weekend

This weekend was especially fun for me. I haven't been out of the house hanging out with friends or going to soccer practices for the past couple of weeks because I have been out sick with the flu. I was really bummed cause my brother also had to rub it in my face by telling me he and a couple of his friends were going to Fargo this weekend for a tennis tournament and I would be stuck home once again. To top it all off, he told me they didnt have to go to school friday and so I got pretty mad and jealous when I heard that. Thankfully for me I had one thing to look forward to, a party saturday night with all the friends I hadn't seen in a while. As the weekend got nearer things started to be getting better. I found out that it was finally getting warmer in Edina and it would be a good weekend to go outside. It also helped to know that my brother was going farther north to the cold and his trip wasn't going to be nearly as good as he had said. Saturday night came around and I had a really fun time dancing and just hanging out. When I got home, I also heard the news that my brother's trip was going a lot worse than planned. He lost his first game and didnt know how the rest of the tournament was going to go. After the whole thing happened I guess I should have felt bad for him and everything but the previous jealousy and anger he caused me made me feel like revenge was needed. He is still not home yet but I cant wait to tell him about how much fun I had this weekend and hear about how badly his went.

New semester

This new semester means we are going to be reading a lot of new books and writing a whole new portfolio of essays for class. I think im looking forward most to finishing up the Odyssey because its a book that I have heard all about through elementary middle school and have always wanted to read. In latin class and world history we hear about all the myths and stories behind the tale of the great odysseus and gods that help him get back home from his journeys and now I have finally got to read about them together instead of in portions. The Odyssey also brought its share of reading challenges and was extremely confusing at parts. Book 10 was the easiest for me to understand because we read parts of it in class and got to discuss it while we were reading. Although it has been interesting to learn about the gods and this epic journey, I am also ready to start a new book for the semester. Im ready to learn about a new story and see what the next adventure is for second semester.

Marley and Me

For my outside reading book for quarter three, Im reading a book called Marley and Me by John Grogan. Its different from the other books I have read this year because the other books were something about a girl and her family struggling with a big struggle in life like school or poverty. The reason Marley and Me is so different is because it is about a man named John and his life and experience with his best and worst friend, a dog named Marley. They face struggles very different from the ones in the girls' lives like for example, Marleys attachment issues in his new home. John had to stay up very late the first few nights Marley came home because he would not go to sleep. John's wife, Jenny, also had some troubles with Marley. Because she and John both worked at a newspaper, they had a hard time trying to figure out what to do with their new puppy during the day. She sometimes would have to come home to look over him and let him out. The Grogans realized soon after their new purchase that having a bouncing lab puppy wasnt going to be as easy as they would have thought. Im excited to see what happens next with John, Jenny, and Marley in the book, Marley and Me.

Shakespeare

Over break I read acts 2 and 3 of Shakespeare's play Much Ado About Nothing. It is an interesting and fun play that I am beginning to understand now that I know what he is saying by using the side margins. In my opinion, I think that Beatrice and Benedick should fall in love in the end. They seem perfect for each other, neither one really believing in love and that kind of stuff but seem to be changing their minds as the story goes on. The plan put on by the prince and Hero was the perfect way to get them together and so far it seems to be working. I also hope that the wedding with Hero and Claudio happens because they are the couple that does believe in love and happiness. It doesnt seem fair for Don John to be able to change their minds with a prank almost. There are two couples and two pranks but one is pulling apart while the other is coming together. Im excited to see what happens next with the wedding and the pranks.

The Glass Castle... My opinion

The ending to The Glass Castle was good in my opinion but it could have been a little better. After Jeanette and the whole Walls family moved to New York, the family kind of split apart and almost had problems of their own. Her mom became homeless, Maureen went to jail and then moved to California, and their dad died. Jeanette herself had a sort of happy ending getting married and finishing college but after the climax of the story thing were getting better again and it could have ended with that but then there was a little added part that, in my opinion, could have been left out. Overall I think I would recommend it to other people because it is a story that you read thinking its fiction because of the drama and dramatic aspects. She makes her life seem like it is an adventure and it could all be made up but isnt. It is a great story of ocerall success starting with a rough childhood and ending in peace finally. I think Jeanette Walls did a great job writing a fun and exciting memoir.

Racial issues for the Walls

In the past few chapters of The Glass Castle, Jeanette has to deal with racial issues in West Virginia. A black girl in Jeanettes class took a special disliking to Jeanette on the first day for acting better than everyone else with her reading skills. Because of it, a group of friends and the girl, Dinitia, decided to beat Jeanette up after school and during recess. It continued on for a couple weekd until a little boy from the black neighborhood got lost one day and Jeanette gave him a piggy back ride all the way home. Dinitia saw Jeanette as she dropped the little boy off at his house and never beat her up again after the incident. In fact they became such good friends that Jeanette's family was starting to get worried. They told her people might call her names for hanging out with those kind of people. Despite everyone else and what they had told her, Jeanette remained friends with her and went swimming with the blacks during one morning at the public swimming pool that is reserved for whites during the afternoon. It was one of the best days of her life but since the school year was about to start up again, Jeanette was never able to hang out with Dinitia again. The racial issues of the time led to the fact that all throughout high school, Jeanette never made any more friends and forced herself into isolation, eating in the bathroom and working in the library after school. Life was tough for her all around. At home, and because of the Dinitia incident, at school too.

outside reading

When the Walls family decides to move to West Virginia, Jeanette and her brother and sisters are forced to adjust to a whole new lifestyle. They had never experienced snow before and had to deal with that among other things like meeting new friends and trying to fit in at school. When the foundation outside their house for the new glass castle turns into a garbage dump, kids and neighbors from all over started calling them the dirty family and it made life at school pretty difficult. Jeanette eventually was able to fight back against some of the problems when she started working for the newspaper at school. She was the editor who also wrote most of the articles and took pictures during school events like prom and sports games. Because of that, kids at school wanted any chance they could get to be in the paper were and treating her nicer. After a while though, Jeanette and her sister, Lori, decided that life in West Virginia wasnt exactly all they had wanted it to be. They started saving up money and eventually, one year after Lori graduated from high school, moved to New York to start a new life without parents to hold them back. Once Jeanette recieved all the letters about how great Lori was doing, she finished out her last days and moved up as well. A year or so later, they had pulled Brian away too. When the last of the Walls children, Maureen, moved in with Lori in New York, their parents had had enough of life without their children and ended up moving north too. The kids had finally gotten away from what had been holding them back until it came back with even more problems than before.