2.28 Diction Exercise

Petals by Amy Lowell

a.)strew, float, freighted, crimsoned, scatter, distant, infinite, fragarance

b.)Formality: Flowery, Ornate
Connotation: Poetic, Lively
Sound: Melodic, Soft
Concreteness: Breezy, Misty

c.)The melodic breeziness and ornate diction of Amy Lowells' "Petals" transforms a cheerful poem about flower petals into a melancholy lament of lost dreams and hopes.

Book #14

The Fool's Girl by Celia Rees
142 pages in
Popular Fiction
This book is by one of my favorite authors she wrote Sovay which is one of my favorite books. Celia's books are mostly about the times were women had to wear corsets and there were pirates and courts with jesters and fools. Sovay was about a girl who became a highway robber and ventures into the French Revolution and finds love on the way.
The Fool's Girl is a retelling of William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. It is about a girl, Violetta, who is the daughter of a Duke. Her mother disappeared and is assumed dead, her father and her mothers best friend go into mourning and aren't seen at all in the daylight. The friends husband is the mothers twin and he turns evil and kills the father and sells the girl into slavery. Violetta has three friends that are sold away to different people. Feste the fool who is her protector and finds her to liberate her from her captor. Guido the page of her father who is a great friend. And Stephano who is her cousin who also, very weirdly, is I guess you would say her lover. Gross right!! Anyways Feste and Violetta end up in London looking for help to get something that was stolen, ironically by the man who "owned" her. It is the cup of myrrh that was brought to the baby Jesus that was stolen. The whole country was built around that cup and with it gone it has fallen to ruin. Violetta is the rightful ruler and she is determined to get the relic back and claim her throne. She knows were it is and is hoping that William Shakespeare can get them into the place that the slave owner, Malvolio, is staying. Shakespeare is very interested in their story and wants to help them but people high in power have noticed them with him and are threatening to close the playhouses if William does not give them info on Violetta and Feste.
At this point it is kind of confusing but Celia's' books usually straighten out towards the end and usually take two reads to fully understand them.

ABBAmania!!!

I love the movie "Mamma Mia" and I love ABBA so when my mom found out that the Embassy was having a show with the Fort Wayne Philharmonic as a tribute to ABBA. They played almost all of the songs from the movie and some others that I didn't know. The actual ABBA was not there but actors/singers who played them and sang there songs. I guess it could be described as a singing tribute play. The singers looked and sounded a lot like the actual ABBA. The boys, Bjorn and Benny, even played the instruments. Later I thought about it and wondered if any of the original ABBA was alive. Benny and Bjorn collaborated on the movie "Mamma Mia" so I know they are alive but I thought that if the girls were alive that they would have collaborated with the movie too. So either the girls are dead or have fallen of the radar and do not wish to be back on it.
I don't know if any of you like ABBA but I think they are awesome, their songs are fun and summery. My favorites are "Honey Honey" and "I Have a Dream".

Book #13

Violet Eyes by Debbie Viguie
195 pages
Popular Fiction
This is another one of the once upon a time series and it is a story of "The Princess and the Pea." Everything important in Violets life has always started with a storm; the day her brother was born, the day he died, before the year long drought, and when it ended. The story starts out with a storm and Violet knows something is going to happen, and it does. Prince Richard is on his way home from his one year bride hunt. Yes bride hunt, his parents want him to marry the most refined, sensitive princess ever so he has been visiting other kingdoms and giving invitations to the girls so that his parents can hold a contest to see who is the most fit to marry Richard. Richard just wishes his parents will back off. He is almost home when he sees the storm coming and he decides to go to the closest villiage to rest for the night, but on his ride there his horse trips and Richard goes flying and gets knocked out. The next moring Violet wakes up to Thomas, a neighbor who helps on the farm, screaming that someone is laying in the field and mostly likely is injured. Violet and her family nurse him back to health and when he wakes up he tells them he is the prince. As he is recovering he falls for Violet and vie versa. But Violet knows she would have to be a princess to marry him. After Richard leaves her mother falls ill and tells her that she is a princess. She was brought to them the night that the rest of the royal family was murdered, Violet is the true heir to the throne. After finding this out she rushes to the castle to join the contest and after explaining herself the King and Queen let her join. So she endures many frivolous tests with hidden meanings behind them, makes some new friends, and an enemy. In the end it is all down to Violet and Celeste, her enemy the one whose family killed hers. They are told to get a good nights sleep and will be told in the morning who one. But it is another test, a pea under twenty matteresses. Anyone with a good heart will have horrible nightmares anyone else is cold and evil. Obviuosly Violet won but when Celestes father finds out who Violet is he tries to kill her. The rebellion is put down and Violets parents come for the royal wedding.
There are some things in the book that are confusing like she says her brother dies but never says how and she seems to be a spiting image of her real mother, why didn't anybody notice?

2.23 Diction Exercise

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
a.) channels, Troops, dusty, marching, rich, orchards, bare, artillery, motor-tractors

b.) Formality: Unadorned, Simple
Connotation: Serious, Literal
Sound: Hushed, Voiceless
Concreteness: Delicate, Tangible

c.) The delicately hushed diction of Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms creates a frighteningly eerie scene of war.

Book #12

Boy Proof by Cecil Castellucci
203 pages
Questionable?? (Pop fiction or lit fiction)
This book is a little odd but I thought that it was very interesting. It's about a girl who calls herself Egg (after a character from a movie) and says she is boy proof because nobody notices her. She has no friends and she likes it that way, she always knows the answers, no matter what. She has seen her favorite movie, Terminal Earth, at least forty times. She has a shaved head and orange eyebrows and wears a white cloak instead of a coat, just like Egg. Egg from the story is not normal, she is ostracized from the crowd because of her odd looks and magnificent grades. But when a new kid shows up and doesn't seem to care what she looks like, Eggs abnormal world is going into a downward spiral into a normal atmosphere. At first she tries to fight it but when she gives in she realizes that she wasn't happy before but now with friends she is happier than ever. Which makes it even harder when she looses them all to arguments and accusations. Now Egg is trying everything in her power to become normal and get her friends back, she is even going by her given name, Victoria. While she has no friends to speak of, she focuses on her special effects makeup training, just like her dad. In the end Victoria gets her life in order, her friends back, and a boyfriend as a plus.
I thought that this book was a little weird at first but I warmed up to Egg and was rooting for her to get her life together again. She kind of battles the evils of Hollywood when her heroine turns out to be a total you know what, but finds the good in it when an actor helps her get her friends back.

Book #11

The World Above by Cameron Dokey
175 pages
Popular Fiction
I really like fairy tales, I know that most seventeen year olds want more mature stuff but I like fairy tales. End of story, and about three years ago I found this series that is all retellings of fairy tales and other stories. They are all pretty short reads but they do a great job of telling the story nicely. The series is called the "Once Upon a Time" series and is written by many different authors. They retell stories like "Little Red Riding Hood", "Beauty and the Beast", "Anastasia", and "Rumplestiltskin". They aren't like the fairy tales we got told as kids they are for teens. I like them because they are short but entertaining and great for a snow day. :)
This one is a retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk accept Jack is a twin and a mother and the family is actually royalty from the World Above. Another royal family murdered the father and stole the kingdom when the mother was still pregnant with the twins. When the twins are seventeen Jack trades the cow for seven magic beans that will take them to the world above. So they decide they are going to reclaim the throne. The girl twin, Gen, makes a plan but of course something goes wrong and she has to go save her brother. On the way she meets the dictators handsome but disowned son, who she falls for. In the end they save the kingdom banish the tyrant and live happily ever after, just like a fairy tale should be. I have all but one of this book series and I think thats about twenty, give or take. I highly recommend them for anybody who wants a quick read on a snow day.

Busy Week

So I am kind of behind on my posts but i've had a super busy week.
Wed.- work 3:45-9:00, homework, bed
Fri.- College visit, work 5-9
Sat.- MY BIRTHDAY!!! Laser tagging, friends over
Sun.- Family over
So As you can see I was really busy. I know I could have blogged on Thursday but I didn't have much else that was new and I was kinda tired of the tiny posts I gave to Book #10. But I got some new books for my b-day and I am really excited to read them so that will motivate me, hopefully. Family will be here soon. Ta ta :)

Book # 10 Done

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua
176 more pages
Nonfiction
So i was right, the mother does change but it's almost at the end of the book that she does. When Lulu started getting older she started to be more revellious and her and Amy would fight all the time. They went on a vacation to China, I think, whatever the place with the famous Red Square is. But anyway Lulu and Amy got in a fight and it was in public and Lulu said some horrible things to her mom and Amy screamed them right back but Amy was so upset I guess and she ran out of the resturant they were eating in. During her run she realized that if she kept pushing the violin on Lulu that her daughter would hate her and Amy would never hear her again. So when she came back she told Lulu that they were giving up the violin. Lulu said that she still wanted to play but just for fun, nothing else. And also she wanted to play tennis, and Amy wasn't aloud to help at all. Amy had a hard time adjusting to her daughter not being great at what she was doing but she respected Lulus wishes and kept out of it, mostly. She did research almost everything there is to know about tennis. When Lulu found this out she said, "Don't wreck tennis for me like you wrecked violin." After that Amy let Lulu practice on her own. And Lulu was motivated too, something that she learned from her mother. But now they are a happy family with two Samoyds, one of my favorite dogs.
Amy had been told by countless people that she neede to lighten up on Lulu and I think that that final scene at the Red Square finally made her see that everyone; Lulu, Sophia, her mother, her husband, and other family, was right when they told her Lulu was not Sophia. Not the same girl that Amy was, she marched to the beat of the own drum and Amy didn't want to see that.

Book #9 Completely Finnished!!

The Scorch Trials by James Dashner
45 pages
Popular fiction
I finished the book after I last blogged but I was too tired to blog again. So Thomas, Aris, and Theresa made it across the mountain pass and they see that the two groups are walking together so they run to catch up with them. By the time they catch up with the Gladers and Group B, the groups are stopped, surrounding something. None of the Gladers seem to be too surprised about Thomas being here and it later explains that one of the Group B girls told them what all happened. So the groups are surrounding a sign, it says, "Safe Haven" but it's just a sign in the middle of the desert. They can't decide if they should stay here until times up or if they should go explore, most of them think that this was too easy and something bad is going to happen, they are right. With about half and hour left, things start popping out of the ground. Giant white pods, resembling the ones that the Grievers slept in during the Maze Trials, come out of the ground, about thirty in all, surrounding the groups. Then they open. Everyone thinks that Grievers are inside but it is something even more terrifying. They have the general shape of humans but are floppy and disfigured. They have no hair or faces and their skin is yellowish and wrinkled. The creepiest part is that they have light bulbs under their skin at all the joints and virtually everywhere else and they are flickering. They also have knives somehow attached to their hands and feet. There is one creature for every teen. With only minutes left the creatures charge but when attacked they don't slow down, unless the bulbs are broken. When Thomas is finished with his creature a lightening storm comes, the one that strikes people down, dead. The only thing that Thomas can think of to save him is to get into a pod. Theresa, Jorge, and Brenda get in it with him and he hopes the others caught onto the plan. The lightening is striking the pod and just as their time runs out they hear something. They open the pod and a big helicopter like thing is lowering a ramp to the ground, they know it is WICKED. Thomas' group and most of the others make a run for it but have to fight more light bulb creatures to get there. The whole time the ramp is rising and they have to lean down and rescue their friends. A man from WICKED yells at Thomas for bringing two non Trial kids with them and that Thomas has to choose one to die. Thomas, thinking it is another test, chooses Brenda. But when the man starts taking her to the still open ramp he stops him saying that no on else will die. The man tells them that they will be safe now and they can rest. When Thomas wakes up he is in a padded white room with a voice in his head, not Theresa but Brenda, she says that things are going to get weird. Theresa then connects in his head and tells him that WICKED took him away because he was, "too far gone with the Flare." And that's the end of book two.
The creepy light bulb creatures really freaked me out when I imagined what they would look like. They were even in my dream last night, if these books ever become movies I think the thing I would be most scared of would be those creatures, definitely.

Book #9 Almost Done

The Scorch Trials by James Dashner
157 more pages in
popular fiction
So I last left off at the deal with Minho having to die. That was not actually the case, they ame to a compromise that Jorge, the Crank leader, would make Minho look like a complete fool. So Jorge chose another Crank to accompany them, Brenda, together they would get food and then sneak out of the town to go get the cure. One problem, when they were getting food some of the other Cranks came and blew up the area the Gladers were in. Thomas and Brenda got seperated from the others and they could only go through the underground tunnels and come out on the other side of the city hopefully reuniting with the other group. Brenda has a bit of a crush on Thomas and he gets really uncomfortable with it, which I thought was really funny. In the tunnels they run into some long gone Cranks who want to take their noses, who knows what they really meant they are completely crazy. When they escape them they find a sign, apparently there are many and they are posted all over the city, saying that Thomas is the real leader. The next morning they are above ground and run into another crazy group who want Thomas, but the Gladers find them and save them before the crazies kill them. Oh and in the escape Thomas gets shot in the shoulder. And the crazy thing is that WICKED saves him. He hears them talking about Variables and things that don't make sense. During the night Thomas has been having flashbacks about before the Maze. Ok back on track. Thomas and the Gladers are walking and Theresa shows up with Group B, the girls. They all have weapons and Theresa is really horrible, they take Thomas and he thinks this is what WICKED meant when they said he will be killed by Group B. He is very confused because Theresa is acting like she hates him and he did something horrible to her. He convinces the girls that they should not kill him. Later that night Theresa tells him to follow her. They meet up with Aris, now this is were it gets confusing. Aris and Theresa act meanecing and evil. They say that the whole thing with Thomas and Theresa was fake and that she is really with Aris and they were talking telepathicaly even in the Maze. Then they push Thomas into a chamber and he blacks out. When he wakes up she is at the door saying that it was all an act that WICKED told them to do it. Both groups are across the mountain pass but they only have a few more hours to get to the cure. Thomas now feels nothing for Theresa but knows that they need to get to the cure, soon. I only have about forty pages left and I am really confused so I want to figure what is true and what is not. If you didn't understand what I was just saying then look at older posts about this series and if that doesn't explain it then pick up the series and read it and maybe you can give me some ideas as to whats going on.

Book #10 Cont. Slightly

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua
30 more pages in
Nonfiction
Yeah I know it's a very small reading margin but I had to work a lot this weekend and this was about all I could manage, so deal.
Amy is second generation Chinese immigrant, I thin kI said that right. Her parents were Chinese immigrants so, yeah I think thats right. Anyway, Amy tells about her daughters and their instruments and it gets really intense. She threatens to burn all of her one daughters stuffed animals if she doesn't play the piano song that they were practicing perfectly. But then at other parts she says how proud she is of them for doing great things. Lulu was being very rebellious about playing the piano and so Amy switched her to the violin, and she is very good. Some off the things she says are just appalling like calling her daughter Sophia garbage. And then other times she seems like a completely normal mother, one who loves and respects her children. I have a feeling that she will change as the book goes on, I really hope she does.

Jawlensky and Werefkin by Gabriele Munter

In Gabriele Munters' Blaue Reiter painting, Jawlensky and Werefkin, the thick brush strokes and static movement create a quite, simple, country scene between a young couple. The nonexictant details in the painting, the blank faces and the plain flowers add to simplicity of the piece. The oil painting takes on the docile look of a watercolor painting. Since you can't really see what they are doing because they have no faces it looks sort of dreamy, not really in focus.

Book #10

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua
23 pages in
Nonfiction
So I haven't read much of this book yet but it is really interesting so far. It's about this woman, Amy Chua, who has two daughters, Sophia and Lulu, and she is raising them like the Chinese raise their kids... very strictly. The girls have never been to a sleepover, have a playdate, been in a school play, watched TV or play computer games, get anything less than an A, and choose their own extracurricular activities, just to name a few. She is the daughter of two Chinese immigrants and feels that the Chinese way of raising kids is the best. When Lulu was three Amy tried to teach her piano, because Sophia knew the alphabet in just a year, but Lulu wanted to slam on the piano like any other three year old. Amy didn't like that Lulu wasn't doing what she wanted so she stuck Lulu outside in the twenty degree weather to teach her a leason. Horrible isn't it? Mrs. K, the librarian who lent me this book, says Amy does way worse things to the girls, I can't wait to see what happens. This book has been in the news lately because people are criticizing Amy for what she wrote about and what shes done. She calls herself the Tiger Mother because she was born in the year of the Tiger and they are noble, fearless, powerful, authoritative, and magnetic, and they are supposed to be lucky. We'll see about that though.

Book #9

The Scorch Trials by James Dashner
158 pages in
Popular Fiction
This is the second book of the Maze Runner series, see Book #4, and so far it is amazing and somewhat horrifying at the same time. The boys are taken to a building and Theresa is put into a different room, because she's a girl. The next morning they wake up and the doors are locked so they break down the door. When they get into the common room they see their "rescuers" hung by the neck around the room. Thomas thinks something may be wrong with Theresa because she is not answering him in his head. When they get into her room she is nowhere to be seen. Instead there is a boy named Aris. He is from a group eerily similar to the Gladers but with all girls instead of all boys. The to groups had a parallel experience in the Maze, but more of the girls survived, haha beat that boys! Thomas tries to reach Theresa in his head but all he gets back are some mean comments and it sounds like Theresa doesn't remember him. So they are stuck in this room with no food for about three days. On the third day a man, who they call Rat Man, tells them that they have to complete the second trial and then they will get the cure. And oh yeah they all have this disease that caused the apocalypse or something like that. If they make it across this course into the safe zone they get the cure. The girl group is doing it too, but not with the boys. The desert is so hot and they are running out of food and water. A terrible lightening storm kills seven of the Gladers but they are in the town that they saw in the distance. It is filled with the crazy people who have the disease, the Flare, who call themselves Cranks. Thomas has made a deal with the leader that the Cranks will help the Gladers to the safe place but the Gladers must kill their leader Minho. That's as far as I've gotten so far but I can't wait to read more.
The things that the Creators are doing to these guys are just horrid! They say that they are doing it for the good of the people but I can't see how. They are almost torturing these poor kids and then killing their friends it just makes me mad, yes I know that it's just a story and hasn't happened...yet.

Three Minute Fiction

I read this short story called Departure. It was really sad. I'm not sure what is going on but it seems like something bad is going on with the father and mother. Almost like the mother was going to escape but then thought about her son and decided not to go. I'm not really sure but something seems off about the way she acts. Here's the link http://www.npr.org/2011/02/06/133542419/departure. Read it yourself and tell me if you think I'm right or it it's something else that you thought of because I'm kind of confused.

Reading in my tunnel

When we had those three days off I got really bored. Me and my brother dug a tunnel through one of the snow banks. We even got our dog to go through it. I'm not acctually reading this book ... yet, I am starting it soon. It is the second one in the Maze Runner series. The tunnel is coming along and we are expanding the middle like an igloo.

Book #8

Beastly by Alex Flinn
300 pages
Popular fiction
This story is a modern day telling of Beauty and the Beast, my favorite fairy tale. I have read many retellings of Beauty and the Beast and I think that this one is my favorite... so far. At the beginnign of each part there is an IM chat session thing between this doctor and a bunch of teens who have "transformed" into something odd. And all of the teens follow some kind of fairy tale. One girl is the little mermaid, and another guy is the frog prince. So the main guy, Kyle, is everything: hot, popular, and arogant. He is mean to this "new girl" who turns out to be a whitch. She sayd that his personality is beastly so thats what her will be on the outside too. One small thing though, he gave a rose to an unpopular girl and that made her night awesome, because of that small act of kindness Kyle has two years to find love and someone to love him as he is now, an ugly beast. Oh yeah and if he doesn't he will be a beast forever. His dad abandons him because he can't stand to have an ugly son, nice right. Kyle also changes his name because Kyle means "handsome" and he feels he is everything but, so it's Adrian now. He gets a tutor, a hobby, and some new feelings and unexpectantly he changes into a decent person who in the end finds what he needs to break the curse and make him whole.

I thought this was a nice spin on a classic fairy tale. It takes place in New York City and I like that it is in the point of view of the guy this time, it gives me a whole new perspective on the story.

Book #7 Done!

The Haunted by Jessica Verday
309 more pages
Popular Fiction
The Superbowl was boring so I finnished my book! And then I couldn't concentrate on typing cause I had Elton Johns' "Tiny Dancer" stuck in my head. It's one of my favorite songs so I had to listen to it like a bunch of times. If you haven't heard it then look it up and listen to it!!!
So back to the book. Theres a lot more supprises but this time I will not give into the temptation to tell so i'll just give an overview. Five new people show up that have to do with the whol ghost thing and one of them was Kristens secret boyfriend! Oh and for Abbey and Caspian to be together, Abbey has to die!! The new people also have something to do with that. Okay so I gave something away... I just can't help it!
I can't wait for the third one to come out, this one left off at a very suspenseful spot. I don't think that it comes out until next year though. Bummer:(
This book kind of reminder me of the Medtiator series by Meg Cabot about this girl who can see ghosts and has to help them move on but then she meets this one ghost who lives in her bedroom and take a guess they fall in love. It's really good and if you like Meg Cabot I would really encourage you to read it.

Crazy Snow

I thought that we were only supposed to get an inch today!!! Obvioulsy that was not the case. I hate driving in the snow, like today for example. I was driving home from work and I caught the edge of the road and that flung me into the ditch filled with snow on the side of the road. It took an hour, four guys, two snow shovels, and one truck with a hope to fling me back out. Yay!