By the Time You Read This, I'll be Dead pg. 1-30

This is the 2nd time I have read this book. For some reason, although its creepy, I love books like this. They really grab my attention and keep me hanging on. I feel like everytime I reread a book I catch new things I never noticed the first time around. The chapter titles are really interesting. They're days counting down. The first chapter is "23 Days" meaning 23 days until she commits suicide. Its so dark and scary but so interesting. The book starts off describing a place where Daelyn is a lot of the time, and a person who changes her life. A bench outside of her school where she waits for her parents to pick her up everyday, and a white headed, tall, skinny boy who creepily sits by her, on the same bench. It starts off her just waiting for her parents, and the awkward silence between her and the boy. He watches her, but she makes no eye contact, for she doesn't make contact with anyone. Her mother picks her up, and is on her way home when she says she needs a few things at Walmart. After, it goes into a flash back. She talks about how her mother once went to a local store before they went home because she needed a few groceries. That is when she had her first "wack attack". She couldn't breath and paniked, screamed, honked the horn, and basically went crazy. Her mother was humiliated. Ever since, she hasn't left her alone. But her "wack attack" isn't the reason. Her parents can't leave her alone because she is on 24 hour suicide watch.

There is a break in the story, and the next chapter is talking about her website she found. WWW.Through-The-Light.com .. A website basically setting up your suicide. Everything is anonymous, but you can read posts by other members about their lives and why they want to be out of the world. Its really sad to me. Daelyn has been bullied and made fun of her whole life. People have constantly made fun of her weight, her looks, her personality, and basically everything about her. For the most part, the next few pages just talk about her struggles through life and all the mean things people did to her. It also talks about the website and what other people talk about. Another interesting thing to me is, Daelyn cannot speak. She wears a neck brace, but hasn't released why or why she can't speak. I guess this is something we will find out later, huh?

I think this book is extremely sad. It sickens me that people think this way. I know this book isn't true, but I know some people go through this and it is devistating. I know I would hate to feel the way she does everyday. She hates living, has no joy in her life whatsoever, and lives her teenage years thinking of which way of commiting suicide would be best. That is no way a high schooler should live their life. I love this book and I am excited to continue.

FAGE Total Plain Extraordinary™

For some reason, I find this commercial so awesome. Everytime I see it on tv, I stop whatever im doing to watch it. It intrigues me and really makes me want to try this yogurt (lol). But seriously, this is an amazing commercial. I love the poem in it and the visual it gives you. I know im making a big deal about a yogurt commercial, but its cool.

2.28 Diction Exersize

"Once Upon A Time" by Jack Gilbert

A.
1) young
2) alive
3) melody
4) natural
5) excitement
6) intensity
7) innocent
8) tender

B.
1) Elevation - Medium (sensuous, admiration, adoration)
2) Connotation - Poetic (idyllic, quixotic, vivid)
3) Musical - (melodious, graceful, exquisite, rhythmical)
4) Abstract - (conceptual, abstruse, recondite)

C.
In Jack Gilbert's "Once Upon A Time," his graceful, idyllic sensuousness of his language conveys the speakers nostalgic and wistful attitude toward young love.

2.23 Diction Exercise

A)

1. Cruddy
2. Evil
3. Kill
4. Swear
5. Bubbles
6. Dark
7. Mercy
8. Weird

B)
1. Elevation - Low (cheap, inadequate, low-grade)
2. Connotation - Literal (definite, simple, regular)
3. Sound - Harsh (rough, craggy, unrelenting)
4. Concreteness - Concrete (conglomerated, solidified, calcified)

C)
[Roberta's craggy and cheap language in Linda Berry's "Cruddy"] depicts [her jaded frustration toward her younger sibling.]

Full Moon Night - Ulrich Lieve

Ulrich Lieve's "Full Moon Night" at first glance seems like a chaotic, unorganized mess. Although this is true, when you begin to concentrate on the painting is when you recognize its true beauty. The women in the picture are morphed, and undecided on their feelings. The colors of the painting contrast the paleness of the woman's skin, and although these colors portray happiness, the women don't feel the same. It looks as though the woman in the front is blocking her face from being seen, and the others look in distress. This hypnotic painting is almost romantic, seeing as the women have red lips and long lashes. The placement seems somewhat random, and I am wondering if Lieve had a specific order in his own mind. This painting is mysterious, contrasting, and somewhat sorrowful, and for some reason its hard to keep your eyes off of it.

Hole in my Life - Jack Gantos pg. 1-34

This book is hooking me just like Go Ask Alice. It is so raw and intense and I have barely cracked it open! For some reason, I love dark books about drugs and stuff like that. Sappy love books don't reel me in, books like this do. Not that this is what I'm personally into, I just love reading about it. I guess sometimes if you don't experience these things yourself, it makes it even more interesting when you read about it. Especially because this book actually happened, and Jack Gantos wrote and published it after his jail time. Its the scary truth about the real world. Sometimes bad things happen to people with the best intentions. Its just somewhere, something went terribly wrong. I think its sad because some people really don't deserve things that happen to them. They go into something with the best intentions, and it just goes wrong and gets them into trouble. Just like in the last book I read, the main character does not seem like a bad person whatsoever. Which makes these books even more interesting, because they may not necessarily deserve what is happening to them. I think it makes this kind of book even more addicting because it pulls your emotions so many different ways. Sometimes you just don't know what to think or believe, which plays with your mind a little bit. It is insane how words on a page have that type of impact on a person reading it .....

Anyway, on with the book. It started right off into explaining the picture on the front, which was his mug shot. He talked about his diet, why he dressed/looked the way he did, and went right on to tell how horrible prison life really was. He also talked about how frightful it was, because anyone could do anything at anytime. He watched people stab others, and saw things he never wanted to see. After some jail talk, he went back to talk about his childhood. He wasn't raised around the kind of violence he saw in jail. His father could pick out people like it was his job. Somehow, he knew the criminals from the good people, and told Jack all about it. He told him who to trust and who to watch out for, and always talked about who had been in prison. When his father talked about this, Jack never dreamed of going to prison. When he was in high school, he felt like he had it all. A car, a fake ID, and wasn't living at home. After his dad took a job out of town, he and his family decided it was best for him to drop out of school and go straight into the work field. He got a job at a hotel doing electrical stuff, and the hotel gave him a free room to live in. He was constantly drinking and hanging out with older men, which made him grow up extremely fast. Finally, he got over this fade and started thinking of school again. He got a different job stocking food at a supermarket and stayed with a family close to his new school. After awhile, he got back into drinking and came home drunk almost every night which frustrated the family. Eventually, he was kicked out of their home. He ended up in a motel called The Kings Court, and got a room there. He began trying to write, coming up with ideas but never being able to make it into a story. He had thousands of beginnings, but no endings. He got back into school, and things were going decent for him. One day, a bunch of prisoners came into his school and talked about prison life, and how much they wanted those kids to stay out of it. They encouraged them to be good and to not mess up and end up like them, and Jack thought they were crazy. At this time, he had no idea that his life would relate more to those prisoners than he wished for.

This book is extremely good. I cannot wait to get farther into it and see how his life pans out.

P.S. -

Sorry for slacking lately on blogs :/ This week I am going to post as much as possible!

Happy Valentines Day everyone!! Hope it was wonderful :)

Go Ask Alice - Anonymous pg. 171-213

This book has hooked me. I am recomending it to absolutely everyone! I suppose I will continue where I left off. She was drugged by someone and basically went insane while babysitting. She locked herself in a closet and scratched her skin raw. She was rushed to the hospital and was put in critical care. She finally convinced her parents this was not a trip she intended to go on - she was drugged by someone who obviously didn't like her. She thinks she knows who did it, but she will never find out for sure. Which to me is sort of upsetting ... Because I think it is utterly wrong and I think she deserves to know who did it - and I think who did it deserves to get in trouble for it. Life isn't fair. Anyway, her life just kept going downhill. She was transferred to another hospital, she couldn't return home, people were testifying that she had been trying for weeks to sell them LSD and marijuana and also said she was a pusher. On top of ALL that, she was sent to an insane asylum! She was terrified once she got there. She did not fit in at all ... She was constantly around people who were out of their minds and she felt out of her mind having to be there with them. She didn't think she fit in there - which I agree. She made a few "friends" and found out about their past which was almost worse than hers. She prayed to God to get out of the place she was for many nights. There was a school at the mental hospital that she started attending once the workers felt she was stable enough to go, which helped her some because it kept her busy. No matter how busy she was though, she was always wishing to return home with her family. Finally, after many long days she returned home. She goes on a vacation with her family and is really starting to get back into the swing of things. She takes piano classes, hangs out with her family, her long lost boyfriend Joel comes back into the picture, and her life is really starting to get back on track. She seemed genuinely happy. And then, on September 21st, she wrote her last diary entry. She talked about how strong she was now and how happy she was with Joel. She seemed completely normal. Three weeks after her last entry, her parents came home from a movie and found her dad. They called the police, but there was nothing they could do. No one knew if it was accidental or on purpose, whether she planned it or not. It shocked me.

This is one of many drug related stories ending in death. It blows my mind how someone can get so addicted to something that it takes their life. I guess thats reality though. It really sucks what drugs do to good people. From what I read, she was a really genuine nice person who just got involved with the wrong people at the wrong time. She came from a good family, and lived in a good neighborhood. Which goes to show it doesn't matter how wealthy you are, or how good of a family you come from. Addiction can happen to anyone, it just depends if you can handle the peer pressure or not. It saddens me that this happened to her, or anyone for that matter.

Teenagers, Friends and Bad Decisions
By Tara Parker-Pope

I thought this article was extremely interesting. Being a teenage driver, it caught my eye. Temple University did a study on 40 teenagers and adults to see if there are differences in brain activity when adolescents are alone rather than with their friends. This was interesting to me because personally, I believe I drive the same with or without friends. They concluded that there was no meaningful differences in risk taking, regardless of whether friends were watching them. Although there was no difference in risk taking, there was a difference in running yellow lights and crashing. 40% more yellow lights were ran and there was 60% more crashes when the kids knew their friends were watching them. That is crazy!! I don't think I would run a yellow light regardless of if my friends were watching or not. I feel like I am the same driver with or without passengers, but I guess I am bias. I thought this article was pretty interesting, and I enjoyed reading it.

I thought this library was truely fascinating!! I would really love to go there someday. It is amazing how intruiged people are by books to design a library like this. If I lived nearby, I would go to this library all the time just to take pictures of the entrance. The public library downtown is really awesome - although it would be amazing if it looked like this :-). I am jealous!