Blog Reflection... It's Over ALREADY?! :'(

Over the trimester, I think that my writing quality has improved immensely. In the beginning of the school year, my writing was rather dull and robotic. You can see this in my first post when I said, “One of the major themes in this novel was to trust and support your family members, even if they've hurt you. This first begins when Elgin Branch, Bernadette's husband, is overwhelmed by Bernadette's complaining and ranting about her hate for trivial parts of life in Seattle.” In my later posts, I tried to add more flair to my blog so that one could hear my voice more clearly. You can see the progression most obviously in my third to last post when I said, “It's just been sitting at the bottom of my backpack lately and I didn't think to actually finish it until Halloween when I was sitting on the staircase waiting for some poor group of children dressed in adorable costumes in the pouring, cold rain to knock on the door.” In addition to this, my grammar has somewhat improved over the past few months. After copy-pasting my first post into Word, there were several grammatical errors, but in my later posts, there were none that I didn’t intend to be there. Also, one might notice that my later posts aren’t nearly as long or chunky as my initial posts. Some of my more recent posts could actually be combined into one very long post, but I broke them down so that it’s easier to understand the individual segments. In fact, my first post was 415 words long!! The later post was half that length at just 236 words. This is definitely an improvement for me because I used to have trouble getting my thoughts out and being brief about it, which is partially why I don’t have a Twitter account. One hundred and sixty characters are not enough for me!

During my blogging experience, I had a lot of trouble remembering to post every weekend because I usually do several posts at once when I blog, so I generally did two or three posts at a time in case I don’t finish my two posts for one week. Another struggle I faced with blogging was that I often didn’t have enough time in class to finish one entire post, so I would save them to publish at home, but I don’t remember to publish it, so I ended up publishing 5 posts at the end of the trimester even though I wrote them when dinosaurs still roamed the earth…I met my reading goal for this trimester because I set my goal as 12 for 2013 and I read 5 books, which was my goal for this trimester. I generally used GoodReads to look for new books to read and to check if a book is worth reading or not. This helped me as a reader this trimester because I actually think about books that interested me so I became a more active reader. Well, more like a thinking reader… :D

Really, Now?

During my read of Born to Run, I came across a quote that struck me as odd. It read, "'No wonder your feet are so sensitive,' Ted mused. 'They're self-correcting devices. Covering your feet with cushioned shoes is like turning off your smoke alarms.'" I thought that this was really interesting because most of the time, you hear doctors encouraging good, cushioned shoes, but this book claims that your feet naturally correct themselves because of pain. This actually makes sense to me because your feet are designed to have a certain form when you run, but if you don't fall into that gait, it's probably going to be painful, until you get into stride. During cross country, I noticed that there were all kinds of running forms between the girls and they were so different that you could tell who a runner was from far away without even seeing her face, just by looking at how she was running. That's how diverse our gaits were! We had "jicky-jackers", "ballerinas", and even "hunchback"(me...)! Maybe it's because we all wear these expensive, cushioned running shoes...Hmm.... I wonder what would happen if the entire cross country team went a day of practice completely barefoot...

Oh, The Irony of Life.

1000 McNuggets. Now I don't know about you, but I wouldn't expect that the fastest man on the planet would eat that. But he does. As ya'll know, I've recently finished finished Born to Run, by Christopher McDougall, so I've been looking for other things to read about on Yahoo, when I came across an article about Usain Bolt's 2008 Olympic experience. Apparently, Chinese food didn't suit Bolt's taste, so he took a shot at McDonald's chicken nuggets, and ended up eating about 5 20pc. boxes every single day for ten days. I could never do that! I get bored of food after 2 days, much less 10! I wonder what those finicky sports nutritionalist people have to say about that... The fastest man on earth ate a thousand fried chicken chunks before he set the world record...Intriguing, no? You can find the article here.

YESH! FINALLY!

Yay!! I've FINALLY finished Born to Run! It's just been sitting at the bottom of my backpack lately and I didn't think to actually finish it until Halloween when I was sitting on the staircase waiting for some poor group of children dressed in adorable costumes in the pouring, cold rain to knock on the door. (Speaking of which, did anyone go Trick-Or-Treating??) All in all, I thought the book went over some interesting topics regarding running, such as barefoot running, whether running shoes are good or bad for you, what makes up a good diet, etc., but it would only interest runners. The middle-ish to end-ish section was kind of boring to me because it was talking about a really long, really boring race with people spaced miles apart. To be honest, I might have zone out during that part. Also, the initial problem in the book was lost sometime during the plot, but otherwise, this novel was really interesting to me. It actually makes me want to try out barefoot/minimalist running, but that's a bit hard in Mason since all we can run on is sidewalks, sidewalks, and more sidewalks. And the ick factor... Anyways, I would certainly advise this book as a good read, but only to people who are runners or have run long distances in the past. :D

If you would like to purchase this book, you can find it here.

Ultra Marathoners - Ahh! Why?

100 miles. That's longer than the distance between here and Columbus. In fact, it's only 85.3 miles between Mason and columbus. Ok, anywho, think about driving that distance. The whining that you do because of your legs hurting and having to go potty.... Now imagine running 100 miles. Yeah. Running. I can picture how you probably feel right now. Incredulous? Suprised? Shocked? That's definitely how I felt when in Born to Run, a runner named Ann Trason is mentioned. She's in my mind, a freak-athlete. She's broken 20 world records during her time as a ultra-marathoner, crushing both guys and gals. I can't even imagine running a marathon right now, not to mention an ultramarathon. Plus, Trason didn't just finish ultramarathons. She set unbelievable course records, too! Trason finished the Leadville 100 ultra in just 18:06.24! Did I also mention that the Leadville 100 includes elevations of 9,200 to 12,600 feet? My goodness. The path alone shown in the video sounds terrifying, but having to do that back AND forth? 
These runners are just ridiculous.....

Hmph. What a Coincidence.

Ever had that moment when you learn something on your own and then the next day when you go to school, you just so happen to learn the same thing? Well, that was the case with me last week. On Monday, Cindy and I went back to MMS to visit our teachers on team Fusion. Our first stop was Mr. Grayer. As we chatted about how high school was going, the topic of Romeo and Juliet came up. He taught us about Tybalt being the "Prince of Cats" and such and how when he killed Mercutio, he said that his, meaning Mercutio's, injuries, were but a "scratch". I felt so knowledgeable during class when we read that scene! Anyway, on to the important stuff... I thought that it was really interesting that in the play, when Romeo was in Friar Lawrence 's cell,Shakespeare didn't really talk about how Romeo was bawling on the ground, whereas in the movie, Romeo is portrayed by the director as a childish, immature, whiny, and girly. The movie also showed the anger and frustration of Nurse and Friar Lawrence more clearly because in the play, you only see the character's emotions through their words. This is why I don't really prefer one form of the play over the other. If you only read the play, you don't get the emotions of the characters, but the movie alone doesn't contain all of the lines/information. The movie does make Romeo and Juliet seem more "real" though, as opposed to words on paper.

Musical Exercise?

Over the weekend, I read another National Geographic article, only this particular one was about the effect that music has on you while you're working out. Interestingly enough, research that has been done reveals that listening to any type of rhythmic tune will lessen your body's perception of exhaustion and increase the physical output from your body. Of course after a prolonged workout period, your muscles will feel spent, but listening to music and moving with the beat increases your endurance. I found this interesting because when I run around my neighborhood, I will occasionally listen to my iPod, and I actually run less than I usually would in the same amount of time when not listening to music. I do know that in the research, about 1/6 of the volunteers didn't experience this phenomena. Maybe I'm just in that 1/6..... I half wish that it actually did boost my performance. I'm curious about why the boost even occurs. I'm guessing that it may be psychological, but I will definitely look into that and post what I find!

What If We Were All Cats...

I'm sure most of us have heard the phrase, "A cat always lands on its feet", but why is that so? I was really interested in this after an *incident* that occurred on Friday. I was walking from the high school to the middle school and for some bizarre reason, I fell. Flat on my face. I mean, why can humans be as consistent as cats? I was simply walking and I was specifically looking at the ground so I wouldn't fall, and I still boo-booed up my face. In this video, the host drops his cat at completely random times, and the cat lands on its feet every. Single. Time. Not fair at all. I was kind of reminded of a Charlie Chaplin video where Chaplin falls flat on his face that I'd seen a while back, but unfortunately, I couldn't find a YouTube version of it. Just a warning, I might come into class tomorrow looking like a zombie of some sorts. Be prepared.

SUgAr hIGh!!!

How much sugar do you think you down in a day? 7 teaspoons? 12 teaspoons? 15 teaspoons? How about 22.7 teaspoons? Yes, that is the amount of sugar the typical American consumes in a day according to the National Geographic magazine. To put that in perspective, the American Heart Association's recommended daily maximum for men, 9 teaspoons, and for women, 6 tsp. Let's just allow that to settle in. If you use 7.5 as the average of 9 and 6, the average American consumes 3 times the recommended limit. In fact, a single can of cola, which is 12 ounces, contains 7.93 teaspoons of sugar. What about those kids who drink about 3+ cans of Mountain Dew per day? Why are we even hooked on sugar? Well, as I continued in the magazine, I discovered that the entering of sugar into the blood causes the same brain centers to react as heroine and cocaine do. Yup. We're hooked on sugar. What's funny though, is that as I'm typing this post, at this very moment, I'm chewing on a Twizzler. What a coincidence.

Time-Out! Reality CHeck!

It's time to be TORChed! That is Time Out Reality CHecked. (I stole the terminology from Where'd You Go Bernadette ....Romeo and Juliet. Ok. I'm not entirely sure that I like Romeo. He's chasing after all these girls because they're pretty, but he doesn't talk with them, and frankly, he doesn't know them. At. All. For real. What would you think if your friend is heartbroken because their crush is moving Jupiter and all of a sudden, he sees a "beautiful maiden" strolling through the mall and decides that he's deeply in love with her? Ok. Maybe that would be a bit creepy, but still... I wonder what would've happened in the story had Juliet not given into Romeo. I'm almost certain that Romeo would find some other girl to "watch". The entire relationship between Romeo and Juliet is dependent upon Juliet's "love" for Romeo. If Juliet didn't love Romeo, then Romeo would end up as either a stalker-ly love-struck boy, or heart-broken, love-struck boy who is going to find another girl. Ok, I probably sound like I'm going in circles, but you do see what I mean right? I thought that the picture above fit the connection perfectly! XD Heheh...

Another Winner, Perhaps?

Remember that one movie that came out last year? The one that prompted everyone to read the book?
The one with a tiger and a kid stuck in a boat? Maybe? If you don't recall what I'm talking about, the movie and book were each called "Life of Pi". Like many others, I decided to read the book because I had wanted to see the movie. My older brother had read it before and I had read part of it a long time ago, but I wanted to finish the entire book before watching the modified and shortened cinema version. I absolutely loved both the book and the movie, so for no apparent reason, I picked up another book at the library today by the same author(Yann Martel), called "Beatrice and Virgil".

I'm currently on page 25, and frankly, I'm lost. Like out in the middle of a desert lost. Like I'm Piscine Molitor Patel lost. Like I'm floating in the middle of the ocean-.... Ok. You get the point. So far, all I've got is that there's an author who goes under the pseudonym "Henry" and he's been called by a taxidermist to go somewhere. As you might imagine, I have a few questions. Maybe a couple more.....

1. What on earth is "Henry"s real name? 

2. Will I ever find out?

3. What's this got to do with a donkey and a monkey?

4. How long is the boring part going to continue for?

Yippeee!!!

Yes! I did it! I *finally* did it! I finished No Man's Land! It wasn't a long book, but I only read it before bed and most nights, I'm too drained to even pack my backpack, much less read a depressing book. No Man's Land was really interesting to me because it gave me some insight into the stressful lives of military families. I would give this book 4 out of 5 stars. I would have given it 5 stars, but the author has too many plot lines going on and some of them are a little bit choppy. Otherwise, I loved this novel! I would certainly recommend it to people who are interested in psychology. A major influence in the story had to do with emotions and the effects life can have on different people. It also explores the toll that war takes on our nation's soldiers, including PTSD, or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Syndrome occurs when one is involved in a terrifying situation that may result in physical harm or threat of physical harm. This can lead to flashbacks, avoidance, and hyper-arousal or "jumpiness". After researching the author, I also found out that she is a neuro-psychologist. I found this interesting because several characters in this novel go to a psychologist of some sorts.

Should I??

Ok, I need your guys' advice. I just borrowed The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold from the library. I read the summary on the inside-cover/flappy/sleeve/thing-a-ma-jigger and the book seems like an interesting books, but I'm an infant and can't handle scary books/movies because it completely freaks me out. The general style that I got out of the inside-cover/flappy/sleeve/thing-a-ma-jigger is reminiscent of In a Heartbeat by Loretta Ellsworth. Here's what the inside-cover/flappy/sleeve/thing-a-ma-jigger says for those of you who don't know what The Lovely Bones is about:

"When we first meet Susie Salmon, she is already in heaven. As she looks down from this strange new place, she tells us, in the fresh and spirited voice of a fourteen-year-old girl, a tale that is both haunting and full of hope. 

In the weeks following her death, Susie watches life on Earth continuing without her--her school friends trading rumors about her disappearance, her family holding out hope that she'll be found, her killer trying to cover his tracks. As months pass without leads, Susie sees her parents' marriage being contorted by loss, her sister hardening herself in an effort to stay strong, and her little brother trying to grasp the meaning of the word gone.

And she explores the place called heaven. It looks a lot like her school playground, with the good kind of swing sets. There are counselors to help newcomers adjust and friends to room with. Everything she ever wanted appears as soon as she thinks of it--except the thing she most wants: to be back with the people she loved on Earth.

With compassion, longing, and a growing understanding, Susie sees her loved ones pass through grief and begin to mend. Her father embarks on a risky quest to ensnare her killer. Her sister undertakes a feat of remarkable daring. And the boy Susie cared for moves on, only to find himself at the center of a miraculous event.

The Lovely Bones is luminous and astonishing, a novel that builds out of grief the most hopeful of stories. In the hands of a brilliant new writer, this story of the worst thing a family can face is transformed into a suspenseful and even funny novel about love, memory, joy, heaven, and healing."

Any suggestions? For those of you who have read this books, is it gorey or a horror type of book? Thanks! :D

Runner's Life

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have recently begun reading Born to Run, by Christopher McDougall. The main reason that I chose to read this book is that the description talked about a mysterious Mexican tribe of super-athletes and runners. This intrigued me, so of course, I began reading! The adventure begins with the question asked by most and almost every runner: Why does [Insert body part] hurt?? In this case, the author, who is a reporter, is having heel pain. Even though I just started this book, I can already tell this is going to be a hilarious book! Here's an excerpt:
"Take any other sport, and an injury rate like mine would classify me as defective. In running, it makes me normal. The real mutants are the runners who don't get injured. Up to eight out of every ten runners are hurt every year. It doesn't matter if you're heavy, or thin, speedy, or slow, a marathon champ or a weekend huffer, you're just as likely as the other guy to savage your knees, shins, hamstrings, hips, or heels. Next time you line up for a Turkey Trot, look at the runners on your and lift: statistically, only one of you will be back for the Jingle Bell Jog."
As you can see, the author uses a unique and almost sarcastic tone. Later on, McDougall finds out about a group of people called the "Tarahumara" by conquistadors. Their real name, the Rarámuri, which translates to mean "the running people". The Rarámuri are known for their peacefulness and evasiveness. Not only that, they are some of the most ridiculous runners on the plant. For real. They can 300 miles without a second thought. That's like running 100 5Ks in a row, back-to-back. Not only that, they also run on some of the roughest terrain possible with shoes that barely qualify as shoes, much less the $100 Brooks training shoes that the majority of of our cross country team has. What is most shocking of all though, is that the Rarámuri do all of this with almost no injuries. Zip. Zilch. Nada. In any case, I'm curious as to how the author's going to find this tribe. They're super runners who don't like to be seen. I wonder how that's going to go...

Out Goes One and In Comes Another

Ok. It’s official. I am abandoning Girls in White Dresses. It just wasn’t my cup of tea, I suppose. I am now about 2/3 of the way through No Man’s Land. Now, Dov’s brother, Brian has just come home from Afghanistan. His eyes glazed over, Brian seems off, even though his family is relieved that he’s home “safe”. Dov discovers that Brian may have a drinking problem, but is too scared to ask for help. What should he do? In addition to this strange finding, Brian is also having trouble sleeping and his relationship with his fiancée may be in jeopardy. On the upside, Scarlett is promising to make an effort to be friendlier with Dov’s group of “misfits”.

 

 

Throughout this middle third of this novel, the tension is definitely building with each of Dov’s new discoveries. A quote that I found at the end of the reading that I did today summarizes this really well. It reads, “Too many things about Brian are making me feel unsettled lately: the restlessness he can’t shake, his pre-occupation with war updates and with disturbing, violent movies, and also the way I’ve heard him pick irritably at Victoria until she leaves, crying. No to mention the empty vodka bottles I’ve seen in the trash can when I take out the garbage.” (This was really bad place for me to leave off on my reading because I can tell something big is about to happen, but I’m too tired to keep reading the book at the moment… :P) Dov’s description of Brian in this quote is very unsettling to me because he seems almost paranoid that something bad is going to happen. In the beginning of the book, Brian was depicted as a clean, popular person, but now, he’s evolved into some sort of neurotic old man (Not really, but you get my point, right?). It really is quite frightening to me, looking back on how he used to be. The author’s changing of Brian’s character is almost like they are preparing for his next move….

Oh yeah! I forgot to mention, I started reading a new novel called, Born to Run, by Christopher McDougall. I’m hoping this book goes better than the last … J

To be or not to be?

In addition to starting No Man's Land, by S.T. Underdahl, I also started a new book called Girls In White Dresses, by Jennifer Close. It talks about three girls, Isabella, Mary and Lauren, who all feel like every single one of their friends is getting married. The grapple with many emotional roller coasters as they try to get a grip on life. I wasn't really sure what to think of this book at first, and to be honest, even after reading 100+ pages, I still don't. It's written in the perspectives of the three girls and cycles between them during the chapters. I usually like it when books are written like this because it shows the same storyline but with different details and feelings. In this case, the format just made the book plain out confusing. For real. The chapters were SUPER long and I didn't really understand the plot until I was already 80 pages into the book. Also, the author drones on when they describe and that really defeats the purpose of adding description because it doesn't help the reader at all. Even though I'm only halfway into this novel, I'm not sure that I am actually going to read the rest of this book, let alone recommend it (and it's not often that I will abandon a book!). Read it if romance your thing, but I guess this book just isn't my cup of tea. To think of it, I only pick up this book because the title reminded me of the movie "27 Dresses".

Time to Embark On a New Journey

Since I recently finished Bumped, I started a new book called No Man's Land, by S.T. Underdahl.  It's about a high schooler named Dov Howard.  He is treated in his family like a disappointment and in school, like a loser. His only friends are a bunch of emo kids, much like himself. Dov's brother, Brian, is the perfect son. For real. He's the school's football star and he has just been shipped off to Afghanistan. Now, everyday, the Howard family is worrying about him. The part I had to stop reading at is about Dov in his art class. The counselor, Mr. Kerr is standing at the door with a serious face, beckoning for Dov to come. I'm so frustrated that I had to stop here because, coincidentally, I was in art class when I read this. I'm really curious as to what happened, though. I'm guessing that something bad happened to Brian, judging by Mr. Kerr's stony expression and the fact that S. T. Underdahl was ranting about how worried Brian's family was, for about 10 pages. I hope this goes better than my previous book....

Thumped Went Ker-plunk

Yesterday night, I spent all evening reading the novel, Thumped by Mega McCafferty (Yes, I read 260+ pages in one night.) . It's about a futuristic America where a Virus has broken out and threatens to eradicate the human race. As a result, the government is encouraging girls to get pregnant as early as possible and as often as possible. If a girl hasn't had any children before the age of 18, they are considered outcasts to society and the government warns them that they aren't contributing to the country. The main characters in the story are Harmony and Melody. They are identical twins who are both 17 and met each other one year ago (in the previous book that I didn't realize existed and therefore didn't read...). They are both considered Re Pros, AKA Reproductive Professionals. Essentially, they are part of the Surrogettes business and people hire them to get pregnant and have their kids. Harmony and Melody are both due on the same date and are both carrying twins. Together, they are worth millions of dollars and have just as many fans. Before they met, Harmony was raised in Goodside, which is a very conservative, church-orientated lifestyle, but she encounters trouble and wants to cross the fence and escape to the freedom of the Otherside, to live with her sister. Harmony is married under the church's eye, to Ram. Melody is partnered with Jondoe, who is the secret father of Harmony's children. There is one other secret to the story though, and with the Double Double Due Date, or D4, approaching, the truth must eventually come out. One way or another.

This book was definitely not what I was expecting. I picked out this book at my local library and I thought it Bumped had a very "cutesy" cover, all blue and pink. I didn't get the chance to read the summary so I assumed it would be about chickens or something of the sort because the cover had a cracked eggshell. I probably wouldn't recommend this book to a friend unless they were into romantic/conspiracy-related novels because I am not very interested in those books, so reading this book wasn't exactly an phenomenal experience for me. I have to admit though, the only reason I actually read the entire book is that the author pulls you in with suspense. It is written in a similar format to Flipped, by Wendelin Van Draanen. Every chapter, the story changes perspectives between the twins and often times, the chapters end in a very suspenseful way. All in all though, I wouldn't advise reading this book. My opinion may be swayed because I didn't read the first book, but unless you liked books like Matched, the Hunger Games, and Divergent, this book probably isn't for you. At least it definitely wasn't for me.

Where'd You Go Bernadette

Over my summer break, I read the book Where'd You Go Bernadette, by Maria Semple. The book is written in the form of a collection of letters, emails, FBI reports, interview transcripts, and even an emergency room bill. The main character is Bernadette Fox, as the title would suggest. She was an architectural genius and the mother of Bee Branch. After Bee was born with a heart defect, she puts her career on hold to care for her infant daughter. Even though her daughter is growing up and healthy, Bernadette still hasn't returned to building and becomes isolated from society. She is so detached from reality that she must reserve to outsourcing her life to a virtual assistant under the name "Manjula". As a reward for her good grades, Bee was promised anything she wanted, and asked for a vacation to Antarctica. While Bee is psyched about the trip, Bernadette is eager to get out of going. She goes completely out of her way to not go on the trip, resorting to getting her wisdom teeth pulled out. Comedic and charming, this book is definitely a favorite.
One of the major themes in this novel was to trust and support your family members, even if they've hurt you. This first begins when Elgin Branch, Bernadette's husband, is overwhelmed by Bernadette's complaining and ranting about her hate for trivial parts of life in Seattle. He doesn't blame her, though, because he loved Bernadette and told himself that she would eventually stop. In a letter to a psychologist, he writes, "Remember, for the first several years of living in Seattle, Bernadette was pregnant, or had recently miscarried. As far as I knew, these mood swings were hormonal swings, or a way of processing grief." This shows how Elgin really wants to believe that these incidents aren't really "Bernadette". This theme becomes more evident late on in the story when Elgin promises to support Bernadette even though she caused their identities to be stolen. Even later in the book, Bernadette in turn forgives Elgin for his mistakes. In a letter to Bee, she wrote, "OK, we need to double-swear to never tease Dad about the emails from the admin. You may have a hard time seeing it now, but trust me, it meant nothing. No doubt poor Dad is already dying of mortification." This quote means that both Bernadette and Elgin forgive each other for their mistakes and will move past them and not linger on the past.

Book Review!