Runaway by: Wendelin Van Drannen

A little while ago I read a book called "Runaway " by Wendelin Van Drannen. This book is about a girl named Holly who runs away from her troubled home. She has to face getting sexually harrassed by her foster father, and her witch of a foster mother. Whenever Holly supposedly does something bad her parents lock her in the basement and give her nothing but a blanket and a bucket to use the bathroom in. She continuously ponders on about how she will escape from her home, and just go off somewhere. Meanwhile her teacher named Ms. Leon gives her a journal to write in about how she feels or just about anything. Which displays how this book is written, because it is basically written in a journal type of form.

In the beggining of the book Holly feels like she is trapped inside a descent space but is not given the treatment that she should at least be getting. For example when, her foster father was sexually harrassing Holly, the mother had over heard that something was going on so she asked her husband what had happened and he lied straight to her face.And then it caused both parents to lockher in the basement. She then started to write in her journal because she is litterally locked in the basement for days besides when she has to go to school. And they tell her, "until you learn how to be a good girl." They also get mad at her for the littlest things. Like if they don't see that she takes the bus home then they start to ask 50 questions, and then the first thing that comes to their minds is that she was doing drugs. And that's when they start to insult her.

 

In my opinion, I feel bad for Holly because she has to live with being sexually harrassed by someone she actually trusted until she moved in with the family. I also feel bad for her because she doesn't have any siblings to stand up for her, if she couldn't stand up for herself. If she had another person that could help her gain confidence she would be able to conquer all of the struggles she goes through. I can't imagine having a mother that automatically assumed I was doing drugs with some friends just because I got home latte from school. In a way I can kind of connect to Holly when she says that her parents get mad at her for little things, because sometimes that can be the same case in my life as well. But I mean when I was reading this book, I was able to have a better understanding of what her life was really like. I would've never thought that parents now adays would be or could be so cruel to their children. Odviously if you adopt a child you would want to adopt them not to treat them like poop, but to nuture them, love them, and give them everything they never had. Or just plain and simply to have another joy in life. And if I were Holly being locked up I would want to run away too, because I wouldn't be able to deal with all of that stress and always having to be blamed for something I didn't do. That's something I hate and I think Holly's character is the same way.

 

In conclusion, I think that Holly does have a tuff life, and there are a lot of things that I can relate to when it comes to Holly's type of character. But as I continued to read on in the book I was able to find out what her character is really like. And you'll find out in my other blog posts that I will soon write. I tried to create a text toworld connection by really processing the idea that stuff like this can still be happening now. And I found out that it's actually kind of nice writing out your feelings or whatever you have to say in a journal or notebook, because when your at a point where Holly is at, and you have nothing to do, the first thing you turn to is a notebook or journal with empty pages in it. It's almost reassuring to some people in a way.

 

 

The 7 Habits of Highly Affective Teens

The 7 Habits by Sean Covey, is a book that describes the issues that teens have to face in their every day life, and life changing experiences that they have to face. This is basically a book that gives you the steps to help guide you through your journey as a teen. And it gives you valuable tools to help you get through life. This book most definitely helped me with how I deal with "all of the perks" of being a teen. And it some ways it helped me switch my ways about how I think about things, in one way specifically.

One of the things that I want to mention that Sean Covey talks about in this book is how to deal with your parents. My mother and I always have our arguments and sometimes I don't know how to deal with them, and on top of that my anger, but by reading this book I was able to conquer my emotions. Sean Covey talks about Listening. And what he really means is to really listen when someone is telling you something; If your listening then you will be heard as well. What Sean Covey means by listening is that for example when I actually listened to what my mother had to say, we were able to negotiate on a certain topic. And that was also because she was able to listen to me. He explains how communication is key. Without communication, you won't be able to heal the wounds that you have with people and your relationship with them.

If you read this book, you will also learn how to say "I'm sorry" to my parent. From my own personal experience from reading this book, I learned that sometimes I am unable to control what comes out of my mouth. And the things that I might say might hurt someones feelings sometimes. Sean Covey's book taught me how to apologize right in the moment where you realize what words you just let your mouth come out with and say. Being able to apologize is a personal change that you make within yourself. Sean Covey said,"I know from experience how much an apology means to my parents. It's like they forgive me for almost anything and are ready to start over if I admit my mistakes and apologize." I really found that statement to be true because when I would argue with my mom and she would ask me for an apology or I give her an apology without her telling me to, i realize the importance of that. Because that's the moment where I realize everything I've said. It really does give you a clean slate to start from if you really did do something wrong and you confess up to it. I never really thought that whatever I say to my mother or my father would really hurt their feelings because they are the superiors, and i'm just the kid. But it really isn't that way, all parents will always care what you think or say to them. And I learned that the hard way.

After I read this book, I've become more aware of what things I should pay attention to in my life. And My relationship with my parent was a big issue in my life that I finally learned how to solve and also prevent. As a result this book helped me in one way, which is that I am now able to have a better relationship with my mom. And if you end up reading this book it will change your life. You will become more aware of the little things that you wouldn't normally  notice in life and in people.

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I am still in the middle of reading this book called "2312" By Kim Stanely Robinson. This book is about a girl named Swan Er Hong who has to face some challenges after her grandmother that everyone in the galaxy knew had died. She has decided to carry out the plans that her grandmother had made to improve the other planets such as Saturn, and our Earth. But she faces some challenges throughout the way.

After Swan's Grandmother died, it was as if every part of all the people that she knew died as well, because her death wasn't an expected death. And there were so many unfinished plans that she had created but could not finish. Meanwhile everyone is freaking out because they don't know what to do with her unfinished plans. But luckily Swan's grandmother leaves a message for the most important people in her life and they transfer the information into to their qubes. And you guys may be wondering well...., what is a qube? A qube, as described in the story, is an electronic device that is installed in your brain almost like a computer and it holds all of your information of your life, and helps you get other information about everything. It even takes mental pictures of things to store inside your memory! If I were the reader of this blog post I'd probably be thinking wow it's better than Google! But back to the story, Swan get's a message from her grandmother to be transferred into her qube and that gives her a little hint about what she should be doing.

One of Swan's troubles that she has to face is that she is very confused as to what exactly her grandmother wants her to do. From what her grandmother's close friend tell her, the most that she could help do is make a new plan for earth and set up how their architectural system will turn out. Since this is the future, she currently lives on another planet that we know of which is called Mercury. And in the book since it is the future, there aren't as many people living on earth as there used to be about a thousand years ago. This is because the Earth has changed and had their water levels rise, forcing the people that live there to have to walk on boardwalks or cat walks most of the time. The way it looks is kind of how Venice look nowadays.

In a way, I kind of feel like this book is almost a mixture between a mystery genre, and a science fiction genre.  I say that because so far throughout the book, You are always anticipating what will happen next, and what the next clue that you'll find will be. It makes you wonder how exactly did Swan's grandmother die? And it makes me wonder why didn't her grandmother finish recreating Saturn or reconstructing our Earth's architecture a long time ago? If Swan is just starting to figure out that she is now going to have to take the main role that her grandmother had, then she has to work twice as hard to   fulfill what her expectations of the new planets will be. And I'm just going to have to keep reading my book to figure out what other big challenges she faces.

Am I Blue? By: Bruce Coville

  In my ELA class we have just finished reading a short story called "Am I Blue?" By Bruce Coville. In the beginning of the story a boy named Vincent gets bullied by another boy named Butch. Butch apparently thinks that Vincent is gay so he calls Vincent a faggot and a fruit frequintly. And Vincent gets picked on and he doesn't even know if he is gay or not. But Vincent discovers some very valuable lessons when he get's approached by a man right after being bullied. And he learns that not everything is what it seems.

  Right after he get's bullied by Butch, he get's saved by a guy named Melvin. Melvin comes to his rescue after Butch pushes Vincent into a big pile of muddy water. You guys may be wondering well,"who is Melvin?"and in this short story Melvin claims to be Vincent's fairy godfather. After Melvin sees what had happened to Vincent, he takes him to a coffee shop so that he can explain to Vincent what the purpose of his job is. He explains to him that a year before the current year that they were in, he himself had been gay bashed and was brought into an alley and had gotten killed by a tire iron. From that day on he decided that he wanted to become a fairy godfather so he could help kids that were being gay bashed.

  In my opinion, I think that it's a good thing that Melvin wants to do good, although he suffered from a brutal death just from being gay. I think that it shouldn't matter what other people are and how they choose to go about their life, because its THEIR life! And you should worry about what you are doing and what your choices in life are going to be, not about what others choose to believe or how they choose to express themselves. And the author was trying to make the idea aware that other people would notice that it's not much of a difference being gay because they are just like any other individual in the world. I believe that in this short story this is one message that Melvin is trying to get across to Vincent because Melvin says,"Do you know the three great gay fantasies?" he then explains to him that it was the third gay fantasy that he wanted to talk to him about. Melvin says,"We used to imagine what it'd be like if every gay person in the country turned blue for a day. Why? (Vincent says) So all straights would have to stop imagining that they didn't know any gay people (melvin replied). They would find out that they had been surrounded by gays all the time, and survived the experience just fine, thank you." And to the end he summarizes it up, and he says, "the hiding would finally have to stop." In this part of the story I also see that the author is kind of sneaking in his own opinions into Melvin's character. Maybe the author also might think that we need to put an end to people who are being gay bashed. It could even be possible that the author of this short story is gay and he might be trying to spread his opinions by writing a story about it.

 In Conclusion, I also think that towards the end of the story, there is most definetly a character change with Vincent. In the beginning of the story, you could surmise that he didn't really have faith in someone that could actually help him with his life issues until Melvin showed him all of the magic that he could do. And it was until Melvin arrived that he was able to learn some of the principals of what being gay really was about. Although Vincent still couldn't figure out if he was gay or not, I think he was more aware of the "not everything is what it seems" statement because he learned who peoples "true colors" really were. You would be surprised who turned out to be gay in this short story and who exactly was just hiding it all along. But don't worry I'm not going to spoil it for you. I think he learned a valuable lesson the day that he speant with Melvin, and he was able to still have the rest of his life to figure out if he was gay or not because like Melvin said, it took all of his life to make the choice of just walking the way he does. And saying things like "Honey" all the time. But at the end of the day, Vincent had all of Melvin's thoughts and opinions to keep in mind to help him determine what his choice in his future life would be.

"The Drummer Boy Of Shiloh"

I have just finished reading "The Drummer Boy of Shiloh" by Ray Bradbury in my ELA class. This book is about a boy named Joby who doesn't want to be, or just doesn't want to be noticed. Joby is a young boy who  had gotten drafted into the war and was assigned to beat a drum when the soldiers would go out to fight.

Joby had first gotten noticed when he accidentally touched his drum with his elbow in the silence. In a way, I feel like Joby got embarrassed because he disturbed the silence and now that the General was walking towards his way there was going to be a scene. But maybe Joby's thoughts might've backfired. I say that because after the General approached him, he then started to give Joby advice. He said,"So each is his own army. I got to make one army of them. And for that, boy, I need you. You are the heart of the army." I think that right at that moment, Joby completely changed his way of thinking in terms of war. If i were Joby I would've felt that I actually did have an important roll to take on in the war.

This story also reminds me a lot of a short section of a story that i read in 7th grade called "The Things They Carried" because there was a General in the story who was just out of it, not focused, and kind of just wanted to go home. And I feel that this is how Joby felt before he got encouraged to be the heart of the army. The General in "The Things They Carried" was very unfocused and all he could think about was this one girl that he was in love with. And I feel that in a way, the soldiers in "The Drummer Boy of Shiloh" were not really focused on war and they were only thinking about their families.

The General stresses the fact to Joby of how important being a drummer boy is. The General said to him that one day, he could be known as the Drummer Boy Of Shiloh, and that he would have a story to tell. Because Joby "set the pace" and the General gave the orders. In my opinion, I believe that the General gave him that strong speech because he might've noticed that out of all the soldiers Joby was the one who stood out because he had tried so hard to not be noticed. But I also feel like Joby kind of felt bad because he knew that he was going to be one of the few soldiers who lived. So maybe that's a reason why Joby didn't want to be noticed.

All in all, Joby's attitude did switch from the beginning of the story to the end because the general had given him the WILLPOWER! He gave Joby the willpower to be brave and to set the mood of his ally soldiers. He was the one who would decide the beat of the drum, the way the soldiers would fight, and how much strength they would put out. Because he… was Joby, The Drummer Boy of Shiloh.

The 7 Habits of highly affective teens blog

This summer I read a book called the 7 Habits Of Highly Affective Teens. It was an amazing book about basically giving you the keys to success,orginization,and tips to making your life easier. While I was reading this book I really wished I had read it in 7th grade because it gave me more tips to managing my time more, and that was one of the problems that I had in 7th grade. It was a problem for me because I would always have like 2 or 3 tests in one week and it would be hard to study for all of them and still get a desent grade on them. And this book helped me when it came to dealing with my mom and issues that go on in my home. So i definitly reccommend teens to read this book! :)