The Miseducation of Cameron Post

What really difficult or complex things are happening in your book?
(spoiler alert)

Currently I am reading the book called The Miseducation of Cameron Post. This book is about a girl who has a best friend named Irene and they do everything there is to do with a best friend. Unitil they both come to talking one day outside on their porch. They start talking about how they've never kissed anyone and they talk about going into middle school and how they have to "grow up". So you can only guess what they decided to do next. And to a reader's surprise you find out something that is even more complex about her life that makes her life difficult.

What happened next as a result of They kissed. And then they decided to keep kissing, as some days pass by. And that's when I began to notice that maybe they started experimenting. "Well at least thats what some parents call it." My definition of experimenting is when kids that are becoming teens or that are teens, decide to try different things in life with different types of people. And then they can determine what kind of person they are themselves. I think that this is a complex issue in this book because she is keeping this a secret from her parents and from the rest of her family. And so is Irene. And I'm not quite sure if Cameron or Irene are lesbians or not but it seems like they really like eachother.

 

Another difficult issue that is going on in this book is that Cameron has just gotten news that both of her parents have been killed in a car crash. That's something that is really difficult to deal with. When she first found out that her parents died she didn't react to it that much. Because she had thought that the reason why her grandmother had been wanting to speak to her all day was because she had found out about her and Irene. But it turned out that it was even something worse than finding out her secret with Irene. In a way I think it was kind of selfish of Cameron to only be relieved when she found out that her grandmother didn't know about her and Irene. But I think that as the days go by Cameron starts to get depressed and she stays home and she doesn't except anyone's phone calls or when they come to visit her. Cameron didn't necessarily cry when she had found out that her parents died but you could definitely feel her emotions. Like when I was reading the book I definitely almost felt like I was her, feeling her depression.

 

So I am going to continue reading on in the book to figure out wheather Irene and Cameron are going to date or if they admit in the book that they are lesbians or possibly even bi-sexual. And I am also going to anaylize the text more to see if I can figure out how Cameron is really feeling about her parents dieing and just how exactly she plans on dealing with it.

The book of secrets: unlocking the hidden dimensions of your life

I always read this book, "The Book of Secrets" by Deepak Chopra, because I became very intrigued by this book from when my sister had me  read the first page; It immediatly got me intrested in what this author had to say. This book is somewhat like the book that I've read and blog posted about called The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens, but the only difference is that this book talks about the reality of what life really is general. Although you might think that this author is including some of his opinions he actually doesn't. This book, as well as The 7 Habits, has also changed my way of thinking but not in the way that you would think.

To begin with, I would say that this book is very advanced. And sometimes it even took me a couple of times to re-read a page once or twice until I was able to fully understand the meaning of what the author was trying to get across to me. One of my favorite chapters of this book is called The Cause of Suffering is Unreality. This chapter is broken up into different sections and the section that I payed close attention to and underlined a lot was the section called Negativity. In this section Deepak starts talking about how negativity prevents your body and mind from being in a well state of mind. And then he starts to talk about everyone's daily lives. He says there are only three general types of people that you will incounter in your life. The ones that are there to help you, the ones that leave you alone, and the ones that hurt you. And this section of the book is what stood out to me because it made me think back to my friends in school. It made me think, well.. who are the people in my life that leave me alone, help me, or just hurt me. And it gave me a chance to reflect on my life before I was able to continue reading. Once I had plugged in all of the names to those 3 subjects, I read on and he starts to explain what these 3 general types of people are. And he says," People who leave you alone are dealing with your suffering as a nuisance or inconvenience - they prefer to keep their distance in order to feel better themselves. Those who help you have the strength and awareness to do more with your suffering than you are able to do by yourself. Those who hurt you want the situation to stay the same because they do not have your well-being at heart." These descriptions of the types of people you will encounter made me feel more aware of my surroundings, and it made me realize what types of people I am surrounded with every day. I was able to make a text to world connection, which is probably what the author was trying to get his readers to do. And then I learned that from the people that hurt me I don't have to guilt trip them, or confront them, or make them the cause of my self pity, because you are only adding more fuel to the other person's fire. Meaning they feed off of your attention and how much intrest you put in to what they have to say. And I learned that you can't let people affect you like that because you are letting the other person over power you. I still feel like it is a little hard for me at times to not confront someone about a big issue I am having with them in my life because I odviously can't ignore what I hear. But when I read that section over and over again it continues to remind me of how I should keep myself composed. And not let myself be overpowered.

I still read this book every day even though I have finished it once before. But this book has a lot of information to take in and I still have a lot more blog posts to write about this book. Like I have said before, this book as well as The 7 Habits, has also changed my way of thinking but not in the way that you would think. And I was able just from this one section to become more aware of my surroundings and the type of people I was surrounded with. And I still have more to share in more blog posts for this book.

My view on Child Soldiers Essay

Child soldiers are an issue worldwide. The have been many article written on how some author's feel about child soldiers. and how they believe that the U.S. should not take part in capturing Kony. Many also believe that child soldiers are perpetrators of war. But they are wrong.

Currently worldwide, there are over 30,000 child soldiers. They can be found in the places such as Colombia, The Philippines, Sri Lanka, the Middle East, Afghanistan, Gaza, and Palestine. Those are only a few countries where child soldiers are located. A rebel leader named Kony has been abducting children from the ages as young as 5. If they are not abducted, they are forced to kill their own family members or the rebel leader would kill them. And that's unfair and wrong for children to have to experience shooting and killing someone else to keep their own life. Girls also get forced to join the armed forces and rebel groups to become sex slaves or cooks. And for one thing, thats illegal. No one even has slaves anymore, and that is violating many of our rights. Clearly in these foreign countries women and girls don't get the same opportunities and rights as women and girls in our country. Boys in foreign countries also get drugged to dumb down their senses and they also are forced to drink alcohol. This is a bad thing for the children because if they lose some of their brain cells, it doesn't give them enough power to think for themselves. Like to really think whether or not they want to shoot someone or just plain down right kill them.

Some author's opinions were very harsh on the fact of child soldiers. In the article "problem with Kony 2012" the author Emily Merlino talks about how Jason Russel, the founder of the move to stop Kony, has a goal to "intensify pressure on the U.S. government to make sure Kony is brought to justice this year." She believes that this is not the right way to go about the issue. She thinks that it is a wrong decision to let the U.S. take matters into their own hands. She starts to explain later on in the article that by sending U.S. troops to a foreign country, such as Uganda, it will cost our government a lot of money. It will also harm civilian lives in Uganda, when our military goes out to arrest ONE wanted guy she says. But it would actually be helpful for the U.S. to take matters into their own hands because we have a larger army and that means more people can be on the case to defeat Kony, save all of the child soldiers, bring them back to their families, and stop all of the rebel leaders that follow in Kony's steps.

In my opinion I completely disagree with what author Emily Merlino has to say. I think that the U.S. should get involved and it doesn't matter if they already have troops in Yeman, Afghanistan, and Libya because it's never to late to ask got more people to join the force to do one big mission. And that is to capture a very wanted man. I also believe that if people are willing to protest and get Kony known so that we the people ould make a change than Obama would be kind hearted enough to not even care how much it costs to stop Kony. Because you're trying to stop a very wanted man that is trying to get himself known worldwide.

In conclusion, I believe that child soldiers should be helped by the U.S. government and Obama should definitely take part in this project. Child soldiers shouldn't have to be forced to do things that they want to do. Such as taking drugs and shooting people and drinking alcohol. It's unfair for young girls or women to have to be brought into a scene where they get sexually abused, and boys are forced to kill or watch their friends and family members die right before their eyes. That's not the life a kid from age 5 and up should have to experience. And I think this is just inappropriate, sad, and very disturbing.