BLAH!

This week I started reading Joker One. I'm not really a nonfiction type person; I eat up all the romance novels and comedies and such so a book on the military is really not my favorite. I really can't stand it so far and since I've read my 100 pages, I think I am just going to stop! The story line really isnt that bad. Its the accounts of a Marine as he becomes a platoon leader and about the struggles and memories he has of his men in battle. I thought it sounded good, but I don't understand about 75% of what he is talking about, which makes it a REALLY REALLY slow read... At the beginning, I was hopeful. The Marine gave a short reason why he wanted to write this book and he felt that his men had a story that deserved to be told. He kept saying how proud he was of them, and that he knows there are other Marines out there worthy of a story, but this book is about his men.

One interesting part, but also kind of cruel and gruesome, was one of the exercises they had to do in training. There are two platoons involved per round and one platoon goes and lies in a trench at the bottom of the hill. The other platoon has to manage to get over this double sided razor wire to get to the hill so they can climb it and have a mock attack on the "enemy." Being as smart as he is, the platoon leader decides to have his men go around through the nearby forest and stage a side attack on the unsuspecting trench waiters. They throw fake grenades that don't actually detonate to show the explosions that would go on. However, the main corporal in charge of all the platoons, nicknamed Ox, decides that this was not the route the men should have taken and makes them do it over again, this time going through the barbed wire. To cross the wire, 3 men have to sacrifice themselves as "flying squirrels" and lay across the wire so that the other men can walk on their backs! They get real gashes and awful wounds from being the sacrifice, but they have to do it anyways. And the corporal enjoys watching it!

How terrible. I would never do such a thing for guys that I barely know. Especially just in training. Anyways, the guy's home life stinks. He's been married for a year and his wife works all the time to keep her mind off the fact that her husband is never home. So they are both workaholics. Good thing they don't have kids yet or they would be growing up without either parent!

On that topic. I really feel bad for kids who are raised by nannies and babysitting or stay at daycare all day everyday. The point of having kids is to be able to enjoy them and spend time with them! When two workaholics have kids, no one but the child suffers! Sure they make big bucks to buy the kid whatever he wants, but what he wants most, he can't have. Before I have a family, I am going to make sure I can actually support them while being able to take time off and enjoy their young ages! They are only young once! Or if I can't, make sure that my husband is home often. My children will not be raised by a nanny. What's the point of even having kids if you aren't the one that raises them? Are they just supposed to cooperate when you feel like being with them? And all the times you don't, the times you choose work instead, they are supposed to be OK with that too?

Currently

This week I began and finished the Help. With a whopping total of 530 pages, I loved every second of it. That makes my etymology reading total 806 pages. This book has much more meaningful sentences than last week and here are my top three:

1) "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 quote because this is exactly what i got out of the book. I knew that there was no difference between races, but for the white women in this book to begin realizing these facts, it was an enormous breakthrough.

2) "The date is Friday, January 17, 1964. I have on a black A-line dress. My fingernails are all bitten off. I will remember every detail of this day." This is the day Miss Skeeter finally hears back from the publishing company with the wonderful news that they will publish her book. What a huge moment!

3) "Taking care of white babies, thats what I do, along with all the cooking and cleaning. I done raised seventeen kids in my lifetime." While Aibileen never gets any thanks for the work she does with the white women's babies, she takes pride of the job she does in her heart.

Helpless in Mississippi

Yeah, I heard about the civil rights movement in U.S. History last year and it made me feel awful about how African Americans used to be treated. All the violence towards them and they really didn't have to do anything to provoke white people, except exist. As I have been reading "The Help" I have found a better understanding of what really went on in Mississippi. These women, the hired help, basically raised white women's children for them but received none of the credit. White women wanted their baby to show off at first, but at the first stinky diaper, heck, they couldn't run away fast enough. They would punish the children not only physically, but emotionally as well. One dad would whip his 6 year old with a garden hose and they it was the job of the help to bandage, and ice his wounds only so the father could do it yet again. They were helpless to stop any of the cruelty. I love the humor that the African American women use. Although they were treated worse than anything I have ever witnessed, they still found ways to have jokes with the other help. One servant, Minny, has the attitude of a typical rich white woman trapped inside an African American body. At one point, a white man discovers that she is in his house after his wife had hired her to do the chores without telling him, she stands at the door and yells at him. He just happens to be holding an axe and she is convinced he is going to chop her into pieces. In other part, one white woman, who starts to become friends with the help, sabotages her snooty white friend who loudly declares her opinion that the help should have their own bathrooms to use outside of the house so that the whites don't catch diseases from the sharing of toilets. She edits the friends article that is to be published in the newspaper and has everyone bring their old toilets and put them all in the snobby rich white woman's front lawn. At one point, there is a count of 30 toilets just scattered all over. While this book makes you laugh out loud, it also tears at your heart strings when the women get honest about what exactly goes on behind closed doors at their work. One woman took in her grandson Robert because he had nowhere else to go. After he accidentally used a white man's public restroom because it was not displayed which was which, men attacked him and as a result, he lost his sight in both eyes. He was only a teenager. One maid steals a piece of unused jewelry from her employer so that she can pay for both of her twin boys to go to college. She has been saving for years to support them both but realized that she only had the money for one. She couldn't bear the thought of having to tell one of her boys that he is not going to college but his brother is instead. Even when she asks for a loan from her boss, that she promises she will attempt to pay back with each of her week's pay, the woman would not hear of it. In fact, she told her it was even more Christian for her to let the woman suffer than it would be to help her out. Snotty people just bug the heck out of me and its awful to see one human being treat another like the women in this book do. Its definitely one of the best books I have read in my life and I 100% suggest it to anyone that needs something to read.

Friday

I took that personality test and I got the result ESFJ. E= extraverted, which I already knew that I was. I love talking to people and hate sitting alone and keeping to myself. My friends are my life and I tell them everything. I'm not really that private of a person. S= sensing. I'm not really sure what that entails. And f = feeling, but im not sure what that means either. J= judging and I think I can definitely be judgmental so i'm surprised that didn't end up being higher.

Currently

Breathless by Jessica Warman

This week: 311 pages

Sentences of the Week:
1. "We called him 'The Ghost'." I liked the simplicity of the sentence and the how matter of factly she announced her nickname for her father.

2. "The only thing I know for sure is how to swim." Throughout the whole novel, Katie always has swimming to fall back on when the other people in her life fail her.

3. "I take a few minutes to stay in bed with my eyes closed, awake, wiggling my fingers and toes." This is one of my favorite things to do when I wake up in the morning. Just to stay in my bed a few minutes longer and relax.

Friends and Frenemies

Finishing Breathless really ended up being a disappointment. Throughout the entire novel, Katie hung around a popular jock named Estella. She knew she was an awful person and so did everyone around her, yet they allowed her to rule the school. Everyone still wanted to be her, or claim to be her friend. I don’t understand why people put up with others who act like they are “it on a stick.” If someone thinks they are better than everyone else, I choose not to surround myself with that person. Why would you let someone treat you like you are dirt 75% of the time, and like you are worth something only 25% of the time? This is such a huge problem in high school. Girls nominate themselves as popular and other people subject themselves to other’s self declared hierarchy. I used to be great friends with someone who thought she could walk all over me and say whatever she wanted. Her filter needed to be turned on. When I cut off that friendship entirely, I ended up having the best year of school I have ever had! I never imagined I could be so happy! If Katie had ever learned to take a stand against the horrible behavior from her supposed friend, she could have found happiness. She finds a connection with a fellow swim captain Drew that she lets sizzle out. Drew really cared about her, and all the other students could see that. I wish the author had let the book end with a huge blow up drama session between the two girls, but sadly she let Estella have the last word. And in the epilogue, she lets Estella still remain on top with the perfect job, man, and body. Katie is still unhappy and searching for what she wants in life. Not the ending I was expecting, and not an ending that I enjoyed.

LIfe with a Messed up Family

As i've gotten pretty far into my novel Breathless by Jessica Warman, I can't stop thinking about her family life. Her brother is in and out of mental facilities and snaps at random moments. He gets upset when his father, who the two refer to as "The Ghost" because he is never at home, catches him smoking on the roof. With this anger, he sneaks over to the neighbor's backyard and almost kills himself in front of them. Now Katie has been sent to a boarding school because her alcoholic mother and workaholic father don't want her living with them. Now my dad is quite the workaholic as well. He always seems to find more and more work that can be done, even though he goes in to work at 530 am and usually doesn't get home till around 8pm or later. Jobs in education really don't require that much work time, but somehow he finds that much to do, or so he says. Katie really struggles with her dad's absence to the point where she tries to give him a nickname that makes it seem like it isn't hurting her inside, but it is. Who willingly chooses not to have her father be an active part in her life? No one. While Katie dreaded this new school, she has found comfort in the fact that the people there stick around and are always there. Duh, its a boarding school. They really don't have anywhere else to go. She awkwardly bonds with her roommate Madeline Moon once she realizes that some peoples' lives are even more screwed up than her own. I just liked identifying with Katie on her views of her father, and I am curious to find out exactly how their relationship ends.