Book Report: Eclipse

Eclipse is the third novel in Stephenie Meyer’s popular Twilight series. Meyer wasted little time giving previous details and jumped right into this third book. Just as the other two previous books of the saga this book is also very easy to get lost in. Eclipse carries on not long after New Moon left off. Bella’s high school graduation is approaching and she will soon be leaving Forks forever, she is supposedly to go to college, but in reality she is planning to join her boyfriend in his vampire existence and will be unable to return home, due to being dead and possessed by a terrible blood lust for the first few years.The book goes through graduation but then the dangerous vampires from Seattle come to Forks and dealing with them dominates the rest of the book. This is only one part of the story though. Eclipse is primarily a romantic saga, so Bella and Edward’s relationship is the primary focus of the book. Though there is this weird love triangle going on between Eward, Bella, and Jacob. Bella and Jacob have always been friends, at least they were - right up until Jacob became a werewolf. Then the enmity between vampires and werewolves put a huge strain on their friendship. Besides which, Jacob is in love with Bella, who is in love with Edward so this is going to make things awkward between them. At this point, Bella has found her soul mate in Edward but Jacob is the soul mate she should have, could have, would have had if Edward didn’t exist. She loves him too but not as much as Edward. I don't exactly know why she loves Jacob though. He knows that she loves Edward but Jacob still tries to make her feel guilty that she can’t love him like he wants her too. This only shows that he is the younger one with such a immature approach towards trying to get Bella's heart. Though this book is over six hundred pages it sure didn't seem like it. I still read through the book in a couple of days because I couldn't put it down. It is interesting to think about where the next book will take me in this story.

Assignment # 13: Halloween Haiku

Haunted houses, scary masks, trick or treating, lots of candy eating.

Costumes representing secretive inner feelings of each person.

Time for laughter and superstition for everyone on Halloween. 

Assignment # 12: The Black Cat

The symbolism of the story The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe is something that we all can relate highly too. For example in this story the man is very kind hearted and caring at first, then things take a turn and the man shows a more violent and dreadful side, which everyone can relate to because though we mostly choose to show our kind, loving sides, we still have this capability to be violent and deceiving. In this story the man goes from kind and loving towards his favorite cat, Pluto, to hateful towards everyone, even his wife. He especially showed the most awful actions towards the cat. He gouged out one of his eyes out and then ended hanging it. Though, after all those things that black cat seemed to haunt him. Everywhere he went seemed to remind him of Pluto. The symbolism of the first cat in this story, the second cat, and the white spot on the second cat shows and expanding capability evil can have in people.

Though the entire story is filled with things illustrating symbolism, the most important symbol of this story is illustrated by the first cat Pluto. This is because Pluto, which also is the name of the god of the underworld, was first to show the evil in the man. Though, as the man started out loving the cat dearly, as his attitude changed his love for the cat started to change rapidly. The cat changed from following the man’s every step to avoiding his every encounter with him. This frustrated the man, to see that his cat even noticed his evil becoming when he avoided him, so the man gouged out his eye so it couldn’t see the clear indication of the man’s evil heart. This only made the cat avoid him more and then one day the man couldn’t take it anymore so he hung it with a noose to a tree showing the man wasn’t proud of showing his evil side and he couldn’t take that the cat he had once adored and loved was now the isolated victim of his unruly actions.

Soon after that the man’s house burnt down and only one wall remained standing. When they viewed what was left of the house the wall that remained standing had a shadow figure of a cat with a noose around its neck on it, and this was the beginning of the first cat, symbolism of evil, haunting the man. One night after his house burnt down he noticed another black cat and the only thing to really show that it wasn’t Pluto was this white patch on its chest. This new black cat followed him home and wouldn’t leave him alone. This black cat symbolized the guilt the man carried with him because of the killing of his first cat. His wife fell in love with the cat and so she decided to keep it. Every night this cat would sit on the man’s chest as if to physically show the guilt of the man sitting on his chest constantly.

The second black cat resembled the first one in every way and the man seemed to think about it all the time. The only way the man knew that this in fact was definitely not the first cat was by the white spot on its breast. Though, as everything else in this story, it too seemed to symbolize something as well. This white spot was ironically, also in the shape as a noose. All of these things only reminded the man even more of the innocence of his first cat, his evil actions of his when he killed it, and the guilt the man carried on his chest everyday of his life.

Those are the three most important symbols of this entire story because they are repeatedly expressed throughout the entire story. Pluto is the first symbolizing of the man’s evil heart and dreadful deeds. The second cat shows just how much the guilt took over the man’s life from the day he met it to the moment the cat exposed the man to the cops when he killed his wife. Then finally the white spot on the second cat’s chest to remind and also punish the man of the evil he had did previously to the first white cat. All of these slowly helped the man pursue into madness as his evil tasks took over everything and every action the man made, and this story illustrated his path into insanity in detail.

Basically in every aspect of this story by Edgar Allan Poe, it illustrated that if you feed or enable your darker side of you to grow stronger than your better side, the resultant – more often than not, being inexcusable - will come back to haunt you. Which will only then, force you to see that, though it might be harder to do well, one would rather not experience the tiresome and revolving consequences of choosing the worse, more easier routes.

Assignment # 11: The Concrete Rose

Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete?

Proving nature's law is wrong it learned to walk without having feet.

Funny it seems, but by keeping its dreams, it learned to breathe fresh air.

Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else ever cared.

That is right you poor little unfortunate child. You will never amount to anything. Your future is already set, and it is set to fail. You could never and will never amount to as much as those rich kids will, you don’t know what they know, and you can’t do the things they can. You are from the wrong side of town so how could it be that you dream to attend college, don’t you know that’s not for you. Don’t you know that where you belong is in the streets or the penitentiary? Don’t make me laugh talking the nonsense of changing your life, saying that you can actually succeed. Success shouldn’t even be in your vocabulary you should just stick to what you know and stop trying to go against the path of nature.

This all might be what the “top – notch” big shots might say to the person having to fight for every piece of bread they get to eat. To the people going through the extremes just to get that associates degree. Living on the west side, does that mean all that hatred also applies to me? Guaranteed not, no matter what anybody says your future is not set at the time of conception. Where you live or who your parents are don’t etch your life in stone. They may be the building blocks for which you look back upon and thank but what makes you, you is every action that you make. Whether you choose to go that extra mile or sit back and just take things as they come every outcome of your life depends on you.

I believe this is what Tupac Shakur was saying in his poem the concrete rose. He talks about how the rose that grew from the concrete defied the law of nature, relating it to a person doing something great even though the whole world is set to bring them down and hold them back. This also relates to all the things in his life that he sings about. He was thought to be a failure and to end up without anything to be proud of but he took his opportunities wisely and went into one of the hardest professions to get into and he not only did his job well but he was so good at it that people are still singing his songs years after he died. He had the ability to see through all the hatred and misleading accusations and teach people with his music. He turned around every negative thing in his way and made it into a determination to prove that what society believes today about success and wealth only has to be true if you choose to make it true.

If I was to go around every day and believe what other people had to say then I don’t believe I would have even made it this far. People can’t let anybody tell them how their future is going to end up. The future of one individual relies only on that specific individual. Though, people are so egger to keep you down because nobody wants to be a failure by themselves. Also society has no hope in our youth, which is kind of ironic because, though, our youth only makes up twenty six percent of our population, they are one hundred percent our future. Basically, then, if we can’t have any hope for the youth then we don’t have any hope for our future. Which brings me back to what I stated earlier, nothing in life depends on where you come from or who you come from, but rather how you take all of those things and set it to be how you become whether they be negative or positive. Nothing in life is impossible unless you make it impossible. You are what you believe, and if you believe in the worse then that is the only outcome you will mostly see in life. Though, if your beliefs are only those of good like Tupac Shakur’s then you can have anything you want no matter what it is. The feeling to show off what you have even though so many people have doubted you is a feeling like no one can imagine. I’m not saying to through it back at everybody rudely, but to show that you weren’t that screw up and you got through so much that person probably has never even came close to, is like heaven with all your dreams come true.

So if Tupac Shakur can make it to the top, whatever that might mean, when society held him down means that no body, not a single person can use the excuse of not being good enough, because the things worth having are the things that we have to work extremely hard for. Nothing in life is free until you have reached your highest potential, and there can’t be a set potential because success, learning, and achieving things will never end, those things will never have a limit in life.

Book Report: New Moon

New Moon is the sequel to Stephenie Meyer’s novel Twilight. This novel is a good enough book to read on it's own but I think that you will get a better understanding of the story and what is exactly going on if you have read the first book also. New Moon is always going to be compared to Twilight and people who are expecting this book to be essentially the same as Twilight may be disappointed. Twilight had an almost dreamy, fairytale quality to the writing, which this story lacks. The Cullen family of vampires are also absent from this book for a while as well. Though this book is boring compared to Twilight I still really enjoyed reading it. New Moon is narrated in first person by Bella and has an obvious parallel with Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and I mean obvious because even Bella recognises that she is in danger of playing out history’s greatest romantic tragedy. I think keeping Romeo and Juliet in the forefront of the readers mind actually helps the author build the tension for the climax of the story because we can all see the tragedy that is waiting to happen. The pain that Bella feels when Edward leaves her is extremely well written and is really what this story is about. Most of the things that happen to Bella in New Moon are as a result of the overwhelming loss that she is trying to bear. Her friendship with Jacob has a doomed quality to it not only because he obviously loves her while she is in love with Edward but because he is a werewolf and he naturally hates all vampires. The rogue vampires Laurent and Victoria return to Forks. They are looking for revenge against Edward but they only find Bella. The Quileute werewolves are an exciting addition to the story and it will be interesting to see how this plot line is developed in the next novel in this series.
I stayed up reading this book because once I was caught up in the story I couldn’t stop reading. I’m sure I’m not the first person, and won’t be the last person either, to say that about this book. I would recomend New Moon as well as Twilight to anybody. It is very interesting how both books can pull you into them so quick.

Book Report: Twilight

Twilight is the story of Edward and Bella’s romance. Twilight is so unique it is almost like it’s in its own genre. The book is aimed more towards the younger readers but it has the ability to cross age barriers and will satisfy both teenagers and adults alike. The story is told in first person from the perspective of Bella, so the reader only ever knows what Bella knows, making Edward and his family a mystery that is slowly unravelled through out the book. Even by the end of the book I was still wanting more, more detail of the Cullen family back story. Bella herself is a well written and realistic character, shy and lacking in confidence, her sarcastic inner voice narrates the story for the reader. Twilight is simply and yet beautifully written. The descriptions of Forks leave you feeling like you can almost smell the damp air and hear the rain falling on the roof. The romance between Edward and Bella is both touching and compelling. There is a melancholic feel to their impossible love, yet at the same time they both are unwilling to give up hope that their relationship is not doomed. The book reaches a fever pitch of excitement as the romance between Bella and Edward turns into a frantic race to stay alive. Twilight is a vampire story for people who don’t like vampire stories and I think I would agree with that. This book really has something for everyone. Young adult readers, vampire fans or romance readers will all find Twilight to be an appealing story. For a Young Adult reader I thought that I wouldn't be able to finish the book since it was so long, but eventually I couldn't even put the book down. This was one of the better books that I have read and I cannot wait until I finish reading the last page of the last book to this Twilight Saga.

Book Report: The Lost Boy

Imagine a young boy who has never had a loving home. The only things he has are the old, torn clothes he carries in a paper bag. The only world he knows is one of isolation and fear. Although others had rescued this boy from his abusive alcoholic mother, his real hurt is just beginning there, all alone since he has no actual place to call home. This is Dave Pelzer's sequel to A Child Called "It". In The Lost Boy, he answers questions and reveals new adventures through the compelling story of his life as an adolescent. Now considered an F-Child  or in other words a Foster Child, Dave is moved in and out of five different homes. He suffers shame and experiences resentment from those who feel that all foster kids are trouble and unworthy of being loved just because they are not part of a actual family. Tears, laughter, devastation and hope create the journey of this teenager who searches desperately for just one thing. Which is the love of a real family. Here he tells his story from the time he left his abusive mother and alcoholic father, through his experiences in five foster homes and juvenile detention, and how he eventually made it into the Air Force. He was a defiant, rebellious boy who, despite his background and personality, managed to endear himself to many guardians, social workers, and teachers. Pelzer writes in an honest, sometimes rambling, style; he is never bitter, and his story will find many sympathetic readers. However, he leaves many questions unanswered which may appear in the third book, hopfully, dealing with his adult life.

Assignment # 10: Bullying

Thirty percent of U.S. students in grades six through ten are involved in moderate or frequent bullying, as bullies, as victims, or as both according to the results of the first national survey on this subject. Bullying is increasingly viewed as an important contributor to youth violence, including homicide and suicide. One out of four kids is bullied. The American Justice Department says that this month one out of every four kids will be abused by another youth. Surveys show that seventy seven percent of students are bullied mentally, verbally, & physically, and fourteen percent of those who were bullied said they experienced severe reactions to the abuse. One out of five kids admits to being a bully, or doing some "Bullying."

You hear about all these situations where kids have been bullied so bad that it has resulted with suicide. Some cases don’t always result with such devastating circumstances, thank god, but any case of bullying is unacceptable. Barely being seventeen I witness plenty of bullying in school. Since I have always been tall I haven’t really experienced any bullying towards me, probably because being taller than everyone else wouldn’t result necessarily with being the victim. Though in elementary school I do remembering not being “socially accepted” with the kids when I would do well in any of the curriculum. So sometimes I would hide what I knew when a teacher asked a question.

Once I got to middle school I went from kind of getting bullied to being the one that occasionally bullied. I guess what I am trying to say without looking bad; though being a bully looks bad in general, is I wasn’t the usual do what I say or I’ll beat you up bully but I just went along with what my friends did and said to the other children at school. I didn’t stop to think about how I used to feel when I was in elementary and just thought how great it was now to fit in with the “cool” crowd. Then again I didn’t really realize I was being a bully since I thought at the time that a bully beat up kids, but now I noticed being a bully can range anywhere from verbally, mentally, or physically.

When I got to high school I thought that the bullying would end there. Since everyone would be more mature and everything. Little did I know it hasn’t changed at all. Sometimes I think it might have even got worse since the bullying went from more verbally to physically. I don’t know why but some kids just enjoy picking on other people. They even seem to enjoy it more to see someone cry or run off feeling like crap. I get along with a lot of people at school and when I see someone picking on someone else I am definitely not afraid to tell them to knock it off. Sometimes that just causes more problems for me but usually I can handle it more than the poor kid getting picked on can. Plus if I can get the kid to feel a little safer at school or to even just feel like they have a friend then maybe I can prevent something worse from happening.

Eight percent of students miss one day of class per month because they are afraid of the bullies at their school. Forty three percent fear harassment in the bathroom at school. A hundred thousand students carry a gun to school. Twenty eight percent of youths who carry weapons have witnessed violence at home. A poll of teens ages twelve through seventeen proved that they think violence increased at their schools. Two hundred eighty two thousand students are physically attacked in secondary schools each month. More youth violence occurs on school grounds as opposed to on the way to school. Eighty five percent of these cases do not look for any type of intervention.

I feel really strongly about this topic and I believe this is very unacceptable. How could someone go to sleep at night knowing that they are the reason that a kid killed themselves or that they are the reason that a kid is very antisocial and hates the world. School should be a place to have fun, a place to get away from all the bullshit that every day brings, and to not even be able to feel comfortable at school, hell I don’t even know what I would do.

This is a major topic that can’t be handled lightly. People have turned their back on these types of things for too long already, and we can’t be allowing kids to be going through this and killing themselves over the hateful and selfish people that bully them. People can help because one voice won’t make anything but a murmur, but if a million voices spoke up maybe we could end this once and for all. There are plenty of websites to help people just have to open their eyes and look.

 





Assignment # 9: Alien Contact

I am sitting outside drinking my evening glass of vodka and orange juice with my wife, and it is just late enough that the sky is a mixture of violets, oranges, and yellows. This is my favorite time of the evening. It is fresh and still light enough to see every detail of the earth. We usually stay out here until it gets too cold for our bones to handle.

This evening seemed a little different though. It seemed as if the night was getting dark pretty fast. We didn’t think anything of it though and continued with our conversation, laughing and reminiscing. Before we knew it, it was already pitch black outside and the only sounds we heard were the songs from the crickets. We decided to go in now that the midnight chill was finally getting to us when suddenly our backyard seemed to light up again as if it was already morning. My wife and I looked at each other then at the sky. We could see a bright light to the west of us. It was very odd looking and my wife suggested to just go inside, but I wanted to know what it was. The next thing I see is it ZOOM across the sky and stop over the field just behind our house.

My wife is now pretty freaked out so I tell her to go inside so I can go to check out just what this weird thing is. Never in my eight five years of being on this planet have I seen anything like this. It seemed to be something not from this world, and this only encouraged my curiosity even more. I have to admit as I get closer and closer to this thing my nerves seem to be pulsing even faster through my body. For a moment I thought it might just be the vodka but then I remembered that my wife had reacted to the site of this thing also. I am now just about ten feet away from it when I see something or someone coming out of it. I stop dead in my tracks; eyes wide open as I can’t believe how odd this, this creature looks.

At this very moment the fight or flight response kicks through my veins as I think of turning to run back to my house, but before I can even turn around this thing is right in front of me. This seems like a scene from one of those science-fictional shows and I cannot seem to think of something to say. We just look at each other for a while then I slowly turn around. Which turned out to be a bad idea, because now I have this creatures fingers wrapped around my arm. My thoughts are scrambling as I try to figure out what it is, because there is no way this can be an alien since everyone knows they don’t exist.

I say hello hoping that I can get a response from it other than just this creepy silence. Though it only seems to get quieter. So I just look down feeling as a prisoner since I can’t undo this tight, though not suffocating grip. When suddenly my heart felt like it was going to come out of my throat when I heard my new “friend” respond with a Hi. That’s it I know for sure now that this is only the vodka kicking in. So playing along with my drunken illusion I ask what it was. The thing simply responded that it wasn’t from this planet and it is only here for a short period to help out.

Thinking I could escape my illusion by going back inside my home I ask if it wants to come in. When we get to my back door my wife is peaking through the curtains. That is when I realized it probably wasn’t the vodka because my wife’s eyes are as big as a baseball. I kind of regret going to check out things since I now have no explanation to what everything is, though I keep my offer and allow this thing into my home. Not knowing exactly how to greet this thing my wife offers it with a cup of coffee. It politely declines the offer and starts explaining just what it is doing here, and since I’ve been around for so long everything it is saying makes total sense. Over the years I have noticed the simple and somewhat colossal changes our earth has taken, and it seems that creatures outside of our planet have too.

It explains that over the years they have noticed the drastic changes we have done to our planet and they can’t sit back and watch us destroy it anymore. I get a feeling of disgust as I slowly start to understand that we have forced the earth to be something it isn’t, therefore slowing we are being the cause of its death. I think of how sad it is that we have done so much wrong that even life from other planets are here now to fix it.

To think that we stress over things to only help make us happy when we are slowly killing the only place we have to live only show signs of immaturity and selfishness. I can’t believe that I haven’t thought of this before. It seems to me now that I have just walked through my whole life blindly as I sit here and listen to every mistake we, as life on this planet, have made. How ironic it is that the things we seemed to fear to interact with before are the only ones to help us now. The only thing that I can say now to this creature is how or what we can do to help reverse our damages. He simply replies by saying “Before you are no longer who you claim to be, you need to change the way you see, because that is the only way you may continue being who you want to be.”

Assignment 8: The Necklace

As in many stories, The Necklace has many, many morals you can acquire from it. The most abundant moral I got from it was that material things aren’t everything, and being greedy gets you nowhere.

The woman was given a beautiful dress as a gift and it's not enough, she soon needs more. Later on her greedy actions come back to haunt her when she must replace a borrowed necklace and ruins her and her husbands life in the process.

This story is a perfect example of how karma might just work out for you when you are a greedy person. It’s obvious from birth that it isn’t good to be greedy especially because people don’t like greedy people. Trying to empress people with illusions of you with marvelous things only digs you deeper and deeper in a hole of lies until, finally you can’t get out. I believe that the marvels of the world are only what you make of them; therefore depending on perception, a million dollar gift could have the same value of a gift that cost only a penny. It just depends on how close to the heart the item is to someone.

Many people can see right through lies so trying to show off ones false riches to be popular only helps you to be unaccepted with others. Also material things and approval of others are always going to be there, even if it is a day from now to a million years later, you will always get a chance to empress. Therefore, focusing on the materials just allows the irreplaceable things to slip through your fingers.

In my everyday life I use the common morals from The Necklace often. I see the consequences of being greedy and I would much rather avoid them in every way. I also take time to appreciate all the little things; the things that I’m not promised will be there tomorrow. Sure I like to have the wonders of the material life too but I would never sacrifice any of my prized possessions for it.

Material things are just that, they are only material which can be found at anytime. If you are greedy of the things you want much rather than the things you need them soon you will find yourself lonely and struggling. As for me of the few things I am greedy of, not wanting to struggle and be lonely is one of them, I would much rather have nothing and have everything that I need than have everything and nothing that I absolutely need.

Assignment 7: My Self-Value

“Jealousy is simply and clearly the fear that you do not have value.” The beginning of Jennifer James’ quote states exactly what she wanted said. She jumps right into the point. She states that jealousy is only to prove a point, and the only alternative is self-worth. This quote that she stated has a high morality. I believe though there are many different morals people can get from this quote the main one is be yourself, and to empower the best not only in you but in your peers as well, and you will be the one that everyone else will envy. When I read this quote this is exactly what I extract from it:

Jealousy is only what one has when they don’t have the potential to do what someone else can do. There is no need for jealousy, the only reason it exists is to make the lazier, less of a worker person feel better when they notice the excellence and extensive achievements of another.

Now maybe that person does their best to show off but most often than not they are simply doing it just because they can. So why surround them with musty envy? You should be the first person to congratulate them on everything they have done. Though before, you must be able to look at yourself with the utmost worth as well. If you cannot love and appreciate yourself how would you expect others too? If, for you, it is always just a coincidence and you doubt yourself then that leaves only that much more room for others to doubt you also. This in return will probably have you result back to jealousy.

So stop noticing everyone else, which is not going to help you reach anything. Find what exactly it is that causes you to be jealous and achieve those wants. As soon as you figure out how to turn that jealousy into something positive for you to push from, than people will start looking up to you. But don’t just do things for the approval of others. They aren’t the ones benefiting or getting set back from it, you are. You do things for yourself, because achieving your goals will only allow you to be able to help others with theirs.

Though success is everything that everyone is looking for it isn’t as great when it is only you experiencing it. I believe that in any relationship your job is not only to push yourself to do the best but to encourage the other person, because only then is when you can truly celebrate together.

If you are stuck on what everyone else is thinking than that’s just going to be three steps back for every step you take. Who in their right mind is going to want to work that hard when work is already hard enough? Do exactly what it is that YOU want to do and finally you will get the right attention from the right kind of people in the end, and you can realize how unpleasant jealousy is.