Looking for Alaska

Looking for Alaska, by John Green, is the coming of age story of Miles (Pudge) Halter who goes away to boarding school. It was on the page of her death that it happened. I found myself staring down at the dark crack between the pages, before and after. And I thought. This is where she died. How could he continue? To live and breathe with the crushing guilt that would get to so many. He is stuck in a labyrinth, a maze of problems and wrong turn. And in the end, was that the answer, his ticket out of the labyrinth of suffering? Forgiveness, but also growth, growth through maturity. Pudge grows so much during this book, transitioning from a nobody into a somebody, and all that time Alaska Young is leading him there.

In the beginning of the book, Pudge lives with his family in Florida. There, he leads a life fit for the vastly uninteresting, his only friends were the people he sat with at lunch by necessity. so he goes to boarding school to find the great perhaps. The last words of Francois Rabelais were “I go to seek the great perhaps.” And Pudge followed suit. In my opinion that’s where it all started. The moment he met Alaska, in that moment I knew he had found his great perhaps, and from that moment on he began to change. Alaska was “the larger than life creativity force behind it,” she did not force him to change, but rather push him into the deep end of a pool without telling him how to swim. Because of her life he learns to keep his head above water, as he struggles to become who he wants to be.

His next change is triggered by Alaska’s death; when she rammed head on in to a cop car without swerving. So many questions remained, was it suicide? an accident? She had been drunk, but too drunk to swerve? When he met her she said “’when you’re walking at night, do you ever get creeped out and even though it’s silly and embarrassing you just want to run home?’ it seemed too secret and personal to admit to a virtual stranger, but I told her, ‘yeah totally.’ She was quiet for a moment, then she grabbed my hand and whispered ‘Run run run run run.’” And that’s what she did; she pulled him in, as a person who he could find safety in, whom he could love, then spit him out new, shiny and battle worn with only the scars from his memory. It was then he began to take shape; it was then he began to take control. He stopped following people around like a puppy; he became his own person from then on. As they searched for the answer to her death, he started to play by his own rules. He wasn’t who the others wanted him to be, or the one that was never angry. He could speak for himself without agreeing. For example when the Colonel says “’we need to figure out where she was going and why’ he says ‘I don’t want to talk to Jake!’” He stands up for himself, and learns about his own limits.

By the end of the book, Pudge’s great perhaps has just begun. But in the beginning of the book Alaska read to him, The General and his Labyrinth and it said, “’he—that’s Simon Bolivar—‘was shaken by the overwhelming revelation that the headlong race between his misfortunes and his dreams was at the moment reaching the finish line. The rest was darkness. ‘Damn it,’ he sighed. ‘How will I ever get out of this labyrinth!’” this question follows Pudge throughout the book, morphing into the question, “how will we ever get out of this labyrinth of suffering?” He answers this question by saying forgiveness. I agree with his point but also believe that he forgot one small bit of it. Growth; he wouldn’t have been able to find his way out of the labyrinth a year ago. He would barely have begun to grasp the questions true meaning, because without experience you wander through the labyrinth unknowing. Alaska led him to not only the answer, but also to the question. Without her he would not have known that he was trapped in the labyrinth at all. Because of his seach for Alaska, Pudge was able to find his way out.

In the end, we are all stuck in a labyrinth of suffering. Sometimes we make mistakes and we must forgive ourselves, and the horrible mistakes we have made. And other times we must forgive others for the damage that is past. I think that the main lesson of this book, is that you cannot dwell in the past. Pushing forward is the only real way out of the labyrinth whether through forgiveness or acceptance, we must all grow up.

Red Sky at Morning

The book Red Sky at Morning by Richard Bradford is a novel about a young boy who, during World War II, moves from Mobile, Alabama, to Sagrado, New Mexico. There, with his father in the Navy and his mother drinking herself to incoherence he is left to his own devices. Because Josh has no responsible adults in his life he is thrown on his own inner resources as he learns to deal with the various challenges life throws at him. He must go to rehire his housekeepers when his mother, in a drunken fit, fires them. He is there for his mother when she is increasingly unable to cope because of her alcoholism and he deals successfully with the school bully by befriending him when he is injured.

His mother, who never truly liked the housekeepers, fires them and Josh has to step up and take the responsibility to rehire them. The mother fires them for a few reasons, but biggest was because she was drunk. The next day she says to Josh, “Excilda won’t be in today, will she?” and Josh replies, “No mother, you fired her.” His mother, along with her alcoholic friend Jimbob (who is living with them) had no right to fire their housekeepers and Josh goes on the long journey to their village to rehire them. This becomes a big change Josh’s amount of responsibilities in his house. Up until then he had been a child stealing wine from his parents, now he is the man of the house and it was his responsibility to bring the help back, especially as his mother is unable to cook or clean or manage the household.

Another way Josh shows his growth and maturity is that he takes care of his mother when she has a nervous breakdown. Upon arriving in New Mexico, she had begun to drink excessively. Finally Josh realizes that her drinking has gotten out of hand. He then takes the lead; he calls his friends parents saying, “I think she needs a psychiatrist, she’s acting funny.” He finds her a psychiatrist, and by taking these matters into his own hands helps both his mother and himself. Although the psychiatrist proves to be unhelpful this experience helped him figure out what he needed to do on his own. It is amazing that a boy of seventeen with no family support is able to confront and handle the fact that his mother is an alcoholic and even reach out for help for her. He shows a lot of responsibility when, after the psychiatrist failed he reaches out yet again to a lawyer so he can legally take charge of the household.

Doing all this without falling apart himself is a big feat for someone still at such an early stage of his life.

Lastly, he truly shows how much living in New Mexico has made him more mature by befriending an enemy. When Josh had first gotten to Sagrado, a boy named Chango had bullied, and almost killed him; but when Chango nearly dies himself, Josh acts like a mature adult and visits him in the hospital. Chango at one point chases Josh saying, “Hallo you sissy queer pendejo.” Although Josh has a very good reason to despise him, instead he stands by Chango’s side while he recovers, truly being the bigger person. By just visiting Chango once in the hospital, he sees that there is a whole other side to Chango. He sees his “family” side. This book shows us that all people have a part of them that they hide from their family. Surely most people would not say half of the things they say to their friends in front of their parents. Because of this incident Josh learns that we are all more alike than we are different.

In conclusion Josh’s move from Mobile, Alabama to Sagrado, New Mexico gives Josh a new sense of maturity and responsibility. He finds himself head of his house and has to fix some of his mother’s mistakes that she is not well enough to fix herself; and doing this while also solving his own problems is a big triumph for someone who is not yet acknowledged as an adult by society. He learns that all people (including the one you wouldn’t inspect) are the same inside, even if they seem different at first. But Josh manages to overcome all of his problems and find himself on this journey.

when she was one her favorite word was no,
when she was two her favorite word was won't,
when she was three her favorite word was can't,
when she was four her favorite word was not,
when she was five her favorite word was never.

when she was seven her favorite word was nay,
when she was nine her favorite word was don't

when she was twelve her favorite phrase was no way,

At thirteen she told me she couldn't
At  fourteen she told me she wouldn't

At the age of fifteen, she said Okay

Life lessons

Prompt: what are some questions/concerns you have about growing up?

When I first saw this prompt, the first thing I thought of was, dear god, when will this terrible stage of my life end. In TV all the adults spend their time laughing, and doing something with their life, but when I think about what my life might be like the answer seems so meaningless. I can’t imagine what life could possibly be like.

            

 Then I try to picture the other option. Doing something that I might possibly love, and all I can think of is stuff that would make me dead broke.

             

So sitting in class, all my dreams dashed I made a list. 

1   When will this hell be over?

2. Which is better, youth or adulthood?

3. Will I be happy with what I end up doing?

                

This list just made me more frustrated because instead of coming up with answers, I came up with more questions. I didn’t find any answers. This got me thinking about the whole exercise, what were we supposed to take away. Of course writing skills, but what else?

           

Can life lessons accually be taught to you? Or must you learn them through personal experience? many of the things that you learn in school are discarded after a few years of use. others last a life time.

Old Baz

We all are reading Romeo and Juliet, and so far for me the details are all mute. I feel like in many of the scenes I was not getting the full effect, I was only just getting the jest of it, nothing deeper.When I saw that watching Leonardo DiCaprio for two hours could get me extra credit I can't tell you how exited I was, maybe it was that thought, or maybe it was the fact that I was sure that watching this movie would explain it all. The movie was in short perfectly strange, mildly deranged and would not have been complete without a whole lot of guns.

You really got a feel of how they live their lives truly despising the other, of course you had to take into account the terrible acting that was done by the Montague boys, they get kudos for being just that bad.It made you wonder a little bit a bout Baz Lurman this movie was his creation, did he truly mean it to come out in this way?

When the movie first begins you zoom in and out on a television women reporting the recent events of horror, the next shot was of  the heads of the houses, Montague and Capulet rushing to the scene. You know that this must be one of those movies that gives you a short of the end first, before it goes into whats really happening.

Seeing this gave me a pit in my stomach, I hate that part of the title, the tragedy I have always wondered why they have to die. While watching this movie I got increasingly aggravated at both Romeo  and Juliet, Romeo for not seeing the letter from the priest, at Juliet for not saying something when she awoke to Romeo poised, about to down the poison.

The movie helped me see why they had to die, why they could never have lived. They could never have escaped their families while on this earth, their love only prevailing in the wost way possible. But for them, it may have been the only way for their love to work at all.

Thank you Baz, you really helped me out.

Marley and Me. (revised)

Let me get one thing straight, I am not the biggest fan of dog books; or animal books for that matter (even if many of you argue differently). Officially I have read three, Alex and Me , My Friend Flicka, and of course Marley and Me. When I read those other books, each was flawed in the way you might expect and animal book to be flawed. each one was either too sappy, or just not well written. This book did not over complicate the dogs life, nor rephrasing it to make him perfect. this book simply told you what the owners knew, the hilarious stories of the worlds worst dog.

this book also brings up an important point: mortality. most animal books are forced to end with the animal dying. That's what happened. Animals have so much of a shorter life span then a human. ours is long enough that sometimes we lose sight of it. They don't have that pleasure. for an Animal, especially a big dog, life can sometimes mean only ten years, they aren't given enough time to forget.

Plenty of people, from all over the world feel immortal at their prime, life becomes a game (a fun one at that), and feeling pain doesn't quite seem possible.

I was reading my book on the subway this weekend, and nearing the end of my book an old woman sitting next to me leans over and smiles, she says "I love that book!" I looked at her, her face was deeply wrinkled and her lipstick badly smudged. She wasn't immortal. I smiled back and engaged in a deep conversation about the book with her until my stop (basically comparing the movie to the book).

Around the middle of our conversation I realized that she thought I had never read the book before. Now to say that this was untrue was an understatement, I had read this book thousands of times; it never got old.

therre happens to be an episode o a show called Doctor Who, where there's this whole thing with Agatha Christie,  when he says how much he loves her books she shakes him off saying that soon they would be forgotten. And how wrong she was! It gave me an odd feeling to think that something that will out live us all is literature. In class we are reading the words of Shakespeare, the very same one that died five hundred years ago. the immortal, those who are going to outlive us all are not vampires, or zombies. It's the books.

Mentor Blogs

After reviewing most peoples blogs, i found out three things, 1) was the fact that many wrote for length 2) many many wrote for depth, and it turned out long; and 3)some people write for depth and end up with shorter posts that have more meaning then all the rest.

A good example of this is Tomin's blog, at first, he goes into what the poem meant to him and then explains his second take on the poem itself. after scrolling through his blog I found a few note worthy things. for starters, many of his posts were also poems. I read a few to discover that these were actually really good! my favorite was the revised version of hers, because it showed more than just anger but anger at her, for leaving.

Alberta's blog also stuck out to me, maybe its not only because of her posts, but because I can see the blog is one hundred percent hers. when you first see it your eyes are overwhelmed. nothing makes sense about the design, or the little comment thing under the blog title. Nothing relates to itself, but it is also totally Alberta's.

Lastly, I think Timothy's blog deserves mention because his responses are just screaming with his personality.  I can literally hear Timothy saying it as I read his posts. He also left a lot of stuff up for grabs, he didn't pick apart the meanings of every little thing. He gives you a starting thought or idea and lets you run with it, but does not necessarily reveal all.