~*~::{Reading Blog #48: Identical Finale. SPOILERS}::~*~

OH my freaking god.  Today I finished reading Identical by Ellen Hopkins and all I can say about it is that I was speechless for about 10 minutes.  Sarah and Amanda will be my honest witnesses when I say this, when I read the huge twist at the end, I went nuts and I was like, shaking.  I didn’t believe that a book could ever give me feelings of such…I don’t even know…it gave the “OH MY GOD” factor a whole new level.  So without giving away too much, there are these twin girls that look exactly alike and everyone things they are so perfect since they come from a political family.  But in retrospect, the girls are far from perfect.  One of them binges and purges all food when she feels sad and cuts herself with her razor when she’s in the shower to “feel” anything.  The other sister is addicted to drugs and sex.  Kind of exact opposites, actually. So basically as this book goes on, you learn more about the family and their dysfunction as a family.  The mother is never home as she is active in the government (and eventually wins the election as governor of California) and the father drinks more and more to fill the hole that the mother has left in his heart.  He turns to the daughter for sex and abuse.  This causes her to eat more and to cut herself more.  The other sister falls in love with her history teacher and tries to get him in the sack, which doesn’t work.  At the end of the book you learn that the twins are actually one person with schizophrenia and they actually believe that they are separate people.  This twist made me blow my top and say really loudly in class (and I’m surprised if Mr. Cheng didn’t hear me) “HOLY SHIT!!”.  It made Manda and Sarah laugh, but I was really embarrassed.  Good book!  Time to start Crank tomorrow…

~*~::{Reading Blog #47: Identical}::~*~

This week I started and I’m about a third of the way through with “Identical” by Ellen Hopkins.  So far, this book I think is the most confusing of the bunch (mostly because the main characters names are Kaeleigh and Raeanne and they’re kinda confusing at the beginning), but this is turning out to be very conflicting and climactic.  Kaeleigh is pretty much “Mommy and Daddy’s perfect little angel” and does whatever she’s told.  Like the teacher’s pet.  However, there’s a darkside to this angel.  She goes home and eats until she can’t eat anymore.  This binging leads to depression and she begins cutting herself when she’s in the shower…and she likes it.  Raeanne on the other hand, is the opposite of the angel.  She is dating a guy she doesn’t even like, Mick, and does pot to get away from all the pain.  They have loveless sex on an almost daily basis and she does whatever she feels like, pissing off who she wants to piss off, bitching out who she wants to bitch out.  (this is a complete contradiction to the title, which is called “Identical”…which is the opposite of who the sisters actually are).  If this wasn’t enough, the mother is running for office in California and she is never home.  She is emotionally dead and doesn’t treat the daughters or husband with any love at all.  The father is a drunk and drinks to get rid of the pain of not having a loving wife.  He, however, takes joy in getting the love from another source…(i.e. Kaeleigh).  This book has everything.  Sibling and family rivalry, incest/rape, drugs, alcohol, sex, eating disorders…basically, a teenager’s nightmare.  I love this book! 

 

Ellen, you’re truly amazing!!

~*~::{Reading Blog #46: Finishing Impulse}::~*~

**BEWARE OF SPOILERS**

 

This week, I finished Impulse.  And I gotta say…oh…my….freaking…god.  Sarah told me this book was going to make me cry, but I didn’t think she was serious.  I have read a bunch of books before that I thought were sad, but the end of this book was really just…unexpected and did make me tear up a bit (so what?  I’m man enough to admit it…I almost cried).  I was on about page 300 yesterday evening, and it got to the point that I couldn’t stop reading.  I read for probably a solid 4 hours reading and I finished today during English after nonstop reading (all the way to page 666…creepy…)  Nonetheless.  The last half of the book I think really developed the characters 10 times better than they were in the first half.  Through the point of view of Conner, Vanessa, and Tony, you learn about their dark past and their secrets and you see more into why they are the way they are.  Conner’s mother expects the best of him and doesn’t love him.  She only wants him to do well and she wants to keep her “perfect reputation” from being spoiled…Vanessa’s mother was abusive and had bipolar disorder and beat her and treated her and her brother terribly…and Tony, we learn that he was raped at a very young age by her mother’s loser boyfriends and other people.  The book ends with one of the saddest endings I’ve ever read in a book (since Burned and Wicked…).  I didn’t see it coming.  It was the last few pages and I started to think “Huh…seems like everything’s gonna be okay…” and in the last couple pages, a huge twist happened and my breath was taken away.  I was like “Oh my God…I can’t believe that just happened…what?  NO!!”  And yeah.  I’m starting to read Identical now, so yeah. 

 

And since Ellen Hopkins is now lookin’ at my blog, I’d like to welcome her and say a friendly “Hello!!”  Then I'd give her a hug, ‘cause I like hugs.  Haha.  

~*~::{Reading Blog #45: Impulse}::~*~

Today I’m going to do my blog on the book “Impulse” also by Ellen Hopkins.  Now, this is the second book that I’ve read by her…and yet again, I am completely smitten with this book.  I mean, the describing words in this book are just…wow.  It really does paint a picture in my head.  I know a lot of people say that about a lot of things, but this book really does that for me just so.  This book is different in the way that it is told.  It is told in the perspective of 3 young people, Vanessa, Tony, and Conner.  Each one of them has tried to commit suicide; Vanessa by slitting her wrists, Tony by overdose, and Conner by shooting himself in the heart.  All three of them come from completely different backgrounds and tell the story on why they decided to make such a negative decision and what it’s like for them in the hospital.  So far, I’m only about 90 pages into this story, but it’s already turning into one of those suspenseful books that I just can’t put down and that I just wanna keep reading ‘til it’s over…and then when it’s over, I wanna read some more!  To me, this book is very eye opening.  I mean, you always see the depressed kids and they always talk about wanting to kill themselves and such, but you never know exactly why or what they might be feeling until you look at the world through their eyes.  Most of us just look at them and say they don’t appreciate life, but in this book it gives you the perspective that life doesn’t appreciate them.  It’s very clever how Miss Hopkins makes this story.  My hat is tipped to you, Miss Hopkins on creating another dark classic that will forever live on my bookshelf!!

~*~::{Reading Blog #44: Duel}::~*~

This week in English, we watched the first movie Steven Spielberg ever directed, “Duel.”  This movie is about a crazed trucker that frantically tries to drive a man, David Mann, off of a highway for no apparent reason.  This whole movie follows after David Mann as he is on his way to a business meeting.  At a random point, a trucker decides “Hey.  I’m gonna run this guy off the highway.” And throughout the whole movie, David is chased after this truck for no apparent reason.  I think this movie was actually really good because of how it was directed.  Mr. Spielberg knew what it took to make a scary movie.  By not showing the audience what the driver looked like, it made it so the audience could imagine what he looked like.  Everyone was a suspect in this movie.  To make the truck look like it was going faster than it actually was and to make it look bigger, low shots on the road were taken.  These low shots made the truck look larger and faster.  Also, the truck was made to look old and worn.  By making it look old and gross, it made it look scarier…like an actual monster; not just a truck.  Spielberg also created tension and stress during the movie by making cuts shorter and faster with intense music.  This helped to speed up everyone’s heart rate and make them more excited like they were living the stress and torture along with David Mann.  In short, Steven Spielberg is an amazing director that can create stress and tension in a movie in many different ways.  By making the movie “Duel” as successfully as he did, he demonstrated  his potential as a famous director.

~*~::{Reading Blog #43: Burned}::~*~

Currently, I am reading the book “Burned” by Ellen Hopkins. Personally, I really do enjoy reading this book. I think it is very good and it has a lot of emotion and you can learn a lot about the character just from reading this. The main character is an average teenager, and she goes through her life thinking many things different from what her family wants her to believe. She is a Mormon and her family doesn’t want her thinking about sex or freedoms or doing what she wants when she grows up…naturally, the only things she can think about are sex, freedom, and doing what she wants to do when she grows up. So far in the book, she has rebelled against her father’s wishes and thought about not being Mormon anymore, and she has been moved out to live with her aunt in Nevada for the summer. Little did she know that she would find romance in this dusty little state in such a short time. Soon enough, she falls for a local neighbor boy and has sex with him (going against her father’s wishes again) and falling totally in love with him. I do like this book, but I just think that it’s a little dramatic. I mean, I’m a teenager and we all have our little dramatic moments, but this book is like…holy God. There’s so much drama, it kinda makes me sick at times. It’s very well written and very good, I Just don’t really like the fact that it’s so dramatic and everything in her life is “terrible” and she is “hated” by her family.

~*~::{Kurt Vonnegut Bibliography}::~*~

"BBC - h2g2 - Kurt Vonnegut - Author." 22 Apr. 2009 < http://www.ask.com/bar?q=did+kurt+vonnegut+have+schizophrenia&page=1&qsrc=19&ab=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk >.

"Kurt vonnegut - News Archive Search." Google. 20 Apr. 2009 . <http://www.google.com/archivesearch?q=kurt+vonnegut&rls=com.microsoft:*:IE-SearchBox&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7GZEZ&um=1&ie=UTF-8&scoring=t&ei=ho_sSYe6LoqyMd7PtdAF&sa=X&oi=timeline_result&resnum=15&ct=title>. (source 1)

"Kurt Vonnegut." Www.kirjasto.sci.fi. 20 Apr. 2009 <http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/vonnegut.htm >.(source 2)

Rollyson, Carl, ed. "Kurt Vonnegut." Notable American Novelists. 2nd ed. 3 vols. Pasadena: Salem P, Inc., 2008. 1349-359. (source 3)

~*~::{Holocaust Paper Causes Paragraph}::~*~

There were many causes of the Holocaust, most of which began with Hitler and his past. After WWI, Germany was struck with a major depression and hyperinflation which made cheap things very expensive. "...at home in Germany, there was much unrest with the people. The economy was in shambles as it could never recover from World War I and the harsh demands of the Treaty of Versailles. The Treaty of Versailles made Germany pay $33 billion in reparations. Meanwhile, it also put huge limitations on Germany's trade industry, causing even more economic troubles in Germany." The people of Germany were not rich enough to buy the cheapest things to support their family. Adolf Hitler, a charismatic and persuasive individual, had opened the door of opportunity and prosperity to the people of Germany. What was that way out? The persecution of the Jews. "...between 1941 and 1944, Nazi German authorities deported millions of Jews from Germany, from occupied territories, and from the countries of many of its Axis allies to ghettos and to killing centers, often called extermination camps, where they were murdered in specially developed gassing facilities..." Hitler was using the Jews as scapegoats, telling the people of Germany that they were the cause of the lack of money in the economy and the loss of jobs. This caused the Germans to get very angry and biased towards all the Jewish community. The longer Adolf was in power, the more the Germans listened to his slander. The Nazi political party was gaining power fast, and would soon evolve into the nationwide hate and extermination of the Jews, known as the “last solution” to their problems…the Holocaust.

~*~::{Holocaust Paper Works Cited}::~*~

"Causes." DCS - Technology Courses for High School Students. 20 Mar. 2009 <http://techcenter.davidson.k12.nc.us/spring3/causes.htm>.

Crew, David F. Hitler and the Nazis. New York, New York: Oxford UP, 2005.

"The Effects of the Holocaust on the Children of Survivors." About Judaism. 20 Mar. 2009 <http://judaism.about.com/od/holocaust/a/hol_gens.htm>.

"Holocaust - Dirrect Cause." Holocaust Understanding and Prevention by Alexander Kimel. 20 Mar. 2009 <http://kimel.net/direct.html> .

"The Holocaust." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 20 Mar. 2009 <http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005143>.

~*~::{Holocaust Flow Map}::~*~

~*~::{Reading Blog #42: Overcoming Odds}::~*~

This week we were supposed to talk about overcoming odds, so I’ma talk about me overcoming the odds of switching from the baritone to the bassoon. Originally, when I wanted to make the switch, my family, friends, teachers, and peers were all telling me that it was a terribly stupid idea for me to switch instruments. After all of them telling me this so often and me not having the best time trying to learn the odd fingerings to the instrument, I got heart broken thinking that it would be impossible for me. Although the odds were against me, I overcame them. I put my nose to the grindstone and practiced every night for many hours and worked out of workbooks and got lessons from Mrs. Fitzsimonds, the best band teacher ever, so I could learn. She went through college and majored in playing the bassoon, so I had the best teacher for a novice bassoon player. So. She even told me that playing in High School band with a newly changed instrument is very difficult and that I had to be motivated. After much determination, I tried out and I practiced so hard. I ended up making band and I’m very good at my instrument now, although I do wanna change from bassoon to oboe…but more about that another time.

~*~::{Reading Blog #41: LOVE}::~*~

This Sunday, we’re to talk about love. I thought, what a better way to talk about love than to do a semi review/ramble about Romeo and Juliet…cause that book is all about two star-crossed lovers who fight and fight each other and their parents just so they can be together and love the way they wanna love. The book is about Romeo Montague (who is 17) and Juliet Capulet (who is 13). They are in love, which I think is really gross at the fact that she’s only 13 and he’s 17…I mean, that’s really gross. Like, almost illegal. If he were 18 and she were 14, it would be illegal. AND this book is about them being in love and they both wanna get married, which I think is even weirder. I mean, when you’re 17 and you wanna get married, you kinda have problems…but Juliet is only 13 and she wants to get married. Poor little immature girls. (Huh…I wonder what it is with 13 year old girls that are immature and stupid that are “in love” with everyone that crosses their paths…sorry, but I really don’t like Morgan. C: ) ANYWAYS. This book was very good, but the only thing I didn’t like was that it ended in heart-break and everyone dying. I think that if they were going behind their parents’ backs like that just so they could be together forever, they should have been able to live and be free to live forever.


"Romeo and Juliet -." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 15 Mar. 2009 .

~*~::{Reading Blog #40: Imperialism}::~*~

Today we’re supposed to talk about imperialism or nationalism I believe it is…so I’ma talk about imperialism. Actually, I’m gonna ramble about why I think the imperialism over the newly found colonies in the US when they were controlled by Britain was really stupid. I mean, yeah, the English people took control over the Native Americans (which I am one myself, so when the white man came with their death sticks and diseases and raped my people and their land, I should feel enough anger, but this topic belongs in another blog)…anyways. Britain came over and basically said “Huh…we don’t see any white people here, so let’s take over and make it our own. We’ll set up colonies, and even though we’re thousands of miles away, we will know that the people will listen to our every whim even though they have the power and will to make their own government…we’ll just trust them in listening to us.” Good idea, Britain…but how stupid were the colonists? I mean, if they really wanted to, just keep migrating to the west and get away from the colonies and set up your own cities and get away from the British control. I mean, there probably were arguments for both sides saying that they needed the British help and such, but it just bedazzles me at how much they listened to the Queen no matter how far she was from the country she was ruling…I just…I dunno. If MY boss were that far away from me, I’d go crazy and say, “There’s nothing they can do about it now, so let’s go nuts and do what we want!”…that’s just me…and we all know I’m special…


"Imperialism -." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 11 Mar. 2009 .

~*~::{Reading Blog #39: Worldwide Dilemma}::~*~

This Sunday, we’re supposed to talk about a global issue, so I guess I’ll talk about the biggest global issue, global warming. Global warming is also something we talked about in chemistry about. Basically what causes global warming is the emission of chlorofluorocarbons (CFC’s) into the ozone. The structure of the ozone is such that the CFC’s can get emitted and can break them down at a much faster rate than they originally already break up. Ozone breaks down on it’s own naturally forming oxygen which is good, but if it breaks up too much too rapidly, then it can lead to a hole in the ozone. The ozone is a very thin layer of molecules that protect the earth from burning to a crisp because of the UV rays from the sun. Without this protection, greenhouse effect happen, which make it hotter inside the atmosphere, which if this occurs for too long, will end up being the end of the human world as we all become burned alive…that’s not good for anyone. Especially Cullen…The leading cause of this amount of emissions of CFC’s is aerosol cans and such. Because of the use of hairspray, especially with its popularity in the 60’s through the 80’s, the amounts of emissions have been especially high. You can blame all those hippies for the world dying, and especially the death of the polar bears. We need to eliminate them…that’s the REAL world-wide solution. I know…I’ll make a FACEBOOK group to get rid of them. I’ll call it “EXTERMINATE the HIPPIES…and Morgan…”. The Morgan part because she deserves to be exterminated…Drew, Cullen, Sam, Lia, Jeana, and Sarah will understand why. Enough ranting now.


"Global warming -." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 08 Mar. 2009 .

~*~::{Reading Blog #38: Holidays}::~*~

This week our assignment is to talk about holidays. So I’ma talk about Christmas. Since I’m of the Christian faith, I don’t have to use Wikipedia or any other wonderful online sources like I have for the other blogs that I’ve done in the past. Nonetheless, I’m not gonna keep rambling here just to use up some of the words that we need…I’m now up to 66…So. Christmas is a wonderful time of the year during December (December 24 is Christmas Eve and December 25 is Christmas Day) which celebrates the day that our lord and savior Jesus Christ was born. Now, once a year, this is the time of year that the parents get to threaten their children and tell them they have to be good or else they won’t get any gifts. We have this tradition called Santa Claus that brings toys to all the good little boys and girls of the world once a year during Christmas time. His little elves make toys all year long and give toys to everyone…well, only the middle class and above that can actually afford Santa “visiting them”. Surprisingly, the children don’t notice that they have babysitters much more often when their parents go off “shopping for things that don’t concern them” and why they find more receipts from their favorite stores and why their parents make their bedroom closets off limits and why they’re not allowed to look in the trunk of the car unless everything is out…

Children are so easy to fool and gullible…

I love Christmas.

There. Now this is 264 words. HAPPY!

~*~::{Reading Blog #37: Jews}::*~

This week I’ma talk about the Jews and the Jewish culture. First off, the Jewish people can be dated back until about 2000 BCE. They began as monotheists, which means they only believed in one main God that controlled mostly all aspects of life. One thing I learned was that the term “Jewish” doesn’t only refer to the religion, but it’s also a way of life. So you could be an atheist or a Christian and have Christian values and goals and virtues and such, but you could live a Jewish lifestyle…I thought that was particularly interesting. Over five million Jews were killed during the reign of Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust for being considered the reason the banks failed and why their country was going through such a great hyperinflation. Today, the Jews have to live by very strict rules like eating fish only on Fridays and not eating beef and other rules like that. Personally, I think they are silly rules, but who am I to say that my religion is better than another religion.

"Jew -." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 01 Mar. 2009 .

~*~::{Reading Blog #36: Bollywood}::~*~

So I decided to switch up the order on the blog sheet. It said I should do one about a different culture, but I decided to do the Bollywood one right now and do the other one for Sunday. So…Bollywood. I’ma ramble about the movie “Bride and Prejudice” which is a surprisingly wonderful movie. When I was told we had to watch this movie from India that was a musical on top of it all, I thought “Oh crap, this is gonna be a snore-fest. Get the doodling paper and such…” But actually watching the movie, it was really good. The music was really good, the characters were good, and I really enjoyed watching it wanting to know what would happen next. I know I’m a loser when I say this, but when I went to the library, I found the soundtrack, and I’ve been listening to it nonstop for the last week or so. I mean, the songs have a really catchy beat and make me just wanna dance…even though I don’t know half of the words because they’re in Punjab, but still. Does it matter? I like rap and can’t understand half the words even though they’re in English. I still dance like an idiot to them…but that’s another blog entry.


Bride and Prejudice. Dir. Gurinder Chadha. Perf. Aishwarya Rai and Martin Henderson. DVD. Miramax Film, 2004.

~*~::{Reading Blog #35: Change}::~*~

This week we had to write about change. I thought, what a way to talk about change than to just start talking about the global warming and pollution. All this gets turned back to petroleum oil and non renewable resources like gas, so the change I'll elaborate on is the change from old to new...too much consumption of gas to going green. The United States are the #1 consumer of gas, using almost three times as much as the second largest consumer, China. The use of petroleum gas is also giving effects to the Greenhouse Effect which is depleting the ozone layer, which is making the world hotter melting the polar ice caps killing the polar bears, which are freaking adorable. If we were to switch to using completely green ethanol fuel, it would cut down massively on depleting the ozone layer. Also, unlike petroleum fossil fuels, ethanol is not known to be a cancer causing agent which means that it would be a lot healthier for the people that smell it in the air. Also, most ethanol comes from vegetable oil, so your car would smell like french fries and such. That would be so delicious…that of course is if you used vegetable oil as opposed to ethanol. Basically, if we change from using petroleum to using other green natural devices, the endangered animals would live better and so would we, and we would live on the planet causing a lot less of a negative impact.


"Ethanol fuel -." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 22 Feb. 2009 .

"Petroleum -." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 22 Feb. 2009 .

~*~::{Reading Blog #34: Stephen King's The Mist}::~*~

This week we’re supposed to talk about hope and what hope means and how it is interpreted. Well, I recently finished reading the book “The Mist” by Stephen King. In the very last chapter when the father, son, girlfriend, and grandparents are in the back of the car driving to somewhere safe, the mist looks like it has no end and they have a half of a gas tank full. The monsters are running a muck out there in the mist and all the people in the car can do is hope. Really, this whole book is about hope. In the mist are terrible creatures that eat meat and kill for the sake of eating. The people stuck in the store had no idea what the monsters were, where they came from, when they would go away, if help would come, or what would happen. After religious cults had begun in the store and after many human sacrifices for god and after many deaths, the Draytons finally decided that just waiting wasn’t enough for them. Their hope of being rescued in the store was gone so they ran to their car with the monsters running after them and they made it to the car. They started driving off again. Hope runs this whole movement. Without hope of being able to escape the mist and be safe from the monsters, everyone would have given up and done whatever. The only reason that some people stayed civilized was them hoping that they would be safe after a terrible monstrosity like this. I loved this book and recommend it to anyone that likes a good book, but even more a good horror.

C:

King, Stephen. Stephen King's The Mist. Los Angeles: Signet, 1985.

~*~::{Reading Blog #33: Beliefs}::~*~

This weeks blog was about beliefs and such. My aunt, my mentor and my inspiration for everything, is pretty much a spiritual guru and knows everything about spirits and such, so I decided to interview her about ghosts and such. Basically what I learned from her is that ghosts are the spirits of the deceased who have either unfinished business or they didn't follow the bright light at the end of the tunnel after they died and they have lost their way to heaven or hell and they are stuck here on earth until they find a true way to get there. The only way to help the spirits of the purgatory state to get to where they need to go, they need to be guided by people of this world through séance which is communicating with the dead. I personally have been to one séance. It was very spooky, but I enjoyed it. I do believe that speaking with the dead and helping spirits and ghosts are real. They are many who believe that it isn't, and I think they need to open their mind a bit and think about all the possibilities that go along with speaking with the dead...

That's what I think. People that don't believe need to open their eyes because ghosts are real and they are with us always.

C:

"Interview With My Aunt About Ghosts." Personal interview. 12 Feb. 2009.

~*~::{Reading Blog #32: Gender Roles}::~*~

Gender roles have many different effects on society, both positive and negative. In the renaissance period, also known as the Middle Ages, the men and the women had many different roles in society. If you were a king, you had absolute control over almost every aspect of life except for church. If you were a queen, you got all dolled up and and dressed up and you got to gossip with DA GIRLZ all day. If you were a nobleman, you devoted all of your worldly possessions to god and lived in a monastery with other monks and holymen to teach the children of things. The knights were protectors of the town and were the ones that would go off to war to protect everyone. If you were a peasant and were a man, you would be forced to work in the fields and farm, farm, and farm some more. They were not allowed to do much but farm and go to the tavern after dark. The women however worked as home-makers. They cooked in the house and made huge dinners for their men and watched after the kids. What I'm trying to say is that the role of women is equal to the work of men even though it is very different.

~*~::{Reading Blog #31: Different Cultures}::~*~

Today's blog is about the different cultures of the world and what they are like. I decided to do one on the Indigenous Peoples of America or Native Americans.

Their culture mostly was like animism in Africa and their small Bantu speaking people. They believed in spirits in all living things like the trees, sky, water, animals, and everything else you could think of. They were good at cultivating crops and had a diverse type of crops they would cultivate. Mostly corn (maiz), they traded this and dried buffalo meat (like jerkey) with other tribes and whatever they grew on their land. They enjoyed telling stories to the children to teach them lessons about life and they tried to teach them valuable lessons through stories of animals and stupid people. They taught morals like not stealing and such by telling stories of a robber who got killed by the spirit of the woods and such. Their culture thrived for hundreds and hundreds of years until the arrival of the "white man" (Europeans). They brought with them guns and disease which killed off many of the native peoples. The rest were slaughtered and used as slaves. The Europeans are the reason that there are so few living descendants of Native Americans today.


"Native Americans in the United States -." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 08 Feb. 2009 .

~*~::{Reading Blog #30: Overcoming Struggles}::~*~

So for this blog, we are supposed to talk about someone that has overcome struggles. I decided to choose one of my dear friends, President Barack Obama.

Barack Obama has overcome many challenges. One of these challenges being the fact that he became president...but the main reason being that he is black. He is the first african american president of the United States. When he first announced he was going to run as president, he got threats on his life and his family. People in the country aren't ready for change, and frankly, it scares the crap outta them. On several occasions, there were many groups of people (including the KKK) that tried to assassinate the President Elect when he was still running.

With all their ignorance to the wind and all the baddies running scared from the police, Barack was free to take the gold...wait a minute, there was Hillary and all the other president-wannabes.

Another challenge he faced was his opponent, Hillary Clinton. She was a worthy adversary. Either way, history would've been made...but Barack truly was the only one that could've taken the country with such splendor. Hillary would've just made a mess, but Barack is gonna be there to make everything okay.


"Barack Obama -." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 04 Feb. 2009 .

~*~::{Reading Blog #29: Natural Disasters}::~*~

Hurricanes are some of the most destructive forces on the planet, along with tornadoes, earthquakes, monsoons, volcanoes, and alien invasions. One of the most devestating and most powerful recorded hurricanes of all time, though, was Hurricane Katrina. During Hurricane Katrina, over 1,800 people were killed. The US government tried to help as much as they could down south, but the $81,000,000 worth of damage was just too much for one government to pay for and aid all themselves. On that fateful day of August 28, 2005, nobody would have been able to determine or even begin to try and comprehend the massive amount of damage and heart-break that this hurricane would've brought. Many people tried to wait it out because of some emotional attachment they had to the house or their hometown, and because of this, their whole lives were flipped upside-down. Most losing their homes, many others losing their lives and all of their belongings. Natural disasters truly are God's little reminders that he is there and he is powerful and capable of disasters greater than our imaginations can even begin to try and interpret.


U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. "Hurricane Katrina." United States Department of Health and Human Services. 01 Feb. 2009 .

"Hurricane Picture with Old Woman." About.com. 01 Feb. 2009 .

~*~::{Reading Blog #28: Video Games}::~*~

I haven't seen any movies or read any books lately...but I hung out with people this weekend, and all we did was play video games, play video games, and more video games.

Normally, I don't play that many video games...I mean, yeah, I play Pokemon tons and Super Smash Bros Brawl, but never really any big thematic war video games like COD 5 or Halo or anything...war games, well, war in general just bugs me and playing video games about it really does bug the crap outta me.

The one game that was kinda fun that entertained me...Nazi Zombies. I mean, it sounds really stupid, but all you do is shoot zombies that at one point in their life were nazis. You go round by round leveling up and the more you level up, the more you level up, the more zombies you have to shoot to make it to the next level. My favorite gun was the ray gun, but Cullen kept taking it from me when I wanted to get it...him and his "Me First" attitude...haha, but I'm not bitter at all. C:

Oh, good time. We were playing that game and after shooting a bunch of nazi zombies and such, I forgot who it was, but someone yelled out really loudly "Wow...a ray gun? How unrealistic..." like the nazi zombies were realistic...I laughed really hard. Knowing me, it was probs me that yelled that out. Oh well. C:

~*~::{Reading Blog #27: LOST}::~*~

End of the semester, possibly the end of Mr. Cheng as my teacher...F**K! I liked Cheng...we had a bond...if I have a new teacher...I will have to be "nice" again...anyhoooo...

Lost. I have been watching this show since day 1...first season was good and straight-forward. Second season, a bit more confusing...now, it's just...BAH! It's too confusing, it's bad, the characters are too intertwined within each other. I honestly can't focus enough to sit through the whole thing and know exactly what happened. I have a better chance of taking physics again (38% on the final, by the way...) and getting a solid 100% than actually understanding everything in Lost. I gotta admit though, the plot and the twists are just ingenious. The character development is such the likes I've never seen before, and everything ties together in the end...Like Saw, Saw II, Saw III, Saw IV, and Saw V...and soon to be Saw VI. This post isn't as long because it's the end of the quarter, and I'm in mourning of not having Cheng next semester...I really hope I do.

~*~::{Reading Blog 26: Romeo & Juliet}::~*~

Okay so my internal clock is so messed up because of the fact that we had today off...I thought today was sunday instead, and my mom reminded me that today was monday...so, my bad.

I'm gonna ramble on Romeo & Juliet now...normally, I like romantic cheesy love stories. Anything cheesy and anything that has to do with a love story, I'm there...but when you mix those two and then add suicide and murder? Oh, jeez. You got me drooling to read the story. The plot was very relateable...dating someone that your parents don't approve of, but you keep dating them because you're "in love with them and want to get married and have 5 children in a small cottage blah blah blah." I just kept thinking through the whole story...that's really gross that Juliet's only what, like...15? And she's being chased by a 21 year old or something? Yeah, yeah, it's what happened in the olden days, but seriously...ICK.

I ESPECIALLY liked the ending, and not just because there was death. I liked the ingenious of it all. "I'll pretend to sleep, my family will think I'm dead, and then dig me back up and we'll run away together with all the worms in my hair! HA! Perfect!" the only problem is that they should've had better communication...if Romeo would've known, he wouldn't have drank the poison and then Juliet wouldn't have gone all hari kari and commit suicide. I know that if you're in love you don't always think logically, but seriously...how illogically can you be to not tell the other person you're gonna pretend to be dead? Sorry...that book just bugged me when it came down to these things...

~*~::{Reading Blog 25: Of Mice and Men}::~*~

I'm gonna go on another ramble about terrible books from my past.  Here we go.  So...Of Mice and Men.  I hated this book.  It was really boring and about convicts.  Oh, joy.  Let's see a bunch of poor convicts talk about how tough their lives are since they killed that one person or raped that one whore.  I hate it...why would I have pity on some convict?  It's their fault.  So, they wanna have a nice life and run away from the cops?  Aww, how cute...they still committed crimes!  BAD PEOPLE. 

But back to the book...I thought the plot was terrible.  It really didn't do anything for me.  Except for the old guy with the lack of an arm, where they shot his dog...that made me sad.  Same for when George shot Lenny.  That depressed me a bit...but come on...why are all the books we read in class emotionless and terrible? "Oh, but they're classics!" They're only classics because people remember them...for being pointless and terrible!  GRR! 

I'm done venting now.

I <3>

~*~::{Reading Blog #24: The Unborn"::~*~

Okay.  I went to this with Alex, Jacob, and Cassy.  This movie was utterly terrible.  Honestly, I hated it...it was so stupid.  Besides the fact that the beautiful Miss Meagan Good starred in it, I hated every bit of it. 

It was about this one girl that was born a twin that had the other twin die in the womb...but it wasn't the spirit of that dead twin that wanted revenge...it was her grandfather that turned evil for whatever reason that came back in the body of her brother.  It make absolutely no sense.  She killed it after getting an excorcism from a christian priest...she was jewish.  This movie had links to WWII and the holocaust and the slaughter of jews, so it was all over the place.  The parts that were supposed to be scary really weren't scary at all...they made me laugh.  They said that mirrors were dangerous, but it never really explained why.  This movie was just terrible...don't see it. 

Oh, and what was the cliffhanger at the end?  The woman was pregnant with twins...and they were supposed to be the evil spirit.  WHOA!  Did NOT see that coming...*sarcasm*

Don't waste your money...because it sucked.  And if you do see it, know that Meagan Good is MINE...

~*~::{Reading Blog #23: To Kill A Mockingbird}::~*~

So, Marley and Me hasn't come in from the library yet, so I can't really do my blog on it now, can I?  No.  I've decided I'll do a ramble on To Kill A Mockingbird from last year. 

So...this book.  I honestly liked it.  One of the only books from school I've actually enjoyed reading...the only thing I didn't think was good about it was the first half...the first half was kinda pointless, I thought, and didn't really tell enough of the story...well, enough that mattered anyway.  I really like the way that Scout personalized everything and translated it into what a young girl would think, whether it be the not wanting to act all girly or hearing rumors about Boo Radley, or whether it be her meeting and befriending him.  The book was very well written and would read it again in a heartbeat. 

~*~::{Reading Blog #22: Marley and Me}::~*~

I saw Marley and Me at the mall with Cullen at 10 o'clock...there was nobody in the theater...good stories.  We were running around and yelling in the theater, and being just obnoxious altogether.  

What I've decided to do for this and the next 2 blog posts is do a comparison on the book and the movie.  I'm gonna read the book and do a post there and then do a 3rd and final post about the similarities and differences in the book and how the characters act.  I'll just do a summary now and I'll do a more thorough review next post after I read the book.

So...this movie was eh, okie.  The plot was good, but I hate Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston with the burning passion of 1000 suns...yes, that much.  And the little kid that played the oldest child pissed me off so much...what a snot!  I'm glad his dog died...he deserves to be in pain.  

So.  The movie is about a young couple getting married, having 3 kids, getting a dog, having the mom go through post-partum depression, living in a bad neighborhood, having troubles in the office, and going through heartbreak when the dog dies at the end.  Sorry, it's kinda obvious...it's about a dog.  Jeez...

If you are looking for a kids movie, make sure you think twice before bringing them to this.  This should've been rated PG-13 because of adult themes and dealing with the death of a pet, but...I dunno.  I liked it.  

The next post on Marley and Me may not be for a couple weeks, because I'm #148 on a list of 153 at the library, so...it may be a few weeks before the comparison, but it'll take me a little time to read the book, so it's all good.