Journals

January, 14, 1738
Dear Journal,
This is my first post of a long series of post on my travel to this new world. First let me introduce myself, I am Drebin Melancholy from Berlin Germany and I just turned 14 today. Father told me this was a sort of a “birthday gift” that we can travel but I thought this will be dreadful. Anyway, once we boarded Miss Julie was instantly seasick from the light waves, this feels like a bad omen.

February 25, 1738
Dear Journal,
Today was a sad day, Mr. Moore died of the Scurvy, and he will be missed. This trip is very dreadful; I feel that it is my duty to keep from getting ill. But it so hard when almost everyone is sick. I think my father is starting to get sick.

April 03, 1738
Dear Journal,
Not many kids have survived this past month. I am so bored there are little kids to play with. At the beginning of the trip there were 50 kids and 200 adult. Now there are only 20 kids and 100 adult. My father says I have to start working on the ship. I hope we see land soon.

May 25, 1738
Dear Journal,
Some of the crew members are starting to think that they should mutiny. I don’t think we should. I mean like he is the only one who know how to run the ship. But I do want to see land so I give him one more week than I would do mutiny.

June 20, 1738
Dear Journal,
My father died today. I am so sad that I can’t move a muscle. I miss him so much why did he have to go.

August 10 1738,
Dear Journal,
All the fresh food is gone! All that is left is a combination of the left over. I so sick of that disgusting stuff.

November 16 1738,
Dear Journal,
We are here! We see land! The leaders made the Merconkeppman Compact today. I widh my dad was here to see it. Anyway we have to start hunting, cutting down tree, and start farming.

What Leads To Suicide

Have you ever felt lonely? Like no one in the world cares about you. The old man in Ernest Hemingway’s short story might have been a reflection of himself, rather than a fictional character. Both men experience loneliness, which ultimately leads them to thoughts of suicide.
The old man did not always appear to live a lonely life. He had married, but his wife died at some point. We know the old man is deaf, but we don’t know when he became deaf. I don’t know what it is like to be deaf. I think the difficulty communicating with others could make you feel lonely. For some reason the old man had difficulty sleeping. Each night he would go to a café, yet he doesn’t interact with those around him. The café is very nice, and the old man can afford it.
Hemingway also had a lot of money, yet he was not a happy person. As he wrote the story, I think he changed some characteristics about himself for the story. Hemingway had married and divorced at least 5 times. He could not find the one person who made him happy. Like the old man, he had a lot of money. For both men, money did not buy happiness. The old man tried to commit suicide by hanging himself. Hemingway took his own life by shooting himself with his favorite shotgun.
I believe Hemingway thought about suicide long before he really did it. Could he have been thinking about his suicide at the time he wrote this story, 29 years before he actually did it? In the end loneliness can affect the decisions you make in your life