February Book Blog 4-Mockingbird

The Story

Caitlin is a ten year old girl with Asperger’s syndrome.  After the school shooting she’s all alone, since her brother, Devon was the only one who tried to understand her, and now he’s gone.  She befriends a first grader named Michael whose mother was also killed in the school shooting.  They both share the same pain.  Together they try to find closure.  Caitlin also tries to help her dad with his depression by telling him they need to find closure.  To find closure she believes they need to finish the chest that Devon was working on before his death.  Her dad is reluctant at first, but then agrees.  They finish the chest and donate it to the middle school.  For Caitlin, she found closure through a friend and finishing the chest, and her dad found closure through seeing his daughter grow emotionally and socially and finishing the chest as well.  This is a wonderful book that makes us look into a world like Caitlin’s and see the pain of someone related to a victim of a school shooting.

February Book Blog 3-Mockingbird

 

The Characters

Caitlin: Caitlin is a ten year old girl with Asperger’s syndrome.  She’s very smart but anti-social.  She takes everything literally.  After her brother dies, she’s the one who thinks of finding closure with her father.   She loves to eat gummy worms, and names them all.  The person she was closest to was her brother Devon, before the school shooting.  He was the only one who tried to understand her world.

Josh: Josh’s cousin was the one who was the shooter at the school shooting.  He feels like everyone hates him because he was related to the shooter.  He bullies a lot of people, including Caitlin, due to this.  In the end of the book you realize he was simply misunderstood, and a friend was all he needed. 

Michael: Michael is in first grade.  His mother was a teacher at the middle school and she was killed at the school shooting.  Michael is very morose about his mother’s death.  Caitlin befriends him and they try to find closure together.  Michael also befriends Josh who makes people see the kind side of Josh.

Harry: Harry is Caitlin’s father.  He’s depressed all the time since Devon died.  He lost his wife first, and now his son.  He cries a lot and when he was told Devon had died, he went mad and started throwing things around in the house.  He doesn’t pay much attention to Caitlin now and doesn’t have much patience with her.  He does try to try, which is very hard for him considering everything that’s going on.

Mrs. Brooks: Mrs. Brooks is Caitlin’s councilor at school.  She tries to help Caitlin make friends and find closure.  Since Devon has died, she’s the only one who really tries to understand Caitlin.  Caitlin enjoys being in her presence; she’s like a friend to Caitlin. 

Mockingbird February Book Blog 2

School Shootings and Gun Violence

There have been many school shootings since 2000.  The most recent one has been the Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.  School shootings affect people who experienced them, and the people close to the victims greatly, just like Caitlin and her dad, Harry.  “I thought we were all gonna die,” says Kaitlin Roig, a teacher at Sandy Hook elementary, in an interview, fighting back tears.  Many people like her were scarred, and the fear and pain they experienced will never leave them.  One student even said in an interview that she was scared to go to school now.  It’s horrible to think that somebody can have the heart to kill innocent students; it’s absolutely sick. 

Gun violence is now the center of attention.  Should we stay true to our constitution and keep the right to bear arms, or should we take away that right to reduce the loss of lives each year. 

Guns are there to protect us, some people say.  Others say they’re evil.  Guns can be used for self-defense so, there’s a plus.  But then again guns can be used to inflict pain and death.  Really, we shouldn’t go against our constitution and we shouldn’t allow for so many lives to be lost due to gun violence.  People who are for guns are saying they need guns to feel safe.  The National Rifle Association is fighting to keep guns.  But is there really a need to keep guns that are specialized to go through police vests? 

Is there a way to keep guns so that we won’t go against our constitution and reduce gun violence at the same time?  Perhaps there is, but to me, the best way to save people is to completely eradicate guns. 


References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGV6zOgbNW0

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/shooting/

abc news on TV

home.nra.com

Midsummer Night's Dream Question 3

We see love and drama all around us. We see love that hurts, or makes someone smile. We see love that is feigned or true. Love is like a mountain range. One rises in their relationship, then they can fall, but then rise again. Love creates many emotions.

You see the couples in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, experience the many aspects of love. Theseus won Hippolyta over with his leadership and strength. Their ‘love’ doesn’t really seem like love to me. She seems not to have fallen for him because he is who he is, but because of his power. They’re engagement looks more of a, “whatever, let’s get married,” sort of thing. They’re not really in love. Hippolyta seems excited, but not exactly how excited a bride-to-be would be. She’s not running around all happy, not seeming to be able to take her eyes off her soon to be husband.   And neither is Theseus. They’re marriage semblances being forced, not like they actually really, truly cared about getting married.

Unlike Theseus and Hippolyta whose love looks more like infatuation, Lysander and Hermia’s love for each other is truly there. They love each other greatly, yet their love is frowned upon by Hermia’s father, Egeus who prefers Demetrius. But when Hermia is told that she was either going to marry Demetrius or die or become a nun she was unfazed, blinded by her love for Lysander. She chooses to rebel and abscond to Lysander’s aunt’s house in the forest with him. She is not scared and neither is Lysander, for they know that in the forest they can be together. Then, when Lysander is given the love potion from the flower and he awakes to Helena and says he ‘loves’ her, Hermia is hurt. Still she loves Lysander and that’s why she fights with Helena, because she loves him. She’s hurt, but still wants him for herself; she doesn’t want anyone to take him away from her since she cares about him. Then in the end, when they go back to all loving the right people, Hermia goes right back to Lysander, forgiving. It shows that they will do whatever they need to, to be with each other. You see their true, lasting love.

Titania and Oberon’s relationship is really messed up. They love each other, but they’re stuck in a place where they practically hate each other, and just because they want the child to be just like one of them. They fight with one another and Titania keeps the child. Oberon gets even more mad at her and decides to go as far as putting a flower love potion on her to make her fall in love with the first thing she sees, which is unfortunately Bottom turned into a donkey. In the end however, he feels sympathetic for her ‘loving’ a donkey and realizes he misses her. They get back together and are both happy.  This shows that really, ‘through thick and thin’ this couple will stay together; they can’t be separated.

Demetrius and Helena were once together and loved each other, but when Demetrius saw Hermia he wanted to be with her instead.  However Hermia doesn’t like him at all since her heart only belongs to Lysander.  Even though Demetrius left Helena for another woman, she can’t get over him.  She keeps chasing him, wanting him back, but he doesn’t love her anymore.  The more she adores and praises him, the more he seems to look upon her with a look of disgust.  Obviously she can’t let go, and the thought of him leaving can’t process her mind since she still loves him so much.  In the end of the play however, everything works out and Demetrius falls back in love with her by awaking to her first after being given the flower love potion.  Since everything works out you see they were ‘meant to be.’

With these four couple you see a few aspects of love, some being: pain when Demetrius left Helena for Hermia; betrayal when Lysander seems to love Helena; hate when Titania has custody of the child; and infatuation between Theseus and Hippolyta.

February Book Blog 1-Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine

When people speak in this book they don’t have quotation marks around what they say.  Instead, to indicate that somebody is talking the words are in italics.  Me, being a constant reader, and always used to quotation marks, I was surprisingly taken aback and struggle having to get used to the italics used for talking. 

When I read, when something is in italics, someone is remembering something, or thinking.  When I read, it’s like I’m playing a movie in my head.  So when I see something in italics, and somebody is thinking I see them doing whatever they’re doing and having a narrative in the background of what they’re thinking.  For example if a person in a book is listening to what someone is saying, but not really paying attention, instead thinking I see them sitting there, nodding their heads with a narrative in the background of what they’re thinking like: I never realized that other piercing in her ear….                                           Or when somebody is remembering something and in the memory someone is talking, it’s in italics, so I see this memory playing in my head, but the image is blurry since it’s a memory, therefore not clear.  Also the talking is distant.  So when I imagine a memory the talking is distant and the image is blurry.

Everything that goes on in my head when I read is impacted by the font, size, or italics.  That’s why it’s so hard to get used to the italics in this book indicating talking, like normal talking, not memories or thinking.  When I read this book, I really have to think, because if not, then I’ll get sidetracked and the image in my head of what’s going on when somebody’s talking  will become like a memory, because that’s what I mainly think of when I see the speaking in italics in this book.   I have to train myself to realize and understand that they’re speaking normally, not thinking or remembering.   It’s unexpectedly extremely difficult for me.

A World Full of Hapiness...

A world with no war, no pain, no regret, only happiness.  That's what Brave New World's society is like.  Everybody is ALWAYS happy.  When you slightly feel a bit down, all you have to do is take soma, a happy drug.  This is a world that knows no love, pain, hurt, regret, anything; except happiness.  At first it doesn't sound too bad, but really is this the way to live life?  Emotionless, unloved, with no family, nobody you truly care for. 

1984 sounds very frightful and depressing with all the war, but what really sounds frightful to me is not feeling at all.  Just pure, raw happiness and nothing else; it seems...unnatural.  Like a robot almost.  Plus, no one has families, therefore there's nobody you truly love or care for.  There are no relationships since "everyone belongs to everyone." 

What is life then, without challenges, motivation, love, or hurt? Everything goes your way and you’re happy.  It's wrong.  It's not life.  It's something else.  Something I hope we never reach.  This world sounds so frightful; to have to succumb yourself to a drug to feel fake happiness.  Yeah, maybe our world could be a bit less warring or sad, but it's life.  I wouldn't give myself up to some fake, happy world.  This world is full of happiness, but truly it's dark, and odd.  It brainwashes people into not loving, not caring, not hating.  Could you really stand that much joy that's fake, brainwashed into people.  It's scary to think that's all we could feel.

Would a World Without Media Influence be Safer?

Media influence. They say that’s what to blame for violence and people on drugs and booze. They say that a world without media influence would be safer. Take a second and think about; really think about. No billboards driving down the road. No more funny commercials. Reality T.V. shows, certain movies, and music would be eliminated because of media influence inserted into it. We wouldn’t be informed about current events around the world. No more People or Seventeen magazines. No more Access Hollywood or Entertainment Tonight. How would this world be necessarily safer? Life in this world would just be plain, arduous, and boring.

The gunman of the “Batman” massacre wasn’t right in the head. He just, “wanted to kill people,” states The New York Times. He simply used “The Dark Knight Rises” as a pawn. The movie had the right setting for something like this to happen; it was dark, full of death caused by evil people. But still, the movie didn’t make him want to kill people, that was his own idea, it was all him. He had mental issues, an ally for his hunger for murder. Even without the movie’s existence he would have still done what he did. He could have simply gone to another public place. We can’t blame media influence for this.  The movie showing was just his stage; he just chose that place to act.  He could have easily chosen another “stage.”

With media influence we get the current events around the world. The news keep us informed about wars, murders, presidents, government, everything. Most of the things that we hear are negative news, but the negative news help us to make changes, keep us safe. For example, the Sandy Hook shooting was known about around the nation the day it happened, and then people starting helping the families affected, cities started making their schools safer, and now the government and president is in the act of enforcing a new law to control gun violence. What if the news of this horrible massacre hadn’t got around? Nothing would have been done. Schools wouldn’t be safer; laws to keep us safe wouldn’t be in the process of being enforced. More tragedies similar would continue to happen. The murder rate would go up not down. Things would be worse. Is this making the world a better place?

We need ads.  We need to know what products are out there, and using our knowledge, see what things are best for us to buy.  Yes, everyone’s had that time where they bought a product that seemed SO AMAZING, but turned out to be a rip-off.  We learn through these mistakes, so that later, we can use our past experiences and knowledge to find out what we should buy to make life comfortable and sustainable.  Therefore, ads help people find things they need or want.  Some might say that ads are trying to pull us into buying things we don’t need like movies, music, or electronics.  But one finds them self through this entertainment.  They see who they are.  They find their style.  This is what we need, for people to find themselves through other ways besides being completely influenced by people around them.  They can find and be their own self, instead of what other people want them to be. 

Public service announcements are a part of media influence, and they help try to make our world a better, SAFER place.  For example there are the commercials where they show a victim or family member of a victim of texting and driving.  Those commercials are there to make people more cautious when driving.  There are also many other commercials like the one where celebrities are speaking out against gun violence or the one that warns people about whooping cough and how to keep their family safe.  Public service announcements like these try to make the world a better place.  By taking this piece of media influence away are we helping anything?

Media influence is beneficial, we need it. It’s NOT bad. It doesn’t cause horrible tragedies and behavior to occur. With media influence we can actually help ourselves-help our world!  People lose their innocence with media influence, yes, but innocence isn’t always good. It’s weakness.  So let me ask you again. What would a world without media influence be like? Would it be safer? No, it would be bland, boring, arduous, and possibly more dangerous. Do you really want to live in this world?