My Great Fish

"There is never a time or place for success. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment."

In The Old Man In The Sea, Santiago has to face many struggles while while trying to make his "big catch". While he was struggling with his fish, one of his biggest struggles was himself. He had struggled a lot with his need for water and food and keeping sane. It was only his self on the boat which made it harder for him to concentrate and focus on his real goal of catching the fish. Another struggle that he faced were the sharks that threatened to eat his prize. He had nothing he could use to fend for himself so in the end they ended up eating it on him. One other struggle were the cuts and burns that he got on his hands from the fishing line while trying to reel in the fish. 

My own struggle I can relate to is with my grade for geometry. All year I have had trouble trying to keep it up and stay on task. My sharks were the tests. The tests were like the sharks from The Old Man in The Sea because each test was another threat to drop my grade lower than it was. I wasn't completely comfortable with the material that we would go over, so when it came to the day if the test I wouldn't know what to do and get a low grade. As for me, I wouldn't study for the tests and had no motivation to, so that wouldn't help either. This I can relate to the Old Man's struggle with himself. Lastly, I had a hard time juggling with the sports and homework and trying to balance them out and have time for each. I would have practice right after school, and By the time I would get home and be done showering it would be pretty late so I would just want to go to sleep. I relate this with Santiago's burns and cuts on his hands because, it hurt him and didn't help motivate him to keep trying. 

It took me a while to realize that I needed to get in task and really start to focus on getting my work done. All together it was the first two terms of school where I was in the D range, and it made me feel really stressed out. It really sucked.

At the start of the 3rd quarter, after receiving my midterm and seeing my grade it really snapped me back to reality and made me realize I need to focus. My parents were my turtles in this situation because they supported me and pushed me to do better. I started to stay after, do my homework, and study for my tests. As mentioned before, sports were hard to deal with but I decided that work would have to come first. I finally came over my struggle when I made my goal come true by getting a 100 on a test that I took. My hard work really payed off and it felt really good. At the end of term 3, I had raised my grade to a B which was pretty awesome. 

I think that Santiago's main struggle was himself and what other people on the island though of him. To overcome this struggle, he went out everyday to try and catch a fish to prove them wrong and he finally did. I think that he made a good decision to go out and try to prove them wrong everyday because he knew he could. And in the end, all of his hard work payed off. Yes, the sharks may have eaten the fish but in the end it was all worth it to him because he knew he had proved then wrong and that's all that mattered. 

All throughout the story, I think Hemingway is trying to portray a certain message/lesson to his readers. It can be said in a couple ways but the two that I think best fit it are "always believe in yourself" and "never give up" I feel like these fit because the old man never have up in trying and kept fishing and believed that he would catch a fish. 

Short Story

Cages

It was game day and she was ready to go. All she could think about at school was this game. Her last High School Championship as a senior in her school now. She wanted the win more than anything she had ever wanted before, especially against their rival team the Rams. The crowd would be roaring for sure tonight, and she knew she had to be on her game in order to win. She was their secret weapon, a major necessity to keep the team focused and intense. This was it. And she was ready to go.

Alex came down the stairs to find her breakfast sitting on the table for her.

“What is this all about?” she said to her dad

“Well, it’s a big day for you and i just wanted to make sure that you would be performing at your best ability tonight, so i made you a nice and nutritious breakfast.”

“Thanks dad your the best coach out there” she said back, ate her breakfast and left the house to her car and drove off to school.

Sinced today was a big game day, the school decided to have a pep rally to get everybody pumped. The schools 6th man was one of the best, but one of the most inconsiderate crowds out there. They did not care what time of the game it was, they would cheer and boo. She walked into the school and it was like a mad house. Students were running around the school cheering and yelling. Someone had even decided to print out posters of the players and hang them around the school. It was definitely a good start off to the day.

Finally it was almost game time. T minus 1 hour. Her hands were sweating and she was pacing around. The plays were racing in her head, and she could feel the sticky air of the of the gym around around her. She had only imagined this moment in her head all of her life, and now it was finally a reality. Although, something didn’t feel right to her. it was like there was a little voice in the back of her head saying that something was wrong. It’s like she could sense that something was going to happen. She put the thought aside though thinking that her nerves were just getting the best of her, and started to walk back to the locker room. She turned around sensing something behind her, but nothing was there apart from a shadow that quickly disappeared. Thinking nothing of it she walked to the locker room with the rest of her team.

“TIGERS! TIGERS! TIGERS! TIGERS!”

It was the last quarter and the score was tied, 55-55. Alex had just been knocked over and would take one foul shot that could win the game for them. ‘boom, boom, boom’ All she could hear was the ball bouncing on the wood. She got set and was right about to throw it into the hoop when all of the lights went out. The whole schools power had went out. people were screaming, it was chaos.

“HELP! SOMEBODY HELP ME! HEEEELP!” screamed Alex, but nobody seemed to hear.

Someone was grabbing her and she could not get free.

“Scream or move again and i’ll kill you right here, right now. understand?

“Y-y-yes” she stammered back to the creepily man sounding voice.

She was terrified and had no clue what to do. Punch him? Bite him? “think Alex, think” she kept telling herself, but before she even had time to react, she felt a slight pinch in her arm and her world got even darker than it was and she drifted off into a blissful sleep.

  

She finally woke up to the faint sound of a baby crying. Becoming more aware of her surroundings, she discovered it was more than one baby that was crying. In fact it was hundreds. She looked around and was stunned at what she saw. All of the babies she saw were in cages, and so was she. She figured out that she was located in some sort of barn, and its walls were filled with all different kinds of chainsaws.

“What in the world?” she thought aloud not realizing it.

“Ahhh, and the princess finally awakens from her slumber” said a creepy, low and raspy mans voice.

“Who are you and what do you want from me?” she yelled back.

Out of the shadows of the barn came a middle aged lanky man, with scruff all over his face. His eyes were as black as the night sky and cut through you like icicles. He wore torn up jeans, and a ragged shirt as if he had just walked out of a dumpster.

“You, my darling, is all that I want” He said with a smug grin on his face.

Back at home her father was frantic. He had just been trying to process all that was going on-The power went out- Alex had been taken- and he had to find her. Not only being the coach, but also a retired detective, his first instinct was to go back to the scene when the crime had taken place.

Once he had reached to school he climbed out of his car and looked around. Tire marks lay on the ground. They must be from when he was leaving with her. He thought to himself. Quick but sloppy leaving behind evidence only a beginner criminal would do. With this thought in his head he quickly headed into the gym. His eyes swept the room finding nothing. As he was about to leave he took a last glance around the room only to have something catch his eye. A wallet. He opened it up and found a licence with the name Dimitri Anglov. He felt a tingle in his stomach, one he had always gotten whenever he was certain about something- And he was certain this was the man that had taken Alex.

He was speeding down the highway only to sharply turn down a dirt road into the middle of nowhere. He had taken the licence to the station and had been able to track down Dimitri. He had hopes that he would be keeping Alex in the place he was headed. He rounded the corner only to find a small house with quite a large barn beside it. He ran inside to only be astonished by what he saw.

“DAD!” Yelled Alex from the middle of the barn.

A wave of relief washed over her fathers face as he peered into Alex’s deep blue terrified eyes. He looked around the barn trying to find the key that would unlock her cage.

“Looking for this I suppose?” Said Dimitri holding up a key in his hand.

“Let her go! Give me that key!” Her dad screamed at the man.

And all of a sudden, his body moved before his brain could figure out what he was doing and grabbed one of the various chainsaws from the wall. He pulled the cord, the machine roaring to life. He charged full force at the man. Dimitri, astonished, was frozen and didn't know how to react to his sudden movement. And with all of her fathers will power, he slashed the frozen man’s body creating a gaping bloody wound in the center of his stomach.

The man looked down at what had been done to his body and let out a soft weep before crumpling to the ground. His body lay still and motionless- he had killed Dimitri. He grabbed the key from his cold dead hand, and ran over to Alex and unlocked the cage she had been trapped in.

The police had showed up right after the action and released and took in all of the babies he had captured. Alex and her father had returned safely home. It took a while for her to realize that it even happened, but she had to accept it to get over it. And as the days passed she slowly moved on with her life making new memories, but never forgot this one. Even today it is still a mystery why he had captured Alex and the babies. The question still burns deep in the back of Alex’s mind some days. But soon the topic of the tragedy faded away, and was replaced by new ones each day.