Blog 5 : "Eleanor & Park"

Christmas is coming! Eleanor and Park's family prepare for their family Christmas traditions. On Christmas Eve, Eleanor's uncle always send a box of fruit every year. Eleanor's siblings are always fighting over it. A letter was sent to Eleanor from her uncle asking her if she would like to go visit him for the summer. After they got that gift from their uncle, Eleanor's mother wanted to go grocery shopping to get food for Christmas. But Eleanor didn't want to go she just wanted to stay home to think about Park, she did eventually started to like him! But her mother insisted and made her go. But, I was actually good that Eleanor went because guess who she saw there... Park! Park secretly liked her too, but he didn't want to admit it. Park's mother told him that if he wanted to go say hi to her but he said no and just wanted to leave. I know that Park likes her because in the book it says, "She looked beautiful. His eyes missed her as much as the rest of him. He wanted to run to her and tell her."

I think that the life lesson in this book is to treat people nice. I think that that's the theme because Eleanor gets bullied a lot. People think that she's different just because she doesn't were the same clothing as them. Her classmates need to start being more kind to her. I think that if I were to meet her, she would be really sweet. 

Blog 4 : "Eleanor & Park"

I have started reading a new book called "Eleanor & Park". So far the book is about a red-head girl named Eleanor and a boy named Park. Eleanor is new to the school Park goes to, and everyone is making fun of her on the bus the first day she got there. In the book Park says, "With crazy hair, bright red on top of curly. And she was dressed like... like she wanted people to look at her. Or maybe like she didn't get what a mess she was. She had on a plaid shirt, a man's shirt, with half a dozen weird necklaces hanging around her neck and scarves wrapped around her wrists." This explains that Park thinks that she looks weird, and that the girls are making fun of her because of the way she dresses. It's like he's trying to say that Eleanor doesn't "fit in" with everyone else. Eleanor was looking for any empty seat that she could sit in. No one would share with her. The bus driver kept telling her to sit down, but since she couldn't find a seat she didn't know where. So Park just patted the seat, kinda letting her know that she could sit there next to him. So Eleanor sat down next to him, when school was over she sat with him again. And she just continued sitting with him before school, and after school.

Things might change, by Eleanor sitting next to Park. I think things could change because since Eleanor is new to the school, everyone will be talking about her and saying stuff. People might start rumors about her. They could say that probably Park has a crush on her or something, because he let her sit next to him. Also since she's been sitting next to him from the first time that he let her they could maybe start talking. Then if they do start talking they might get to know each other better, and maybe they might like each other.

Blog Analysis Post About "Would We Be Killed?"

The Native Americans were marginalized in society in result for them just basically being Native Americans. The whites didn't like them during that time, in 1879. They thought that whatever they did was wrong, and that they should be more like them. In the article it states, "It's not Pratt's plan to simply educate these children and teach them English. He also planned to "civilize" them - to strip them of their traditions and ways of life. Pratt believed that the children needed to completely abandon their "Indian-ness" in order to succeed in America." This explains that Pratt wasn't just going to educate them, but he didn't want the Native Americans to keep their traditions and other ways of living. He wanted to change that and make them to people more like him.

I think that the purpose of Shanice Britton's essay was to inform people about her being a Native American and about her not hiding it. She wanted the readers to know that if you are Native American you shouldn't be ashamed and that you shouldn't hide it. Nothing is wrong with being Native American.

Blog 3 : "Thirteen Reasons Why"

I finally finished the book "Thirteen Reasons Why"! From the last time that I blogged I said that Clay still hasn't heard his part in the tapes, but now he has! Clay's part wasn't like he expected it to be. He said in the book that he thought that his part was going to be bad. But what Hannah said, surprised him a little bit. When Clay was hearing the recording, Hannah was talking about a party that both of them attended. The only reason that Clay went was because he knew that Hannah was going, and the only reason that Hannah was going was because she knew that Clay might've also been going. So, they both went to see each other! She did end up saying that she liked Clay! In the book she said "So there you were, letting me connect with you. And when I couldn't do that anymore, when I pulled the conversation to lighter topics, you made me laugh. And you were hilarious. Clay. You were exactly what I needed. So I kissed you." She always knew that she had feelings for him, but never wanted to tell him because she thought that he wouldn't be paying attention to girls like her. When she was done telling Clay's part she still said the stories about the other people. The next day from when Clay mailed the tapes to the next person, which is Jenny Kurtz, he felt different. He said that from hearing those tapes it changed his life, and is seeing it in a different perspective. He also said, "Then I mailed the package to Jenny Kurtz, changing the way she'll see life, how she'll see the world forever." I think that this is him saying that he knows that by people hearing the tapes it'll change their lives.

I thought that this book was amazing! I don't know how to explain it, but it was really good. When Hannah was talking in the tapes, the author Jay Asher put a lot of details into the words she was saying. When she wanted the listeners that got the tapes to go to the places that she wanted them to visit she gave great details about the place and how the people were there. When she was talking about a scene that had happened, she would talk about everything to make the person hearing to be kinda like 'living in the moment' with her. She would talk about how the place was were she was at, her surroundings and the people around her, and if she overheard conversations she would say what she heard. She would also be totally honest about everything. I really like books when they give great details like this because then I could also be kinda living what they're living and also if they describe what they feel, I could also kinda feel how they might feel.

Tolerance

Tolerance - The ability or willingness to allow the existence, occurrence, or practice of something, in particular the existence of opinions or behavior that one does not necessarily agree with.

- A way that I could be more tolerant to others is by listening to their opinions. I shouldn't judge them on what they have to say. Everyone has their own opinion and everyone should respect what they think.

- What tolerance means to me is that someone else doesn't agree with you or someone else's opinions. What is also means to me is, acceptance. If your intolerance, I think that means that you don't accept someone else's opinion.

Blog 2 : "Thirteen Reasons Why"

I am still currently reading the book "Thirteen Reasons Why". This book is really good! So far in the book Clay still hasn't gotten the chance the listen to his part, about why Hannah killed herself because of him. He is really anxious to hear it! Clay is still listening to the voice recording of other people. He is going to the places that Hannah is talking about, and every time he goes to one I sorta think that he gets sad. I think he gets sad because he liked her and I guess he misses her. Also whenever he goes to a new place he finds something or someone that connects to Hannah's stories. Okay, so in the book Hannah is having a really hard time with friends. And yes, she's dead but she's telling her life story about her friends and why they ended up making her kill herself. So she's having a hard time with them because she thinks that they are just using her for their own selfish things. Courtney is an example of her taking advantage of Hannah. Courtney told Hannah if she wanted to go to a party with her, but she only wanted to go with her because Hannah had a car and so Courtney needed a ride there. When they got to the party Courtney separated from Hannah and left her alone, that's why I know that she was just using her.

I think that basically all her voice recordings are memories. They're memories because she died already and that's something that those thirteen people would remember her by. Also the voice recordings are from the past and she's telling them what had happened back then that made her kill herself. These voice recording are important in the progression of the story because then the people hearing them would actually know what was really happening to Hannah during those times. Also the people would now know that all the rumors that people have been saying about her aren't true, because she would clear everything up about what was true and what wasn't true on the tapes.

Blog 1 : "Thirteen Reasons Why"

I have started reading a book called "Thirteen Reasons Why". The book is about a girl named Hannah. She committed suicide. She recorded tapes, about the reasons why she did what she did. There are thirteen people that made her kill herself. Hence the title! She made 7 different tapes that have recordings on both sides except for the one it only has one recording on it, and on the tapes are recordings of her voice telling them about what really happened; Because there were a lot of rumors about her. While she's telling the story she's giving the listeners a place to visit so they can go and kinda be living in the place she previously visited. Oh, and the only listeners she sent the tapes to are the thirteen people that caused her to kill herself. The tapes are all continuously sent to one another; when one has already finished hearing them they send them to the next person in Hannah's "story". 

There are two different people telling the story. But the point of view in this book is still first person. The first person telling the story is Clay. I think he's like the main person telling us the story. He uses the word "I" which means that the book is first person point of view. The second person telling the story is obviously Hannah. She also uses the word "I", and so it's still stay the same point of view. The book goes from Clay's head, and then directly to Hannah telling her stories. I can tell that it's Clay and Hannah talking because when Hannah is talking her words are in italics. Clay's words are just in normal font.

Blog 8 : Summary , What I Like About Italy

From the last time I have blogged I was writing about the book called "Cultures Of The World; Italy". I'm going to blog about it in this blog also. It's about how Italy is, what people are like, where is located and other stuff. It talks about almost everything that relates to Italy. 

What I like most about Italy is how the 'roads' are there. In some places like Venice, Italy the streets there are all water. Instead of people driving cars to get to places, they get to places by sailing with boats. It looks really beautiful. I think it's really fascinating that the streets are all water. People need boats to get around in their towns. 

Blog 7 : Summary , Culture

I have recently started reading a non-fiction book about Italy. It's called "Cultures Of The World; Italy". In the book it says that the authors are Jane Kohen Winter and Leslie Jermyn. This book goes into great details about the different things that occur in Italy. It talks about a lot of things like the history of Italy, the government, the economy, environment, religions, languages that people there speak, festivals, and food that comes from Italy and much more. In the book it gives good information about every topic.

In this blog I'm going to talk about the culture. The population in Italy is more than 57.5 million people. Italy is a really crowded nation in Europe. The ethnic groups in Italy are not only Italians there are also other people with a different heritage, but they might have all had Italian ancestors. German and French people live there for example. Italians do every different things than we do. They have a different lifestyle, and other things. They usually live in villas, which are buildings built from brick or stone with a tiled roof. Also Italian parents encourage their children to have a lot of creativity. Unlike parents here who just tell their kids to focus on academics.

Blog 6 : Summary , Something I've Noticed

From the last time I have blogged a lot has happened in the book, "Flipped". So first Juli has a physical and mentally disabled uncle named David. He is her father, Robert's, brother. One day Robert was going to visit David, and Juli didn't have anything to do so she decided to go with him and see him for the first time ever in her life. Juli has never met David before, but David did know her from pictures that Robert would show him. When they got to Greenhaven where David lives at, Juli and her dad went to his room. He had a lot of puzzles taped on his wall, he really loved puzzles! Since it was David's birthday them 3 decided to go for ice cream. When they got there they all got their ice cream, but David's ice cream fell to the floor and he got mad. He started to make a ruckus; he kicked the table and chairs and knocked the to the floor and started screaming. He tried picking up the ice cream with his cone, but he just made a bigger mess. Everyone at the ice cream shop was staring at him. Juli went to get another ice cream for him because her father told her to, so David could calm down. When David got his new ice cream, he then acted like nothing had ever happened. When Juli and her dad went back home he apologized to her about what had happened with David, and she was confused about why he was apologizing, cause she knows that some people are different than others. Then a couple days from when that happened the Loski family invited the Baker family over to eat dinner with them and to try to get to know each other better. When the Bakers got there Juli didn't talk to Bryce. She was mad at him because her was being such a fool to her. She overheard him and Garret, Bryce's best friend, talking about her uncle David and how he had a mental disorder. She didn't talk to Bryce much for the whole night that they were having dinner together.

Something that I've noticed happening in the book is that Bryce is changing. He's changing his mood or emotions towards what he feels about Juli. In the beginning of the book he really hated her and was annoyed by her every time she talked to him. But know he's starting to feel different about how he feels about her. Now he wants to talk to her more. He is feeling really sad, because she's mad at him. He wants her to forgive him about him talking about her uncle behind her back and not telling Garret to shut up because he was saying mean things about David. He is also sad because she's hasn't been talking to him all the time like she used to, and he misses her bugging him.

Blog 5 : Summary , Character Analysis

What has been happening in the book is that Juli has been raising chickens. How it all started was because she was doing a science project, but didn't know what to do the project on. So her teacher gave her the chickens from her friend and she started taking care of them. 4 of the chicks hatched at her house, the other 2 hatched at the science fair. She did eventually win the science fair and convinced her mom to let her keep the chickens. So since the chickens were able to lay eggs they did, a lot. They didn't even know what to even do with the eggs anymore. Until, one day when Juli's neighbor saw they they had many eggs and told her that if she even had any eggs that were extra, that she would buy them from her. Both of her neighbors from both sides were buying her eggs. Then she wanted to be neighborly, so she gave a dozen free to the Loski family for all the favors that they have done for them. One day while the Loski's were having dinner and were eating the eggs that Juli gave them, they started questioning them. They were discussing and saying that what if the eggs had salmonella, because the Baker's yard was a mess? So, Bryce's dad told him to tell Juli to stop giving them eggs, but Bryce was to shy and didn't want to hurt her feeling so he didn't tell her and started throwing the eggs away without her knowing. But one day Juli found out because she hadn't left yet when Bryce thought she would. Bryce told her the truth about what his family thought. She then started crying and ran home. From then on Juli started tending her yard, and also Bryce's grandpa helped her with that. In the book it said that her yard looked really beautiful when they were finished fixing it.

From reading the book you could tell that Bryce somewhat is starting to like Juli. Because in the chapter where he needed to tell her that his family didn't want the eggs anymore, he was scared of hurting her feeling so he didn't tell her. But she did find out. He is starting to care for her. Since Juli first met Bryce she was in love with him. But since Bryce had been ignoring her, she started to lose the interest in liking him. So she was kind of starting not to like him, and not get obsessed with him anymore.

Blog 4 : Summary , Reflection

From the last blog that I left off at, a lot has happened. When Juli goes to the bus stop to get her bus to go to school, there's a sycamore tree waiting there. From all the years of her going to school and seeing that tree, she found a special connection to it. In the book she said that she really loved the view of it when she climbed the very highest branch on it. But eventually one day some construction workers came to the sighting of the sycamore tree and they were going to cut it down. Someone had bought that piece of land and were going to build a house but the tree was in the way. Juli decided to get on the highest branch and stay there, even though the construction workers told her to get off. She got on the local newspaper because she was making a stand and not getting off because she didn't want the tree to get cut down. Since there was a big chaos Juli's dad went to go see what was happening, and he saw his daughter on top of the tree and he went to go talk to her all the way up there. He convinced her to get off, and she did. The construction workers also did cut down the tree. Since Juli's dad knew how much his daughter loved the tree, he decided to paint her a picture of it. He's a really good artist!

My reflection to this book Flipped so far is that it's really good. This is a good, kind of, a romance book. I think that this book is interesting, and it'll grab the readers attention. So far the chapters that I've been reading are good, and I do believe that they'll continue to be like this. 

Blog 3 : Summary , Conflict

I started reading a book called "Flipped" and the author of the book is Wendelin Van Draanen. In the beginning of the book it's about a girl named Julianna Baker; but her nickname is Juli, and a boy named Bryce. Bryce moved into the neighborhood where Juli lives at. When Bryce and his family got there, Juli flipped and fell deep in love with him. She said that there was something about his eyes that she really adored. While they were unpacking, Juli decided to help. But Bryce and his dad were really annoyed by her and were tying to make up excuses so she could take a hint and leave. But that didn't happen. Juli and Bryce ended up going to the same school, and it was a chaos for Bryce. Since Juli really showed her love to Bryce, everyone saw and started making fun of them. It really didn't matter to Juli that they were saying that, but it did bother Bryce. They started asking Bryce where his "girlfriend" was at, and if him and Juli were going to get married.

The conflict in the book is man vs. man. I think it's man vs. man because Bryce is trying to ignore Juli. Every time Juli is trying to go to his house to play with him, Bryce is hiding and making his parents tell Juli that he is unavailable. Since I'm already ahead in the book, Juli and Bryce are already teenagers but when they were smaller Bryce used to really hate Juli. While I was reading the book I felt like he did kind of like her, but he didn't want to admit it.

Blog 2 : Summary , Again & Again

Currently in the book that I am reading that is called "Half A Chance" by Cynthia Lord, Lucy and her family have to constantly keep moving from place to place because her dad is a famous photographer. She also has an interest in photography. So, they move to an old house by a lake in New Hampshire. While they are there Lucy discovers that her dad is judging a photo contest, so she decides to enter anonymously. She wants to find out if her photos are really special through her dad's eyes. As she tries finding subjects about what to take pictures of she finds beauty in a picture she took of Nate's grandmother. Nate; the boy who lives next door. But slowly the picture reveals something to Nate that he doesn't find comfort in seeing about it. His grandmother has dementia, which is a mental disorder and is slowly taking over her. Nate feels uncomfortable from this because Lucy might use it for the photo contest, and it might be Nate's grandmothers last summer.

An again and again moment that is always happening in the book is that Nate is constantly telling Lucy not to use his grandmothers portrait for the photo contest. He really doesn't want Lucy to use the photo because every time that they're talking about it he ignore all the reasons that Lucy is giving him, about why she should be able to use the picture. Nate doesn't want Lucy to use the photo because his grandmother has a mental illness. He sees that her illness is visible through the photo, and since she's already getting old also it might be her last summer and he doesn't like the thought of that. I think that probably he thinks people will also judge his grandmother because she has an illness.

Blog 1 : Summary , Character Analysis

The book that I am currently reading is called "Half A Chance". The book is about a girl, Lucy, moving to a lake house because her father is a photographer. She enters a photo contest anonymously that her father is judging. She decided to enter a picture of Nate's grandmother, they're the neighbors. But in the picture Nate doesn't like it because his grandmother has a mental disorder and he doesn't like people to see her like that. In the book Lilah; Nate's grandmother, Nate, and Lucy fall in love with loons that have settled in the lake really close to their house. They would all go visit the loons everyday right after Nate and Lucy got back from school. The reason that Lucy wants to enter that picture of Lilah in the contest, is because she wants to earn the money for her so they can get a boat and go into the middle of the lake and look at the loons. At the end of the book they all planned that they would want to see the loons fly off together, but only Lucy got to see them leave. The loons aren't coming until next summer, so they'll just have to wait.

So far in the book that I am reading called "Half A Chance" written by Cynthia Lord, I have met a couple characters. But so far I think that the main character is Lucy. She is very loving and caring for everything. She is always trying to make everything good for everyone. I think that Lucy is also very independent because she is always doing things on her own and it seems like she knows what she's doing. An example of when I think she was independent is when she was entering her father's photography contest. She was independent, she knew what she was doing, she had a plan for everything, and everything went alright. She ended up using Nate's name to enter the contest! I also think that she is strong because her father is never around, he is always going somewhere since he is a famous photographer. She never gets his attention when she tries showing him some of the pictures she takes. She said in the book that every time she takes a picture it's like she could hear her father's voice in her head saying that it's a horrible picture. But she never complains or is mean to her father. So from those examples, I think that that would make her strong.

3rd Quarter Goals

At the end of this quarter, the goal I have planned is that I will try to get on the honor roll. To be on the honor roll I need to get only A's and B's. I will try getting those grades only. I need to start doing my work, and turning them on time, because I haven't been doing that very well. What I also need to do is to start asking a lot more questions. Also paying more attention to what the teachers are saying.

A personal goal I would want to accomplish is to keep my room clean. Since I have to share a room with my sister, she is always the one that starts making the mess and it just keeps accumulating after that. We can only keep it clean for about 3 days, and then the mess will start. In order to accomplish this goal I have to not let her start any mess. Whenever I see my sister leaving something on the floor I should tell her to pick it up. If she doesn't listen to me I should tell my parents to tell her to do something about it.