CHAPTER IV

He's a bootlegger
Rumours about Gatsby, going around the party. Motif: alcohol, of course, since he apparently sells it. And Nick is unreliable because he is only saying what he hears.

Once I wrote down on empty spaces of a time-table the names of those who came to Gatsby's house that summer.
Can't live in the past? Well he's trying, having noted down EVERYONE that went to the party. Nick, again is writing only what he knows and remembers.

Paid him the subtle tribute of knowing nothing whatever about him.

and a whole clan named Blackbuck, who always gathered in a corner and flipped up their noses like goats at whosoever came near.
I do not want what i already have: these people already have their own crowd, why would they want more people to be around them.

I doubt if he had any other home.
Haves and have nots, this man hasn't got a home, so he's using Gatsby's.

CHAPTER V

When I came home to West Egg that night I was afraid for a moment that my house was on fire.
What'll we do this day, tomorrow, and the next thirty years? What would nick do without a house? White/ Yellow fire, and Nick is unreliable: he tells us his house is on fire, but it's not.

Turning a corner, I saw that it was Gatsby's house, lit from tower to cellar.
White/ Yellow lights, and Gatsby is doing random things, Who is he?

He turned his eyes toward it absently.
Gatsby, absently looking around, still unsure of who he is. Haves and have nots, he has so much money, he doesn't ccare about anything.

Let's go to Coney Island, old sport. In my car.
It's too late.
Well suppose we take a plunge in the swimming-pool? I haven't made use of it all summer.
I've got to go to bed.
All right.
Haves and have nots, Gatsby has everything except Daisy, and he wants her so bad he can't wait to talk to Nick.

He waited, looking at me with suppressed eagerness. Again, not having Daisy bothers Gatsby, and Nick might've been wrong about Gatsby's expression.

Film Four Act Structure

ACT I – The Loner
Sequence #1 ( 01-10) Setup: Protagonist In The Ordinary World
Sequence #2 ( 11-20) Call to Adventure / Predicament / Inciting Incident
Sequence #3 (21-30) Turing Point: Change Of Plans / New Lower Obstacles

ACT II – The Wanderer
Sequence #4 ( 31-40) Elaborating on the Dilemma and The World of Story
Sequence #5 ( 41-50) Hero encounters TESTS, ALLIES, and ENEMIES.
Sequence #6 (51-60) Point Of No Return / Discovery Of False Goal

ACT III – Towards The True Goal: The Warrior Phase
Sequence #7 ( 61-70) Complications, Higher Stakes, And Subplots
Sequence #8 ( 71-80) Culmination Toward The Main Plot
Sequence #9 (81-90 ) All Hope Is Lost

ACT IV – Result Of The Action: The Martyr
Sequence #10 ( 91-95 ) Final Push Toward The Main Plot
Sequence #11 ( 96-100) False Resolution (The Twist)
Sequence #12 (101-105) Final Test of Character and True Resolution
Sequence #13 (106-110) Final Confrontation
Sequence #14 (111-115) Climax

Starship Troopers

Act I: The protagonist, Johnny Rico, is in the ordinary world, high school etc... When his girlfriend says she's going to enroll to become a military pilot, this is the call to adventure.

After he enrolls, his father isn't OK with it. And tells him he will be cut off. He then enrolls anyway.

Act II: Rico meets the people on his squad, making friends and enemies. After that, his girlfriend breaks up with him, which is when he realizes his goals were wrong.

Pinch: When Rico gets a man killed and his Ex's ship gets hit by a meteor on the way to Earth.

Act III: Rico gets promoted to squad leader, which heightens the stakes. Then, his home is destroyed by a bug meteor,

First key plot point: When the bug meteor crashes into his hometown killing his whole family

which leads to the main plot. After that, Rico and his mates are sent to the main bug planet, where a huge amount of people die and Rico also is shown dying. This is the point when all hope is lost.

Second key plot point: When Rico and his new squad are stuck in a fort with a whole colony of bugs is attacking.

Act IV: Rico is sent to find the brain bug, but during this, his Ex is stranded in a bug colony, Rico goes to help her which is a test of character and resolution. He confronts the brain bug, the final confrontation. And the climax happens when the bug is captured and "IT'S AFRAID"

Poem

Life, it's hard, but you survive, to prove to yourself you are worth it.

This poem talks about how a child was wounded, probably emotionally, and how the child kept living, to prove his father wrong about who the child was or something like that.

The second big idea is that the pain the child felt made him think he was unloved, alone and he was miserable for it. But that he later understood that the pain came from him loving people and suffering for that love.

In short, this poem tells people to keep fighting and that life is worth living with love.

Pictures

Long shot

Medium long shot

Medium shot

Close up

Long shot

Medium long shot

Poem: A lowly passing

T’is a lowly passing

Of an era,

T’is not something

For which to cry “Mea Culpa”.

T’is not something to escape,

T’is not a being thou might hide from,

No matter how dark thy cape,

No matter how far thoust run.

T’is an end,

T’is a beginning,

T’is a bend

In a road ongoing.

Be it death, be it love,

T’is up to the strengths above.

Henry V Play

BIG IDEA: We are so unworthy of this play that we need you to make it great in your mind.
Ideas in service of the big idea
Rhetoric
Imagery

This Play is too good.
O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,

We don't have worthy actors or stage, we need princes etc...
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!

Then should the warlike Harry, like himself, Simile: Harry like war, Harry=war
Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,
Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire
Crouch for employment.

But pardon, and gentles all,
The flat unraised spirits that have dared
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object:

Are we able to do this here and now?
can this cockpit hold England South Bank
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?

We need your help.
O, pardon! since a crooked figure may
Attest in little place a million;
And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,
On your imaginary forces work.
Suppose within the girdle of these walls
Are now confined two mighty monarchies,
Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder:
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;
Into a thousand parts divide on man,
And make imaginary puissance;
Think when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth;
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times,
Turning the accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass: for the which supply,
Admit me Chorus to this history;

Who prologue-like your humble patience pray, heroic couplet
Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play

Empathy and Discipline

Empathy, the action of feeling another entity’s pain, whether it be physical or mental discomfort. Discipline, self discipline, discipline in a group, discipline enforced over someone else. Basically making sure that another entity will follow rules established by that same or another living being.

Empathy and discipline are two values that humanity in general really tries to enforce, even though both of these go against the very nature of Homo Sapiens Sapiens and every living thing to ever be present on this earth. Life and anything it is present in is destined and biologically programmed to fight for it using any means necessary. Empathy is a value that people think is very important to have to be viewed as a good human being. Technically, to be a good or a real human being, the values you would need are versatility, ruthlessness and a sense of what is appropriate in a community. Discipline is arguable on this kind of subject.

Discipline is a good human quality in certain situations. In a community, you need discipline to make sure it stays together. Alone, self discipline in a human being is nearly completely useless. The only way that not having a sense of discipline when living outside of a community is if you perform actions that might affect your health permanently and in the end might end your life.
Both discipline and empathy are abstract things. They can be shown physically in certain situations and in different ways. Discipline can be demonstrated through a multitude of situations depending on which kind of discipline we are trying to show, whether it be giving an order or forcing oneself to do something that one does not wish to do. The feeling of empathy, however, is much harder to show, if it is even really possible at all. One might claim that one may demonstrate it through acts of kindness, but that might be only that: kindness. Empathy is a completely invisible emotion or way of thinking. Empathy might be caused by neurons.

Neurons called mirror neurons, which are used, mainly physically, to make your own body feel what another is feeling. Once a human being sees another creature being hurt, mirror neurons act up and make him feel that pain as well, although on a smaller scale. It is possible that Homo Sapiens Sapiens’ brain has evolved in such a way that there are mirror nerves capable of reflecting emotions or feelings to the observer on a similar scale. It might also help if the observer had past experience in those very emotions since the neurons which react when these emotions are felt have done so before and can communicate that very information to the mirror nerves.

Advertisement

A: It attracts attention with light.
I: Develops interest with humor
D:It doesn't really, except with the humor.
A: With the little writing, it tells you what it is, so you can act on it.

C for Cool

Attention, coolness levels dangerously high! Verify the Various sources of this Veritably Vivifying essay if you will. V for Vendetta, a Veritable delight of a View for the Valiant person Vagabonding on their Vacation on which there is no Vacillating from the Verity that is boredom. V for Vendetta, A movie that made a name for itself so well that it has been immortalised on the internet by Various groups and websites. The dialogues, the scenes, the music and the depth of the characters, along with the original twists in the story which is in itself amazing. All these things were put together to create an immortal movie that will last throughout the ages. This movie is one of the coolest sources of cool in the history of cool.



“My name is Fawkes, Guy Fawkes. Guido for my friends.” Guy Fawkes is, in a way, a great creator of cool. He belonged to a group of provincial English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605. The Gunpowder plot was a plan to assassinate different lords to establish what Guido and his compatriots believed was a correct government. The plan was to stockpile explosives under a government building called the Parliament. Guido was to guard the explosives until everything was put into action. The plot failed, but Guido and his friends’ idea lived on. It left such a great legacy that all over the world, signs that Guido’s sacrifice was not in vain still exist, from festivals to… M.


The Guy Fawkes Mask, a mystery to all. How could a mask look so strange and grotesque and yet be so cool? The Guy Fawkes Mask is a representation of Guido Fawkes, yet it is not only that. It has a much deeper meaning. A meaning that digs deep. So deep that it touches the very essence of humankind: Rebellion, the source of coolness. The Mask represents an anonymous, a person whose identity is meant to stay unknown, which in itself is cool. An anonymous that will fight against the forces that be, whether it is a government or “the system”, whether it be the rules in general or a person of authority. Whichever it be, the Guy Fawkes mask represents an anonymous that will fight against that very point of authority. This mask is part of the legacy left behind by Guido Fawkes. A legacy so great that in 2006, a movie was created. This movie was a Veritably Vivifying representation of Guy Fawkes’s story, only from the point of View of a present day Britain controlled by a Vicious and tyrannical government. And its main character is… V.



Voila! A mysterious and humorous anonymous with a penchant for the dangerous. That, ladies and gentlemen, is an accurate description of V, the main character in the amazing movie that is V For Vendetta. V For Vendetta is a sublimely cool representation of one of the coolest topics, coolest attitudes or coolest actions that has ever existed. Rebellion. Rebellion is the source of cool. It is a logical conclusion after all: cool, whether it is now in 2011, or at its origin decades ago, cool is what is different, what is new. Up to a certain level, something new is something rebellious, since no one is used to it. Rebellion, along with an amusing yet mysterious and deadly hero, add a few amazingly inspirational and dramatic scenes and you have V For Vendetta, a movie that will stay engraved in the minds of all who watched it as one of the coolest movies ever. And even better, on top of leaving memories that future generations will and have based themselves on, the movie in question is based on an inspirational historical event. Yes, future generations have already started basing their culture on this movie. Mainly on one of the major communication tools of our time and the time before…WWW.


The internet. Home to so many different communities. More than there are in the so-called “real world”, although that term may be argued upon. These communities, just like so many civilizations in the past, live, die and merge. When they merge, they adopt the culture of the most prominent website. And then there are the underground communities, communities that pick their members with care. Communities that influence the rest of the web by hacking, spamming and infiltrating. All of these communities, prominent or underground, are related. Information travels faster than ever before. And the legacy of Fawkes and V travels and spreads, as fast, if not faster than other trends. It is cool. Why is it still cool after 5 years, or hundreds of years? Because it is one of the most perfect representations of cool there is. It represents rebellion nearly perfectly. So many communities and websites follow the influence of V and Fawkes. It started with the Mask. The mask evolved into “memes”, cartoon faces that represent complex emotions in a huge variety of situations. These memes originated from the Mask, but also from the scenes in V For Vendetta, among other things. Scenes that can be described as… I.


Inspirational, inspiration the way to create something out of nothing. Without inspiration, there would be no creation and in turn, no rebellion. And without rebellion, there would be no cool. The scenes in V For Vendetta were created by the movie’s producers through inspiration. And they themselves decupled their power of inspiration through the movie and its viewers, inspiring a whole generation to create a trend. A trend that has lasted much longer than most. A trend that up until has remained cool. How? Why? What? One word. The source of cools coolness. One of humankinds most basic instincts, change, modification…R.



Rebellion. Rebellion, as said throughout this text, is the source of cool. However, that is not exactly true. Inspiration is the source of cool. Rebellion, is the source of coolness. Rebellion is what makes cool things cool, rebellion is the flavor, the topping, added to the food that is creation. Whilst inspiration is the kitchen in which it was made. Rebellion makes things cool because something rebellious is basically something new, and something cool is the same: cool is new, cool is something never done before, something… Original.

Basically, V for Vendetta cool, not only because of how well the movie was made and how the actors acted, but because of what it represents: rebellion, and because of what it has caused: inspiration. A whole generation was affected by this movie, and this generation was the first to have the most powerful communication technology at their fingertips. All this caused it to remain cool for much longer than any other movie, style or music before. And even when the movie itself becomes uncool, once technoolgy has surpassed 2D images and videos, the world will remember and use the legacy that Guy fawkes, V, and this generation will have left behind

V

Voila! Verify the Various sources of this Veritably Vivifying essay if you will. V for Vendetta, a Veritable Vacation of a View for the Valiant person Vagabonding Vacation on which there is no Vacillating from the Vacant Verity that is boredom. V for Vendetta, A movie that made a name for itself so well that it has been immortalised on the internet by Various groups and websites. The dialogues, the scenes, the music and the depth of the characters, along with the original twists in the story which is in itself amazing. All these things were put together to create an immortal movie that will last throughout the ages.

V

http://youtu.be/IQyqx1K495U

Brainstorm

Converse,
Alien,
Coca-Cola,
Alice Cooper.

Cool

Toast

In the middle of the night, you wake up… you hear a sound coming from the kitchen. It’s your toaster, it’s working… After a second, two slices pop up with a ding. What else could you do? You eat them. Toast is great, it’s delicious and all kinds of other stuff, but its main qualities are that you can eat it at any time of the day. It can be made in innumerable ways, and to make it even more adaptable there are countless toppings to help please any kind of eater with any kind of craving.
One o’clock, five o’clock, twelve o’clock, TOAST! Toast can be made and eaten at any day. No matter if you wake up at two in the morning and have a craving, you can get your toaster and two slices of bread, and in three minutes you can have two beautiful slices of deliciousness on your table. And if at some point during the day, you’re making toast, and you realize you’re late for a meeting or such, no worries, put it in a container, and you can eat it later. It can be conserved for days, and when taken out of its container, it can be reheated. Although that might change the degree of crispiness of your toast, you shouldn’t worry, there are many other ways to toast toast, and it would only take an extra minute or so.

Yes, you heard me, it only takes a few minutes to toast, and even less if you want it less crunchy or less golden, toast can be made in an infinite amount of ways: Whether you leave it longer and it turns out nice, dark and crunchy, or if you put it in for only a minute, and it becomes a light gold. A single second can make the difference. That’s why there are uncountable ways of making toast. It can be toasted to fit the taste of anyone. Even the people who don’t especially like eating bread, since there are plenty of other things you can do to toast to make it even better. How? Keep reading.

Toast is great by itself, but wouldn’t the world be lonely if you were a grilled slice of bread? Of course it would! That’s why generations of people have come up with a huge variety of products that you can use as toppings for it. From chocolate, for those of you that feel depressed or simply need the calories, to peanut butter jelly time, if you feel like spicing your life up with a mix of tastes and flavours. With all these toppings, how could your toast be bad? With all those combinations, how could there not be a single one that fits your needs?
Imagine that the secret of toast creation disappeared; imagine what would happen to the bread industry, it would fall drastically, and without all that money, the world would plunge into another economic crisis. In desperation, countries would start fighting over land and the resources that come with it. Alliances would form, war would break out, and the nukes would be launched. After that, nothing, not even a miracle, could save us. An eye for an eye leaves the world radioactive.

TOAST

In the middle of the night, you wake up… you hear a sound coming from the kitchen. It’s your toaster, it’s working… After a second, two slices pop up with a ding. What else could you do? You eat them. Toast is great, it’s delicious and all kinds of other stuff, but one of its main qualities is that you can eat it at any time of the day. If you wake up during the night with the munchies, it hits the spot. And you can eat as much as you want, it costs nearly nothing. If you need a quick breakfast, it only takes a few minutes to prepare and eat.

Yes, you heard me, it only takes a few minutes to toast, and even less if you want it less crunchy or less golden, toast can be made in an infinite amount of ways: Whether you leave it longer and it turns out nice, dark and crunchy, or if you put it in for only a minute, and it becomes a light gold. A single second can make the difference. That’s why there are uncountable ways of making toast. It can be toasted to fit the taste of anyone. Even the people who don’t especially like eating bread, since there are plenty of other things you can do to toast to make it even better. How? Keep reading.

Toast is great by itself, but wouldn’t the world be lonely for a grilled slice of bread? Of course it would! That’s why generations of people have come up with a huge variety of products that you can use as toppings for it. From chocolate, for those of you that feel depressed or simply need the calories, to peanut butter jelly time, if you feel like spicing your life up with a mix of tastes and flavours. With all these toppings, how could your toast be bad? With all those combinations, how could there not be a single one that fits your needs?

Awesome, am I not?

Awesome am I not?
With my ginger coloured hair,
I will rule the world.

You may mock us now,
But someday we will rise up,
Rule over you all.

Rebellion

How do I rebel if the corporate world owns everything I think is cool?

Honestly, I don’t want to rebel, first of all because even though the “corporate world” does own everything I like to wear etc…, they wouldn’t qualify it as cool. I wear things that most teens would never qualify as cool; I wear clothes that are “proper” as in nice shirts and long pants or jeans (that do NOT go down beneath my ass). The only times that I wear shorts, it’s with normal t-shirts without any importance in the labels. But for all I know, I could be one of those kids that follow fashion and the cool brands and all. I wouldn’t know, since I haven’t been in a non-uniform school in years, so I’m totally ignorant as to what is cool these days. There’s also the fact that fashion is much more open these days. A few years ago, the Mook look and the Midriff style were the basis of who was cool. Now, you’re cool as long as you find a style that suits you.

To rebel, there might be a way: use or create a style so terrible or so insulting that only a specific group of people will dare use it, then keep morphing it so no one will get bored of it. I believe the best way to make a new cool is to create your own little style, and keep it going with irregular changes. But the most important part would be to create it in a way that only the daredevils of society, or the mooks, would dare to implement it. A relatively good example would be “Insane Clown Posse”, which was so awful and insulting to different types of people that only a few thousand people would follow it out of a million. Of course, they were later swallowed up by the corporations and edited to be more pleasing.

Another way to (maybe) rebel would be to go the opposite way than the rest of the corporate world: the corporate world keeps changing to adapt to teenagers likings, but what if you took past styles and used them. Maybe changed them a little to suit you better, but nonetheless using styles that are “so last year”. This might throw off the corporations, and by the time they figured out what was happening, there would be a whole other bunch of styles that they thought no one would ever use again going on in the world.
The last way I can think of to rebel against all the styles and looks advertised by MTV and such is to have your own style, and I don’t mean your own as in you and your whole school or whatever, make one for yourself and stick with it. Whether it changes or not, whether the corporate world notices or not, create your own style either for you alone or for your group of friends. Make it good enough that you’re comfortable with it, but not so great as to inspire everyone to try it out. Create it like you were creating your own little town: look at all the other ones out there, take the parts of each that you like or that work, and mash it up to your liking. That’s probably the only real way to rebel against all those advertisements and such: create something awesome, but keep it contained to yourself and a very small group of people.

If everyone did that, and just worked independently or in minuscule groups, how could fashion keep up? With all those millions of teens out there, if every group of five of them had a different style, how could the companies keep up, how could they create something that fit all those styles together? There’s no way it could do that, and even if it managed to make something that was cool to 6000 different styles, they would never make enough profit from it to keep working, or from going bankrupt. So out of the three ways out of the corporate media loop, the last one is probably the most efficient and the least likely to get you beat up because of how insulting you are. You have to show your independence from the rest of the world. And if every teen does that, the media empire that has built up over all these years will crumble, unable to keep up.

Boring

This first part of the book, Day One, was somewhat boring story wise and by the way it was written. It was also quite annoying on certain levels: like the way the author was never clear on who was talking or doing something. There weren’t that many names but somehow the author managed to get you lost in them, losing track of who was the drunk, or who was the shop owner… The author also expresses a very “unique style of writing that I cannot really describe. He manages to give you a very expressive description of the environment and surroundings without using details at all. He also uses a lot of adjectives, which might explain how he does it. I cannot really relate to this story on a personal level, except for a Hindi movie I watched where children are used to deliver explosives and such to certain locations as acts of terrorism. The story was quite irritating as you never got a clear description of what had happened to lead to these events in the story. You never know what really happened to the porter after he left to go see his family, at the beginning it seemed to me that he had been kicked out of his family, but later he supposedly returns to them. And you never get to read what a Pathan is, even though the child keeps repeating that he is one. There is also the fact that there is no intrigue, no suspense… this makes the story boring and gives no motive to keep on reading. There is no real character description, at least none that describes the character’s personality. All characters seem to be flat ones, unchanging, boring and with no real explanation for their actions. You never find out if the porter does steal food or not, so you can never really understand if he is or isn’t a good person, or if he really is a thief. The shop owners and such keep saying he’s changed but you never really see any concrete proof of it. The characters are all shallow and basically just shells or puppets. I seem to be only citing only the negative things about this story, and I wish I could do otherwise, but I cannot find anything good about it: the story has neither tail nor head, the characters are flat and shallow and I can barely make sense of which character is which. The only good thing is that he can create a scene in your mind with only a few words. And that isn’t even completely good, because if he can do so much with a few words, imagine what he could do with more description…

The second part of the book: Day One the Bunder, is quite a bit different from its predecessor in terms of themes and subjects. The theme in the first part was more like racism and poverty, whereas the themes in this part are corruption and power. The main character also changes from a poor young porter to a semi rich “business man” or factory owner that has enough money to buy expensive whiskey and drink it regularly while still bribing dozens of people. The story was a bit more interesting than the precedent one, but honestly still not worth my attention. I also found it strange that a factory owner would “hang out” with a bunch of thugs that steal cars and smuggle “other stuff” throughout India. The style of writing is still confusing and incredibly boring. I did not have many experiences that can relate to this story, but there was one time where my driver got pulled over by a police officer while driving us from the airport. The driver got out and walked away from the car to talk to the officer. After a few seconds, the officer looked in our direction, turned back to my driver and let him go. Apparently the driver had been speeding, and when my father asked about the fine, he said that there was no fine. My father, surprised, asked what he meant by that, since a fine was a normal punishment for speeding here in India. My driver answered that since we were white, he let us go. We were all surprised, but there wasn’t much we could do. Another time, my driver was driving me to some mall or some other place and we got pulled over again. This time, it wasn’t for speeding; it was just a checkpoint that we had to go through. As the officer looked over our car, another came up and asked me in English if I wanted to “skip” this checkpoint. I asked what he was implying and he responded by reaching out his hand towards me and saying “50 rupees”, now, I am not a scrooge, but I did not think this was appropriate, so I said no. He kept insisting and seemed to say that he would create problems if I didn’t agree. I then had to call over the superior officer and report the man. The superior said he would take care of it and let us through. I found his similar to the story.

This story can only be described as useless: it had no point: it is like an argument that 5 year olds have over whose sweets are better. The story was very abstract in nature, but at least the characters were so few that it was impossible to get them mixed up, it helped that they were all very different in name and personality. One thing I was confused with was the fact that the police chief seemed to not mind the book seller, yet when he got drunk; he started hurling abuse at him. And there was also the fact that his arrests only happened twice a year, when the seller must have sold them every day to make money, so how does this make any sense? And something that the chief said startled me: “this is how we hide the evidence” why would anyone put incriminating evidence in a jail cell? And again for the sake of words, I will repeat myself by saying that the style of writing is again terrible: it is simplistic, boring, kind of depressing and the only good thing about it is the fact that he uses adjectives a lot. And even that he does wrong sometimes, as he uses them too much. I’m running out of things to say. This story, although irritating, has a part that I endured more easily than the others: the end, when the salesman walks up the hill and “sticks it” to the lawyer and police chief by selling the banned book. That part reminded me of just how much I’m sick of following the rules and watching out for what I say in front of people, it reminded me of how much I want to stand up to my parents, and how much I want to be able to give way to my impulses and feelings. In a way that the author probably doesn’t fully realize, that single act of defiance represents so many things: revenge, freedom, will and most of all the feeling of invincibility you get when you do exactly what you want, no matter what other people think.

The next part of the book, the one about the bomb, was much better than the others: there was more action, more excitement. It was more like a police story, it was more vulgar than the past stories, which somehow made it more realistic and in a way allowed me to really get into the story more. The style of writing was still quite bad, but improved in some ways: there was a better use of adjectives, the names somehow were easier to recognize, probably because he described them more and in more concrete ways. The themes in this part of the book were racism or discrimination, and rebellion. This story was also different in the way that the main character was a totally different person: a rich, low caste teenage boy that was sick of being discriminated and looked down upon. This I can relate to a bit since I have often been mocked and bullied by classmates and such because of my ginger hair. I have learned to accept it, but there are still some people that I do not feel “cool” laughing about this with. His anger towards his family is also a reminder of just how much I hate my family: my siblings are the some of the most annoying and awkward people I I know, second only to my mother. I hate her more than even the main character does. I despise her, not because of her caste, but because of her personality. I am sick and tired of her hypocritical behaviour, her stubbornness when she won’t admit she’s wrong, the way she diverts the subject of conversation when she knows she is going to lose. I hate her more than anything in the world, and the worst part is I know I’ve grown up to be like her, and she yells and punishes me for it. She scolds me for being intolerant towards my siblings and not to my friends, but she does the same: she is completely intolerant towards her children, but she acts as if her and her friends are perfect. She tells us to do things, or to behave in ways that she doesn’t and won’t ever do. I wish I could act superior to her like the boy can because of his caste. And I’ve decided to stop suffering her reign: if she screams at me, I’ll scream back, if she hits me, I’ll hit back. I’m going to stand up to her. I’m sick of being self aware and of worrying about what people think about me.

The last story, in which the teacher and his student lead strange lives in the town of Kittur, was unsettling to say the least. The style of writing seems to have improved quite a lot since I first started reading the book, and I feel like the stories are getting a bit better. This story, strangely, might have been an incredibly good one, but it seems that it ended too fast. The story felt like it was only the prologue for an entire novel, but it ended and no other mention of it was in the book. The characters were still quite shallow, except for the teacher, who seemed to be the main character. He was more of a real person in my eyes, because the author went into more depth when it came to his past life and his ambitions. Now, for this chapter, there is no way for me to relate to: I have never seen a violent teacher in my life, I have seen boys that could be described as “bad” or slightly corrupt, but nothing like the boys in this story. And again, there were things that were never described in this story: like tripping, I don’t understand what it is, I can tell it is wrong and sexual in nature, but other than that, no idea. There is also the fact that I cannot understand how a theatre can turn into such place as the one they had to send the children. The mystery of Nathan X was never solved; the fact that his wife was so young wasn’t either. This story scared me a little because I have a feeling that there are actual towns like this where the children behave in ways that are best not described in an IB course essay. The sexism that occurred quite “unnoticeably” in the beginning of the story was amusing in the way it slid right past you if you weren’t paying attention. At the beginning, the permission form that the students had to sign to go to the mosque had to be signed either by the father, or by a male guardian. And talking of fathers and guardians, I didn’t understand how the parents of these terrible kids did not punish them for their behaviour. And the first few sentences of the story talking about the fight over the land were useless in terms of the storyline. It was never referred to again.

PARADOX

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Summer Homework

Just kidding, more to come.