From Left to Right:

1) My dog (top picture) 

2) Red Converse; have been to the moon and back with me (not really)

3) Bracelet; has given me the best luck

4) Laptop; has all my stories and whatnot

5) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows; first book I've ever cried reading

6) Journal; doubles as my diary, has letters from my best friend ever in it, etc.

7) Drawings; fashion designs that I've drawn

8) Wallet; makeshift wallet, necessity

9) iPod; another necessity

10) Cellular Device; not pictured here

This is based on The Burning House, a blog that has interesting people take a picture of the things that they would bring with them if their house was on fire, and then a short explanation why (sometimes) (and family members don't count) (but pets do) (it has to be stuff you can carry with you). The Classroom Dictator had us do this. Supposedly it's supposed to tell you important things about a person. Unfortunately we were only allowed to include ten items. If my house was really burning, I'd try and bring more than what I put here.

My ELA Project (For Jane Eyre)

Well, we're supposed to come up with ideas for our own Jane Eyre written project (yeah, we read Jane Eyre... and it was amazing. Just saying.). So, well, what to do? 

I was thinking something along the lines of a play or screenplay (pretty much the same thing) of a bunch of people discussing the book Jane Eyre, hitting the most important points of the book and therefore being withing the requirements normally wanted by Mr. C. (AKA: Classroom Dictator). 

What's his opinion on this idea? I don't know yet, because he would need to tell me. I'm no mind reader, contrary to popular belief.

Ender's Game (Part 4)

This may be my last post, but I can't fit the rest of the book into this little post... so I'll keep trying!

Wait... for some reason blogger won't let me post this with the original reflection that I had written. I'll try to post again later!

Ender's Game (Part 3)

     Ender was off to Battle School with about thirty other boys who were supposedly just as smart as he was, and just as capable of being a commander as he was. They blasted off into space with no belongings to their names (everything necessary was to be provided at the Battle School). On the way up, Ender accidentally broke a boy's arm. He was commemorated as being the only one man enough to be there. He was being isolated, which had been mentioned in the dialogue at the beginning of the chapters, socially. 

     Ender would realize how much this isolation helped him later, but at the moment he feels that it is unfair, and he isn't without reason. Imagine if you were separated from your friends and peers. It would be lonely and frightening, especially for a six year old in a new school that trains you in battle. 

     Ender begins to adjust to the new schedule at the Battle School, even though he has no friends in the school. He's learning to operate alone. He's already shown his prowess at technology and computer hacking and building defenses on his Desk (which is like a slightly larger iPad). You can get games on the Desk, and there's one game in which Ender is always using. He's a character in a world in which there are several different scenarios that you can switch between. But that becomes important later, when we learn about Ender's psychology. 

     Then the boys in Ender's 'Launch Group ' (the other kids he launched to the Battle School with) are introduced to the Battle Room. The Battle Room is at the center of the school and it has zero gravity, mimicking conditions in space. Ender and a boy names Alai take to the Room immediately. They start bouncing off the walls, testing ways to move and travel, and they figure out how to use these guns that they're given. The guns shoot a light/lazer-like beam that 'freezes' the person you aimed at (it makes their Zero G suits stiffen up so they can't move). Ender is commemorated again for his work, and he is alienated even further. 

     Alai becomes Ender's first friend at the school, which must be nice for Ender. He was isolated for months, and then he's reintroduced to the social world. I cannot empathize with how Ender must be feeling. I've never been alienated like that, but maybe it's a sort of good learning experience for everyone to have. So they know how others feel. 

     This segment showed how much the people who run the Battle School want to push Ender even further, to be a commander sooner, to lead and army young. They want him to be perfect for when the 'buggers' next attack, which could be anytime. They isolated him, and now he has a new friend who he can laugh with whenever. 

     This seems like too much happiness for Ender to deal with all at once. The Colonel Graff will probably end his enjoyment as soon as he possibly can. 

Ender's Game (Part 2)

     These blog posts will end by this coming Monday! My teacher is coming back and that's when this assignment is supposed to end!

     In what I read today, I figured out many of the things that had been vague yesterday. For example, Peter is Ender's brother, and Ender also has a sister named Valentine. Peter is obviously mean to Ender all the time. "'I could kill you like this,' Peter said, 'just press and press until you're dead.'" (page 12) Since Peter is older than Ender by four or so years, it's not too difficult to imagine the violent Peter killing Ender. 

     At the beginning of the next chapter there is a dialogue again. The people are talking about Ender and his sister and how Ender truly loves Valentine, and how she is his weakest link. But then the next morning, Ender is visited by a man named Colonel Graff. He asked Ender why he attacked the boy who bullied him after school, and Ender gave what I think is a very intelligent response. 

     "Knocking him down won the first fight, I wanted to win all the rest [of the fights], too." (page 19) Ender had said, talking about why he had kept kicking the bully after he had fallen and started bleeding. And what Ender had done was not smart, but he did have a good, tangible reason for doing so. Fortunately, Colonel Graff likes Ender's answer and decides that Ender should be admitted into the Battle School.

     From what I've read, I know now that the monitor is used to judge a person's character and track them to see if they're good enough for the Battle School. From what Colonel Graff had said, the Battle School is to train officers young so they can be used in something called the 'Bugger War', which is a war against aliens. 

     Ender agrees to go.

     Oh! And also, a Third is a third child. Thirds are apparently illegal, but the government let Ender's parents have him because they were hoping for the perfect general, and Peter had been perfect, he had just been too violent. Valentine had been too mellow, and Ender was supposedly a combination of the two. 

     This is really pulling me in.

Ender's Game (Part 1)

Hey! We’re finally at Ender’s Game! (NOTE: I’ve already read the book… this is just so I don’t give away anything)

     The first chapter of this book is very vague, but intriguing. The chapter stars off with a dialogue from two people whose names we do not find out. They’re discussing a boy who they think they can use. For what exactly is also a mystery at this point. Then the font changes and the scene seemingly cuts to a boy named Andrew (or Ender, as he is called throughout the book) who is sitting on a steel table at the doctor’s office or hospital or whatever it is, about to have something called a ‘monitor’ removed.

     We do not know what the monitor is at this time, we only know that it is getting removed by the doctor who ‘messed up’ the operation and twists the monitor out, but not. He calls in for backup and they save Ender. From what, exactly, is unclear. The doctor sighs in relief and lets him know a few small changes; he’ll be slightly disoriented for a while and he’ll feel like something is missing.

     Ender went back to his class, where the kids look at him and notice that his monitor is missing, gone, from the back of his neck. There we learn that Ender is something called a ‘Third’. We don’t know what it is, only that it is something degrading. We also learn that Ender is exceedingly intelligent. He says that he learned how to do arithmetic when he was three… at this point in time Ender is six years old. At the end of class some other, bigger kids bully Ender. They call him a ‘Third’ and they push him around. Ender strikes out and knocks the lead kid down, kicking him and making his nose bleed and obviously causing serious injury.

     Ender walks away, and says to himself that when they take away his monitor, he’s just like Peter.

     This chapter is confusing, since it has the quality that you’re being shoved into the middle of a novel. You feel like you should know who Peter is, what a monitor is, who the people who were talking in the dialogue were, and etcetera. But you don’t know, and it makes you want to read more. That’s an interesting quality for a book to have.

     From what I read, Peter is a violent, mean person. Ender obviously does not like Peter, and compares himself to this Peter constantly.  “I am just like Peter. Take my monitor away, and I’m just like Peter.” (page 8) I really want to find out who Peter is, but there will be more on that in the next post. The most intriguing thing in this chapter, though, is the dialogue. The people talk about ‘buggers’ and ‘saving the world’ and how ‘the boy’ (obviously Ender) could help them when in the correct circumstances. But what circumstances? Ender seems to be in the middle of a large, elaborate plan that he is unaware of and that we, as readers, are unaware of.

Little Brother (Part 8)

Notice: I have finished the book Little Brother. Posts on Ender’s Game will begin tomorrow.

    

     Marcus decided to escape from Masha when she brought him to the truck that would take him to a new place where he could live underground, in secret. He was smart to escape, in my opinion. Masha still could have been working for the Homeland Security for all Marcus knew. And he had to go back for Ange, who was being held captive for being associated with the Xnet and Marcus/M1k3y (as he was known on the Xnet). However, when Marcus went to sleep for the night under the freeway, he was caught by Homeland Security and brought to the prison again.

     Here I think he was rather tactless. Shouldn’t he have made sure he had disguised his face with mud or cloth or something? So he wouldn’t be recognizable from the pictures that were in a newspaper article about him. But he had slept in the open, and was therefore paying for his mistake.

     When he got to the prison, he was thrown into a cell for the night, and then brought into a room for interrogation. They performed a kind of torture known as simulated execution. As in, he would feel like he was dying or dead until they finished interrogating him. His form of simulated execution was to hang him upside-down and pour water down his nose and mouth so he felt as though he were drowning. They asked him for his username and password to his Xnet account, and he wouldn’t give it.

     Marcus was gallant not to give in, but it just caused him more pain. They had poured buckets of water down his mouth and nose, and he still wouldn’t give in. Here, I don’t think he was thinking about Ange or Darryl. If he had been thinking about them he would have done this differently. But he was able to hold in the information long enough for the reporter who reported his story to the newspaper to show up with the National Guard. They released him and all the other prisoners (but they were all still arrested until they paid bail). Marcus went to search for Ange and Darryl, and they all had a relatively happy ending.

     This is classic. It reminds me of Harry Potter, actually (I relate things to Harry Potter often). How Marcus had to topple a government, and how Harry had to defeat Voldemort, who had taken over the government. The interrogations about terrorists that Marcus’s government performed remind me of the interrogations that took place in the seventh Harry Potter book, when the government was trying to find out who was a real wizard and who was a ‘muggle-born’ wizard. The interrogations that happened in Harry Potter also included torture.

     The ending to Little Brother was classic. Marcus kissed Ange and they went out for burritos (well, the burritos weren’t classic, but it was close enough). The book contained the vague storyline of a young boy who leads a rebellion against a government or a person, succeeds, but has to go through many physical and mental challenges. The author did, thankfully, put a new, futuristic spin on the storyline.

     Overall, I did enjoy the book. It was a good read that didn’t take long to complete (I drew out the blog posts so they would last a week, even though I finished the book a few days ago). The author ended the book with a finality that shows it will not have a sequel. 

     And that is the last of Little Brother! I hope you'll miss it, because I will. 

Little Brother (Part 7)

     Marcus has gone into the danger zone. He’s told the whole story about being stuck in a prison and what had happened to his friend Darryl to his parents, Darryl’s dad, and a newspaper reporter; Barbara Walters. Marcus had decided to be daring, and I respect his choice, and it’s good that he realizes the danger of the resulting article, if it gets published.

     But things have turned slightly weird and creepy. A girl named Masha, who had been a part of the second secret Internet service, contacts Marcus. Masha tells him that she was originally working for Homeland Security, trying to figure out who, exactly, had founded the Xnet and why. But now she wanted out, and she was escaping with the others and wanted to bring Marcus with her. Marcus, though, wanted to bring Ange with him because they were girlfriend and boyfriend now, and getting really serious.

     Marcus called a huge meeting of people on the Xnet, they were going to all dress up in gothic vampire costumes and run around the Civic Center. That would get the police’s attention so this Masha could get him and Ange away and safe.

     The plan backfires, and they have to leave Ange behind with the other people from the Xnet. Masha takes him ‘captive’ and runs with him to the waiting truck, which would take them away and to the safe place… wherever that was.

     I do not think that Marcus is very intelligent, or does not think things through fully. This Masha could have been someone who could have arrested him, taken him straight to Homeland Security, or killed him on the spot. He never thought the Xnet through either, what he would do if he was caught, what Ange would do. He never thought through refusing to answer the questions that the people at Homeland Security had asked him when he was trapped, either.

     I know now that his loving parents would not stop him from escaping, but that he would go back to get Ange. He’s almost completely forgotten about Van, and Jolu is like a distant memory. This whole thing with the Xnet and the government has placed the rest of his life on hold, making escaping and being free his first and almost only priority.

Little Brother (Part 6)

This will start off as a summary so when you read you can understand anything that happened. Sorry for any inconvenience.

     Marcus is getting bolder and more public with his first private Internet service. It mainly started with a blog he made after going to a huge open-air concert that supported Marcus’s movement towards more freedom and rights. The people, mainly teenagers and people under the age of twenty, were all caught by the police for illegal activity, which Marcus reported later was unfair and cruel.

     Marcus and Ange started dating, to top it all off. Marcus and Ange started seeing each other most of the time, and they were almost always together in public, though Marcus still kept his identity as the founder of the Internet service (known as the Xnet) a secret.

     Marcus blogged the videos people had taken of the concert on the Xnet, and he made sure that he kept the identities of the people who had taken the videos anonymous, and he kept posting the videos and audio sequences that the people who had been at the concert had recorded, and many responses had come rolling in. All this time, reporters and newspapers around the globe had been reporting on the concert, and when they realized that there was yet another facet to the story, they called up Marcus on the Xnet (his handle (nickname) was M1k3y) and asked him for interviews and conferences.

     Ange had had the idea of calling a press conference on the Xnet. So Marcus obliged and held the conference. When he was done, his story and the people on the Xnet’s stories were being told truthfully across the world.

     I’m not sure what Marcus is doing. He had claimed earlier that this was just a small way for people to rebel, nothing public, nothing major. Just a way to surf the web, play games, and chat without the Homeland Security knowing exactly who you were and what you were doing every second of every minute. But now the police are searching for people using the Xnet on the streets and reporters can access it. And then Marcus called the press conference, which was like a nuclear bomb in the midst of all the chaos, in other words; a lot more chaos to add on to the growing pile.

     The weird thing is that Marcus seems ready to back down at any notice that the people on the Xnet are getting caught and hurt. So it’s like he’s leading them on with the press conference, as if the people on the Xnet can be even more outspoken, and then he reels them back in, telling them to be responsible with identity-stealing and etcetera. This has happened twice by my count so far, and I’m concerned about what Marcus must be thinking. This has turned into more than just a small rebellious group, now it’s a California-wide (and even farther) movement.

Little Brother (Part 5)

     Marcus has many opinions that he voices aloud to the general public in his school in what I read today. He began a debate in his class about whether or not the Yippies had the right to do what they did. Marcus says that the Yippies did have the right to protest their government. Many of the kids in Marcus's class protest against the Yippies, and a few speak out openly against what the Yippies did. What I find significant here is that Marcus seems to want to do what the Yippies did. 

     I don't think Marcus is approaching the situation in an intelligent way. He could be talking to the police, who weren't involved. He could bring the situation to court. He could sue. But Marcus believes that the older people are oblivious and don't understand what's going on. He believes that the police are in league with Homeland Security. They might be, but the police could respect the rights of the people. 

     I believe that Marcus could be going overboard with two secret internet services and secret rendezvous and all of the secrecy. His parents don't even have an inkling. Marcus is getting friendly with people who could either greatly help him or hurt him, such as Ange (who is a huge free-thinker), and I still don't believe that Marcus knows exactly how huge an issue he's diving head-first into.

Little Brother (Part 4)

     From what I have read today, I can tell that Marcus is going to lead a full-scale rebellion. He had gathered all of the people he thought he could trust to let them know about a secret web service he had created that the Homeland Security of the United States. That way these people could surf the internet and chat and play games in perfect privacy. 

     I'm not sure what to think about this rebellion idea. In one scenario it could help the people get away from constant surveillance, which is both obnoxious and privacy-busting. In another scenario it could get Marcus and everyone involved in the rebellion jailed for life or killed for treason. I don't believe that Marcus understands that he won't be the only person punished for his actions. Everyone involved would also be harmed if they got caught. 

     That is why Jolu had told Marcus that he was out of the deal. Jolu had been one of Marcus's best friends, and now, like Van, he was leaving the project in fear of getting caught and hurt. It seems that with every friend who leaves the cause, though, Marcus picks up another. At his little rendezvous/party, Marcus met a girl named Ange, whom Marcus seems to like (they were chatting on the secret internet service until around 4 am after the party). Now that I can see what's going on with Marcus and the girls in his life, I'm wondering if there will be a catfight later between Ange and Van over Marcus. But that kind of thing really only happens in Soap Operas. 

     Marcus created this new 'secret internet' because he suspected that Homeland Security had spies in his original secret network, the Xnet. What I want to know now is if the people he invited to the rendezvous are being hired by Homeland Security to spy on the new secret internet service. Even if the people are trustworthy, it doesn't mean they can't be threatened with Marcus's predicament. 

     What I want to know now is how far Homeland Security would go to 'protect' the citizens of the United States.

Little Brother (Part 3)

Note to readers: If you're wondering why I haven't written about Ender's Game yet, it's because I'll finish off writing about Little Brother, then I'll have a crack at Ender's Game.

     Tonight I am full of questions about what I read today. So far in the book Marcus seems to have avoided several attacks. An attack from terrorists, attacks from Homeland Security when they chain him up for questioning about his whereabouts during the attack, and also in school he gets attacked by the principal about his computer hacking tactics. Marcus is skilled at avoiding these situations, and I am wondering if that skill will help him in the future (the rest of the book). I can't tell until I finish reading, and that's just a question I am asking myself.

      This is a different book in many ways. In this book, Marcus's parents love him. In many other books, the care-takers of the main character normally despise the character. Like in Harry Potter, the Dursleys hate Harry. So the fact that Marcus's parents love him might affect how he acts later in the book. He might not be so willing to leave his parents if needed.

     I've noticed that Vanessa, Marcus's best friend who is a girl, seems to start liking Marcus. When she kissed him goodbye, she 'missed' his cheek and caught a bit of his mouth. But when she kissed her other friend goodbye she kissed him 'square on the cheek', as Marcus said. Will this lead to anything significant? Marcus also said that he found Van really pretty, just noticing now.

     I'm sorry about the questions, could you ever forgive me?

Little Brother (Part 2)

     For some reason, I find that I sympathize with Marcus' father. He seems so innocent in how he believes that all of this security is helping the country get rid of terrorists. He wants to believe that this is helping the country get rid of terrorists and drug lords. Marcus, however, knows better and says so to his father. His father is so disbelieving that it seems like he's no naive. 

     Nothing in this section that I read struck me as imperative. I do know now, though, that Marcus is stubborn. Marcus wouldn't tell the officials what he had been doing at the scene of crime, saying that since he wasn't arrested he could not be forced to cooperate. That takes spunk and a killer stubborn streak. And I admire his candor, but it could get him killed. 

     There wasn't much that struck me as overly important in the section that I completed. So this is the end of my reflection

Little Brother Reflection (Part 1)

This is just an introduction to Little Brother. Kinda.

     Marcus is a seventeen-year-old boy who lives in San Francisco. He's a computer hacker, so therefore the book has a ton of these techie words and phrases in it that most people wouldn't understand without careful deciphering. Well, that may be only me. As far as I have read in the book, Marcus has been captured at the scene of a terrorist attack with his friends, questioned, and then released with a warning that the U.S. Government would be watching him. The rest of the book spirals from there. 

     I'm not quite sure how I feel about how the government constantly watching the people who live in the country, and finding ways to make sure it follows, however how obscurely, the Bill of Rights. I don't think that they're trying to be overly intruding upon your privacy, they're just paranoid. But sometimes that paranoia is something that causes more terror. 

      Marcus is obviously resisting the new regime of 'terror' after the attack on the Bay Bridge. I think that he may be smart to resist, because privacy is sometimes more important than safety, especially since your privacy could increase your chances of being safe.
    


To be continue later. 

To Kill A Mockingbird (second ctn.)

     This is one of the more touching segments of the whole movie, in which you finally meet the elusive Arthur (Boo) Radley. I didn't get to see the whole of the segment since I was absent for the beginning of class, but from what I saw the movie was true to the book in this crucial area. 

     Boo Radley was just how I imagined that he would look, shy and awkward, tall, pale, maybe a little creepy, but that's just because he's been inside for so many years. His overall personality seemed different than it had been in the book. Boo was a little more timid and childlike than I had originally imagined him to be. Shy, yes, but that was described blatantly. 

     I loved what Scout said at the end of the movie, narrating about how standing on the Radley porch was enough to understand what it was like to be in Boo's shoes. That was inspiring and well thought through and heartfelt. And I found that that was one of the moments in which Scout grew up a little more. 

    

To Kill A Mockingbird (ctn.)

     I found that the movie 'To Kill a Mockingbird' was good, even though we haven't quite finished it in class yet. My favorite scene in the whole movie so far has been the trial scene, in which Tom Robinson was charged with the rape of Mayella Ewell, and Atticus was defending Tom, who was a black man.

     You could tell, in that scene, how Maycomb County (the setting of the movie) felt about the black population and their place in the world. Basically, most of Maycomb is racist.

     My class did notice while watching the movie how the plot mainly focused around Atticus, even though the narrator was still Scout. It is a good angle for the movie, since Atticus is such an intriguing and well-written character and the actor was so skilled at being Atticus. But if I had a choice I would have focused more on Scout. Scout is also such an interesting character; she seems too intelligent for her years reading-and-writing wise, but she still manages to be child-like. But the credit for the character, of course, goes to the author of the book and the writer of the script for the movie.

      In the segment of the movie that my class and I viewed today, Jem didn't seem to be as prominent. The scene we saw today was completely focused on Atticus and the trial. I believe that that was the right choice to make. Jem is an interesting character, but doesn't have a huge role in the movie.

     To a more serious note in the movie, I found the death of Tom disappointing. The writer of the script got the death of Tom Robinson all wrong. In the book, Tom had died trying to escape from the prison by climbing over the fence, and had been shot seventeen times by the guards. In the movie, however, he had been shot once and killed instantly trying to escape the car on the way to the prison.

     The movie has its ups and downs, and I'm excited to see where the movie turns next.

To Kill A Mockingbird

     (This is an assignment for class on the movie 'To Kill a Mockingbird', which we watched in class today.)

     I found the movie to be different from the book, which always bothers me, but at least the producers and writers kept it interesting. For example, Scout was supposed to have found all the loot in the knot of the tree, but in the movie Jem found all of the figures and marbles and etcetera.

     Also, the actor who played the character Atticus was perfect for the part. He portrayed Atticus as firm but loving in small ways, as someone who would promote free-thinking children. I think that no matter how many secrets about himself Atticus keeps, I would like him as my dad. No offense to my actual dad.

     I think that the fact that the movie is in black-and-white is a small drawback, but not huge. It lends more of a sense of the time period you're 'immersed' in. You can't see all the little details that might have been important. For example, you couldn't tell when Jem's pants were caught on the fence, you couldn't see the snag where his pants got caught.

     I don't have much of an overall reaction to the movie, which is unfortunate but understandable. I've already read the book and know the main events that occur. So nothing is really a surprise in the movie. I do prefer movies that have little twists to them so they're different but recognizable.

Not A Reflection, Just An Introduction

     Well, as said above... this is an introduction, not a reflection. Yet. Reflections come later, just in case you can't wait. You'll have to wait anyway, but this will console you. Hopefully. 

     Anyway, this is for my English Language Arts (ELA) class at high school, I'm a freshman. My teacher was awesome enough to force us to create a blog on blogger, using the gmail accounts he forcefully recommended that we use. My teacher will be reading this, so he doesn't need the intro. Anyone who stumbles across this blog randomly will, however, need the introduction so you don't get confused.

     The reflections will be on both Little Brother, if I can manage it, and Ender's Game. This will contain spoilers. So, if you haven't read the books but want to read the blog anyway, you'll have to bear with me. 

     Signing out,

     Maya An