Pobby and Dingan Quiz

Before Kellyanne got sick, Ashmol never believed Pobby and Dingan are real. He just thought that Pobby and Dingan destroyed his family, his father went to jail, mom missed England in the midnight, everyone lived in the Lighting Ridge thought his father was a ratter. So he was angry about these two invisible characters. However, as the plot moves, Kellyanne gets sick deeply. Ashmol begins to feel worried and self-condemned to Kellyanne, he thinks that if he finds Pobby and Dingan, all things would be solved. When his sister wants him to go to Sid in order to find Pobby and Dingan, the reason is just about Kellyanne's premonition, but Ashmol agrees and goes to the Sid. He does not want his sister to die thinking he is the kind of Ashmol who does not believe anything. In the Sid, there are many weird things stimulate Ashmol and make Ashmol more curious. When he stands outside of the Sid, he sees many stars in the sky, he remembers his father told him that every star on the sky, there must be one opal under the ground. He remembers one unbelievable thing that this land where Lighting Ridge is now was once covered by seawater and how all kinds of sea creatures had been found fossilized in the rock. This thing makes him consider that if that sea was once here where now there's nothing but dry land. He begins to think that if this amazing thing was true it was possible Pobby and Dingan were true too. He never thought Pobby and Dingan were real before. But due to his sister, he had no choice, in his mind that family is more important than anything else. The only thing he could do is to make the people in his neighborhood believe his father is not a ratter, then his family can go back to normal. When he remembers this weird and unbelievable thing, he automatically makes this thing relating to Pobby and Dingan, he wants to make himself convince about his own guess. This thing is important because this is Ashmol first time making himself believe Pobby and Dingan, he's trying to convince himself.
Annie, Mom.
Imagination and dream are important for everyone. If there's no imagination, human can not create so many creative things. People do not know what do they pursue for without dream. Especially in this book, even though we could not see our dreams and imagination clearly, they are our goals that support us to do everything. For Ashmol's Mom, Annie. In one night, Ashmol suddenly knew that his mom felt bored about her husband and her life. She wanted to go back to England because when she was in England, she had nothing to worry, she smiled happier. For Ashmol's dream, when he got the opal, he wanted to sell it in order to get some money for him to buy tickets for his mom to go to England. These two characters' dreams are unseen and they hide deeply, they never told others about their dreams, but Kellyanne, she achieved her dream, she had two good friends, she can eat with them and play with them. She smiled happily as same as Ashmol's mom smile when she was in England. Annie and Ashmol also want to get this emotion, Annie is lonely in Lighting Ridege, Ashmol does not have any good friend. Mom is more mature than Ashmol, so she understands Kellyanne and that's why she protects Kellyanne every time when father and Ashmol told Kellyanne that P&D are unreal because mom also wants to have this kind of friend.

Story

This break I did not go back to China, however I chose to go to Chicago in order to get involved in a program, which called CivicWeek Education. This education created by Northwestern university. I participated into the program's main direction is to discover Human rights and do some research on urban affairs. This was a big challenge for me because human right and urban affairs are not my strength, but due to this challenge, I chose to join in them in order to improve myself. In my  own opinion, I thought that I would meet a lot of problems in the future, how should I solve them? So this program gave me a chance to verify my ability. Also, this spring break is too short, just 17 days, I do not want to live with time difference in these 17 days. Due to the time difference, I have to sleep in the morning and wake at night.
In this program Human Rights & Urban Affairs, I did many meaningful things. For example, I went to Chicago Youth Center to play with kids whose parents did not have time to take care of them. Playing with children was very happy, but tired at the same time. Then I went to LAF, it is a company that helps the poverty to get the benefits. Many lawyers in this company talked to us about their job and what should they do in order to help others. Also we went to a shelter, it accepts all the people who want to stay there, whatever you are homeless or you have not money to rent a house. This agency are happy to help you. The similarity involves in these three agencies is that they are non profit agencies, their purpose is to help others rather than earning money.
Because I joined the program that contains human rights, so everyday we would talk about the influence of human rights. There is one question I think a lot. Does poverty against human rights? Because we talked about human rights, human rights mean liberty, freedom, free speech. However, poverty means homeless, helpless, hopeless. These two words' meanings are opposite. But should they be opposite or could they stay together? This is my problem until I went to a food bank. I went to there, cleaned their garden, cleaned their floor, and also I served food for the homeless people. I noticed one thing during my work time, every homeless person is happy to accept the food and they look neat. So I asked them why they are happy? One man answered me that even though he's homeless now, he had found a job to work. During this time he had no money to rent a house, so that's why he stays here, the reason why he is happy because he thought he had improved his life to become better. He enjoyed to purse his dream everyday. At that time, I figured out that poverty does not against human rights, they should stay to stay together. Human rights protect the poverty and poverty made the sense of human rights. So I thought expect many valuable experience in this program, the similarity between poverty and human rights is the biggest achievement for myself.

Picture about my imaginry firends

Pobby and DIngan are two imaginary friends of Kellyanne. Ashmol does not think that they live in the world, but I think this story is very interesting, maybe Pobby and Dingan live in the world, they live with Kellyanne and Ashmol together. However, they are invisible. Because in the reading, Page 371, which says that there is an old miner said he believed that Pobby and DIngan really existed and he would  look out for them as carefully as he could when he was walking around town. Every kid in this world has a hero dream, we want to save the world, but we are not lonely, there must be some friends accompanying with us. So Pobby and DIngan are the friends who accompany with her during her growth. They are positive, there is no fault around them, they are just two friends who can chat with Kellyanne to spend time. Ashmol just does not understand her way. Pobby is a male and Dingan is a female, which I get the information from the Opal Princess competition, Kellyanne and Dingan got the third prize, just female could get this award. And also Pobby and Dingan both speak English, they do not like wars so that is why Fat Walt pretended he found them, but he said they were shooting roos, actually they do not want to hurt others. It also explains why they do not eat meals, they are only kids, so they only eat Cherry Ripes and lollies. After much information, I begin to have a picture about Pobby and Dingan. Pobby is a silent boy, not really tall but he loves swing, when Kellyanne has free time, he would ask Kellyanne to play swing with him. However he hates Ashmol because every time he plays with Kellyanne, Ashmol would disturb them and slams his face. He does not want to say many words, so every time when Kellyanne argued with her parents about her unreal friends, Pobby does not say anything, he is almost crying, but when Kellyanne is looking at him, he would smile very quickly. For Dingan, in my mind, she is a very outgoing girl, she likes to sit with Kellyanne to eat breakfast with her, even though there’s no food they could eat. She is afraid about the swing, she always thinks that it is dangerous. So when Pobby and Kellyanne play the swing, she just looks them in a long distance. Because she is a girl, so she always wears the purple princess dress. They are not real for everyone except for Kellyanne, she is the only one in this world could chat with them, so I could feel that when dad lost Pobby and Dingan, how stress she would be. 

Vocabualry

Claim. Noun.

Me and Dad were relaxing after a hard afternoon’s work out at the claim.

Place where dad works with mine. 

Wobbling. Adj. 

The noise of a car drove into our ears and a four-wheel-drive police jeep came wobbling down the creamy red track that leads to our claim.

A sound fluctuate unsteadily.

Startled, verb.

My dad turned around, startled.

Excited my sudden things. To disturb by the surprise. 

Figment. Noun.

Pobby was a figment of her imaginings.

Fantastic idea

Rummaged. Verb. 

He rummaged through piles of rocks.

Search everywhere. Haphazardly

Ute. Noun.

Kellyanne glared at me through tears the way she did the time I slammed the door of the ute in Dingan’s face

A vehicle that travels over rough ground. 

Crackpot. Noun.

Lightning Ridge was full of flaming crackpots as far as I could see.

A person who is crazy.

Mello Yello. Noun.
“Pobby and Dingan aren’t dead,” I said, hiding my anger in a swig from my can of Mello Yello.

A soft drink.

Mates noun.

“I still say Kellyanne could do with some real-live mates,”

Friends

Opal. Noun.

My dad would come back from the opal mines covered in dust, his beard like the back end of a dog that’s shat all over its tail.

Mineral with colorful colors stone. Like gemstones.

Fairdinkum Adj.

There’s definitely something in that earth with the name Williamson on it!” “Fairdinkum?” His excitement always caught ahold of me.

honest or reliable

Imaginary. Adj.

I was as much a rockhound as the next kid, but I wasn’t crazy enough to talk to imaginary friends,

Not based on facts, dubious.

Grub noun.

She said they were quieter and better behaved than me and deserved the grub.

Food. Meals.

Fossilized. Adj.

Lucky Jes has taken out a million-dollar stone and a fossilized mammoth tooth with sun-flash in it.

to become a fossil. 

Mammoth noun.

Lucky Jes has taken out a million-dollar stone and a fossilized mammoth tooth with sun-flash in it.

Was an animal like elephant with long tusks and long hair. No longer exists. 

Real or imaginary

Yichen.Li
Mar. 3rd. 2016
English

Reading is a very interesting process. Yesterday I read a fictional book, which called " Pobby and Dingan ". This story's introduction seems so weird because it talks about that there are two main characters, one is Kellyanne and another one is Ashmol. Kellyanne has two invisible friends, and she always says that they are real. She acts that she could communicate with Pobby and Dingan. But Ashmol does not think they are real, me either. Because in the chapter 1, Ashmol told to his parents that “They never existed. Things that never existed can’t be dead. Right?”Which shows that Ashmol never believes there are two invisible friends around Kellyanne. Second, the newspaper, it describes the opal princesses that "Kellyanne Williamson (aged eight) and her invisible friend Dingan", for the reporters, they also do not believe that there's an invisible person in the world. Third, Ashmol's dad, in chapter two his dad pretends that he could see where are Pobby and Dingan, but his purpose is to separate Kellyanne with them, the author already says that Kellyanne is an smart person, but she needs to become normal. And when Kellyanne asks dad where are her friends, her dad points several places, but Kellyanne does not believe. And these two people are the imaginary friends of Kellyanne, she lives in a places full of holes and criminals and freaks.  She was just 8 years old, so she was easy to believe others, maybe she hears from others that Pobby and Dingan who are two heroes can protect the kids, so Kellyanne begins to image.
In conclusion, I think Pobby and Kellyanne are visional, they are only created by Kellyanne's fear.

Improvement

Writing is fun for me, I love the process when I write something. From my first draft to the final draft, I improve my content the most and I added many arguments in it. Every essay is a world, I need to use my thinking and my words to make it more specifically. In my first draft, I spent many times on summary, after I went to the writing center, I figured out that teachers wanted to know your analysis rather than the summary. Teachers were more familiar than you about the plot of the book, so the reason why they wanted to read your essay is to find your opinion to the book. So the difference between my first draft to my final draft is the content. I deleted a lot of summary and I added more quotations. Then I began to look my thesis statement and ending sentence, make them have some connections. So for my essay, it gradually becomes more specifically and more attractive for readers.