Final Blog Post

Reading :  Robbie Hicks

This picture actually describes my feelings for reading. It's pleasurable experience, like ice cream, but when im doing it, I feel like I need to furiously finish the book, because I just never find a time to read. I used to just read when I was about to go to bed, it both helped me sleep and was enjoyable. As I got older though, It's just easier to flip through netflix and find a show about meer kats or white dwarf suns, it too helps me sleep with the monotone voice and calm nature. I just never hear about a good book nowadays, no one talks about them, and I don't want to waste the precious reading times I have on a book that ends with "It was all a dream." 

Blogging;

Blogging was not enjoyable, shown by my boy arnold's face. Blogging felt really repetitive, even though I tried to write with different prompts, I felt like I just ran out of words, there wasn't much to talk about. I didn't read my first book very fast, so I had to write a lot about the same things. I don't really see the value of making my reading life public. I don't feel like people would really care about what I care about what I think about a book. Maybe if I was reviewing it, it would be different, but just my general thoughts on the values and ideas brought up by the book, I don't think would really be necesarry to share to the public.

Freshman year:
Freshman year was a year of a lot of new experiences and freedoms. I felt a lot more relaxed and comfortable this year then I have been since 6th grade. I felt like I was finally getting older and finding my own way, being cool like my boy arnold and his sweet dew. Before highschool we were always babied, they pampered everything down and eased us into everything, I didn't like that. I like being treated higher, like were not kids feels good. Also a change I liked was the removal of teams from middle school. When I first moved here in 7th grade I was excited to be in such a huge school, my old school wasn't nearly the size in population as this one was. Everyone knew everyone in my oldschool, and even though I liked that dynamic, I wanted to know a larger group of people. So I was disappointed when they closed us off in teams to only get to know a 12th of the people in the school. In 8th grade I had 50 people on my team, and only had those same people in my classsso when I went out with friends with their friends I knew 0 people outside of my team. So being less closed off from the rest of the school this year was a big change.

Maze Runner Initial Thoughts

Maze runner starts off very slow, it takes a little while to clue you in on whats happening , even though the people in the book don't know themselves. Most books have a slow beginning, like Unbroken, they have to try to get you engaged in the story before they get the action going. The story of Maze runner seems interesting, even though I really only know that they are stuck in a maze with stuff that can kill you. The thing that annoys me in books like this is that, out of so many people who are in the same situation, only one person is curious about the whole thing and is willing to change it. The plot of the book seems really wierd and cool, I could never imagine how this book will keep the reader interested, and that's what pulls me back to read it. I feel like you can only go so far before the book just becomes stupid and illogical, and so far it seems like the book isn't doing that.

The characters are pretty usual there's the loveable kid Chuck, the sidekick Newt , the leader/mentor Alby, and the big bad bully Gally, and of course the hero Thomas. Most of the teen books have this kind of set-up, along with a love interest.

 This book has a real "Lost" vibe, everyone wants to know why they are where they are, and the natives just really don't want them to find out why. Hopefully it doesn't fall off like that show, I honestly don't know what happended after the 4th season, despite watching it two times. It just got, well, stupid and illogical.However, I have high hopes.

Unbroken: Pride

I like living, it's the one thing im pretty confident I know how to do. Eat, drink, sleep, look left and right when crossing the road, and stranger danger. Pretty simple I think, and thats one of the reasons I don't really understand the warrior mindset that was present before and during World War 2. Romeo and Juliet showcased this with all of its male characters, who would rather die with honor than to live with shame, which is just bizarre to me. I think if someone called me out in a McDonald's, I think my parents would be more proud if I just let it go than pick a fight with them, they are probably wrong anyways, your never too old for the ball pit. Louie in Unbroken is a really strong person who is a great role model. I find it strange that Louie would rather take daily beatings rather than just not defy the guard. Maybe he didn't think he was getting out of the camp, or maybe its just his character he never seemed to like authority, much like his hate for his commander who told him to fly the faulty plane, but I think it's more than that. His pride really controls his judgement and I think that's just in some people's nature. The kamikaze pilots who flew for the Japanese are a real mystery, they were kind of bred for a good 16 years to kill themselves in a losing effort, rather than live for their country to continue to fully understand their situation and maybe even bring some good to the world, they voluntarily end their own life for such a stupid purpose. It's not really the soldiers who are starting the war, they follow a person who has more control than them, and decides who gets to die and who gets to live, and this is someone who doesn't see the war effort first hand. Living is the one think I somewhat understand, it seems harder to life, than to die.

Unbroken: Fear

         The fearful subjects and events that are present in Unbroken show the true strength of Louie Zamperini as a character. So many things could have gone wrong and even in the face of danger he stayed cool. Their plane had so many problems and had been shot up numerous times but they kept truckin on, wanting to protect his home and his pride. People are scared on airplanes now, when we usually don't feel any turbulence and sit in our comfy seats watching cast away while waiting for our filet mignon to be delivered to us. I can't imagine how afraid he had to have been, with all the things he had to worry about. They had to worry about being eaten, shot, blown up, shot  down, captured, drowned, burned, crashing, sneezing, torn, labored, disgraced, beaten, enslaved, and lastly losing. The work they did was truly inspiring, and encouraging showing that my problems aren't nearly as big as theirs.

Dover Beach

      Mrs. Bowles strutted out the door, slamming it on the way out, mumbling to herself as she walked to her beetle. She left as fast as possible, speeding to her home to get away from this miserable place. Home is where the happiness lies, but mostly in the TV parlor. She got into the parlor to return to her missed segments of the mutilating clowns, trying blur out the recent memories that made her think about bad things before she too felt tears herself. Quenching her cheeks for the first time in a while.

     After hours of attempted excitement she couldn't give out a small chuckle. The poem lingered in her brain, not the words exactly but the distant memory of anger and thinking.

     The common remedies for making a person happy just were not satisfying Bowles today, maybe she could try something different, maybe the children would be exciting for once. They were almost out of school anyways so maybe they could have a social interaction in the parlor.

      The children, a young boy and girl, slouched and dragged their feet down the hallway. Staring sleepily at their mother's lips as she talked to them, as they listened to their seashells.  She was lacking her own seashell. In the car the children stared at the back of the seats and focused on the sounds in their shell rather than the unusually talkative mother in the driver seat. "How were your days? Did you watch anything special at school today? I was watching the White Clown and I thought it was quite funny." Trying to get a response, again remembering that same feeling she had, anger.

   Once the car had stopped the kids ran into the TV parlor, the lady who drove them walking behind.
When she too entered the parlor the children were sitting on the stomachs glaring at the wall without looking at their mother. Both the children responded to the family at the wall as she looked at the kids.

   "Maybe we should do this more often, its been awhile since we've been happy together."

 

Unbroken Intro

The begining of the book Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand is very interesting. It really pumps you up for the book, its  fast paced and gets through the important parts fast. It just quickly describes how Louie came to be the man he is. As a kid he was mischievous and violent, resulting from the move to California from Italy. Most Americans at the time looked down on the Italians for allying with the Germans in WW1, the fact that he was Italian caused many kids to gang up on Louie, who was helpless due to his pnemonia he had as a child. Another contributing factor was that Louie, unlike his brother Pete, was not very charming or really normal he was kind of strange. These beatings made Louie to follow a path of violence and thievery, he started being the kid who did the beatings and, with the help of his brother, stole many items from peoples homes. Pete was always Louie's rolemodel he always seemed perfect to him. Everyone in town liked him and anything he said seemed right, so when Pete told him to get his act together, he did. One thing that stood out to Louie was running, he powered through his diffuculties caused by his pneumonia with the help of his rolemodels. Pete and an olympic runner who too an obstacle he had to overcome. Running was now he passion, instead of the reputation of being a brawler, Louie was now seen as a school hero winning tons of races for his school. All these events created the person Louie became, he was once the person looking up and following his role models but had now become one, well, in his local town. But soon in the future he would become a role model to the whole world. Both in the olympics and in the war. When most biographies that I have read try to describe a persons childhood, usually all I get from it is that their parents were mean to them, or they were poor. But in this book, she really dug deep and found actually interesting events in his life that are both funny and inspiring. It really shows how he became an honored hero from a Bart Simpson wanna-be kid.

Post 4: My Favorite Character so far

 So far in my Journey I've seen Christopher, Jack, and Ray, and even though they are all great,my favorite is a very minor one from Room. My favorite character is Leo from Room who is Jack's step-grandfather, who he nicknames Steppa. Leo is a stranger to both Jack and his mother, neither have seen them in their life. He rightfully gives them space and kind of slowly eases in to talk to Jack. He just likes to relax and sit in his man-cave while watching some TV, like every typical grandpa does. He of everyone in the family, gets Jack closer to  society and Jack's family, when he isn't even biologically related. I think the thing that Jack likes most about Leo is that, he is kind of distant. He doesn't really touch Jack or is around him all that much, but when he is he always does something to help him become more normal. When Jack starts crying because he crushed the Lego building, Leo shows him its not a big deal by breaking his own Lego car, which he was playing with, showing Jack the stuff you can do with them. This minor event kind of helps Jack grow up a little bit, he won't take things as seriously as he has been doing. In the Room, he was probably always trying to save his things because he only got small amount of stuff every Sunday, but now that he was outside, he didn't have to do that any more and Leo showed him that. The main reason I like Leo though, is he just seems like a real grandpa, or even friend. Leo reminds me of every good Grandpa from every movie or commercial. He relaxed, kind, and smart, I bet he probably has some good stories from "his time" too.