Summer reading Post #4

The reason that I chose this book out of all the options I had is because when I was reading the descriptions of the books this was the only one that sounded interesting to me. After reading this book the one idea that stuck with me that I could connect to myself was the idea of people having big dreams to go away and accomplish things with their lives but they just end up back home and with a normal job and they don't seem happy. Like they are living through life just doing the motions. The reason that this scares me is because I want to be a professional cyclist. I want to spend my life traveling the world and racing. this is obviously a very different route from what most people take and it is an extremely hard goal to accomplish with the fact that very few racers make the world tour pro ranks. There are so many hurdles that you have to jump over to get there. first you have to give up all of your time for training so that you can be the best physically fit, and the scary part about this is that no matter how hard you work there is the possibility that your body just doesn't have what it takes to be as fast as you have to be to be pro so you have to quit. And then you have the obstacle of having the mental grit to get up every day rain or shine and ride till your legs won't work anymore, and for some people there are just so many days that you can get up see that its going to be 40 degrees and you have to go ride 100 miles. even the strongest people in the world, because even if your muscles are ready, but your head isn't it the right place so it can't give the commands to go out and ride. So that is why this book really struck home to me. If I had to give this to to anyone, I would give it to my mom because she loves to read books that have messages like this one.

Summer Reading Post #3

This section from the book is quite early and is a quote from Gabriel,"'we need it,' he began. 'I mean they need it,' he nodded his head towards town. 'What do you mean,' Lucas asked, he and Mena now listening, as we all did when Gabriel decided to share one of his theories. 'Look at our town," Gabriel said. 'look at the people. how many happy people do you see in a day? how many people do you see that seem fulfilled?' 'I'm fulfilled' Mena butted in. 'You are young enough to think you can get out of here,' Gabriel said without hesitation. 'With me,' Lucas added, wrapping one arm around Mena's shoulders. 'Go on Gabrial,' I said, rolling my eyes at the happy couple. 'Thats the thing-this is a town full of people who used to be like us. you thin that anyone in Lily grew up dreaming about raising their families her? You think if they all had a choice, they wouldn't leave tomorrow?'" So in that quote you see how the people when they are young have so many dreams for the future. they aspire to go to college and see the world and be professional athletes and millionaires. when in reality they just ending right back at home where not much is going on because they really didn't want to put out the effort to get out of the small town since that is all they know. so everyone is stuck in the circulation of having big dreams, don't accomplish them, go back home to the small town and never truly be happy.

Summer Reading Post #2

Cullen-He juste wants to be happy and out of Lily. he doesn't want a ton of friends, he just wants to be with people that make him happy. When he talks about his ideal heaven it says" He imagines heaven not to be some huge city with streets of gold, and tall, white buildings, but a simple room filled with just enough of the good people to make him smile and feel like the center of attention as he tells a funny joke or talks about a new idea for a book. Lucas-He seems so happy on the outside but on the inside he is normal and sad. his brother died drinking and driving when Lucas was 8. Since than his mother won't let him go anywhere unless he tells her when, where, and why he is going to that place. Gabriel- He is a very different child. He is unique. he doesn't care what anyone thinks about him. He dresses different and listens to bands no one has heard of, he is also very smart. Benton-HE is very religious but on his first mission trip he doesn't like the way he has to teach jesus and god. He wants to spend more time with the people and immerse them in god. The theme in this book is that sometimes don't go with what others are doing. In Cullen's case it's not believing in the bird and in Benton's case it's not wanting to teach god the way his superiors are telling him to. The book is structured using the melting pot method where every other chapter the story is told with another character as the main character or from their point of view.

Summer Reading Blog Post #1

In the book Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley the main characters are Cullen, Lucas, Gabriel and benton. Every other chapter flips off from the pout of view of either Cullen or Benton who so haven't met and live in completely different places. The two settings in the book are Lily, Arkansas where Cullen is and Africa where Benton is on a mission trip. From what I can tell so far the major conflict seems to be the fact that a man has come to town saying that he believes that there is a bird there that has been extinct for over 60 years. He is getting everyone all riled up and into the search and belief of this birds existence. Since nothing ever Really happens in Lily this is a big deal to everyone and they want to go search for the bird so they can have something to do. The Problem is that Cullen and his friends believe that this is a hoax and he doesn't want to get all swept up into the wave of "the bird". The problem for Benton's side of the story is that on his mission trip in Africa he doesn't think he doesn't think that he is helping the people find god the right way. His routine is to go to each house and pervade 2 sacks of rice, a love of bread, and 2 gallons of water than say a verse from the bible. He wants to stay longer and really teach them about the bible and not just sway them with the rare food and water. Early in the Book Cullen talks about a girl that he likes but she has left for the summer to go to go to college early. I predict that she will come back and not believe in the bird thing and her and Benton will fall in love. So far this books reminds me of the summer reading book that I read last year, dark and dull.

Good & Evil

This book has to do a lot with the works of good and evil. The good family's are the Starks and then you have the bad family the lannisters. The Starks rule the north and are second to the kings. The lannisters rule the west and want to be the kings hand. So they are treacherous and will do anything to get there

What Will People Do For Others

One thing that I have learned about how people behave from the book is that people will do anything to please others. On page 74 when the undiscovered figure drops bran from the window to make his mistress happy he says "the things I do for love". This shows me that some things or emotions can blind people from right and wrong.

Bad Things About My Book

I've started reading the game of thrones this week, and it's a really good book. The only bad thing is that each chapter is written with a different character as the main character, and the story had a lot if characters so things began to get extremely jumbled and you forget which character is which. On multiple occasions I have mixed up characters and become extremely confused about what is going on.

Voice assignment 5/13

Which of the two excerpts helps you imagine the scene in the story the best by using sensory details? As a reader I found the first excerpt from Miss Nelson Is Missing, to have more sensory details that helped me imagine what was going on. It talked about what the classroom looked like and how the children were acting. The tone of the first piece is energetic. I think it is energetic because it uses lots of diction that displays actions and the fast tempo it was written. “They whispered and giggled. They squirmed and made faces. They were even rude during story hour.” I feel like this quote expresses all the actions and how they were constantly moving. The tone of the second piece is jealousy/anger. I thinks that its jealousy/anger because the main character sounds pissed and angry that her friend wont acknowledge her and she almost seems jealous of her beauty. “Me: “How’s it going.” I try to put in my contact, and poke myself in the eye. Very cool. Rachelle: “Eehn.” She gets mascara in her eye and rubs it, smearing mascara across her face. I don’t want to be cool. I want to grab her by the neck and shake her and scream at her to stop treating me like dirt. She didn’t even bother to find out the truth – what kind of friend is that? My contact folds in half under my eyelid. Tears well in my right eye.” This quotation expresses how that she feels bad that her friend wont acknowledge her.

I Don't Care

I recently started The Sherlockian. It started super slow but it has begun to pick up. It’s not great, but it isn’t a terrible book. It seems slow to me because I watch the TV show and that is a lot better than the book. The reason I’m reading it is because I have to read a mystery book for best sellers. This book though, seems to be a complete waste of my time so I will probably just watch a lot of Sherlock Holmes movies and hope that prepares me for whatever is thrown my way. I might try reading the original Sherlock Holmes books and see if those are any better. If they aren’t I’m not sure what I will read. Probably go to the book store and pick something random and hope it’s good because if it’s not I’m going to burn it because no one else should have to waste their valuable first world time because we could totally be texting our BFF’s or tweeting to all of our adoring followers, who we barely know or we think they love us but actually they would cry tears of joy if you would just shut up and stop complaining and crapping out your mouth, because no one actually cares about you getting more ratchet highlights or going to the tanning bed #Bronzelife or that you "slay bitties day&night" or how they made your Starbucks Frappuccino wrong because they put 5 swirls of caramel instead of 3 and you yell at them because you are trying to "watch your figure" and if that's the case,you should try a nice salad not a FRAPPUCCINO YOU IDIOT!!Or maybe you have a TINY stain on your $120 UGG boots so you will just throw them away and scream and shout and pound your fist like baby until your parents buy you a new pair! And if I have to hear one more time about your last “touchdown” “basket” or other unit used to measure accumulative points that you saw on ESPN last night, I’m going to grab their IPhone and throw it on the ground then tell them that you aren’t supposed to put on all 64 colors of Crayola on your face at once and when their skin looks like an orange, and that they don’t look good so they can go back to Wonka Land because no one actually cares here in the real world where a real problem is when people are DYING, so open your eyes because the fact that you mom said you had to get off your butt and you couldn't stay up to 3 A.M. play COD so you raged isn't an actual problem. So I sit here in front of my laptop with all of this in my head, trying to decipher what the H@ll everyone and their crazed suburban driving mom is thinking when they make life decisions…so maybe I will read the Sherlock Holmes book and learn something and use my imagination or

see if I can learn a thing or two about life and solving mysteries.

Thanks Netflix

Recently I haven’t been reading the Divinci Code by Dan Brown. I have read most of his books and know how they end. He is an amazing writer but I just don’t feel like reading all the way through the end for the secret society or secret in the book to be wrong and someone to die. The middle part is super good and well written but the ending will be the normal type that he writes. Once you have read about three of his books it just becomes something to expect. So recently I have been watching unhealthy amounts of Netflix, mostly consisting of mysteries. These mysteries consist of the shows psych and Sherlock Holmes, and not that NBC crap version, Elementary. I watch the English BBC version which is about ten times better. I actually haven’t seen the NBC version but no one talks about it and if its anything like the other below par mediocre television programs that they feature I would be using my time more wisely by watching dragon which is definitely better than the NBC version of Sherlock Holmes. But back to the good version, it’s ABSOLUTELY AMAZING! The script is perfect and the actors for the characters are so perfect it’s amazing. Better then Robert Downey Jr. was in the movies. The mysteries in the show are great, I can never just guess the answer and I’m always blown away by the solution. What happens in one episode will follow through into the next so it’s not like Scooby Doo where is gets boring and they just solve mystery after mystery, and no one questions the fact that they have a talking dog, who has a best friend that’s a human, named shaggy and they are always searching for food and they could over all; completely care less about the job at hand. But in Sherlock this isn’t true and because I love the show so much I thought wow I should read the book. So I’m going to try and read the books. I’m going to be super depressed if they aren’t as good as the shows which have set a high bar in my head. So in the end because I didn’t read the Divinci Code I ended up finding a book I will most likely enjoy. So yea, I guess I’ll try to read again since I have been inspired by horrible Netflix addiction. I have also taken up running to work on my figure and drop the 4 pounds I gained when I went through that phase.

snow day

So I started reading the next chapter to The Devinvi Code by Dan Brown. This chapter was a lot less exciting than the first and it brought my hopes down. The first was so exciting and weird that it had me super excited and now I don’t really want to finish it. But I have read all of Dan Brown’s other books so I know it will get good but that could take a while and nobody has time to be bored so I think I will read something else. So now that I have just made that decision I need to find a book to read. I want to read a book that’s maybe 250-350 pages long. Not too long but long enough for a good story to develop. I want to find a book that has a super good plot and well developed characters. And I don’t want to be able to guess the ending either. I like when the book really surprises me and I’m just sitting there like “dang that’s intense….like camping.” Then I would stop reading then start watching my favorite show psych, because that is a lot better for many reasons. I need to see if there is a screenplay for that I could read because that would be super cool. I might go to the library and try to find a book because I feel like reading but only if it’s a good book. Something that I really like reading is the lyrics to really good rappers because if they are actually good unlike Kanye west, the way they put together sentences is pretty “fresh”. The only good rappers are like Eminem, watsky, kyle, Gambino, chance the rapper, Kendrick lamar, vince staples, earl sweatshirt and butch dawson. There are more but now isn’t the time and place for that discussion so don’t have to worry about that. So far in Romeo and Juliet I’m following the story pretty well but I have to reread a lot to be able to do this. If it were adopted and put into today’s words I feel like it would be a successful book but now kids don’t understand and because of that they don’t want to try and learn it. I wish I just watch the movie because even if I don’t understand what they are saying I can figure it out thought the actions so I don’t have to stop and reread all the time. That really kills your flow and is super annoying so it’s hard to read.

New Book: Davinci Code

Last night I started reading Davinci Code by Dan Brown. I only read the first chapter and I'm immediately hooked. It’s a scene where there is a man in a museum hiding from a murderer. The man finds him and they share an interesting dialogue that is ended by the man shooting the man that was hiding. This really confused me so I read it twice so I was sure I didn’t skip a page. I didn’t. I then sat and thought to myself why a creepy albino would be chasing an old man, because that’s an interesting combination. And then I thought that’s is probably why the author picked this and it’s a terrific way to get the reader’s attention and to make them ask questions like me. These turn of events took place over the span of two pages and left me shocked and wanting to read more, but it being 2 A.M. I didn't follow these urges and subsided to getting in my cheetah snuggy and going to bed.

New Book: water for elephants

Yesterday I started the book Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. The story starts with an interesting prologue describing a hectic memory of the main character, Jacob. That ends in a horrifying twist. “’Oh Jesus’ I said in sudden understanding. I stumbled forward, screaming even though there was no hope of my voice reaching her. ‘Don’t do it! Don’t do it!’ She lifted the steak high into the air and brought it down, splitting his head like a watermelon. His pate opened, his eyes grew wide, and his mouth froze into and O. He fell to his knees and then toppled forward into the straw. I was too stunned to move, even as a young orangutan flung its elastic arms around my legs. So long ago. So long. But still it haunts me.” This ending to the three page prologue left my mind curious and I immediately wanted to know more. I read the first couple of chapters and saw that the book went back and forth from his present life where he resides at a nursing home, to his past when his parents die and interesting turn of events land him in the circus. It keeps switching back and forth, and its hard to tell what the author is going to do next. I feel like that he is going to meet his crush from back when he was young at the nursing home. Or he will tell the nurse that he has now, that is breaking the rules and is giving him good food not from the cafeteria this story and she will end up being a relative to the girl he liked from his past.. The story is super interesting though and I haven’t put it down since I have picked up. I can’t wait to see what happens next on his wonderful adventure!