The Syllabus

Retell:

Morrie has always loved dancing; he would go to his church in

Harvard Square

every Wednesday for an event called “Dance Free”. To him the type of music that was playing never mattered, but only the fact that he would close his eyes and go with the flow of the music. Sometimes people thought that his dancing wasn’t the prettiest but he did not care what they thought of him, just the fact that he was able to dance made him a very happy man. Eventually he had to stop dancing in the sixties because he developed asthma which made breathing harder for him. For the next couple of weeks he had trouble walking and often stumbled. He finally decided to go see a doctor. He went to numerous doctors, they all did lots and lots of different test but none of which showed why he was having trouble walking and breathing. One day when he went to see yet another doctor, the doctor suggested that they take a piece of his calf muscle for testing. When the day the test came back, the doctor told Morrie he probably had a neurological problem. The doctor decided to do even more tests and they finally came up with the fact that he had Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS), a very hard illness on your neurological system. Morrie asked if there where any cures but there weren’t any, then he asked if he was going to live and the doctor said that the illness is fatal and that he was going to die. Morrie asked the doctor how it develops in the body. Well Morrie in almost every case it starts in your legs and eventually works its way up until you can no longer walk sit up or even if you make it this far, not be able to talk. From the time that you get the illness you have about five years to live but right now you have about two years left. Once Morrie left the doctors office he asked him self should I make the most of the time I have left on earth, or do I just kill my self immediately. Instead he decides to make death his very last project of his life. During the fall the doctors increased his pill dosage per day and he had to have Physical Therapy as part on his of his regular routine. He had to have nurses come to his house to keep moving his muscles back and forth to keep the heavy stiffness he had away. The nurses had to start doing the things that Morrie would usually do on a regular basis like, getting water from the well etc. As time went by he would often have old friends come over to visit him. Later that year he received information that one of his old colleagues had died of a heart attack. He decided to go to his funeral but when he came back did he realize that the whole ceremony was pointless. Everybody was saying such nice things about his friend and yet his friend couldn’t get to hear them say it. So Morrie decide to make an appointment with family and friends to come to his house so they could say what they had to say about him before he died.

Relate:

The only thing I can really relate to is when Morrie has to start relying on other people to help him with different things like going to the washroom, he has to have nurses come over and help his stiff muscle. I know this because my grandfather has a heart problem and he can’t do what he used to be able to do before now he has to rely on my grandmother to get him food and much more. In some cases she might need something heavy moved but can’t do it so she has to call us to come over and help her with her troubles. I hope that my grandfather gets better soon.

Reflect:

In this part of the book the stress does get a bit more intense. I am very glad that Morrie is living his life like nothing happened. I do hope that he will continue that way and that he encourages people to do the same when they get older.

Tuesdays with Morrie part 1:

Retell:

Every Tuesday we would all gather after breakfast and head down to the professors house. Once we arrived we would all be seated in the study. The topic for the day was “The Meaning of Life”. Every subject that the professor would talk about was mostly from experience, most of the subjects were about love, work, community, family, aging, forgiveness, and finally death. There were never any grades given according to Mitch, but we would always get oral exams on the topic that we were learning at the end of each week. The teacher (Morrie) expected you to ask questions and to answer some as well.  At the end of the year we didn't have any exams but were expected to fill out a full page length about what we remembered the most about during the year. My topic was "The last class with my professor”. I was the only student in the class and my name is Mitch. It was the year 1979 I and a group of people were all sitting on the main campus of the University waiting impatiently to graduate. We wore long blue nylon robes. After waiting for the speeches to end we were finally able to graduate as the seniors at Brandeis University in the city of Waltham, Massachusetts. Everybody threw their hats in to the air in celebration. After the ceremony I introduced my professor to my parents. Morrie was a very small man and loved to take very small steps at a time, he had sparkling blue-green eyes, thinning silver hair that dropped down to his forehead, big ears, triangular nose, and tufts of graying eyebrows, his teeth were crooked and his lower teeth were pushed back to where it looked like he had gotten into a fight with somebody, his smile was as if I had told him the first joke he ever heard on earth. He tells my parents how much of a special person I was to him and how I am one of the people he likes to call “The Good People”. He mentions how I took every class that he offered and did very well. Before we said our final good bye I gave him a present, a tan briefcase with his initials on the front of it. I thought that I didn't want to forget him but what I really think it was that I didn't want him to forget me and the good times we had together. He hugged me and once he pulled away I realized that he was crying and he asked if I would always stay in touch with him and without any hesitation I said "Of course I will".

Relate:

I think that it is impossible for me to relate to this book, because the school that I go to has a very different way of teaching kids, we have exams at the end of the year, we don’t have the same teacher teaching every subject that we take. I also don’t know anybody in my life time that has ever been seriously sick and was dying from that illness. But the one thing that I can for sure relate to is the empathy that I have for Morrie because I feel sorry for him but at the same time I do realize that it is time for him to go, and in a time in your  life you are going to have to realize that what God is telling you is that you have done your job well on earth and it is time to come join me. I know this because I have recently experienced my favorite uncle’s death it was a very sad moment for me and my family.

Reflect :

This is one of my favorite biographies that I have ever read. I say this because I love the way he thinks, the way he encourages people to make things perfect and not be the same as everybody else. Also the way he focuses on the little things to make them perfect. I love his perspective in life, the way he see’s everything on earth as being something special. I would personally change my way of thinking to the way Morrie thinks in a heart beat because he knows how to make every part of your life worth while.

New book

I have recently changed my book "Johnny Depp A Modern Rebel" to my new book called "Tuesdays With Morrie. The reason why I chose to change my book is because, I thought that biography on Johnny Depp was hard to understand and very confusing. My new book on the other hand is great I am able to read it with out any problems.

Book for english

The book that I chose for this book report is called "Johnny Depp A Modern Rebel". The reason I chose this book is because I always found that Johnny Depp was a good actor espacialy in the movie Pirates of the Caribbean. I think the roles he plays realy brings out his true personnality.

I hope I have a good time reading this book.