Grade 9: Unit 2

The silence came over everything again—a desperate silence, as though sound itself had been ripped from the earth.

I stood rooted to the sea wall, entranced, waiting for it to attack.

I can't explain what I saw any better than you can, but I know it was no illusion, no hallucination.

Despite all these precautions, I couldn't get rid of the image of myself drowning. Like K.'s cold hand, this dark premonition caught hold of my mind and refused to let go.

The intense look of hatred I thought I saw on his face had been nothing but a reflection of the profound terror that had taken control of me for the moment.

The time was after four o'clock, and the soft sun of late afternoon embraced everything below as it began its long, almost meditative, descent to the west.

High on that list of emotions is guilt. Soldiers often carry this burden home—survivor guilt being perhaps the kind most familiar to us.

Objective or rational guilt, by contrast—guilt that is "fitting" to one's actions—accurately tracks real wrongdoing or culpability: guilt is appropriate because one acted to deliberately harm someone, or could have prevented harm and did not.

Nietzsche is the modern philosopher who well understood this phenomenon: "Das schlechte Gewissen," (literally, "bad conscience")—his term for the consciousness of guilt where one has done no wrong, doesn't grow in the soil where we would most expect it, he argued, such as in prisons where there are actually "guilty" parties who should feel remorse for wrongdoing.

Nietzsche is the modern philosopher who well understood this phenomenon: "Das schlechte Gewissen," (literally, "bad conscience")—his term for the consciousness of guilt where one has done no wrong, doesn't grow in the soil where we would most expect it, he argued, such as in prisons where there are actually "guilty" parties who should feel remorse for wrongdoing.

Service members, especially those higher in rank, routinely talk about unit members as "my soldiers," "my Marines," "my sailors." They are family members, their own children, of sorts, who have been entrusted to them.

The anguish of guilt, its sheer pain, is a way of sharing some of the ill fate. It is a form of empathic distress.

The introduction is usually brief and functions to “set the stage” for the full story.

Expert commentary is often used to support a specific point of view.

Listeners will often hear a response in the speaker’s language before the interpreter restates the words in the listeners’ language.

On the following day, a west-southwest gale pitched and rolled the Caird in a high lumpy sea, but gave an excellent run of ninety-two miles on the desired northeast course.

The spray that broke upon the reeling boat froze almost on impact, and towards the end of the eighth day, the Caird's motion had changed alarmingly.

“During twenty-six years' experience of the ocean in all its moods I had not encountered a wave so gigantic. It was a mighty upheaval of the ocean, a thing quite apart from the big white-capped seas that had been our tireless enemies for so many days. I shouted, ‘For God's sake, hold on! It's got us!’”

The composition may show what the photographer thinks is important in the subject.

perspective or angle
The camera may be looking down, looking up, or looking head on at the subject.

The riddle seemed irresolvable: to fish I needed bait, but I would have bait only once I had fish.

Several times I started bringing the hatchet down, but I couldn't complete the action. Such sentimentalism may seem ridiculous considering what I had witnessed in the last days, but those were the deeds of others, of predatory animals.

I felt I was dealing fate a serious blow by engaging such a handsome adversary. With this fish I was retaliating against the sea, against the wind, against the sinking of ships, against all circumstances that were working against me.

Without the hard work of the Sherpa porters, it would be largely impossible for Americans and Europeans with slightly above-average physiology, and well above-average disposable income, to scale the world's tallest mountain.

If, say, 1 percent of American college-aged raft guides or ski instructors were dying on the job—the mortality rate of Everest Sherpas—the guiding industry would vanish.

The Buddhist tradition is strict about needing a body to cremate if the deceased is to find a speedy reincarnation.

Keep it, treasure this as you would
if you were lost, needing direction,
in the wilderness life becomes when mature

We watched the sleek, wild, dark

And iridescent creature
Batter against the brilliance, drop like a glove

When a record pauses, that live second before dropping down,
Alfred hugs tighter, arms stretched wide
head pressed on the luminous belly. "Now!" he yells.
A half-smile when the needle breathes again.