Final Etymology Post

Well, this will probably be my last post ever. And its my 45th, so at least I get to end on a good solid number. I find the most time to read during the weekend. I can just pick up and book, and not have to move from the couch. I get totally absorbed into the world of my novel and I can't stop. This doesn't happen every weekend, because a lot of the time I am busy, but there's no better way to spend an afternoon relaxing than to be a couch potato with a good book. I also found myself reading quite a bit when I babysit. The kids seem to be in bed a good part of the time, so I would bring my book and get my 150 pages out of the way, just in case I couldn't make time during the week. I must read in silence. If I try to listen to music, i would end up singing along to the songs and would stay on the same page for hours. I always tell my best friend what I am reading and almost always, she wants to read it as soon as i am done. We've read a lot of the same books in the last year and I like being able to talk about them with her. I will most definitely be one of the old ladies who finds herself in a book club with a bunch of other older women who have nothing better to do on a weekday afternoon than talk about a book. I don't find it challenging at all to meet the requirement, and I honestly expected a bigger commitment than 150 pages.

So what now?

Well, i've kept up reading Her Mother's Hope and I truly recommend it. Obviously, i've grown to love Francine Rivers and every single novel that i've read of hers. She writes about the issues that no one else really wants to talk about, such as prostitution, abortion, abuse, and she loves to go into the grim details. She shows her viewpoint on the topic, and she comments on the hypocrites in society. I've never read an author who does this so well. I've had this obsession since I saw the movie Aquamarine, of dyeing a part of my hair aquamarine. For anyone who has seen the movie, you know what i am talking about. The three girls go on a shopping spree in the city and they all dye little sections of their hair this gorgeous blue color. Now, im not emo or anything, and i'm not usually one who tries to stand out too much, but this is something fun I just feel like doing. I am a total goody-two-shoes, so to do something that my parents wouldn't necessarily approve of intrigues me. This is all my senior year rebellion is going to entail. And i am so unbelievably excited!

I'd do it for love

I finally downloaded a blogger app on my I touch! I know it's the last week of blogs, but who cares. I've read some more of Her Mothers Hope and it changed quite a bit and got really good. Marta meets this man Niclas and she falls head over heels. They get married and he decides he wants to be a farmer because he lost his engineering job. Therefore he wants Marta to give up the boarding house she established herself. This doesnt go over very well. They live apart for like 9 months! I feel like Marta was right and Niclas was stupid to think there was money to be made in his new farm. But at the same time, im so happy that Marta found someone! She never thought she would marry because she isn't drop dead gorgeous. However, once she met this man, she began questioning if this is what love feels like, and her heart was doing flips inside her chest. I just can't wait for that moment. I cannot wait to find a man who loves me and cares for me and treats me right. And I can't wait to be all this and more for him. This is the greatest relationship/blessing God gives us and I intend to get joy out of it. Someone who can make you laugh, yet will be there when you cry. A best friend. I've been blessed enough to have found my best female friends, but I cannot wait to find those qualities in a man.

Currently

This week I read 150 pages and last week I read 193 making my semester total 3464 pages. I am reading Her Mother's Hope by Francine Rivers. Here are my 3 favorite sentences.

1. "One more thing I need before we leave, Frau Meyer. Marta slapped the woman hard across the face. That's for the mark you left on my sister. Gasping, Frau Meyer backed into the drapes. Marta slapped her across the other cheek. And that's for insulting her." All I have to say about this is YOU GO GIRL. Finally, a woman who makes a statement for somethings she believes in.

2. "Despite evidence of the beating he had given her, Papa insisted everyone attend services." Papa isn't ashamed of the beating he has given her, and makes her display her beaten face in public.

3. "I'd rather work for myself than work to put money in someone else's pocket!"

Oh Submissive Women....

Ive read even more of Her Mother's Hope and I love it even more! The jerk of a father sends his dreadful daughter Marta away to a boarding house/manner-learning school, which ends up being a scam. Marta, who has been harshly affected by her father's criticism, is full of spunk. The Leader Lady of the boarding house summons Marta to get her to make uniforms for all the girls. Marta charges her a hefty price, which is followed by an argument during which Marta stands firm and refuses to let this Lady cheat her out of her hard earned cash, like her father allowed to happen to her mother. I really admire girls who have spunk. They are so much more entertaining to read about than those ones who are submissive and passive to everything. Heck, if this father lived in the time of the Roman's, his wife would have poisoned him! For some reason now, women are so desperate to be loved that they take men's crap.

And yet again

Well I started my FOURTH Francine Rivers book this week! And i saw that Bakeface Space is reading the same one. Her Mother's Hope is amazing and its definitely one of my favorite of her books. Its about a girl whose father despises her and beats her and blames her for all of the family's problems. Like her brother flunking school. Apparently since she gets good marks, and her brother doesn't, its all her fault and she should be punished. Her father then makes her drop school and sells her to local people to do odd jobs like 16 hours a day. And she never sees a cent of the money nor is she allowed to inquire about it. Her younger sister is strikingly beautiful and her father treasures her. He would never hit her gorgeous face. Luckily the whipping boy of a daughter Marta, has some spunk and decides to stop taking her father's crap and leaves. She shows each of her employers how wonderful of a work ethic and skill she has and makes each of them love her. Her father also tries to send her away to this boarding school/manner-learning house which ends up being a total scam. Too bad Marta controls the place and tells the Leader Lady what she thinks. When the lady approaches her because of her amazing sewing skills, she charges the Lady a great sum and defends her hefty price. She is not about to let this lady cheat her out of hard, well earned money like her father always let be cheated out of her mother. I just love reading about women who have spunk. Its so much more interesting than women who are submissive to everything and take men's crap. Why don't they do like they did in Rome and just poison their husbands who got out of control?

Tribute

Well I started reading Tribute by Nora Roberts tonight. I'm hoping she can keep it PG because the last one was a little much. I read the first couple chapters and I really have no idea what its going to be about. Basically there's this myth that this girls grandma and this guy had a one night affair and then they committed suicide? I don't really get it yet. I stopped reading so I could go to Zumba and see Paranormal Activity 3. Now let me tell you, that movie is FREAKY! I have seen the other two and they were crap compared to this new one! There is so much more scary stuff that happens and its much more hands on than a stupid door slamming. This includes hair pulling, creepy grandma huddles, and playing ghost behind the babysitter's back. A little too much for me. But hey, it was a memory my best friend and I made, we've seen all 3 together. And it was totally worth the 9 bucks!

Close Reading Bingo

The best blog about diction that I came across was A Scrap of Parchment. My favorite sentence was "Furthermore, sentence fragments, such as, "One of those little English jobs that can do around two hundred miles an hour," destroy any last vestige of formality, further developing the aura of simply telling a story to a friend."

The blog Underwater has a #6 weakness in the following quote:"Therefore, the author uses tone to show the criticism."

The blog Peanut Butter without the Jelly has a #7 weakness in the following quote:"With the use of his realistic descriptions, the promt was easily visualized."

The blog New Zealander has a #9 weakness in the following quote: "They too convey the narrator's "crumby" perspective on others' lives and successes. " But instead of this, the person uses they, but its basically the same thing.

The blog T-Rex has a #2 weakness in the following quote: ""Turned toward the escalators, carrying a black Penguin paperback and a small white CVS bag, its receipt stapled over the top," describes the harsh clattering of the setting."

Summary

I finished reading The Atonement Child this weekend and I loved it. It is so much shorter than any of Francine Rivers's other books, which makes it a perfect choice for any readers new to her. The main girl roams free. She decides to move out of her house because her father wants to force her to have an abortion, calling the baby an "abomination." Her mother tries to voice her opinion that she needs to make her own decision, which splits her parents deeper than they have ever split before. They both try to undergo counseling, but the mother truly needs to be able to accept that she has had abortion herself and all the feelings that come with it. She has never been able to do so. The husband has never quite forgiven her for having a relationship with another man, much less another possible child. Luckily, the abused daughter finds someone who is truly on her side no matter what.

Response to the Catcher and Rye Excerpt

In the excerpt from "The Catcher and the Rye," Salinger's noisy, comical banter highlights his childish gullibility. Although he is a teenager, he makes no effort to compose in impressive vocabulary. He describes his childhood with the word "lousy" and a general introduction as "stuff that bores me." On the subject of his parents, he says "they're touchy as hell." Salinger has no boundaries as to what can be said; he lets Holden say what he wants about everything in life. Writing with such a low, familiar diction emphasizes how some teenagers truly feel about their home life and their story.

Currently

This week I read Love INC and The Atonement Child for a total of 615 pages, making my new semester total 3121 pages. I liked the style mapping of the following blogs: Intrusion of the Soul, Twilight, and Look Up... (Now). Look Up.. (Now) was definitely the most impressive of the class blogs I read because I felt like she actually got the point of the assignment. Most people didn't really compare the words, and if they did, they only used the words Mr. Hill wrote on the board. Or they just didn't do it at all.. Way to go guys. Look Up... (Now) used the phrase "devil-may-care" and "tangible" and I just loved what he/she had to say about the literary works he/she read.

Yet another book!

Last night, I began yet another Francine Rivers book, this one called the Atonement Child. Despite many books that slowly take off, with nothing really happening in the first few chapters except for the boring exposition, this one shoots off like a rocket! She gets raped within the first few pages. As if that isn't bad enough, her fiance has an awful attitude about how she isn't pure anymore, and makes her feel as if this whole rape thing was her fault. She just wants to forget it ever happened. But when she finds out she is pregnant with the rapist's baby, she struggles to decide if she should keep this ill-conceived child, or try to eliminate the fetus in an attempt to forget it ever happened. Such an awful position to be put in, and I feel for the people who actually have to deal with this sort of thing. Plus, she doesn't have a supportive fiance which makes it even more heart wrenching.

Style Mapping

The three novels I am observing are Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Shadowland by Meg Cabot and Chosen by P.C. Cast. Dostoevsky's course, grating diction highlights his wrathful Russian background. He refers to an apartment as a "garret in which he lodged" and transitions with phrases like "quite the contrary." Cabot's straightforward, colloquial diction displays her lighthearted attitude towards life which intrigues her more with every new case she faces. The main character openly speaks to the reader, telling him "I guess I should explain. I'm not exactly your typical sixteen-year-old girl." The use of first person narration, in addition to a lack of non-elevated words makes Shadowland an easy read. P.C. Cast's blunt, blog-esque diction of Chosen simplifies the mystical, bloodsucking plot of the vampires. On the opening pages, Cast introduces Nala, the cat, by saying one would think "she hung on my every word , which is soooo not the case." The main character has experienced many "sucky December twenty-fourth birthdays." Writing with such words brings the make believe world of vampires down to a level that an outsider can easily understand and relate to. The differences in diction for each of the novels epitomizes the story they have to tell.

Business for the Desperate

I actually had a little bit of down time this weekend and decided to read a book called Love, INC. Its about three girls whose parents are all divorced/not living together and they are forced by their parents to go to therapy. There, they meet each other and they soon discover that all 3 of the them are dating the same guy! So they make a vicious plan of retaliation and once people see how they handled it, they start paying them to play revenge on their relationships gone wrong. They also can be used for surveillance purposes, a match making service, or they can even mediate your breakups. These three girls do it all and get rich quick. They are each unique in their own way, and are hurting immensely from the problems going on between their parents. They are each struggling to date again after having their heart ripped out and stomped on by Eric the three-timer.
This book is totally different from ones i normally read. Its completely pointless and meant just for entertainment, unless a girl is desperate enough to take relationship advice from the book. Or ideas on how to get revenge. The problems people have and the fact that they would pay money to get someone else to take care of them is just pathetic. If some guy screwed me over that much, i would want to be dishing out the revenge, not having someone else do everything for me! Not that getting even is the answer, because sometimes its truly not the best thing. And usually it doesn't heal the hurt inside like you think it should.. maybe for a day, or even a week, but you are still going to be unhappy unless you can find comfort in someone else. And no, i dont mean another guy right away. The desperation of girls to have a man just makes me ashamed of my own gender. You will survive without a man ladies, i promise.

Pat TIllman

I just watched the documentary on the death of Pat Tillman and the cover-up that followed. I think its awful that the government can choose to contain whatever information they want from the Americans. And that they would use Pat Tillman's death as a opportunity to recruit others because of his "heroism." I know that I could not handle all the information the government knows, but covering up the causes of a son's death from his family is inexcusable.

Quarterly

This week I read 324 pages, making my semester total 2506 pages.

This quarter I have read some interesting books by some new authors. I ventured out and read a Nora Roberts, Francine Rivers and some non-fiction as well. I realized, although I already kinda knew, that I am definitely not a non-fiction type person. I also got a look into the rights of African Americans by reading The Help, a book which I enjoyed very much. Still haven't had time to see the movie though. I usually find myself reading at night, as soon as I catch up with my reading for novels. And i spend almost every friday and saturday night babysitting, so I read a lot once the kids go to bed. The reactions from the parents to the books I am reading is quite entertaining. Sometimes they have read the book and jump right in with Oh how do you like it? I liked this, this and this about it. When they saw I was reading Crime and Punishment for Novels, they were kind of worried about my mental state, until I told them it was for a class. Most of all, I think they are just impressed that a high schooler would bring a thick book to read instead of normal babysitting behaviors, like texting all night or watching tv. It just seems to be the perfect time to get some reading in for the week.

Believing the Worst

Well, since I didn't have to go to school yesterday, i made a lot of progress in my book and finally finished it today in my car as i waited before key club started. The pastor did end up repenting and seeing that all he was doing was to glorify himself instead of God. The problem was that it took 400 pages, including his wife walking in on his affair, his father dying, his son moving across the country, his mother staying distant, and the loss of all his friends for him to even consider that he might have done something wrong. And after those LONG 400 pages, there was a small 25 pages that detailed how he repented and got his wife to come home and asked for forgiveness of all the people he had wronged. classic story book ending. I was just really disappointed in the fact that there was almost no description as to how his heart changed and I didn't really feel like it did. I felt like his wife was just submissive as she had been the whole novel and went back to him. And that the forgiveness he asked for from all of his friends was just an act. Maybe thats because i tend to believe the worst in people, and i just wasnt convinced of his "volte-face' HAHA etymology word! Bonus point!
On the topic of believing the worst in people, I just want to clarify a little. I am all for forgiveness and such but this week has just been awful when it comes to people. My counselor is totally giving me the cold shoulder and hasn't contacted me back in over a week, despite my constant nags. One of my good guy friends decided to yell at me in public for something that didn't even matter, and still hasn't apologized. One of the guys that i liked for almost 3 years decided to get in contact with a girl that goes to my church and i'm super freaked out that he's just gonna show up one day. and my best friend's teacher is refusing to give her any help when her grade is slipping and she has done nothing but try her best from day 1. Bottom line: people just frustrate me sometimes. and i'm sure I frustrate people sometimes, but seriously. People just need to be nice. Because going off on someone gets you nowhere, it only adds more unneeded tension and stresses you out.

Developing the Preacher

I have continued to read And the Shofar Blew with much interest. I know that I had been hoping for a change in the preacher, but one just hasn't come yet. He has actually gotten progressively worse! It just makes me so angry and I want to go scream in his face myself and tell him to get a clue! But I have a feeling he wouldn't even care. Plus, he is a fictional character and nothing I say can change the course of the already written book.

My mom says that sometimes a loved one does all they can to get through to someone, but it just doesn't work. God has a plan for them and he, in his time, will make the person see the light and realize the wrong they have been doing. But only he can control this. I feel like this is definitely what is going on in this book. His poor wife can only say so much, but he refuses to listen to any of it. He just doesn't believe he has done any wrong and that it is all his wife's fault. Stupid boys.

If this book doesn't end with a change in his heart, I am going to be devastated. There are these darling old people in the novel who have befriended the wife and son, and are trying to do the same with the preacher, but just haven't gotten through. Nice old people just make my day. I worked the band competition this last weekend and had two senior citizens come through with this supposed "senior pass" that isn't even real. They had to be 90+ years old. They were holding hands and walking in to see their grandchild perform. We let them in for free and it was just so cute. It gives me hope that love can last forever and I just hope that my husband and I can last that long and still want to hold each other's hand.

Currently

I am now reading And the Shofar Blew by Francine Rivers. I read 155 pages this week, making my total for the semester 2182 pages. Here are my favorite sentences from the quarter.

1. "She doesn't like me to put her down outside. Especially when... other d-o-g-s are around."

This sentence is from The Search and I just have to laugh every time I read it. People's treatment of their dogs can be so over the top and I want my dog to interact with other dogs, not be terrified of even hearing the word "dog."

2. "My job description was twofold: 1) Save lives and 2) Take lives. Not necessarily in that order."

This is from Joker One and I like the sentence just because it makes me think about things I don't like to think about. Murder. Death. Guns. Or all of the above.

3. "Wasn't that the point of the book? For women to realize, we are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as i'd thought."

This is from The Help and I just love the idea of women in the times of slavery realizing the fact that should have been obvious to everyone. Color doesn't matter; we are all human beings.

Shofar Blowing

Well, I decided that the Assassin's Gallery was a little too boring for me. Maybe it would have gotten good eventually, but a book needs to take off from the beginning for me, or I never gain interest. I picked another Francine Rivers book called And the Shofar Blew and have fallen in love yet again. This one is about a man who is called to move and be a preacher at a broken, old people's church with less than 50 members. When he arrives, he starts trying to build the church up to meet his dad's extremely high expectations. But along the way, he treats his wife and child like dirt and completely takes himself out of their lives, submerged himself in his preacher duties. He also refuses to listen to anything the elders say, which results in their leaving the church.

The cover has a picture of this bugle looking thing, which i'm guessing is the shofar. I don't really know how the title is going to play into the book. I just went and saw the movie Courageous. For those of you who haven't heard of it, it is about 5 men who commit themselves to being the best fathers they can be. They each have their own problems that make them realize how much God is in control and how they need to make the most of the time they have with their children. These men are police officers and experience violence on a day to day basis. Most of the felons didn't have a positive father figure in their lives, which is what makes the men want their children to have an exceptional father. Connecting that movie with the horrible father figure in this preacher just depresses me because he doesn't know how much of an impact his absence has on his kid. I can only hope that throughout the novel God is going to change his heart and make him realize that his wife and son are most important and that the number attending the church matters nothing if they do not have strong beliefs.

Plotting

I've started a new book this week called The Assassins Gallery. The book starts with a chilling, gruesome murder of two CoastGuard members at 4am. I'm only about 50 pages into the novel, but it seems like the book is going to be about terrorism. One man is in charge of training spies to go over to America. But while he is training, there is also a secret mission going on at the same time. I love mystery novels but I feel like this one is about to go into the government and political hierarchy and it may get kind of confusing and boring. I absolutely HATE politics. They are a complete waste of time to discuss and the two parties, well those are a joke. Any person can stand for whatever they want on any particular issue. Just because your "party" normally votes one way doesn't automatically solidify your beliefs in that area. I just think debating all that nonsense is pointless, because in the end, the people in office get to make the decisions. Us back at home complaining isn't going to change it except for the one time of year where we get to vote, and most of us aren't 18 anyways, so we truly can't change anything.

This may be weird, but I find people's motives for killing other people interesting. I like to take a peek inside their brains and just see how they see the world. And see their way of handling issues and how they justify themselves so that they can sleep at night. I know that I myself could never bring myself to kill a person, so the motivations behind other people's attacks interest me. And assassins do this for a living! Where this book will take me, i'm not really sure, but i'm still looking for a book to do my book talk on, so maybe this one will be worthy. I'm not about to waste my valuable time making a movie for a book that no one else should waste their time reading. That defeats the whole purpose of the assignment. And if the books stinks, well, i'll just drop it and find another. There's too many books out there to settle for a lousy one. This theory works for men too :)

Currently

This week I read The Search by Nora Roberts, for a weekly total of 488 pages. That makes my semester total 2027 pages.

1. "She doesn't like me to put her down outside. Especially when... other d-o-g-s are around."
This quote just makes me laugh to think of how much people love to coddle their dogs. This lady in particular has brought her dog to training school because she is so aggressive, yet the owner is completely oblivious to why she would act in such a way. DUH! She's a dog, not a child. She is perfectly capable of standing on her own four legs.

2. "He strode to the window, slapped the palm of his hand against the sparkling glass. 'Leave it,' he ordered, pointing to the smudged print he left behind." Simon, the boyfriend, gets so angry that his live-in girlfriend Fiona is cleaning his house. In order to make a point that he cannot be trained, he makes this print on the window and makes sure that she does not clean it off.

3. "I have the name and number of the vet who's covering for Mai, I have your number -- hotel, cell, Mai's cell, Sylvia's cell. So does James. We have everything. In triplicate. Between us, I think we can handle anything short of a nuclear holocaust or alien invasion."
This is the part of Simon's personality that I love the most. He makes everything into sarcasm, and that is exactly what uptight Fiona needs. She doesn't even have any kids, just three dogs who run her life, and she has done months of planning for one 3 day spa vacation with her friends.

TMI

Staying up until midnight, I finally finished The Search by Nora Roberts. As the serial killer drew closer, I was expecting some big shindig of a showdown between the victim and her killer. I didn't get what I expected and that greatly disappointed me. Usually in a scary movie, the best part is the confrontation at the end where the victim is in disarray and the predator is pausing to chat before he finishes her off. However, almost all movies end with the victim alive, which makes it pretty predictable.
I've decided not to do this book for my book talk solely because there is so much sexual content, my rating has changed to R. If I was the author, I wouldn't have chosen to add all of that unneeded information, but apparently Nora Roberts thinks it adds to the story line. It just makes me feel uncomfortable to read so I normally try to just skip over it.
I will probably give Nora Roberts another try in the future because I really liked the story line and the topics that it talked about. I just hope I can find one that isn't R status.

Searching

I was hunting through the library for another Francine Rivers book, and I turned around and saw shelf after shelf of Nora Roberts books. I had heard of her books before, but never tried one. Interested, I picked a few up and looked at them and decided why not branch out and try some random new author? She's won numerous awards, so hopefully she doesn't disappoint. I decided on the book, "The Search" because it's cover looked the most intriguing and foreboding of mystery because it has a dog barely visible through the fog. Everyone knows that you actually do judge a book by its cover. Whoever came up with the saying "don't judge a book by its cover" was obviously not an inventive person and his cover sucked, so he wanted people to read his book anyway. Sorry sucker, I wouldn't read it.

I've gotten into a good chunk of it, and i've decided that the title "The Search" really umbrellas 3 different searches that are intermixed into one completely awesome novel. First, there is a woman who trains dogs to find missing people in the woods, and really any weather or nature related element. You grow to love the dogs and their successful missions. Another search involves a convicted serial killer who has passed on his secrets of the trade to another prospect, who has been released, and is following in his master's footsteps for one reason and one reason only. To correct his most deeply upsetting mistake. And this mistake? Letting his thirteenth victim escape. So obviously, the search is out to find this woman and finish off what his master couldn't. A third search is the search for love. Now, I would have to give this book a PG-13 rating. There are quite a few moments of sexual content, that really the reader could go on without reading, but apparently Roberts feels the need to include them. However, despite the random spurts of romance, the reader grows to love and feel compassion for the two lonely souls and their unexpected need for each other.

I'm thinking about doing this book for my book talk. I had thought about doing a book called "Au Pairs" by Melissa De LaCruz, but I don't think the Jersey Shore meets New York genre would make that good of an impression on our class.

More later as I get farther into the book

Currently

This week I finished Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. I recommend this book to anyone who loves to watch a change inside a person's heart. My weekly total was 375 and my semester total is 1539 pages.

1) "My job description was twofold: 1) Save lives and 2) Take lives. Not necessarily in that order."

This sentence from Joker One just makes me think of things I can’t comprehend myself doing. Killing other people as job.

2) "Wasn't that the point of the book? For women to realize, we are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as i'd thought."

I love this line from the Help. Finally, she makes the statement that skin color does not change what goes on inside a person.

3) "We called him 'The Ghost'."

I really like the simplicity of this sentence and the fact that I can identify with how she feels when her father isn’t home very often.

Honorable Mentions

In Pride of Cincinnati's Summer of Love, the guard's vibrant, chaotic sound, complimentary choreography, and explosive, passionate expression create a scene of colorful eccentricity. -The World is Ours

In the album art for United Paper People‘s Kisschasy, the foreboding colors, overwhelming space, and perilous actions reflect a sense of destructive loneliness and irrational wonder. -Intrusion of the Soul

The painting's gritty texture, balanced use of space, selective use of colour, and dark tone leave the viewer a sense of depressing realization leading to a climactic finish. -JimmehFTW-

My favorite was the one done by Bookworm Days. I loved the right side of the claim the most and I think her gymnastics cool to observe. " During her routine, Shawn Johnson displays powerful tumbling, gracefully swift dance, intense expression, and representative attire; which sets forth a confidently energetic, yet cheerful routine. "

Love Will Keep Us Together?

As i've gotten further and further into Francine Rivers's novel Redeeming Love, I have gotten further sucked into the story line. I feel the character's presence and actions as if I was watching it all unfold in front of me, a quality of a well-written novel. The main character, Sarah, or Angel, or Mara, or anything else that she is called by her "customers" thinks she has absolutely no purpose in the world but to give men what they want. She was introduced to prostitution early on, like when she was 8 years old, and she heard her father tell her mother that he left because he didn't want her. He doesn't understand why her mother couldn't have just gotten rid of her. And even when she is 8, her father's mind hasn't changed about her. From there, she is sold into a brothel by a "family" member and when she tries to get out, she is just forced back. No one, except people in her hometown, know what her true name is. While the whole circumstance of this book is depressing, the part that really gets to the reader, well to me at least, is the fact that she doesn't think she deserves more. She thinks that love is a joke, and her father, and all the men that have said they love her during their brief 30 minutes with her, have allowed her to make this assumption.

While I think that prostitution is wrong and demeaning to a woman's self confidence and self worth, this girl, Sarah, has never known any different. She never got a choice to choose a better life for herself. She truly believes that she was made to sell her body. And she's not living the luxurious life by any means! This lady, the Dutchess, is in charge of her and takes 100% of the money while Sarah is locked up in a tall tower. If she tries to fight back, the hunchman, Magowen, beats her near to death.

However, one man sees Sarah in a completely different light. He thinks she is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen and he wants nothing more than to marry her and make her fall in love with him, for real. Sex isn't his motive, which he makes clear to her almost every single day. Lead by God in all of his ways and thoughts, this man is dedicated to helping her love and respect herself.

I know how I hope this book will end, with her changing her idea about herself, and loving this man back, and them having children together who she loves more than anything in the world. But in this book, Sarah is just so damaged and concrete in her beliefs that this truly seems impossible. Her only hope, and I strongly believe this as well, is that God will transform her heart and make her into a person she will be happy to be!

If I were this man, that feels God leading him to do this, I don't know if I would have the courage. To chase and dedicate my life for a woman who is respected by no one? Who is so broken and only knows how to please someone one way? Who tries so hard to make him like her, but can never truly be happy herself? I'm frustrated for him just reading about all of it! Why God would have anyone suffer through all of this I have no idea, I truly don't. I guess it is just a result of the free will he gave people, and unfortunately, her mother and people she has been handed off to over the years have greatly abused the privilege! Heck i'm only halfway done and so eager to finish, if only I didn't have to read the Grapes of Wrath for novels :( Its awful people, don't read it if you don't have to.

Individual Response to A SAND CASTLE!

I chose to evaluate the
Shape : arched, curved, hollow, church-like, sloped

Color : vibrant, enhancing, scattered

Design: stacked, open, majestic, consistent

My overall claim:

The hollow, church-like presentation of the sandcastle highlights the convincing superiority over typical sand creations.

Poet of the Month

I tried searching for Jim Moore, but the only other poem I saw off Google had like 6 LONG paragraphs. So i skipped that one and moved on to a different poet. I chose Mary Oliver instead. She wrote the Wild Geese poem that we read in class. I loved that poem. I felt like she was really talking to me with the use of the word "you" over and over and over. I chose another poem by her, Breakage, to copy into my moleskine and I like it quite a bit too. Especially the ending line "Then you begin, slowly, to read the whole story."

Currently

This week I read "River, Cross my Heart" and part of "Redeeming Love." This makes my etymology total 1164 pages.

Favorite Sentences:
1) "The girls' raucous laughter as not muted by the shrubbery that lined the C&O canal towpath, and the seven pairs of bare feet simply walked westward toward the Three Sisters." This sentence creates a wonderful, relatable picture in my head of me and my friends laughs carrying through the neighborhood while our bare feet leave footprints in the dirt. Sounds like such a fun night.

2) "The heart-shaped head ducked beneath the surface and boiling water closed over it. " I feel like this one needs some explaining. Johnnie Mae is cooking on the stove and she sees her sister inside of it, with her hands outstretched, trying to get Johnnie Mae to save her. I feel like this could come right out of a scary movie! Love it.

3) "Johnnie Mae knew she had at least a split second to leap onto the coat and burrow her face down into it. " I can clearly see a little girl sticking her face into this enormous fur coat just to be able to feel the warmth and comfort of it around her face.

Parallels

After reading the Help, I got into a sort of book depression. Nothing else matched up to the greatness of it, and I didn't know what to do. At this point, I was reading My Antonia for novels class, which was an extremely boring book, and was just bummed out. Then I chose to read "River, Cross My Heart." It is a book written during the same time as the Help, but from a much different circumstance. In this one, a little girl dies in a river under her older sister's watch. The story tells about how the older sister, mother, and rest of the town are struck by her sudden death. The older sister, her name is Johnnie Mae, falls into a deep depression where she doesn't even want to move. She is so overcome with nightmares and dreams that her neighbor gets the town herbal remedy provider to make her a "concoction" to help her get sleep.

I can't imagine having my brother die when I was supposed to be watching him. I don't often have to take him along when I go and hang out with my friends. But that is what Johnnie Mae has to do all day, everyday. Johnnie Mae sees her sister drowning in the river and tries to dive over and over and over to find her sister's body and pull her to the surface, but she cannot find it. This river is said to be haunted in a way. The town refers to it as the Three Sisters because 3 sisters, nuns, were said to have drowned in the river and now take prisoners by their ankles whenever someone goes swimming. Most know not to swim in the river, and so does Clara, the youngest sister. However, when standing on a log over the river, the log breaks and she falls in. This seems to always happen in movies! Someone walks a little too close to a steep edge hanging over a 500 foot drop, and suddenly the rocks break beneath them. Or maybe a person is walking backwards and doesn't see the drop-off behind them and falls to their death. Who knows. I just know that it happens a lot and its very predictable.

Speaking of predictability, I was sitting watching Parenthood the other night on NBC, AMAZING show for any of you who don't watch it. Well one daughter on the show is around 17 and she is dating a guy who is about 22, but is a recovering alcoholic. Sweet, sweet guy. He has totally turned his life around. Anyways, Hattie, the 17 year old, wants to go to this high school party and she wants her boyfriend to come along, but her little brother suggests that Alex shouldn't go because if there is going to be alcohol there, that would be bad for him. The little brother's name is Max and he has Aspergers and is crazy intelligent and lacks a filter to tell him what is appropriate to say to others. Ok, the application is coming, I promise! So Alex decides that he isn't going to go, but he will pick Hattie up at the party and they can hang out afterwards. OF COURSE the rest of the story line is predictable. Hattie gets totally wasted, Alex comes in to get her, and has to punch a drunk guy who won't let Hattie leave. You just know that if something is telling you that something is bad, bad, bad, that someway, somehow, someone is going to get tangled up in that mess.

Anyways, its just interesting to see how different story lines overlap, but go in completely different directs with the rest of the story line, but also how one incident can connect to so many others in other types of entertainment.

Currently

For this 100 pages only, I am reading Joker One. Makes my total 906 pages.

1) "My job description was twofold: 1) Save lives and 2) Take lives. Not necessarily in that order." I can't imagine being in a job where my performance, which was measured by the men i killed, affected the lives of so many others.

2,3) "You can't think of home, you can't miss your wife, and you can't wonder how it would feel to take a round through your neck. You can only pretend that you're already dead and thus free yourself up to focus on three things: 1) finding and killing the enemy, 2) communicating the situation and resulting actions to adjacent units and higher headquarters, and 3) triaging and treating your wounded. If you love your men, you naturally think about number three first, but if you do, you're wrong. The grim logic of combat dictates that numbers one and two take precedence." I just can't see myself ever getting into that mindset. Ever. I couldn't imagine getting shot, but if I was in war, thats all I would think about. 24-7. 365.