Final Blog Reflection

             I’ve been blogging for a year. I’ve been recording my thoughts on the books I’ve been reading and sharing them on the web. After a year of blogging I’m writing a reflection about what this blogging experience has given me and my thoughts on possible future blogging and the being online in general.

           

I’ve learned from blogging that when I’m reading I infer about the characters more then the plot a lot of the time. I infer about what the characters are thinking when certain situations come up during the book. I tend to like to write predictions about how the character will react in the long term when important events occur in the book.  I don’t always pull the inferences from quotes but from what happens around them in the text. I also input my opinion a lot of the time instead of doing summaries. I also benefitted from the experience of blogging. I got to get responses from my peers and work on my writing. They asked questions about what I wrote about the book and made me think deeper about what I was reading and what I wrote about it. Writing on the web is different from writing in the notebook because more people can see it. It puts a bit of pressure on you to really try to think deeply and write thought provoking statements about the book and see if anyone agrees and help you build on your thinking.

           

I think that people definitely change their identities when they’re online. When an endless amount of people can see you online you want to project the best of yourself so you don’t get judged. People slip up on the Internet all the time and people want to get attention but in the end, no one wants complete strangers to judge them or harass them online. I think that people always try to project the best of themselves online and off, sometimes we fail at doing this, but people want to be liked. I believe that’s human nature to want to be liked. I think that teens do sometimes abuse their freedom online. Online you can create a persona and then you can say anything you want. When you say something online to someone that you wouldn’t say to his or her face it can hurt. For the most part when teenagers say something cruel online its because its easier because they don’t have to face the person. They find funny because they can’t see how it will affect the other person. I think it can be bad and harmful that people can say whatever they want when they want.

I don’t think I will start another blog. I’m not sure what I would say; I honestly think I would bore people. I guess I would have to have a prompt or maybe someone pushing me to post, so I don’t think I’m going to create a new blog.

I don’t know who else is going to read my blog after this year. I thought that blogging about my reading was interesting and I’m glad I did. This year I’ve learned a lot about my reading and how I think which will help write for school and work in the future. 

Maus

            I’m reading “Maus” by Art Spiegelman. The book is a graphic novel about Spiegelman’s father, Valdek and the story of how he survived the holocaust in Poland. In the book the Jews are portrayed as mice, the Nazis as cats and the Poles as pigs.

           

Some things I’ve noticed about the book so far are how careful and different Valdek is as an old man after the holocaust and before it. After the holocaust when he is telling his son the story he tells he to finish everything of his plate. Most parents do this but he is especially strict. In the book Art says that he father wouldn’t let him leave the table if he didn’t clear his plate and sometimes Art went to bed without a meal. I think Valdek knows the importance of food after his time in Poland during the holocaust. He spent time in a prisoner of war camp before the concentration camp and there too he was starved. In some parts of Poland the Nazis did not allow food into towns and the people would starve. In concentration camps they were given nothing but stale bread and slop. Valdek is also hostile towards his second wife Mala and I think it is because his first wife Anja committed suicide after she was freed from a concentration camp.

           

There are a lot of philosophical questions that come up in the book and from the holocaust. Some of mine are, what drives one race to obliterate another? I think that Hitler needed someone to blame for WW1. Germany was scared, broken and angry and all they needed was someone to take it out on. But they did in the cruelest way possible. How can you have no guilt for torturing, beating, killing and starving people just for their religion or sexual orientation? One of my questions pertains more to Valdeks story, what drove Anja to kill herself? I think it was more then the concentration camps. She was depressed before the war started. She lost her son in the war, but she had another after. She survived hell on earth but couldn’t live anymore and I was wondering why.

My book club and I are reading “Maus” by Art Spiegelman, which is the true story of a holocaust survivor. I noticed so far in the book that Valdek changed a lot after the war and you can see it in the way he acts around his family. I also have a lot of philosophical questions about the book and the holocaust. 

Looking for Alaska 2 (contains spoilers)

            I’m reading the book “Looking For Alaska” by John Green. Its about a boy named Miles aka Pudge who goes to boarding school and meets a girl named Alaska and falls in love with her. One night Alaska gets drunk with Miles and his friends and then leaves abruptly. The next morning the school finds out that Alaska died in a car accident.

           

           After Alaska dies Miles says that he could recite the last words of any famous person but he would never know Alaska’s. I think that’s one of the most tragic parts of this book so far. Miles loves this girl. He had never been so close to someone in his life and when she dies he can’t even know the last thing she said. Miles is obsessed with the last words of famous people. He can recite the last words of people he had never met, but he can’t know the words of someone he loved more then anyone. Alaska had always been a bit of a mystery to everyone around her. Miles had only begun to get to know the real her, because I don’t think she truly ever opened up to anyone before. But know if she’s dead all those secrets die with her. All the things that she never told her closest friends die with her, like her last words.

            

               Another idea I had about Miles not knowing Alaska’s last words was that, if she is dead he could become obsessed with finding her last words even though it might be impossible. It could be unhealthy for Miles to become obsessed about finding out these last words that are impossible to find. Some people when a loved one dies try to hang on to some part of them to keep their memory alive. I think that Miles tries to do that with last words. If he tries to hang on to that part of Alaska he may drive himself insane because that part of her isn’t a memory or something tangible. It’s an idea. He loves her so much it would kill him not to have something to remember her. He may not be able to live with the fact that Alaska may remain a mystery.

           

            I’m reading “Looking for Alaska” by John Green. I just found out that Alaska died in a car crash and I think that Miles and his friends might blame themselves or go crazy trying to find her and bring her back. 

Looking for Alaska

            I just started “Looking for Alaska” by John Green. The book is about a boy named Miles aka Pudge that goes to boarding school at Culver Creek and meets a girl named Alaska.

            In the book Miles has this obsession with last words. He memorizes the last words of famous people and can recite them on command. I wonder if this obsession is an obsession with dead or just want people think before they die. I don’t think Miles is a dark person but I wonder what drives him to memorize the last words of people. Maybe he likes them because some of them are funny. But really I think its because people can reveal themselves when they’re dying. Someone’s last words, funny or not, can help you understand the person even if you never knew them. Its interesting to think of the things people want to be their last thought they put out into they world. Maybe they don’t know that they’re about to die and it inadvertently becomes their last words, which is also interesting to think about, you can’t control your death so you can’t control your last words.

            Another thing I thought about when I was reading the book is why did Miles go to boarding school? When his parents were saying goodbye to him at his dorm he wanted them to leave at quickly as possible. I think he wanted to get out of his house and that’s why he moved from Florida to Alabama. But why? Did he have a bad relationship with his parents or did he just not fit in at home? I don’t know what would drive a kid to want to leave everything behind and I don’t know what would drive a parent to make their child move so far away from home. I don’t think he was abused he calls his parents all the time. He says he left home to pursue his education but I think it was more then that.

            I just started “Looking for Alaska” by John Green. I haven’t read a lot of the book yet and that is why I asked a lot of questions in this blog post. I hope that as I continue reading I can answer them and learn more about Miles. 

Romeo and Juliet Parenthood Essay

In the play “Romeo and Juliet” by William Shakespeare, “a pair of star- crossed lovers take their lives.”(Prologue 6).  Romeo and Juliet meet, court, marry, and die all within a very short amount of time. But there is more behind their early marriage and suicide than just young love. Juliet rebelled against her parents to marry Romeo. She didn’t marry Paris she deliberately disobeyed them. Most would say she did this for her love for Romeo and they’re not wrong, but I also think it was because of the useless parenting skills of Lord and Lady Capulet. The Capulets’ parenting is ineffective because they show no love for their daughter, they parent only by enforcing obedience and they intimidate Juliet into doing their bidding.

One reason why the Capulets’ parenting is ineffective in “Romeo and Juliet” is because they show no love for their daughter. The only person in the household that comforters Juliet and shows support and love for her is the Nurse. The job of a good parent, in my opinion, is to love and protect your child. The Capulets’ don’t seem to demonstrate this opinion. In act 5 scene 3 of the play, when Capulet yells at Juliet because she isn’t proud to marry Paris and she said she wouldn’t marry him, Juliet asks for her mother’s comfort and help but all her mother says is, “Talk to me not, for I’ll not speak a word, do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee.” (3.5.214-215). Lady Capulet doesn’t show any love for Juliet because in Juliet’s time of need, all she can say is, “leave me alone.” Not only does Lady Capulet show no love for Juliet, she also has no idea how to raise her or be around her. She says, “This is the matter. –Nurse give leave awhile. We must talk in secret. –Nurse come back again.”(1.3.8-9). This quote shows me that Lady Capulet can’t even be alone with her daughter. I think this is also a way that she shows no love for Juliet because if you love someone you can tell them what you need to tell them and you can definitely have a simple conversation with them. In the play Capulet also says “Wife, we scarce thought us blessed that God hand lent us but this only child, but now I see this one is one too much, and that we have a curse in having her.” (3.5.170-175). This quote is a clear demonstration of how the Capulets’ show no love for Juliet. Capulet said that she is a curse and that he wishes that they never had her.

 Another reason why the Capulets’ parenting is ineffective is because they parent only by enforcing obedience. The first time that I noticed a strong sense of obedience in the Capulet household is when Juliet says, “I’ll look to like if looking liking move, but no more deep will I endart mine eye then your consent gives strength to make it fly” (1.4.103-105) in response to her mother asking if she could learn to love Paris. I could tell from this quote that Juliet has learned to obey her parents (to a certain extent) since she was little. Juliet knows that she will never be able to love Paris but she cannot tell her mother that so she obeys her and says she will try. Another example of the Capulets’ enforcing obedience is when Capulet is telling Juliet that she must marry Paris,” And you be mine, I’ll give you to my friend” (3.5. 203). Capulet is basically saying, I own you, you must obey me and you have no other choice but to marry Paris. But Juliet does have another choice by following Friar Lawrence’s plan and that choice gets her killed.

The last reason why the Capulet’s parenting isn’t effective is because they try intimidating their daughter into doing their biding. Capulet tries to force Juliet to marry Paris by hitting, threatening and terrifying her. This isn’t parenting! That is abuse. Capulet threatens to hit Juliet by saying “my fingers itch” (3.5. 170), this is one of the things that show that Capulet is a violent man so I inferred that he had hit Juliet before. He thinks that being violent and terrifying is the only way to get Juliet to do what he wants but that doesn’t work. It just made her even more desperate to get out of her house and be with Romeo and not Paris. That desperation is what got her killed. Capulet also threatens Juliet more than once. He says, “I tell thee what: get thee to church o’ Thursday or never after look me in the face” (3.5. 167-168) he also says to Juliet, “An you be not hang, beg, starve, die in the streets, for by my soul I’ll ne’er acknowledge thee, nor what is mine shall never do thee good.” (3.5. 204-206). In these lines she basically threatens to disown Juliet and kick her out if she doesn’t marry Paris. These threats don’t work on Juliet because all she wants to do is be with Romeo, not Paris, so these threats did not stop her. They didn’t stop her and she ended up dead.

Parenthood is a big theme is Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. Lust, love and hate are all factors in the play that lead to the deaths of Romeo and Juliet but another big factor was parenting or lack of it. In this play the parenting of Lord and Lady Capulet is ineffective and causes Juliet to rebel and do anything she can to get out of their grasp. Their parenting is ineffective because they never show love for their daughter, the only way they parent is by trying to enforce blind obedience to everything they say, and they threaten and intimidate their daughter to get her to do what they want. These methods of “parenting” cause Juliet to rebel, by marrying Romeo, and ultimately destroying herself.

May Non -Fiction blog post

        I read an article in the New York Times called “Cameristas” by Ted Widmer. In the article it talks about a photograph taken in April or March 1863(during the Civil War). The picture was of the back of an escaped slave named Gordon. He had so many scars on his back that the scar tissue began to build up and stick out of his skin and the scars were layered on top of each other. Gordon escaped from a plantation in Mississippi and supported the Vicksburg campaign and the medical examiners asked the photographs to take the picture after they saw his back. The picture was then sent to New England where an artist recreated the image into a wood graving, so it could be printed in the papers. On the day Vicksburg fell (July 4, 1863) the picture was published in Harper’s weekly. The author states that it was a way all of America could see “the horror of slavery.” The photograph is now in an exhibit at the Met called “Photography and the American Civil War.” The author states that historians have the pictures (like the one of Gordon) taken by soldiers to thank for lots of the knowledge they have about the Civil War and slavery today.

        

   The author used craft to explain the horrors of slavery and the importance of photography in the Civil War. In the beginning the authors states while describing Gordon’s scars, Gordon had been whipped so many times that a mountainous ridge of scar tissue was climbing out of his back. It was detailed, like a military map, and resulted from so many whippings that the scars had to form on top of one another.” He described it this way to help the reader visualize the horrible beatings this man had gone through and to show the horrors of slavery at the time of the Civil War. The author also talks about the importance of photography in the Civil war by saying, “ It was not possible then, nor is it now, to tell the story of the conflict without recourse to the roughly one million images that were created in darkrooms around America. All historians are indebted to the resourceful Americans who left this priceless record to later generations.” This helps the reader understand how hard it would have been to understand the war without these pictures.

        

     I agree with the author that photography was important in the Civil War and other wars in general. Its helps us really see into the battles and the struggles of the time since soldiers took them. In cases like the photo of Gordon they helped Americans see the horrors of slavery and started to fight against it. 

Along for the Ride 3

            I am still reading the book “Along for the Ride” by Sarah Dessen which is about a girl named Auden who moves in with her dad and step mother over the summer. Over the course of the book Auden changes dramatically.

           

In the beginning of the book Auden was just like her parents. She studied all the time and she help all of her emotions about her parents’ divorce and getting stood up at prom and missing out on a childhood. Auden was always judgmental of people who weren’t serious and focused on academics all the time, just like her mother. She always thought of her stepmother as a shallow, “soulless Barbie doll” because that’s what her mother taught her to believe. Auden also didn’t make any friends because she said that she “didn’t belong in girl world” so she steered clear of a social life and put all her energy in to being valedictorian, she as her mother wanted. I think its bad for a person to just follow in their parents’ footsteps and never venture out and have their own life and own opinions once in a while. I think Auden learned that lesson when she moved to Colby for the summer.

           

In Colby, Auden saw who her stepmother really was, which I think was the most important step for Auden to she who she really was. She saw that Heidi wasn’t “a soulless Barbie doll” but a strong intelligent woman who cared about the people she loved and would do whatever it takes to keep them healthy and happy. Heidi and Auden’s dad just had a baby. Auden’s dad said that since he was a writer he needed his nine hours of sleep so he basically never helped with the baby and left the exhausted Heidi to do all the work. This let Auden see how strong Heidi and how much of a jerk her father was. Auden also saw how much her mother was weighing her down and making her miserable. This helped Auden free herself from the hold her parents had on her. She also met Maggie, Leah and Esther. At first she thought they were shallow, unintelligent girls who only wore pink (just the kind of girls that her mother would disapprove of) but she hung out with them and found that they were nice, accepting and smart girls, and she became friends with them, something she wasn’t planning on doing during her trip. All of these changes let Auden break out of her shell. She stood up to her father and bonded with her stepmother and finally started to talk to her mother about her opinions and the way she wanted her life to turn out, and not to just follow in her mother’s footsteps.

           

Auden’s trip to Colby was really beneficial to her. She broke out of her anti-social shell and finally started to show her true colors, which was really important for her. A person can go mad if they never say what needs to be said.

           

I am almost done with “Along for the Ride” by Sarah Dessen and I have found that Auden’s move to Colby for the summer was really transitional for her and is going to help her now and later in life.