Freedom's Faults -Feathers

In "Feathers" by Jacqueline Woodson, Frannie lives in an almost all african-american neighborhood. Across the highway there is the all white neighborhood. No one really knows much about the other side, but they imagine it. Frannie's brother Sean says, "Imagine if somebody built a bridge right outside our window and we could just walk across the highway and be on the other side." Frannie gets upset because she thinks that life is just as good over here as it is over there, and she doesn't understand what he would want to see there that he couldn't see here, on their side.

One line that really stood out to me was "Seems kids on this side of the highway were always trying to figure out ways to fly and run and cross  over things... to get free or something." She says this both after her brother talks about building a bridge to the other side, and after a boy in her school gets hurt trying to jump over the fence from a swing. The way she said "to get free or something" is what really stood out to me. Free from what? Maybe freedom always has boundaries, you always imagine it much better than it is.

Growing up, I've always wanted to have freedom. Freedom with my parents, my teachers. But then there's always the down side that the more freedom you have the more responsibility you have. If you think about it you're never actually free from your parents, because in the back of your mind every decision you make you are thinking about what they would want you to do and what they would do. So without even being there they are still sort of controlling you. So freedom has these boundaries that you maybe can never break out of. Then what would be free about going to the other side? It wouldn't be as good or as free as you thought it would be

Across The Highway

I just started reading "Feathers" by Jacqueline Woodson in which a sixth grader named Frannie goes to a public school that only has African Americans attending. "Across the highway" there are other schools where only caucasians go. Until a new boy shows up at the school, a new white boy. This boy is picked on by the other students and told straight up by one of them that "no pale faces go to this school. You need to get your white butt back across the highway." Frannie says "It's the nineteen seventies, not the fifties. There's no more segregation..." That's what I was thinking too... But white people only going to the schools "across the bridge" and black people only going to this school, that sure sounds a lot like segregation to me.

This book is set a good 40 years ago, and some things have changed since then, but i still think about segregation today. Growing up in New York City, one of the most diverse cities in the world I still think about what has changed since segregation (which is of course a lot) and what hasn't changed that much. I've always gone to public schools that are plenty diverse, but just because the school has many different races doesn't mean they're all going to get along. At a certain age we all begin seeing the differences between everyone, and because maybe we think that how we were brought up and what we look like is the one good way to be, or maybe because we don't feel that comfortable with people that don't look and act exactly like us, we end up mostly friending people of similar backgrounds to us and who look like us.

Something that stood out to me is how the author keeps saying "across the highway". I know that in the story there is a real place "across the highway", but is it really to the people talking about it? I feel like these kids imagine this place where the white people are as a rich, snobby, happy place where nothing goes wrong, but it probably isn't anything like they imagine it, and they had just imagined a stereotypical white neighborhood. But don't stereotypes affect how we imagine things a lot?

I'm going through the New York City high school process, and one thing that has had a big part on which school I want to go to, is who goes there. Some schools people had said were "ghetto" or in a bad neighborhood. And so I got these stereotypical images in my mind about how those schools were. But one or two of the "ghetto" schools turned out to be so different than I had imagined and a pretty good school. We let stereotypes control how we think about certain places or people, and I think that may be the one big thing keeping us from really seeing who these people are, and that they are actually not so different from us.

Love=Drug?

In "Youth In Revolt" by C.D Payne, Nick does a lot of pretty intense stuff just to get his "One True Love" Sheeni back. Sheeni is away at a sort of french boarding school while Nick is in the public school (which he transferred to just to be with Sheeni before she abandoned him for like the third time). Nick is very suspicious of Sheeni and wants her to get expelled from her french school. First he befriends a girl whom despises Sheeni and would be plenty happy with her being expelled. Than (with the help of his new friend) Nick drugs Sheeni's best friend. While Sheeni is out in her friend (who is constantly asleep because of the drugs)'s car with a potential hunky french speaking guy friend, Nick reports the car stolen and gets both Sheeni and her friend in a lot of trouble. Nick also is semi-fake having an affair with a girl that Sheeni is not too fond of to make Sheeni jealous and come back to him. It seems Nick will stop at nothing to be reunited with his One True Love.

I have never been in this supposed "love" idea, but I sure hope that if I ever am it won't take over my brain and make me do insane things for it. Wow, it sounds like I'm describing a drug. Is love a drug? It really seems like it. Love intoxicates your brain, makes you experience emotions you have never before, makes you make dumb decisions, makes your friends and family think "what the hell is wrong with you? You haven't been acting the same lately." These symptoms sound a lot like those of someone on drugs. Drugs are bad for you, we all know that... So is love bad for you? When you are like recovering from being an active drug user you feel awful and really really wish  you could go back to doing drugs, this sounds familiar, break-ups. The one thing I can say about love that I can't say about drugs, is that it doesn't kill you (1 point for love), but then again when your doing drugs the symptoms only effect you, while when your in love they effect you and your lover...(1 point for drugs).

Maybe it's not just love and drugs, maybe when your really caught up in something and devoted to it, it takes over your brain and makes you a little insane. But is this really bad all the time? No. Being devoted to something is often good, and gives you purpose, I think that as humans one thing that we really need in order to not go insane, is purpose. So I as long as you still know who you are and you aren't just this thing that your devoted to, it's not too bad. But still, don't do drugs.

Growing Up... Parents Included

In "Youth in Revolt" by C.D. Payne, Nick Twisp is a hormonal, skeptical, parent-loathing teen, who because of all these things is (as you may have guessed from the title) in revolt. Nick has recently moved out of living with his pregnant-with-a-dead-drunk-truck-driver's baby mother, to live with his father and his father's 19 year old girlfriend. Nick is moving in with his dad because while living with his mom he recked her car, set a major fire throughout the town, and was extremely rude to his mom's boyfriend (soon to be feance). Nick did all of this for many reasons, the main one being: he passionately despises both of his parents.

Sometimes while reading this book I think, Nick is too hard on his parents, I mean like all parents they make mistakes but they probably love him. Then I realized how I don't want to say awful but... very neglectful and harsh his parents are. His father often makes "jokes" about wishing he didn't have to see his son once a month and pay child support, he also is very competitive with Nick, especially about girls. Nicks mother on the other hand, barely pays attention to him, dates men who are very mean to Nick, and punishes Nick very harshly for everything he does. 

I think that this is one thing almost every single teenager has had to deal with, if you haven't, oh just wait it's coming. I know that I am taking Nick's side mostly in this book, and maybe some parent would take Nick's parent's sides, but I totally feel for him. My parents, I believe are probably much better in ways than Nick's parents are, and I really do love them... Sometimes. Other times, I very much do not like them. One thing that I can totally relate to Nick about (and maybe you can too) is his parent's ignore him. My parents definitely don't ignore me as much as his do, but there are always times where I really wish they would just pay attention to me and respond. Maybe part of the reason why Nick did the things that got him sent to his father's house that I stated in the beginning, he did because he wanted his parents attention. I know I have done  things to get my parent's attention, for the better or the worse. 

When are times that you have despised (or just not been too fond of) your parents? How have you ever tried to get their attention? COMMENT.

The Effects of Being Affected

I am just in the beginning of "A Long Way Gone" by Ishmael Beah. I find this story so far very moving and disturbing. Before he is recruited to be in the army, Ishmael sees a woman cradling a dead baby in her arms, he sees a man coughing up blood on the side of the road, and he sees many other sights that a seven year old should never see. Seeing these horrible effects of war really affect him. He feels really sad, and sick, and he really just can't believe that the war has really reached him and his town.

I also recently heard Ishmael Beah speak about his experience being a child soldier, in English class. He talked in that and in the book about being a child soldier and killing people. How after a while killing people is not difficult anymore.

I find it very interesting that one day something can totally horrify and disgust someone but another day that same person could be doing that exact thing that disgusted them and it won't affect them at all. What changed? I guess he just... got used to it. Got used to killing humans. Or maybe they didn't really get used to it, but instead maybe when you HAVE to do something you can't let your emotions get too involved and you have to just do it, not think about what your doing at all.

On the other hand, maybe Beah and the other boys were affected every single time they killed someone. In the video we watched in class and in "A Long Way Gone", Ishmael Beah talks about how once the war ended he would still have dream about the awful things and when he took a shower sometimes all he could see wasn't water, it was blood. So maybe while it's happening you don't really feel anything but afterwards it really gets to you. It's sort of like a delayed reaction.

 Sometimes I don't really think about what I'm doing, but later it really hits me, that either I did something good or bad or insane. In real life there are so many choices we have to make every single day, especially as teenagers. Whether it's just simply deciding what to wear or deciding not to do your homework, or something really big that could effect our entire life. With all these decisions sometimes we don't really realize whether we made the right decision untill later, even if it's way later, like when your an adult and your like "Damn, I really wish I hadn't worn that outfit when I was 14, I wish I had worn the other one, then I wouldn't live in Australia in the desert..."

If you have ever made a choice but didn't realize the effects of it untill after, or you just feel the urge to...COMMENT:

What Kills You Makes You Stronger?

In the novel The Lovely Bones by Alice Seboldt, main character, Susie Salmon was murdered by her neighbor Mr. Harvey. Before Susie was murdered it seemed she was a sort of shy, very smart, very nice girl. When Mr. Harvey kidnapped her she did struggle, don't get me wrong, but she didn't lose her shyness and she still was not very loud, or angry as it was going on, just... sad, and scared.

Soon after Susie enters the inbetween land between heaven and earth where she watches everyone in her life's daily lives going on without her, Susie realizes that she can communicate with her family, especially her father and her sister. First she shows her father her face in a reflection, which triggers him knowing of her watching over him. Then she leads him to Mr. Harvey's backyard, where he sees her face again and becomes quite suspicious of Mr. Harvey. Later she shows her sister that it was Mr. Harvey who had murdered her. And this causes Mr. Harvey to get caught red handed for the murder of Susie Salmon.

It seems to me that Susie became more straight-forward and began caring about things in general more when she was dead. This may sound awful, like "oh she needed to die so that she became a better person" or something, but that's not what I'm saying. I just think that dying made her realize that she had taken things for granted and made her really feel a purpose, getting the man who had done this to her.

Maybe if she hadn't died she would have "grown" in these ways anyway but maybe it takes one big thing to happen so that all the little things fall into place. Like for example, losing a best friend or someone really important to you could cause you to realize how you have been acting a certain way the entire time, and it will make you decide to work on changing that little thing about you that lost you your friendship.

If you have ever had something big happen in your life that sort of put other small pieces together...COMMENT!!!

A Life or Death Siduation

In The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, 14 year old Susie Salmon was murdered by her next door neighbor, Mr. Harvey. This event very much traumatizes Susie's entire family (as I imagine it would many families in this horrible situation). Susie's father (who was especially hurt from the passing of his daughter) was in his office thinking about his daughter as she watched him from heaven wanting very badly to tell him that she can see him and is there for him. Then he saw her face watching him just in a reflection, but it felt very real to him, and she knew that she had just for that moment broken through the barrier between them, between earth and heaven. After that moment Mr. Salmon knew that Susie was watching over him and guiding him.

I wonder if this really happens to people. I mean one of the most frequently asked questions that has no known answer is where people go when they die, not their body but their soul, their personality. And I guess once someone close to you passes away you are thinking about that question a lot and maybe it does cross peoples minds that maybe this dead person is watching you, and that's what makes them see this person. Even if the dead person (wherever they may be) is controlling you seeing them but even so it would mostly be in your head (I believe).

My grandfather passed away a couple years ago and afterwards I tried to like see his face or whatever because people always said that's what happened but I could never do it. I mean we weren't really that close so maybe that's it but I just don't really believe that if you do see someone who died it's anywhere but in your head. I mean this book is obviously fiction but I have heard a bunch of people (including my parents) say that they can just like "feel their [the dead peoples] presents" or something. I really don't know, luckily no one that close to me has passed away.

If anyone close to you has passed away (you don't have to like talk about them in detail if you don't want to) and you feel like you still have some kind of communication with them, or if you don't, or if you do believe it's possible, or you don't : COMMENT. :)

The Truth About The Truth

In the story "Am I Blue?" by Bruce Caville, sixteen year old Vincent is still very uncertain of his sexual orientation. Vince is called a "fruit" by another teenage boy who seems to often pick on Vince, named Butch Carrigan. Butch pushes Vince into a puddle to "teach Vince to look at him". As Vince lies in the puddle a flamboyant man named Melvin appears beside him who Vince later is convinced is his fairy godfather after making mud disappear from his pants and turning Vince's coffee into a Swiss double mocha. Melvin tells Vince about his experiences with his sexuality and being "gaybashed". Being a fairy godfather and all, Melvin grants Vince a wish. His wish is that for one day everyone who is at all homosexual will turn blue for everyone to see. This is to show how many there are that we would never expect and how they are constantly surrounding us without us knowing and yet we have still survived. Once Vince's wish is granted, he asks Melvin as his one last wish to turn Butch Carrigan blue, but to Vince's surprise that does not count as a wish, for Butch Carrigan was already blue.

If I was Vince I would probably do the same thing, I mean first of all it would be pretty cool and interesting if everyone could tell all of the people who are gay because of what color they were, it would probably change many people's views on homosexuality and the world. And since Vince has not had good experiences with Butch of course he would want to make him blue so Butch can see how it feels and everyone will know he's a hypocrite.

On the other hand, I bet there is a reason why Butch acts that way, like maybe his dad doesn't like homosexuals and raised him to be against them and to pick on them, so maybe that's why he picks on Vince in the first place, to make his dad proud. So if Vince made Butch blue, and his father found out his father maybe would do something bad to Butch because of his opinions on gay people. So I think that just because Butch picks on Vince (which I strongly disapprove of) doesn't mean that Vince should make it so Butch is blue, because he obviously isn't ready to come out of the closet and no matter what it is Butch's choice and Vince doesn't know why Butch is keeping it bottled up inside and picking on gay kids, so he shouldn't just think Butch is all bad and do something that for all he knows could harm Butch a lot.

I feel like a lot of people often are mostly thinking about themselves and don't realize how complicated each and every person's life actually is. I recently read "Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky [SPOILER ALERT] and in the book the main character Charlie's deceased aunt molested him. But Charlie isn't mad at the his aunt nor does he love her less, because he realizes that someone did that to her as a child and someone did that to whoever did that to her and so on and so on. So you can't really blame Butch, because it's probably just how he was raised and what people learn to do at home and what people learn from their parents who everyone at one point looks up to and wants to do things like, is what people usually end up doing.

The Chain of Importance

In The Drummer Boy of Shiloh, the general told Joby that Joby was "the heart of the army" and that the general needed Joby to win the war. If Joby beat a sure, steady rhythm the soldiers would be confident and win the battle. If Joby beat slow, the men would also be slow and be killed. So the outcome of the battle was all in Joby's hands.

I think that the general is right. Like when I'm listening to music and it's a sad song, it makes me sad, but if it's happy it makes me happy. So if Joby's beat is sad, then it would ruin the mood and make the soldiers sad and slow, but if the beat is loud and powerful the men will feel the [power and push on.

But maybe it's the general with all the power and who controls whether they win the battle. If the general didn't tell Joby that he's important and make him confident, then he would play the drum with out confidence causing the soldiers to fight with out confidence. Therefore the general must be the key part.

Like in real life, it's kind of like a chain, if you're good or bad towards someone, they will feel good or bad, which may cause others to feel that way as well (because of you). So it's like in the story the general passes on his confidence to Joby, so Joby passes the confidence to the soldiers through the beat he plays on the drum.

FOREVER Judy Blume

Reading Response

Forever
Judy Blume

Katherine returns home after seven weeks at tennis camp. After weeks of just going along on their separate paths, Katherine and Michael bump into each other at the store where he is working. They awkwardly say hello to each other, without any personal emotions involved. When Katherine gets home, still reminiscing about her and Michael as well as thinking about their awkward encounter, her mom pulls the phone away from her ear and says to Katherine, "Jeff called".

It's so weird how one day Katherine was completely, from head to toe, in love with Michael, and he felt the same way about her, now all of a sudden they not only don't show any emotions of any kind towards each other, but they don't even have more than one word to say to each other after all that time.  It's sad. How can people who were once so close, grow so far apart?

But on the other hand maybe it wasn't true love. I mean maybe since they were both a little bit unexperienced when it came to love they just felt like what they had was true and "forever" because they had never felt anywhere close to that before. So maybe this new guy, Jeff, will show her a different perspective of love, or maybe not, but even though she thought Michael was forever, he was actually just one large bump in the roller coaster of her love life.

I guess it's sort of like the saying "don't judge a book by it's cover" like even if it seems perfect and forever, you never know the outcome or what the relationship, or whatever it may be will has in it. You may think that you will end up with this one person but then end up being very wrong with each other and grow apart. For me I don't just see it as relationships, but like if you think you know what you want to be "when you grow up" or something, and then you actually do grow up and those things don't really intrigue you anymore, and you want to do something else. You really just never know what will change in you or how things turn out or what they mean, but I guess that it's the experience that counts and makes you change and grow.