2.28 Diction Excercise

Words: Rise; Blowing; Heavens; Desolation; extinguished; Remember, Nothing; Alone

Level Of Formality: Pretentious; Ornate

Connotation: They are chosen definitely for their suggestiveness when they are talking about the sun i do not think they literally mean the people are suns and that their flame is the love being extinguished

Concreteness: Very Concrete: with feeling and sound along with sight.

Claim: Love & Death creates a kind of Pretentious Diction with a wonderful mix of Concrete words that beautifully play with your senses and create a kind of emotional purging.

A Long Way Gone Reading Blog

This is where the book is really starting to heat up we find our boys to a village where they are told their parents are located. This makes them happy and are on their way to the said village which has no name. When they reach the village they are coming over the hill when gunfire breaks and the boys wait for a long time. Later on they enter the village to find out that the rebels had killed everyone there. This made Ishmael very angry and sad all at the same time. While they waited rebels showed up and began smoking marijuana and playing cards. After a while the boys made some noise and they began to open fire. The boys began to run for hours and when they stopped one of the boys named Silas began to cry and flung himself on the ground. He was bleeding and they were all watching and trying to stop the bleeding but were unable to. This was very sad as Ishmael had the blood of one of his friends all over his hands. He had just lost another friend earlier from some unknown illness and that had already left the boys in a very vulnerable state. These boys have gone through hell and back and they still have quite a ways to go till they are close to freedom. After that they came to the village of Yele where the military has occupied the village using it as a forward HQ. The village was filled with laughter soldiers and a false sense of safety. After awhile the soldiers began returning with little survivors and began requesting people to bring up arms which means that the boys are going to have to start fighting and this is just the beginning

This book is really starting to heat up and i cant wait to see how Ishmael handles himself in battle where as the rest of the boys seem to be much more eager to kill the rebels. They have seen more death than anyone I've ever known and they haven't even seen battle yet. Ishmael is a strong young man and he has potential I'm just scared that his friends aren't going to make it out of battle.

2/23 Diction Exercise/ Catcher In The Rye

words: Lousy, Crap, bores, pretty, hell, touchy, dough(money), terrific

Level of Formality: Very low/abstain

Connotation: they mean what they say very straight forward/ Graspable

Concreteness: abstract/non-senses

Claim: The Abstain formality of 'The Catcher In The Rye' leaves a very graspable diction along with the transcendental connotation of the book for anyone to understand and read with ease.

The Dart League King pgs. 1-36

The dart league king is a scumbag. plain and simple. He has a certain way about him, Russel, his name, is addicted to cocaine and works for his friends logging company. If you can even call Matt his 'Friend'. Every Friday there is a dart league game and Russel is the champion three years running. He is out of high school and is just going with the flow. He lives in the here-and-now. He owes his drug dealer over 1,000 dollars in drugs and he is not happy to say the least. It is now Friday night and he is playing for the championship and for the title of Dart League King. He also plays a terrible game one of the worst he has ever played in fact. There are a number of things that are knocking him off his 'Equilibrium'. (his idea of enough beer and cocaine to play a smooth game of darts). Russel is every high school washouts image from the time acid came on the scene. He has problems but this Friday night those are the least of his worries. His old drug dealer is looking for Russel's head on a platter. There is also a tale of Sex, Drugs, and rock and roll. The book is only beginning and im excited to see how the night is going to go.
In my opinion this is, so far, my favorite book it has a very interesting feel to it and yet a very easy read. I cannot wait to see what happens to this loser and all of his Dart Game endeavors. Russel is a scumbag. Plain and simple.

Facebook

The coolest thing that happened as a result of facebook was when all of my friends planned my surprise party for my birthday last year. It was really cool to see how my friends planned it out they had me go over to a friends for the day and just hang out and have pizza and play video games. Then while i was at my friends all day they went out and bought party supplies and what not for the party that day. This had all been planned the day before and they did a phenomenal job at it. After i spent the day at my friends i was taken home to my surprise that a surprise party had been thrown for me. The party turned out to be one of the best parties i had ever had.

A Long way gone pgs. 120-150

We now find our heroes traveling along the road once again. Traveling to find what I'm guessing to be a village that has not been war torn and abandoned. At this point though i do not think it matters though being that all of Sierra Leone knows of all the boy soldiers now fighting for the rebels. The boys being the exact age of most boy soldiers they find almost no hospitality no where they go. Either they are chased out of villages by men with weapons and sticks or are forced out by fear of the village being attacked. Either way things are not looking good for the boys. Also the boys have tried hard not to be recruited as they were almost before. Although Sierra Leone is somewhat a small country they lack in what seems to be villages and cities. Not only that but they travel on foot with very little food and water in the heat of Africa during summer.
We take what we have in America for granite such as water, food, and shelter. Millions of people all around the world have virtually nothing and we have everything for ourselves. That is upsetting to think about just how much we really do have. We as a country virtually know nothing of war anymore. We may read about it yes, but when was the last time you heard about the invasion of America? 1796? I feel very compelled to reading this book it provides such a provocative image of war in the eyes of a young civilian boy gone bad and very far from home.

The Road Reading Blog Valentines day

The man and the boy have a connection that is unheard of. Valentines day is not just about love between a man or a woman, no, the road is not only an amazing example of love but i felt inclined to write a detailed reflection over such a reflection. The father shows love in so many ways one being that he does not show the boy weakness. I know that in some situations that is a bad choice to make but within the book it works very well. The boy looks to the father for everything, food, shelter, a shoulder to cry on, and just a friend. This means that the father is everything to that boy. He is also all the boy knows. The connection is very simple and elegant its a simple love story of a father and his boy just trying to survive through this post apocalyptic cold world. I think that the man tries very hard to make sure the boy sees as little as possible of the cruel world he was born into. Even without the sun the very essence of love metaphors love goes on. Love is eternal. We as a society think love is dead but, I don't think that...its all around us and even In the apocalypse love is there

Teenagers, Friends and Bad Decisions

I thought this article was very accurate even though i'd hate to admit it. But I thought that the experiment was very interesting to see how teenagers acted around friends while driving through the simulation. The game was that they had to get to the finish as fast as possible without crashing and obeying road rules. The results were that teenagers had a higher rate of crashes and racing through yellow lights. In fact they were 60% higher than adults. I feel like this is an eye opener to us teen drivers and adults to show that we need to drive much safer and probably without friends. The teenagers however were offered cash prizes for winning which makes it biased because assuming that the teenagers did not have jobs they would have tried to get to the finish faster. But still I believe that the teenagers would still have acted out in the same fashion that they did. The article was very interesting overall and was very cool to read

A Long Way Gone Pgs. 101-120

This part of the book was very interesting to me in that the main character is only reflecting what is going on in his mind here. They are all still at that small village where they are staying. In this part the boy is thinking about his life back in Mattru Jong. He explained what life was like back in school and things like that. He explains how easy life was and how good at school he was. Even though now due to all the destruction and such he has no memory of anything he has learned he only remembers destruction. He also brings up how little sleep he has gotten lately. I believe that this is the early onset of post-par tam depression. The condition that soldiers get when returning from war. But who knows he also explains how close Junior and him were before all of this began. They were in a 'dance crew' of some kind at was quite amusing to see they were doing the same dance moves as I do when i'm bored. :)
These twenty pages were very powerful regardless to the length. They were very detailed and it was a lot to take in. I learned much about Ishmael and his former life. It was very moving for me as I felt sad and sympathetic towards him.

I thought this picture was very abstract and cool. It seemed to be twisting and turning making it seem almost like the city is being sucked into the light. But at the same time the city is on its side. Very cool opptical illusion.

The Road pgs. 101-150

The boy and his Father are now past the mountains and are in the valley below. They are continuing their long journey south to find warmer climates. They have just been getting pummeled by snow as they continue onward and it doesn't look to good as they continue onward. The father had to use one of the bullets in his gun as well. He had to kill a man because he tried to hurt the boy. It was a very climactic part of the book and I enjoyed reading it. But it went into such detail for that short time after he shot him just to show how gruesome the kill was. Before the kill was made the man and the father were talking along with the boy. This made it very difficult to follow along and make out just who was talking.

In my opinion the book is getting very intense they are running into more people along the journey and the battle for survival is getting heightened. It gives me a sense of almost blindness when i try to picture this place because of the heavy impression of gray dull light. But I digress...the plot is starting to thicken whatever that may be im not sure but i can start to see more of who these two are through their actions not so much what they say. I have also learned that their was a mother but she abandoned the boy and the father a while back. All in all this book is definitely in my top five favorite books and i cannot wait to see how it ends.