Blogging Reflections

What did you learn about yourself as a reader from creating and keeping up with your blog?

I learned that I often end up thinking asking questions about why characters act certain ways, and why people act in certain ways. I also often question the motives of character that we perceive as wrong and try and decide whether that is actually true. I also found that I like books that have interesting questions in them. I usually have more to say.

In what ways did you benefit from the experience?

It forced me to think about books. I would often start my blog post with one idea, and as I started to write, my idea would change, and ultimately I would have to re write the post because my ideas had totally changed. Sometimes I would be reading a book I thought I had nothing to say about. Because I had to do a blog post I would just start writing. All of the sudden I would discover some theme or lessen to take away from the book that I never would have seen before. It also increased my writing stamina. I started this project barely able to write a page. Now I find myself going way over that and having to cut the entry down because it’s too long. I also used to think writing a page typed was really hard. Now, if I know what I want to say, I can do it in a half hour.

Is writing online different than in a notebook?  In what ways? In what ways can writing online be liberating?  Limiting?

It is so different. Personally, I prefer writing my computer. It is easier to edit for one, I don’t have to deal with erasing and crossing out. I can write something, hate it and delete it. I am the type of person that revises as they write. The negative flip side of that is that sometimes you just need to write everything down and revise later.  I also type faster then I write so I like that as well. I also feel like I have more control when I am writing on line. I know that sound weird but it is true. I can always go back and change my post if necessary. I also control the setting the blog is viewed in. I also like that I am not just writing for the teacher. Other people will read the work and that is motivating.

Do you think that people are more real online or do we create online personalities that project the best of ourselves? Or something else?

I think that we have the capability to edit ourselves online. Having said that I don’t think we necessarily do that. In fact, often people are less edited online. I am not exactly sure what a person’s real self is. I don’t think they are more or less that online. I think some people try and project their best selves while others don’t. I think we often try and project the person we want to be seen as.

Do you think that teenagers abuse the freedom that being online gives you on sites like facebook? Do people type things they would never say to a person's face? Do you think this is a good or bad thing? Why?

I think that people say things that they would never say to a person’s face online. I think the general lack of voices and faces on the internet is a bad thing. It is absolutely more convenient and I believe it should exist. Having said that, important conversations should never be had on facebook. Arguments, confrontations, and other such things need to happen face to face, or at least on the phone. The anonymity facebooks gives you and the other person allows fights to go on forever. You never have to face the other person’s emotions if you are online. Some people argue that you can articulate exactly what you want to say, something you can’t as easily do in person. The problem with this though is that people don’t because they don’t view the person they are arguing with as another person.

Can you imagine yourself keeping up this blog or creating another one?  What would it be about?  What's your opinion of blogs in general and why?   

I am not sure I could see myself keeping up with my blog. I might try. I don’t think I will create another blog. I do have a tumblr though. Actually I have two. One is for images I take. The other is a doctor who tumblr. Usually I think blogs are really cool. They are interesting and fun ways of spreading information and images, or just talking. Sometimes they can get obnoxious though. 
(Also, a link to my doctor who tumblr for anyone interested: http://thenesteneduplicate.tumblr.com/ )

Sorry I couldn't resist :) Ignore it if you don't watch doctor who.

I Have a Neurotic Mother

I am currently reading Vaclav & Lena by Haley Tanner. The first half of the book is the story of two ten-year-old Russian immigrants (Vaclav came here when he was four, and Lena came here as a baby, but was raised by her grandmother so she went into kindergarten speaking only Russian) living in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn in around 2003 (that’s a guess, they don’t provide actual dates). The second half of the book fast-forwards 7 years later to when Vaclav and Lena are 17. I have just started that bit. 

A character I think is really interesting is Vaclav’s mother, Rasia. She did everything she could to get her son here so he could have a better life. Rasia is often bewildered, perplexed or frightened by American things. She finds Vaclav’s new skinny jeans weird and when Vaclav says he is going to Ozzie’s, she asks who this Ozzie person is and if they are a drug dealer. At first I just found this hysterical. Originally I thought it was simply because of how badly Rasia misinterpreted what Vaclav said. Then I started thinking about it more. Vaclav really just has a neurotic mother.  This is something I can relate to. As I kept thinking about it, there are a lot of ways in which Vaclav’s mother isn’t so different from an American mom. She is hates Vaclav’s girlfriend, she is always really worried about him, she makes him do his homework every night, and ultimately, she really just wants what is best for him.

 I think that often, we look at people who are from a culture that is different from ours as something foreign or alien. We see that they eat different food then we do or have different customs and we back away. We get so caught up in all the little details that are different, that we forget about the big picture. Even as cultures or mannerisms change, there are certain things that we all share. Our values may rank in importance differently but they are still all there. We are all ultimately human. We all care about people and want things and have hopes and dreams and fears. We spend so much time picking out all the little things that make us different from someone else, that I think we begin to forget about all of the things that make us the same, and those are the things that really matter.

The House of the Scorpion, Clones and Doctor Who

I am currently reading The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer. The book is about a little boy named Matt who is actually the clone of a rich drug lord, Matteo Alacran. While most clones are, by law, altered at birth so they have no intelligence and can only stand around and drool, Matt was not, because Matteo Alacran didn’t want him to be. So Matt feels like any other 7 year old boy, but when the general population of the house finds him, they put him in a pen and treat him like he is the most disgusting thing simply because most clones are like that.

Our group is only about fifty pages in, but this book already raises some pretty big questions in my head. Specifically, what does it mean to be human? Matt is not seen as a human. He is seen as animal or beast. He is not even considered a “he” but an “it”. I think that Matt is a human. He lived until he was seven like any other human boy would. He is just as different from Matteo Alacran as one identical twin is from another. He has his own memories and experiences to make him his own person. It is our memories that make us who we are. Matt has a life and memories and experience different from Matteo Alacran, and he is therefore his own person and definitely human.

This made me think about an episode of Doctor Who I watched recently (don’t judge me). The episode was called "The Rebel Flesh". In this episode, the characters meet a group of people who are using copies of themselves created from a special type of matter to stay safe while working near dangerous chemicals. These copies are temporary bodies the real people control like puppets and only exist while in use. That is, until a big storm comes are the copies become entirely individual people with control over their own minds. But they have the same memories as the people they are copies of, up until the moment the separation occurred.

I couldn’t help but ask myself if these people were humans who should be allowed to live as well, or if they were just matter and a collection of stolen memories that should be killed. After all, they are going to want to go home and live the lives they were living in the memories they unintentionally stole. It is very clear to me that these people are alive, but I am not sure if they are human. I believe that our memories are what make us who we are, and these copies have no true memories of their own. At the same time, it isn’t their fault that they are an exact copy of someone else. They didn’t choose to take someone else’s memories. I don’t think you can kill the copies. They are human and they didn’t ask to be what they are.

I think the point of all of this is that it isn’t how you are born or the way you are born or even if you are born that make you human. They thing both the clone type character have in common is that they believe they are human. If you have a real and true belief that you are human, then you are, and should be treated as such.

Psychopaths Rule the World

I am currently reading The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson. The book is about psychopaths and the author’s journey through discovering more and more about them. Psychopaths rule the world. 1% of the world’s population is psychopathic but 4% of corporate CEOs are psychopaths. They can’t feel empathy or remorse and while this can lead to great economical success (even if it is not through entirely moral ways). It also leads to mental institutions and prison. In the author’s first encounter with a psychopath, he meets a man named Tony.

Tony is a psychopath who got put in a mental institution when he pretended to be crazy to get out of jail time. Once he arrived in the mental institution it was determined that he was actually psychopathic, not crazy. Tony has been trying to get released since he first entered the institution. Evidence presented by the author of the book shows that being a psychopath is most likely a physical deformity in the brain rather then a mental illness. It is even believed by some people that it is genetic. There is currently no known therapy to treat psychopaths. Tony has been in the mental institution for four years longer then the seven year maximum on the crime he commit, with currently no chance of release.

This question has been bothering me since I first read about it. On one hand Tony has served his time. I don’t want to feel empathy for a man who can’t feel it himself, but I can’t help but think how strange it must be for him. He has been in jail since he was seventeen because he made a stupid decision. The crime he committed was not particularly psychopathic. He could become a regular functioning member of society. But he is also a psychopath and that can’t be cured. 25% of prisoners are psychopathic but psychopaths commit 60% of crime in prisons. They don’t learn from punishment, and Tony’s experience in the mental institution wouldn’t stop him from committing another crime. He is a danger to others because of the way his mind works. Its wrong to lock him up but it is probably for the greater good if he is locked up.

If I could release Tony I don’t think I would. I really and truly feel bad for him. At the same time if he went out into the world to kill someone, it would be on my hands, and I don’t think I could live with that.

Seeing Inside Your Head

I am reading An Abundance of Katherines by John Green. The book is about a boy named Colin who was a child prodigy and is slightly socially awkward. He goes on a road trip with his friend Hassan and they end up in a small town called Gutshot where they meet Lindsey. Lindsey is popular in her small town but isn’t an airhead. She is also a social chameleon. She fits into whatever situation she is put into. When Lindsey and Colin are sitting and talking, Colin asks Lindsey “Do you every wonder whether people would like you more or less if they could see inside you?” Colin thinks they would like him less, or at least the Katherines (Colin only dates girls named Katherine, hence the book title) would like him less because they always seem to dump him when they get to know him. Lindsey thinks that people would hate her because they would see through the façade she puts up in different situations to the real her.

I think the whole idea of people seeing you on the inside is really interesting. I think that there would be less animosity and hate in the world if we could see inside each other. We would be forced to see the humanity in everyone. That being said, I don’t think I would want people to see inside my head. I think that my head is my place. Lindsey isn’t just a social chameleon because she wants to fit in. I think she puts on different aspects of herself for different people so that no one can get to close to her and that private place in your head stays that way. Colin seams pretty upfront. Even so, he hides certain things. He hides his failures and how emotionally tormenting they are for him because that is one part of him he doesn’t want people to see. I think everyone has at least one of those.

To answer Colin’s question in the beginning, I don’t know if people would like me more if they saw me on the inside. Part of me says no and the other says yes. It is hard to tell. Even if showing me on the inside would make everyone love me, I don’t think I would do it. I don’t want to entrust that much of myself to anyone. So, do you every wonder whether people would like you more or less if they could see inside you? Would you let them if you could?

This Blog Post Has Been Banned

I just recently finished The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman. The book is incredibly complicated and I am not going to explain the entire plot to you! The book does take place in a fantasy world in which the church runs basically everything, and they appear to be very corrupt and controlling. This is a really controversial topic. Philip Pullman paints the church as an awful politically motivated body that tries to eliminate anything that could remove their power.

When the book was published, I know this caused a lot of controversy. People said that they didn’t want their children reading this because of what it implied about religion and the legitimacy of God as a perfect being. People said they didn’t want a child reading the book because they didn’t think it was “appropriate content” for kids. This is ridiculous. All of the content in this book is appropriate for any child over the age of eight. The real reason that people don’t want their kids reading this is because it gives a world-view different from their own. People who refuse to listen to the other side of an argument are never going to have their views evolve and become more complex and sophisticated. This is why I am against banning books because of the ideas contained in them. It is important to read books from all different points of view.

When we refuse to listen to an idea we disagree with, we deny ourselves the chance to understand that idea a little better. Our nation is so divided right now that our legal system can barely get anything done. If we stopped trying to sensor ideas we disagreed with, we might be able to more easily work together. I am not saying whether or not I agree with the ideas in The Golden Compass, but I appreciate the book for its great writing, great characters and interesting ideas. That should be enough to get it put in any library.

Something Borrowed- Destructive Friendships

I have just finished reading Something Borrowed by Emily Griffin. The book is from the point of view of a girl named Rachel, who’s best friend, Darcy, is getting married. Darcy and Rachel have been best friends since they were five. Darcy was always the pretty one and Rachel was always the smart hard worker. From the very beginning of the book Darcy comes off as obnoxious and egotistical. Rachel though has always been a good and supporting friend. Rachel was actual the one who introduced Darcy to her husband to be. All of this changes though when Rachel and her best friend’s fiancé hook up.  This and the relationship that follows lead Rachel to question everything about her friend ship with Darcy and drags up a lot of interesting stories.

While reading this book, I found myself comparing Darcy’s friendship with Rachel to one of my really old friendships. I felt like I could relate each of the stories about school that Darcy told, to a story about my own friendship. I think that most girls have a friendship like Darcy and Rachel’s. This started me onto a topic I find really interesting: boy’s verses girl’s friendships. One really big difference between boys and girls friendships is how they get competitive. Often, when boys get competitive they are fairly obvious about the fact that they are competing. When girls get competitive, it is very underhanded. They want to seem like they are not being competitive at all. When Darcy wanted to beat Rachel’s SAT score, she asked Rachel what she got. Then Darcy said she got five points higher. Darcy then said it’s just five points, basically the same score, and that she didn’t really care about it. The SATs are scored in increments of ten. Darcy must have cared about her score or she wouldn’t have lied.

I feel like girls do this a lot to get ahead if they aren’t. They lie and cheat to be ahead and I think this book expresses an aspect of that really well. I know this post doesn’t really have a clear point, but I think that the fact that this book made me think so much is a sign of a good book. The relationship between Darcy and Rachel is in many ways very true to life, and that is what makes me like it so much.

A Movie in My Head

I just finished reading Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan. The book alternates perspectives between two boys named Will Grayson. Their lives start out as seeming unconnected, until the two of them meet by chance. Will Grayson 1 ends up introducing Will Grayson 2 to his gay friend Tiny. Tiny is working on a musical about his life. Will Grayson 2, is gay as well, and he and Tiny hit it off. While in this relationship, Tiny realizes that his musical can’t be about him, it needs to be about love. When Tiny does this, the musical becomes about all of his experiences with love and about the people in his life as well. As a result of this, the musical is whole lot better.

Tiny’s experience is really important. We often think of our lives as movies, TV shows, musicals etc. and we are the stars of these stories in our heads. This makes sense because we are in our head. Sometimes though, we confuse being the star, with it all being about us. Life is not “A Story About Me”. If we get too caught up in thinking about our lives as only about us, then they wont be as nice to live. This is something that is related to a lot of other characters lives. 

In the beginning of the book, Will Grayson 1 (aka W.G.1) has two rules, shut up and don’t care. He believes that this is the best way to avoid getting hurt. If he doesn’t care and doesn’t talk then he cant get hurt. But caring about something, anything is a big part of what makes life worth living. Caring and learning and making mistakes are integral parts of what make us human. W.G.1 refuses to let other people be parts of his little movie of life. A movie in which only one character affects the plot is a boring one. The supporting characters need to get in there too or what is the point. You don’t have a plot. Then, later in the book, he starts to let people in. He lets himself care about other people. He does get hurt, but by the end he is a happier person. This can be said for almost all of the characters. Once they let other people be part of the plot of their life movie, they start to enjoy it more and more.

Your life is a story about you and the interactions you have with other people. If you lose sight of how those people affect you life, or try to pretend they don’t then you will ultimately be less happy. You are the star of you own movie, but it isn’t all about you.

Popularity (Revised)

*This is a revised copy of an old post. To see the original post click here *

I am currently right in the middle of a book called Looking for Alaska by John Green. The book is about a boy who decides to leave his boring school in Florida behind and go to a boarding school. Lots of interesting things happen to him, and many of them are as a result of the rivalry between the “in” crowd and the “out” crowd. The “in” crowd is the segment of the school that is rich kids. The kids in the “out” crowd all hang out with each other (this boarding school is small) and, for the most part, avoid the “in” crowd kids. Still, they consider themselves less popular because… well there isn’t really a reason. This got me thinking. The kids in the “out” crowd don’t want to hang out with the “in” crowd and vice versa. Why should one group be considered more popular? The popularity of the “in” crowd does not seem to be based on anything. The “in” crowd kids don’t have more friends or better grades, or nicer faces. The only reason appears to be that they have more money.

When I was in 6^th grade, I first started to discover that there were popular people in our school. I am not quite sure how I knew who was popular. I think my friends pointed the people who were popular out to me. Then I knew they were popular, and I started to realize that everyone else did to. That was my first real life encounter with the idea of popular people. It just always made sense to me. Of course there are popular people. I never thought to question it.

            After a lot of thinking on the topic of popularity I believe I have a theory as to why people are popular. Popularity is all about perception. If we all expect someone to be popular, then they are popular, and this only reaffirms our belief in their popularity. This applies to Looking for Alaska as well. In the book, when people started looking for who was going to be popular, they saw the rich kids. There is a stereotype that the rich kids are the popular ones, so when there was a group of much wealthier kids, it was assumed that they would be popular, so they were.

           

            In truth, popularity is not that important. It won’t give you a better life. You wont become immortal. You can be the least popular kid in the school, and still have friends who care about you. The kids in Looking for Alaska prove that. They said that it was fine they weren’t popular because they were going to hang out with other kids, and they are perfectly happy. All in all, the concept of popularity is just a circular mind trick that we play on ourselves. If you think about it like that, it seems kind of sill how much we care about popularity.

When I Grow Up, I Want to Be...

(Warning: This blog post contains occasional rambling and a few off topic paragraphs)

I am still reading Scarlet Fever by Maureen Johnson. The book is about a girl named Scarlet whose family owns a small, and failing, hotel in New York City. The main character’s older sister, Lola, is out of high school but “taking a break” before college to help out at the hotel. This is what she is saying anyway. In reality, their family doesn’t have the money to send Lola to college right now, and Lola didn’t even apply. On top of this, Lola has absolutely no idea what she wants to do with her life. She doesn’t see her self as good at anything and there is nothing she is passionate about. Mean while Scarlet’s older brother, Spencer, knows exactly what he is doing. Spencer wants to be an actor and *****SPOILER ALERT******thanks to his new recurring role in the TV show “Crime and Punishment” he is actually making money doing this. Scarlet is in high school and the family’s youngest child, Marlene, is only ten. This leaves Lola feeling lost and alone.

            The situation Lola is in made me think a lot about what I want to do with my life.  In all honesty, I have almost no idea, but I don’t see why I should need to know right now. I’m thirteen and my interests are still changing and evolving. Lola shouldn’t have to make a decision like that as an eighteen year old either. If I were to walk up to a person and ask them if I need to know what I want to be when I grow up right now, they would probably say no. At the same time however, we are expected to make these choices. Just this year we had to decide if we wanted to go to a performing arts school or one of the science schools or the school for fashion design ect. We had to choose whether to go to the performing arts middle school or the math and science one.

Once we were in this school, we had to pick a talent and stick with only that one for three years. I love being in photography. At the same time, I do participate in other things outside of school, because while I love photography, I have other interests. I had to go and search out ways to do these things, but that is not something everyone is able to do. It would have been nice to be able to participate in things like drama in school. I admit that being in photography for three years really helped me develop my skills in a way otherwise impossible. But if we had had the opportunity to try other talents in school, then I could pursue the ones I liked further, and reach the same level I am at in photography, while also finding out what I like and don’t like.

As I keep thinking about this, I am starting to wonder what the purpose of making kids make all of these choices is. I don’t really understand. If we make decisions too early, then they are more likely to be decisions we regret. I don’t see any use in that. I started to think about dancers, who often train from when they are as little as three. They do it because if you start young, then you have an advantage over people who started when they were older. The same principle applies to this. In theory, if you start focusing on something earlier, then you have an advantage over people who started later. Then soon, everyone is starting earlier and earlier and earlier, always trying to get an edge. At what point do we stop and say, “How the heck do we know if a four year old is ‘Gifted and Talented’?” Because in all honesty, the average fifth grader doesn’t know what they want to be when they grow up, and they shouldn’t have to.

Scarlett Fever: Justice

            I am currently reading Scarlett Fever by Maureen Johnson. The book is about a girl named Scarlett whose family owns a struggling hotel in New York. Scarlett’s family is on a very tight budget right now because the hotel is having serious financial problems. Many of Scarlett’s friends are very well off, as is the former boyfriend of her older sister Lola, Chip. Spencer, Scarlett’s older brother, hates Chip. Scarlett mildly dislikes his lack of personality and amazement at the life of an average person (Chip is very well off), but Spencer simply hates him because he was born into money. Chip doesn’t have to worry about not being able to afford college, or what he wants to do with his life, and Spencer despises him for it.

            This is something I have noticed in another book. In Looking for Alaska by John Green, one of the characters hates all of the characters that have money, just because his family doesn’t. On one hand, I understand why characters like Spencer were upset. They hated the fact that other kids with more money were living care free, while they have to struggle to pay for college. Characters like Spencer are taking out their frustration with their own life, on someone else just because they don’t have the same problems. My first reaction to this is not fair. They don’t control who their parents are. But then I started thinking, what is justice in this situation? Because while Spencer shouldn’t take his anger out on Chip, it is certainly not right that Spencer should have to work his butt off for a chance at a decent life, while Chip just has to get good grades, go to college and inherit his family’s money. I guess in an ideal world, everyone would have the same amount of money, and the same chance at a good life, but that isn’t how the world works right now.

            It isn’t fair for Spencer to hate Chip. It isn’t fair for Chip to have so many more opportunities then Spencer. Maybe they sort of cancel each other out. Spencer does have some sort of right to be upset. And it is hard to be upset with the universe for putting you where you are. But projecting your anger onto someone else is not all right either. So Spencer can hate the system, or the world or whatever he wants, but in the end, I don’t think it is right for Spencer to hate Chip.

Racist Against Wizards

In the book Magyk by Angie Sage, wizards, who were once prosperous, are treated as scum who are worthless and must be punished for who they are. They are kicked around and Magyk is treated as if it is a disease that must be exterminated. This reminds me of discrimination that is going on in the world today as well as discrimination that happened in the past.

            In the beginning of the book, most wizards lead fairly normal, productive lives. One of the gatekeepers even talks about how the ExtaOrdinary, wizard, the most powerful wizard, has class. Then the Custodians take over and everything changes. Suddenly, highly respected wizards are “wizard scum” and having the telltale, green wizard eyes automatically marks you for scrutiny. The Custodians even tried to beat this idea of hating wizards into their children creating mean and hateful rhymes about the ExtraOrdinary wizard. The rhyme mentioned in the book talks about the ExtraOrdinary wizard being crazy. One of the characters, Boy 412, realizes something important when he finally meets actual wizards. The wizards are not the crazy ones, the people who write the rhyme are. This part in particular made me think of the holocaust. In the holocaust Jews were portrayed as greedy thieving evil people. Some people knew that the stereotype was untrue and risked their lives to save people. Those who knew that this stereotype wasn’t true knew the truth. They knew that the Jews were not the evil ones, the Nazis were.

            The holocaust was an extreme example of discrimination. I cannot even begin to understand the amount of hate and insanity it must take for one group to hate another so much that they no longer want to live on the same planet as them. There is nothing that one group can do to provoke enough hate to make that response excusable.

About a year ago, in Arizona there was an immigration law passed that said that Police Officers could stop and ask for the papers of anyone who looks like they might be here illegally. This law is basically legalizing discrimination because there is no way to look at someone and determine whether they are here illegally. There are illegal immigrants in this country from all over. However, only people that look Hispanic are going to be stopped. There are ways to stop illegal immigration without harassing people because of their skin color.

Of course, wizards aren’t real, but the problems in this book are serious. Unfortunately, there will always be people out there who will insist on discriminating against someone so they can feel better about themselves or blame someone else for their problems. What we can do, however, is keep these people from controlling the media, or passing laws like the one in Arizona. If we can do that, then we are on the right track.

Popularity

I am currently right in the middle of a book called Looking for Alaska by John Green. The book is about a boy who decides to leave his boring school in Florida behind and go to a boarding school. Lots of interesting things happen to him, and many of them are as a result of the rivalry between the “in” crowd and the “out” crowd. The in crowd is the segment of the school that is rich kids. The kids in the out crowd all hang out with each other (this boarding school is small) and, for the most part, avoid the in crowd kids. Still, they consider themselves less popular because… well there isn’t really a reason. This got me thinking. The kids in the “out crowd don’t want to hang out with the in crowd and vice versa. Why should one group be considered more popular? What is this popularity based on? The in crowd kids don’t have more friends or better grades, or nicer faces. I guess it could be because they have more money.

This got me thinking about our school. We have popular people. I started thinking about why they are popular. I couldn’t find a reason that made sense. Some people are popular because they know people that are popular. But then why was that first person popular? I am entirely confused by this.

When I was in 6^th grade, I first started to discover that there were popular people in our school. I think my friends pointed the people who were popular out to me. Then I knew they were popular, and I started to realize that everyone else did to. That was my first real life encounter with the idea of popular people. What I think is weird is that I never stopped to wonder why these people were popular.

            After a lot of thinking on the issue I believe I have a theory. We expect there to be popular people, so we start to look for who is going to be popular. Then people start to subconsciously decide who they think is popular, then they tell other people, who tell other people ect. All of the sudden, we have a group of popular people. Unfortunately this is just a theory, and while it makes sense in our school, it doesn’t really make sense in Looking for Alaska. I usually like to end my blog posts with some sort of answer to whatever question I posed in the beginning of the post, but this time I really don’t have an answer. If you want to tell me your thoughts in a comment that is great because right now, my only answer for why people are popular is, they just are.

Response to a Response

I just read a post by Eamon Callahan called Story Endings (click title for Eamon’s post). The post isn’t really about one book, It is about Eamon often rereads books that have sad endings. He then gives a few examples of these books and the tragic endings they have. He writes about how he might be always rereading them because he keeps hoping the ending will change even though he knows it wont. He writes that that is the difference between books and reality, we can change reality, but we can’t change the book.

The first reason I chose this was that I relate to it. I was recently rereading one of my favorite books, Nobody’s Princess (features in this blog). Unfortunately, I hate the ending. I never want the bad things to happen even though I know they will. This post has made me think more about why I keep rereading even though it annoys me. The thoughts in Eamon’s post also make me think about how in that particular book it is not that the ending sucks but that I would not make the same choice the main character did at the end of the book. I had no power over the ending and that bothered me. I kept hoping that if I read it one more time I would influence the main character’s choices.

            Another thing Eamon writes about briefly in his post is how part of the reason people love TV shows and books is because you never know what will happen and it leaves you on the edge of your seat. I think that Eamon could have expanded on this because it is a very interesting idea. However, he did not, so I will do it for him. I do agree with the initial idea Eamon has here, but there is more to it. I do not think it is just the fact that it leaves people on the edge of their seats that makes people like movies and books. There is, of course, the fact that they transport you to another world. I also think it is partly that they relieve you of responsibility for anything that happens in the book. You did not make the choice, the writer did, so you are not responsible for anything bad that happens. It allows for gilt free experiences. If the book of TV show is written well, we will be sad if something bad happens, but not guilty.

On the other side of why we like things, Eamon wrote about how people like video games because they give you complete control while still feeling safe. I again agree and will again expand on this interesting idea. This also relates to gilt. In video game you can go around shooting people and blowing things up without a pang of gilt because you know it is fake and no one has given the characters a personality, which would make them seem more real. Video games also allow us to do things otherwise impossible and try out things we know would be terrible ideas in real life.

Over all this was a great post. I think that a lot of the ideas he brought up were really interesting. After reading this post, I looked though some of Eamon’s older posts. This one was the best. It was also the longest. I think this is because in many of his other posts, Eamon touches on ideas then drops them. He even does some of that in this post. If Eamon were to elaborate a little more, all of his posts would be incredible.

Google in your Brain

I am currently reading Feed by M.T. Anderson. The book is about a futuristic world where people have tiny computers called Feeds in their brains. In this world the corporations control everything, including the schools. Students no longer learn about English or History. Instead they have classes about how to use your Feed and cool ways to decorate your room. The main character, a teen named Titus, thinks this is great and the old subjects are unnecessary because everyone is super smart thanks to the Feed. Anything someone wants to know can be looked up in his or her head. There is no need for personal thought or opinion. The Feed does it for you.

My first reaction to this was that the people in this book aren’t smart because these people don’t know things. The Feed knows things, and people who want to sell stuff control the feed. But then I started thinking, well even if someone did know all of the information the Feed could provide, would that really make them intelligent? I started thinking about this in terms of the search engines that we have today, such as Google. If someone searches something on Google, they will get a lot of information about it. They will get different opinions and thoughts and ideas about the topic with special interest groups lobbying for certain opinions. If someone were to have Google in their head with all the information on medieval times available to them on command, someone might think they were smart, until they asked the person what their opinion was on the condition that serfs lived in. They could look it up, but reciting the opinion of another person doesn’t make you personally more intelligent.

There is a certain aspect of being a smart person that is knowing facts, but if you can’t do anything with those facts then what is the point of knowing them. When we wrote our picture book forwards we had to do research, but we also included our own opinions about the subject, which is what got whatever our point was across. If we had simply written a list of random facts on the topic no one would have know what we were talking about.

Being able to memorize a bunch of facts doesn’t really make you smart.  The ability to interpret, decipher and form opinions about information makes you smart. If someone has information without understanding it or thinking about what it means, then they don’t really know about it. They know a few pieces of it but they don’t fully understand it. This is not intelligence. If a world anything like the one in Feed is the one we are headed to, then that is not a future I want to live in

We Perceive What We Want To Be Reality

            I am currently reading The Lighting Thief by Rick Riordan. The book is about a boy named Percy Jackson and his two friends, Anabeth and Grover. In the book, the Greek Myths are real. Monsters, Gods and Titans really exist to this day. Percy and his friends are on a quest to retrieve Zeus’s master bolt. During their quest they stop and a casino called the Lotus Casino. They are given free rooms, free unlimited game cards and find clothing in their rooms that are just their sizes. It occurs to Percy that something weird may be going on, but he continues to dismiss it until he comes to the realization that time moves more quickly in the casino. When he and his friends exit the casino after being inside for a few hours, they realize five days had past. Percy had noticed odd things from the very beginning but he didn’t act on them because what was happening to him appeared to be good to be true. He wanted it to be true so badly that he was willing to ignore the inconsistencies.  This is something I have noticed that humans do a lot. When we want something to be true badly enough, we cant trick ourselves into believing it is true. We perceive what we want to be reality.

            During the Holocaust people wanted to believe that the concentration camps that Jews were being sent to were safe. Germans watched as their neighbors and friends were carted away and many did nothing to stop it. Even some of the Jews who were taken told themselves that the concentrations camps were okay places. The Red Cross even inspected one of the concentration camps and said that they were safe and okay. This is a terrifying example of how people can ignore the parts of their reality that don’t fit the picture they wanted to believe. The Red Cross is supposed to provide relief to people in need. The fact that they visited a concentration camp and declared it safe shows how powerful this can be.

            People often walk through life with blinders on. We hear information and then pick and choose which parts to listen to. This is an important part of what is wrong with our political climate as well. People edit clips to support their statement and only pay attention to the things that go with what they believe. This makes for a nation of ill-informed people who make bad decisions. People need to stop picking and choosing what they hear. Just because you want to believe something is true doesn’t make it okay to ignore the facts. If you want to make informed decisions in you life, you have to look at all aspects of it. Not just what you want to see. 

We Judge Appearances

I am currently reading Nobody’s Princess by Esther Friesner. The book is a spin off on the famous story, the Iliad, by Homer. The book takes place in Sparta and is from the point of view of Helen, as a young girl growing up. She was beautiful even as then and, in these stories, she is to one day become the queen of Sparta. Everyone loves Helen for her beauty and always speaks of how she is almost as “beautiful as Aphrodite” (the Greek goddess of beauty and love). The one person who dislikes Helen for her beauty is her paternal twin sister, Clytemnestra. Clytemnestra was the one who always tried her hardest to do everything right. She sews, carts wool and uses the loom. She has to be the perfect little ten year old. Even then Clytemnestra feels like she is living in the shadow of Helen. Helen is the beautiful one as well as the future queen. She gets all the attention without even trying. This makes Clytemnestra upset. Why should she have to do all of this work to get attention when Helen can simply enter a room and have all eyes turn towards her? On one hand I think Clytemnestra’s resentment towards her sister who did nothing wrong is unjust. At the same time my heart goes out to her. She has to put up with so much just to get people to notice her. It isn’t her fault that her sister is incredibly beautiful. Just because she isn’t as “pretty” doesn’t mean she has less value. As much as society has changed since Ancient Greece, one thing that hasn’t is how much we value appearance.

            Lets not deny it; we care about how we look. I know I spend plenty time in the morning doing my hair and make-up just right and picking out the right outfit for that day. We are a nation of dieters, calorie counters, acne medication commercials and weight loss products, not because we want to be healthier, but because we want to look nicer. We make judgments about people and things often before even speaking just because of how they look. It matters to us. Clytemnestra had to work hard to make people glance at her while Helen didn’t have to try at all. Is that really fair? Clytemnestra should not have to work five times harder then Helen just to get people to look her way because Helen is considered more beautiful. That isn’t right. Just like it is not right that someone should get picked on in a school because they are not considered “pretty”. No matter what people say, we care about appearances and we judge people on them, and it is not okay.

            Part of why we judge peoples appearance has to do with genetics. Some people say it is human nature or natural selection. Maybe that is true. But giving that as a reason for judging a person based on appearance just sounds like laziness to me. We are human beings with highly functioning brains. We don’t HAVE to judge people. We choose to, because it’s easier. In truth it’s difficult to not judge people’s appearances and I wont ask anyone to never judge an appearance. I have just one simple request: Try to not judge. Next time you catch yourself judging a person’s appearance, step back and ask yourself what you really know about them. You might be surprised.

Pathfinder-Scapegoats

I am currently reading Pathfinder by Orson Scott Card. The book is about a boy named Rigg who has the ability to see all the paths people having taken. Anywhere he is, he can see the path of any living thing that has ever walked anywhere around him. This skill is particularly useful to him when he is crossing a dangerous river. He can see all the attempts to cross the river and which resulted in the fewest number people falling into the river. A little boy tries to go across a path that Rigg knows is incredibly dangerous. When the boy falls in, Rigg tries to save him. The boy’s older brother, Umbo, is watching and misinterprets what happens. He believes that Rigg killed his little brother. Umbo rushes back to the town and tells everyone that Rigg is a murderer. A mob assembles to hunt Rigg down. Even after Rigg has explained what really happened and Umbo says he was wrong, the mob still wants to find an excuse to kill Rigg. Something terrible has happened and they just want someone to blame, guilty or not.

            This is something that happens all the time. Bad things happen and people want a scapegoat. They don’t want to blame themselves or just bad luck, because they are angry, and you can’t punch bad luck in the face. Recently there was a shooting in Arizona. Six people were killed and thirteen were injured. The target was congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and it was suspected to be politically motivated. As soon as this happened, the right wing media started blaming the left; the left wing media started blaming the right. Everyone wanted to pin it on someone other then themselves.  This is something that we cannot do. Rather then arguing over whose fault this shooting was, we should be taking precaution to stop this from happening again. In Pathfinder, rather then trying to kill Rigg, they should be trying to make sure that kids don’t play near that river. If people don’t just blame each other then they could actually get around to solving the problems at hand. Creating a scapegoat may make you feel better, but it won’t solve your problems.

The Friend's Dilemma

*WARNING: THIS PARAGRAPH CONTAINS SPOILERS*

I am currently reading Carter’s Big Break by Ben Crawford. The book is about a kid named Carter who gets the lead in a big movie opposite teen sensation Hilary Idaho. While they are shooting the two of them become friends and Carter begins to suspect that he may be the only real friend she has, famous or otherwise. Hillary has a lot of issues though. She drinks, does drugs and has just come back from rehab for alcohol abuse. Carter smells booze on her breath and he doesn’t know what to do. No one else seems to care as long as she performs in the movie. He feels that he will be responsible if anything happens because she was drinking and he didn’t stopping it. This made me think about what I call the friend’s dilemma.

The friend’s dilemma is when your friend is doing something that is harmful (to themselves or others) and you are aware of it. What do you do? If you do nothing, then are you partially responsible for anything that happens because of what your friend did? You did just stand by and watched them hurt themselves or let them hurt someone else. On one hand you should not be held responsible for another persons actions. They are their own human being and beyond your control. On the other hand if you just stand by and let something happen then you are responsible because you did nothing. You let someone get hurt and you could have stopped it.

 But what if you try to do something but it’s not enough? When does all responsibility lift off the shoulders of the friend?  This is a hard question partly because it varies from situation to situation. There really is no right answer. However, in the eyes of the friend, it is often their fault no matter how hard they tried to help.

In a perfect world people wouldn’t do bad things and everyone would be responsible for their actions alone. This is not the case however. We are responsible for bad things that happen if we had the power to stop them. In the end if you really care about someone then you will try to help them in anyway you can, whether they want the help or not.

Because I am Furniture-Victim or Witness?

I am currently reading a book called Because I am Furniture by Thalia Chaltas. The book is about a girl named Anke who is the youngest of three in a family where the father is abusive and violent. She is the only person in the house who is not beaten, raped or both. She sometimes envies her brother and sister’ s attention from their father because at least they are worth the trouble of a beating, while she is entirely invisible. This makes me wonder if it would be better if she was beat up by her father too, or if she should be grateful he leaves her alone. Is bad attention better then no attention?

On one hand she isn’t attacked physically the same way her brother and sister are. On the other hand she is still forced to live in a house where her family is attacked and she can’t do anything to stop it. Her father may not rape her, but she has to listen to him rape her sister almost every night knowing that she can’t do anything to stop him. When her father finds out that she is playing volleyball despite him saying she can’t, he yells at and beats her brother for it instead of her. She has to be a silent witness to terrible things while she is ignored entirely.  Her father doesn’t physically hurt her but just makes her feel worthless. This is worse then getting beat up by him because at least that way her brother and sister know he is angry with them. With Anke he acts like he doesn’t care. You have to care to be angry.

Anke’s house is a terrible place to live. Her family members are the victims of abuse while her father charms everyone outside it. She is the only witness to her fathers abuse that isn’t being beaten to a pulp. She is the only one who can see it with enough distance to know how wrong it is, but still craves her father’s attention. And that is much worse then almost anything he could do to her body.