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As you know by my last post, I am reading this book in class. I have finished it, and it was a masterpiece. I am not typically in to romance novels, but this book also has family themes to it. It was a revolutionary book to me, and it was so full of color and vivid descriptions of the ugliest parts of our minds - jealousy, hatred, fear, etc.
Synopsis: Noah and Jude are twins, and at first they are inseparable. Noah loves drawing and he paints in his mind all the time. Jude is a daredevil who surfs the waves and jumps off cliffs. However, 3 years later, they are barely talking to each other. Something drastic happened to them, and they changed so much you wouldn't be able to recognize them. This story is told from 2 perspectives - Noah and Jude - Noah tells the story of the earlier years, and Jude tells the later years. At the end everything connects and comes together and it is amazing!!
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I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson
First thoughts: I really love Noah and I really hate Jude. Reasons: I love how Noah thinks and he is definitely a revolutionary. I really understand how he feels, because I feel that way all the time, and I love that things that don't actually happen (like bright blue fluorescent barf) are written as if it happened, and it takes a while to figure out it didn't actually happen. I love Noah's creative mind and really weird brain. I am so glad he got Brian as a friend. I feel really bad for him that he didn't get in to CSA. (California School of the Arts) Speaking of CSA, one reason I hate Jude is that she considers California School of the Arts as California School of the Aliens, even though she is a student there and got in. I'm not saying that thinking of artists as aliens is bad or anything, but it makes me hate Jude because she didn't even care, but got in, and Noah actually wanted to get in but didn't. Also Jude is just a jerk because she's flirting all the time and she is in a group of hornets and she is a hornet herself. She also called Noah's drawings lame, and that he was embarrassing her because he never makes any friends. She says that it's embarrassing because Noah always has to be Noah! What? Noah is perfectly fine the way he is, and Jude doesn't have a right to make him feel bad about himself, or make him want to change himself. She's also got Grandma Sweetwine(their grandmother) and her dad on her side; Noah only has his mother. Even then, Jude complains that Noah doesn't share their mother. Which is out of the question. I am hoping against hope that the older Jude will be more mature and will not be such a jerk. And I hate that after their mother died, Noah became normal. And that, as Jude says herself, was likely caused by her because she cut off three feet of golden curls and swore away boys forever, and then the mom died. (this is part of Grandmother Sweetwine's hogwash) I don't actually fully believe in this, but still--it was kind of Jude's fault. And she got into CSA instead of Noah. I just want to know why she got in, and not Noah. I am also curious about her sand women and what was so remarkable about them. But more than that I want to read more about what happens with Noah and Brian's relationship. I so want them to be together, and be happy. Which, I predict that that is not going to happen, since Noah became normal a few years later. If he has Brian with him I don't think he would be damaged that much...but I fear that Brian is not there with him anymore...I feel so bad for Noah. I didn't go anywhere during Spring Break but I have gotten a lot done. I have spent most of my time drawing and watching anime--I've also been listening to music by HoneyWorks on YouTube. A Vocaloid, a singing voice synthesizer, sings all the songs (so it's not an actual human singing). Illustrations accompany the music so it's very much like a music video, and it has a love story that the song is telling. I'm not typically in to romantic anime or manga, but surprising their story is actually very interesting! It has been a source of inspiration for me.
It has also been recently animated into 2 movies so I want to watch it...but I think I'll like their songs more. When I go to Japan this summer I will definitely try to rent their CDs or buy them. I also bought volumes 2 and 3 of My Hero Academia during Spring Break (I got volume 1 a while ago), which is an ongoing manga series. It has been animated I think last year but I haven't watched it yet. I love the story and characters and the drawing style, and I couldn't help reading it over and over again. I am also excited because they are starting a second season of My Hero Academia (anime) next month, and I am definitely watching it. The third season of Attack on Titan is starting in April too which I am super SUPER pumped about!! I've been waiting for 4 years for it to start again!! To recap, all I basically did this Spring Break was to watch anime and draw. I also had a lot of Kyudo (Japanese archery) lessons and bought manga. (pick 2)
3. How have your thoughts or understandings of the Holocaust changed since completing this unit (background research, Night, Boy in the Striped Pajamas? The book Night has given me a clearer and more in-depth picture of life during the Holocaust from the Jewish point of view. Before this unit, I only knew of the Holocaust as something that happened in WWII and involved Hitler trying to exterminate the Jewish population. Now I know not only the factual part but the emotional part of the Holocaust. 4. Which did you like better and why (book or movie)? The book, because the things that happened in it are actually true--it actually happened to the author. And because it actually happened, there are aftereffects of being involved in this historical tragedy. How it had turned Wiesel's life in to one long night, how the trauma remained with him for the rest of his life, and seeing similar things happening even after the war was over. I think it gave me a better picture of how the event affected the lives of countless human beings. Because we don't know the lives of people who died in the midst of the concentration camps (unless they had kept a journal and it was still legible after all these years), we only mainly know of the few people who survived to tell the story. So you start to see how the Holocaust had impacted these people's later lives after the war. 5. Any final thoughts or questions you have regarding either the book, movie, or Holocaust in general? We are living in a peaceful place, so when we learn about these things we think: "Wow, I can't believe that this happened in the past." But when you think about it, things like this are still happening in other places in the world (it may not be as extreme, but war and forced labor are happening all the time). I love learning history, but I think we should also think about how it relates to our modern world, and what we can do to solve our current problems. Words of the Wiser:
Pg. 78 When Eliezer had wounded his leg and went to the infirmary. To him, it was actually better than the usual routine of bells and work. But the faceless neighbor next to him warns that he should leave before the next selection. Germany has no need for sick Jews, he says. The life lesson is that bad things are everywhere in a concentration camp, and even if you are sick no one will give you mercy. I think another lesson is that really, you can't trust anyone, German or Jew, when you are in such an oppressed situation. Everyone is desperate for their own survival, and it is natural for people to want to do anything if it means the potential to live a little longer. However, this is a very scary thing to witness, especially as a teenager like Eliezer. This gets Eliezer to start thinking whether the neighbor is telling the truth. Afterwards when the camp would be evacuated, he decides to leave the infirmary instead of stay. This decision was clearly the result of the neighbor's warning. Memory Moment: Pg. 100 Years later, Eliezer sees ship passengers throwing coins to the "natives", who dove to catch them. There were two children who were desperately trying to get the coins, trying to strangle each other. When Eliezer asked the lady to stop throwing the coins, she replied that she wanted to give charity. This is an important memory because it is the same thing that happened when they were on the roofless train in the snow. It is hard to imagine things like this actually happening before our eyes, but even after WWII, the same thing was still happening. Aha Moment Pg. 91 Eliezer realizes that maybe Rabbi Eliahu's son wanted to get rid of his father, so he could have his own chance of survival. Eliezer then prays to God to give him strength never to do what Rabbi Eliahu's son had done. However, in the end he does the exact same thing. When I read this, I learned about another dimension of the cruelty of the concentration camp--besides the SS officers constantly beating you and giving you blows, harsh words, and endless work, you rot from the inside as well as crumble from the outside. The basic morality is gone at this point. A typical person in a peaceful home would not think of their father as a burden--and they shouldn't feel that way. But the concentration camp had changed all this. It was such a brutal environment to live in that it altered the people's minds for the worse. Everyone was only thinking about themselves. If I was the President of the United States my first priority would be to spread solar power and other environment-friendly electricity. I think that making contributions to help the environment is a very important thing to do, especially with the United States being one of the major source of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.
My next priority would be to make education accessible to all people. Education is the key foundation for a good society, and we should prioritize that more. If we can get more and more people to understand things like climate change, politics, and things that are going on in the world, there would be more people who could help steer our country(and the world) to a more brighter future. My most important priority (in my opinion) is to reduce deforestation and bring back trees. Deforestation is also contributing to global warming, and also the loss of wild animals. I would promote planting more trees as a way to help fight global warming. Persuading people to get light-colored roofs on their houses would be a good way also. Over winter break I took kyudo(Japanese archery) lessons everyday, and I was pretty tired. Kyudo is unlike Western archery and the bows are about 2 meters tall, taller than my height. There are lots of techniques and rituals that need to be learned and mastered. Though it is also a sport, it is mainly a traditional thing and people are doing it to keep the tradition alive. This is mainly a solo sport, you don't really have to talk and it's great. I started these lessons just in fall of 2016, so I'm still new, but I got to know a lot of great people who have the same interests as me, and are interested in Japanese culture.
I also watched a lot of anime I've been wanting to watch over the past month or so. Most of the time school permits me from watching them, so winter break was the perfect time to get caught up. The best one I watched was Boruto - Naruto the Movie - which is about Naruto's son, Boruto. It had a wonderful storyline and they neatly tied things up at the end, and also tied up some of the loose ends that was left in the original Naruto series. I especially loved seeing my favorite Naruto characters after they'd grown up into adults. The original Naruto's theme wasn't about family at all, but with Boruto, the father and son theme plays out a lot. (That's what makes it so good!) So these are 2 of the many things I did over break. Summary:
According to this article (http://www.today.com/parents/8-life-skills-all-18-year-olds-should-have-checklist-t68666), there are 8 primary life skills an 18 year old should have in order to get along in society: 1) Be able to talk to strangers 2) Be able to find your way around your town, campus, etc. 3) Be able to manage assignments, workloads, and deadlines. 4) Be able to help with household work 5) Be able to handle interpersonal problems 6) Be able to cope with ups and downs of life - college, bad teachers, competition, bosses, etc. 7) Be able to earn and manage money 8) Be able to take risks This article additionally explains how most parents are preventing their children from learning these skills. What I would need to work on: I would need to work on practically all of them. I will need to work on talking to strangers (to ask for directions or help), but I think I have improved on this skill quite a bit compared to a couple years ago. I would definitely need to learn more about surrounding streets near my house, and be able to get to places by myself. The only places I go to by myself are school and some of my friends' houses, and for almost all of the other places my parents drive me there. I can do some of my homework by myself, without having anyone reminding me about it, but not all. I rarely do household work, and I don't have a part-time job so I have no experience in earning money from someone other than my family. I don't really manage my money either--I don't keep track of how much I had, how much I spent, and how much I have left, etc. Coping with interpersonal problems and withstanding the ups and downs of life is something that I think I actually can do. I can't really be sure though. I don't think I have the ability to take risks. I also don't think I have resilience or grit. Which concludes that I have more than a handful to work on before I'm 18. Realistic or asking too much? Even though I am failing at every single one of these skills, I think all eight of them are necessary. To become a strong, independent, responsible adult, these are things one would definitely want to work on. One rule I don't like about school this year is that itstarts at 8:50am and we have to get out at 4:00pm. I don't like coming to school late because it makes it hard for my parents to drop me off in the morning on their way to work. I also don't sleep in, and I don't like procrastinating my homework and rushing to get it done in the morning, so school starting late doesn't give me any advantages.
And since we get out later, in winters it is very cold and dark by the time we get out, especially if you stay after school for clubs or activities. It also leaves me with less time to do homework in the evening, forcing me to stay up late to finish my assignments. I think school starting late and ending late encourages students to sleep late and wake up late, which is not a healthy habit at all. I don't like that the school board changes things so much. Students should also be able to have a voice regarding whether they like the changes or not, because they are the ones going to school. |
Celeste ObaraMy favorite things are horses, anime, and nature. Archives
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