ones who once loved me have turned against me and there is no one to blame but myself.

Senior year brings me the biggest upsets I have yet experienced,

All of them ripple effects due to my prior summer of self-loathing and despair,

The anger I had always done my best to bottle up has reared its ugly head.

I feel alone in the world.

The friendships I once had are scarce to none.

All because I can’t control my temper,

And act without thinking.

Senior year is the year to best them all,

Right?