Reading Bucket List

Lord of The Rings  (series) by J.R. Tolkein

For me, Lord of the Rings has always been a classic.  Growing up, the movies always intrigued me.  Over the summer, I read The Hobbit by Tolkein and found his writing very different than most styles because of the use of Old English.  I found that I really enjoyed his style once I started to understand how to read it.  I can not wait to dive in and experience Lord of the Rings in the way it was intended to be encountered.

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Every year, without fail, To Kill a Mockingbird is mentioned in my English class.  This book is well known by all and is refered to as a master piece of American literature.  To Kill a Mockingbird has been given many awards through out it's years and I would hate to miss out on such a hightly praised novel.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (series) by Steig Larsson

A best selling novel by Steig Larsson, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a mystery novel that many have enjoyed.  In reading the first couple of pages, I learned that the novel is about a murder case that has been unsolved for years.  I love reading mysteries, especially when it deals with criminals. When I read through the first couple of pages, I found that Larsson has a simple, yet mature way of writing.  He wrote it in a way that, I believe, I can follow very easily.  All in all, I believe that this novel will be very enjoyable for me and I can't wait to dive in to this case.

The Firm by John Grisham

A while back in the year, my mother and I found interest in a T.V. show known as The Firm.  This show grabbed out attention and we continue to watch it now.  We recently found out that it originated from a book by Grisham and now I would love to go through the experience in a whole new way.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Known as one of the greatest love story classics, Jane Eyre has captured many people's hearts.  I personally love old classic books and would like to take the challenge of reading this well known classic.  While reading a review by Amazon, I found that the story is written like most love stories. I also read a little into the first chapter and I can tell that her writing style is old fashioned, which makes sense because it is an older book.  So I believe this will be a harder read for me, but it could be interesting if I allow it to be.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

In reading the review, The Book Thief is a story told about a child in hard times that has a great love for books.  Because she lives in a poor environment though, she has to steal the books that she wants to read.  Through what I have read about this book, it sounds like a real eye opener towards the power of books and the amazing adventures that each story holds.
Delirium (series) by Lauren Oliver

Last year, I read a book by Lauren Oliver called Before I Fall.  I loved her style of writing and how twisted the story became as the story went on.  Because I fell in love with that style, I am curious to find out if her style carries on into her other books as well.  I am hoping to find that it will be similar and that these books will be just as enjoyable to read as Before I Fall was.

The 5 People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Album

As I was looking through many books that I might possibly read, one book I ran into was The 5 People You Meet in Heaven.  It caught my attention because because of the unique idea that it held about heaven.  The idea, of meeting the five people who impacted you the most in your life, makes me wonder who those people might be for me.  This curiousity drives my interest in this book and I can not wait to find out what this book has to offer.

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

All my life I have always wanted to travel and do missionary type work.  When reading about this book, I found myself getting excited with what all took place in it.  In the reviews done by amazon, I found that the book is about a family that moves to the Belgian Congo and does mission work.  It's told from the wife's point of veiw, so I think the book will be easier for me to see what it's like for a woman in the mission field.  Also, the book tells of all of their trials and tribulations that they go through and how they overcome it.  I think over all, this book will be inspirational and make me long to have a stronger faith.

Harry Potter (series) by J.K. Rowling

Probably the most well known book series there is, the Harry Potter series has impacted a huge part of our culture today.  Although I have never had the chance to read the series, I have enjoyed the movies and have been told many times that they are a must read.  This book series has won many awards and has been a best seller for years, so obviously these books are very well written.

The Call of the Wild

Everyday we see how people face their everyday trials, but what about animals? Do they face go through hardships? In Jack London’s The Call of the Wild, he describes the hardships of a dog, Buck, and how he overcomes them.

Throughout the whole book there is a constant theme about the wild. When Buck meets the man with the red sweater at the beginning of his journey, he learns very quickly that he could not possibly succeed easily. He was beaten and learned quickly just how harsh everything was and that he must learn how to choose his battles if he wanted to win. Men could no longer be trusted in this new world of his. Later on in the story is mentioned some newcomers who had brought a ton of luggage. When it comes Buck’s way of life, all that stuff is just baggage and is extra weight leading to destruction in the wild. In the end, Buck finally learns this and completely let’s go, proving that he is ready for the wild.

While reading the novel, being written in the dog’s perspective, the novel was constantly interesting and very well portrayed. I loved the way the novel was written because of the novel’s uniqueness. I could easily follow along and could easily put myself in Buck’s shoes, imagining just how awful everything was, being freezing and hungry in an unfamiliar place. The novel used good diction such as how Buck fled ignominiously and how Buck had a dominant primordial beast within him. Over all, this book was very well written.

The characters within the story all affected the outcome of the story and helped contribute to tying Buck to the theme. Curly, for example, was destroyed by the other dogs because Curly was weak. Through this, Buck learned the‘The Law of Club and Fang’. This law was the first step towards his call to the wild. Spitz on the other hand, led to Buck gaining his first dominant role in his new life, training him for when he would be a pack leader of the wild. Another example is Mercedes and being over packed. She had too much baggage and could not handle the toils of the new life because she could not let go of her past life. This lead to her and other’s death, but was a lesson to Buck.

This book had many excelling attributes, but I would not recommend this book to everyone. I would recommend this book mainly to older boys or older teens and up because I think the book would be more appealing to them. The theme and the way the theme is presented just has a way of sounding like an older reader’s type.

Me and my Jr./Sr. Year

This past year, being my junior year in high school, has been pretty great.  Sure the year has had ups and downs, but over all the year has been pretty enjoyable.  This year has been full of sports, late nights with homework, and good times with my friends.

Sports wise, volleyball and soccer went pretty well!  Sure when getting home real late and having school the next day was rough, but that became normal.  In volleyball, we got second in conference and went to state, sadly we lost, but the season was still a pretty big achievement.  In soccer, we made history by getting first in conference for the second time and getting to the second round of state!  When in sports there is always excitement!

Ohhhh… The homework seemed never ending!  Especially when getting home so late from sports games…  Most of the time I had to try to get my homework done in other classes because I wanted to get a couple hours of sleep before I went back to school!  Everything combined was a huge mass of craziness, but I successfully got through the long nights.

This year, I realized just how important relationships are and how much they influence a person’s way of life.  I have recently been working really hard on maintaining my friendships along with gaining new ones. 

All of these combined have been pretty stressful, but I have finally made through the trials of junior year and am now off to the beginnings of my senior year.  With 3 days to go, I am pretty much a senior!  I know I have a lot to learn and do before I graduate, but I also know that I can not do everything alone.  This coming year I plan to try and prepare for my future that has already been laid out before I was even born!  I just have to find out what that is…  Hopefully the journey will not be too painful.  Well… I guess here is to 2013, and to whatever this coming year may hold.

Me and Survival

After reading many articles about people in life or death situations, I found that many people would go to extreme measures in order to ensure their own survival.  This realization made me wonder how far I might go to make sure my own life lasts a little longer.  One woman I read about actually refused food for weeks to get out of a facility by getting medical attention because the facility treated her so awful.  If I were in such a predicament I am pretty sure I might have done the same.  I have also heard stories of people who ran out of food and actually ate the people who had already passed on.  I can easily say that I would never go that far just to survive!  If I were ever in a situation like that, I would hope not to do anything that may bring harm to another human, unless I knew that they were bound to harm others, then I would know that I might have saved some lives.  To be completely honest though, I do not know how I would react in such a situation because I have never been in one, but I hope that whatever I might do, I would not regret.

Survival on the Battle Field

6 word slant:

War survival comes with a price

140 Character Claim: 

After taking a chance to protect freedoms, war survivors find themselves coming back from a predicament impossible to overcome completely.

    Essay:                                                     

Survival on the Battle Field

              In Jack London’s The Call of the Wild, Buck, the main dog character of the story, goes through many hardships and finds several different ways to survive, doing any possible physical action in order to do so.  Buck, ferine and ferocious, is very stubborn and hates to fail, but when his newest owners take him to the extreme to where he could lose his life, he chooses to go no further and to fail for the first time.  For him, the decision was huge, yet this decision saved his life.  When in a near death situation surroundings can lead to extreme survival techniques, which could scar them, but also help them in their future. 

One characteristic of war is the persons surroundings; the messier the surroundings, the more chaotic and traumatic the events may seem to be.  When reading CStraight’s article “Stories from Women,” he describes a mother during the Rwandan civil war, and her story.  While the war was going on, she had to find a way to protect her children without the help of her husband who was killed later in the war.  “There was shooting going on, and people were falling on others and dying everywhere,” she tells the interviewer.  Like a dear beset by wolves, she found herself in a travail situation, yet miraculously she found a way to overcome the situation.  When people are dying all around, would not that type of surrounding be traumatizing? Although everything around might be what makes everything worse, sometimes what worsens the situation is what is not around.  In “A Personal Story” told by Dr. Hal Kushner, he tells of himself being in captivity.  Before being captured though, he and his fellow soldiers were shot down in a helicopter.  After surveying their surroundings to see what supplies they had, they realized they had ‘no food or water, no flares, no first aid kit or survival gear.’  The situation is bad enough to have been shot down and wounded with buddies either hurt or dead, but they also had nothing to help them get out of the predicament they were in.  One’s surroundings play a huge part in survival because surroundings can worsen one’s chances of survival in just a simple second.

When stuck in a life or death situation, a person might go to very extreme survival techniques in order to survive.  In CStraight’s article he explains that when the violence started picking up, ‘she fled to a nearby church where she thought she and her family would be safe.’  Sadly, they ‘walked into a nightmare.’  They were under attack.  In order ‘to survive, Violette was forced to lie down in the aisle and smear blood on herself and her children.  Pretending to be dead, they hid among the corpses.  ‘Afraid to move, to cry, to even breathe, they lay there for an entire week until the Rwandan army came to liberate the area.’  She had two children with her, one being 4 years of age and the other 5.  People’s reactions are amazing just in how far one will go in order to ensure survival, or even to just get out of an awful situation.  Sometimes war is smaller than a country, but is actually within a building.  In his article “Harriet’s Story: Ugandan survival, British Prisoner”, Jason N. Parkinson describes Harriet’s stands to be freed.  Harriet ‘was persecuted, accused of supporting the LRA.’  So she ‘caught a flight to Heathrow airport’ and ran away from what she presumed was her death.  She was then captured and put in an asylum.  To try and get out, ‘she started refusing food.’  She became so sick and weak that they let her go after 5 weeks of no food.  She was so determined to get out after being treated so badly that she just stopped eating!  That just fascinates me that she would go to such extremes to get out of a situation that could lead to her death.  She kept on fighting, proving that one will go to extremes in order to survive.

               

After surviving some kind of life or death situation, there is always an after effect.  CStraight’s article explains that Violette ‘tried to rebuild her life.’  After working for others by farming, she eventually decided to try something else so that she might be able to pay for her children’s education along with food for her family.  Someone decided to sponsor her and now she has ‘learned marketable job skills and honed her innate leadership abilities.’  She is now the ‘local businesswoman and a leader in her community.’  She has truly found a way to overcome her past and has continued to show her strength.  While Violette found a way to overcome her past, Kushner, as explained in his article, found a way to learn from his captivity.  He ‘learned about the human spirit…. Confidence in yourself… loyalty to your country and its ideals and to your friends and comrades.’  He believes that he was very fortunate to have survived and knows that he very easily could have been one of the men that died to protect our freedoms.  Even though both Violette and Kushner went through very tragic events, they have overcome them in the best way that they could and have found a way to progress in life.

Life or death situations can show a person’s character through their reaction.  Dictionary.com defines a survivor as ‘a person or thing that survives.’  Although I agree that that defines a survivor, a true survivor must overcome the incident, otherwise reliving the tragedies may occur.  That is true for all situations.   Imagine just how hard this would be, how much would have to be accomplished, to do so.  In my own opinion, survival is one of the hardest things to overcome. 

Works Cited:

Kushner, Dr. Hal. "Vietnam War-Stories: Personal Story." (2000): 6. war-stories.com. Web. 17 May 2012. <://www.war-storieshttp.com/aspprotect/pow-kushner-personal-story-1967-2.asp>.

Parkinson, Jason N. "Harriet's Story: Ugandan Survivor, British Prisoner." (2005): 5. opendemocracy.net. Web. 17 May 2012. <http://www.opendemocracy.net/people-migrationeurope/uganda_3114.jsp>.

Straight, C. "Stories From Women." Women for Women International (2008): 9. womenforwomen.org. Web. 17 May 2012. <http://www.womenforwomen.org/global-initiatives-helping-women/stories-women-rwanda.php>.

“Survivor.” Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, Historian. 17 May. 2012. <Dictionary.com

            http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Survivor>.

Survivor Synthesis: War Survivors

After taking a chance to protect freedoms, war survivors find themselves coming back from a predicament impossible to overcome completely.

What Does it Mean to be Human?

What does being human mean?  The ability to walk on two feet and communicate with each other through words?  Or maybe, as put as in the YouTube video "What Does it Mean to be Human?," being human is the fact that we have thumbs?  To me, being human is being able to make decisions and learn from past mistakes, to be able, in some way, communicate thoughts and to feel a need for fellowship.

My English class recently finished the novel Frankenstein.  Throughout this novel a monster,created by scientist Victor Frankenstein, learns many ideas as to what being human takes.  First off, he learned the necessities of living:  food, water, sunlight, and exercise.  Soon he learns from watching an everyday family, that relationships and fellowship are also important characteristics to being human.  We need to communicate, in some way, our thoughts and ideas so that we can prosper and better ourselves.  In the novel, the monster worked hard to learn the language and soon tried to communicate with people because of his felt need to take part in these human necessities.

To me, one of our greatest attributes to being human is how we can make decisions on our own and our ability to learn from past experiences.  Everyday a normal human makes a ton of decisions.  They make the decision to wake up or go back to sleep, what they should eat, what they should do that day, and so much more.  Some decisions are more important than others, of course, because they have the power to completely change our future.  Our future is constantly changed by the choices we make, and although we can not change our past, we can change our future.  For this reason, it is very important for us, humans, to learn from our past and to overcome it so that we might have a brighter future!  A huge part in what makes us human is our ability to take action or to sit back depending on the situation.  Sometimes mistakes are made, but as humans, those mistakes are what further us in our knowledge of life.

What makes us human, I believe has nothing to do with our outward appearance.  Although I do agree with those that say our thumbs differ us from other living creatures, I also know that not all humans have been blessed with them.  Nick Vujicic is a man who was born without any limbs.  In his book, Life Without Limits, he tells of obstacles that he has faced and how he has overcome them.  He does not spend his time feeling sorry for himself, but actually goes and helps others, which is amazing in his circumstances.  He is a living example of what I believe being human means because of how he has overcome some huge trials and they have shaped him to a bright future.  For me, being human is being able to make decisions and learning from past experiences, to be able, in some way, communicate thoughts and to feel a need for fellowship.