Reflecting on 1/2 of My Sophomore Year

10th grade started really slow but now it is half way over. The year has gone by really quickly.

The school year began like any other; slow and boring. But lately, it has picked up and seemed to fly by. The work has picked up and deadlines have come quicker than expected.

Nothing special really comes to mind about my sophomore year so far except that all my friends are sixteen and driving and I am still fifteen. I don't turn sixteen until May 29. Unfortunately, I won't be able to drive until after the school year is over.

I'm glad that half the year is over and that exams are almost over. However,I am very sure that I will like my sophomore year a whole lot better when it is over.

Friendship

Friendship is a major theme in the play. In life, if you do good, you will be rewarded. If you are a good friend, you will also be rewarded. Mark Anthony was a faithful friend to Caesar and in the end, he won the battle. If you are a bad friend, you will not be rewarded. Brutus was literally a back-stabber to Caesar. After Brutus was an accomplice in assassinating his friend, he quickly gained power, lost that power, then killed himself.



When discussing this with my classmates, I also thought of a few other good points. You should always be choosy of your friends. Caesar considered his fellow polititians friends and they all conspired against him and killed him. If Caesar would have chosen his friends better, maybe this all would not have happened. You should as well never be too loyal. Lucius, Brutus' servant was too loyal. When Brutus told Lucius to stab him, Lucius did as he was told.

Not only is friendship a major theme in the play, it is also a major one in life.

Leadership

Reading the tragedy, Julius Caesar, I have learned a lot about leadership. Julius Caesar, in my opinion, was not a good ruler because he was on the virge of becoming a tyrant.

Caesar's leadership could be compared to Hitler-Germany, although Caesar's dictatorship never reached fruition. It was wrong of Hitler to use his power as a dictator to kill a countless number of Jews. If Caesar had not been so power-hungry, he would have not been assassinated by his fellow politicians and who knows how history would have played out...

Win-Win---The all-you-can-eat buffet

Before reading *the book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens,* I often felt *vanquished* by the people around me. I was not thinking win-win. *To think* win-win is to think that success can be spread around to everyone; I will not be your doormat and you will not be mine.

Of course, there are others who don't (but should) think this way. An example of win-win thinking? The old saying, "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours." By working together, we are both getting what we want and no one is on the lesser end of the deal. Can you imagine where we would be if everyone in the world was thinking win-win...