Gym Class

Yesterday was the first time in a very long time that I have gone out in a boat, other than a big motor boat that someone else was driving. For gym class, I am doing canoeing and kayaking. I wanted to do the lifetime games unit, but I was talked into this unit by some friends. I have not gone kayaking since probably seventh grade, when I was at my Uncle's lake house and my cousin and I went kayaking. We were in the middle of the lake and my cousin made it flip, we could not get back into it, so we had to swim all the back. Ever since then I have not gone kayaking. I was hesitant to go yesterday, I did not want to get wet and go through school the rest of the day soaked. It turned out that I got to go in the canoe and it was fine. We did not flip and I did not get wet. I would say that it was a successful day. Hopefully tomorrow's class will go as smoothly.

Why would anyone ever drink gasoline?!?!

I was just flipping through the channels, trying to find something besides the news, and suddenly I saw a girl drinking gasoline on the screen. I was like, What the heck is she doing? I started to watch the show because I thought that it was so crazy that I had to watch it.  The channel turned out to be TLC and the show was "My Strange Addiction". The girl on the show is addicted to drinking. She drinks gasoline out of a gas can 15- 30 times a day, as well as eats newspaper drenched in gas everyday. I don't understand what would cause a person to decide to give gasoline a try! The girl said that it burns and hurts a lot to drink it, but yet she says that it makes her happy, does this even make sense?

She cannot stop even though she knows that the gas is burning her insides out, ruining her liver, and that it will most likely kill her because it is not digestible. She finally went to a doctor and she found out that she had an enlarged liver and a ton of nerve damage. The doctor finally convinced her that she needs to stop because she could die tomorrow, and at the end of the show it said that she had not had any in a few months.

This show was crazy. Honestly, I don't see how she has not died from drinking all that toxic substance, but I hope that none of you ever get addicted to gasoline!

Insane Save

You have to watch this! This video is completely insane.  I am a goalie and this save is just mind boggling to me. I can't tell if he made a mistake and his feet just happened to hit the ball, or if he purposely did that. Whatever it was, it was amazing. He was just so nonchalant that he makes it look even cooler. 

A Great Book

I just recently finished reading the Hunger Games. My Dad got it for me on Easter and he told me that he called reading it after I was finished. I am pretty sure that he bought this book for me just so he could get a chance to read it. Once I started reading the book it only took me about a day and a half to finish it. I have to say that this book was is probably one of the best books that have I read. It was so detailed and suspenseful that i just could not put it down. I was so mad when I was trying to finish reading it before softball one day and I had to leave the last seven pages of the book, it killed me. Now, I am waiting patiently (but not really, I ask about it everyday) for my Dad to get me the next book becasue he promised me that he would buy the series for me. It has been several days, but still no book. I am getting very unpatient, I just want to read the next book so bad! I also cannot wait to see the movie, but people have told me to wait until I read all of the books to see it. So I guess I'll wait, but it is killing me. I just can not wait to finish the series, come on Dad get me the book, please! I am dying!

Cell Phone Trouble

Old Phone (no keyboard)

Okay...so I tried to my call my mom after my softball game the other day on my cell phone and found out that none of the buttons  worked. I couldn't do anything on it, not even turn it off! I was like, how the heck can my phone just stop working. It's not like my phone is one of those fancy ones that everyone seems to have, it's just a Tracfone, but still what the heck!  I called the company to see what was going on, and of course I heard a lady on the other end that I could hardly understand. I really don't get why companies never realize that they should probably get some people on their phones that we can actually understand. Anyways, she goes on to tell me to try and call my house number, and I was thinking to myself, I just told you that none of the buttons work, how am I supposed to do that! She continued to ask me to do different things with the phone, but I still couldn't do any of them because I guess I don't have the magical powers that she thought I had. She then told me that my phone was defective and that I would have to buy a new one. What?!? So, I said alright and she hung up.  How can my phone just become defective over the time of a single softball game.

New Phone (with keyboard!)

I was very frustrated and I am sure she was too. I know that it isn't her fault that my phone was not working, she is just saying what they are told to say and trying to help, but it is still frustrating. The next day I got a new phone with my number and my minutes transferred, but I lost all of my contacts! This was even more frustrating, but hey the phone I got is way better than my old one. I guess you just have to find the good in every situation to stop yourself from wanting to pull your hair out (and I have to say that I really hope that I never become a person on the other end of the phone for a company!).

The Tenth Cirlce

I just recently finished reading a pretty good book and I would like to share some of my thoughts about it with you.

The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult is about a fourteen year old girl named Trixie Stone. She was crazy in love for the first time in her life with a junior named Jason Underhill, the school’s hockey star that everyone seemed to know and love. She had a life ahead of her, up until an extremely tragic event took place in her life. This single situation ruined her entire life, along with the life of the ones close to her. Everything seemed to spin out of control, with one thing happening right after the other, getting progressively worse. It was like the snowball effect. While Trixie was going through all of the crazy stuff in her life, she became extremely depressed and she started cutting herself. Through her problems, she  realized that what she used to believe about her family, friends, and even herself were (or seemed to be) lies. Trixie’s extremely dark period was intertwined with her father’s and mother’s problems. The reader meets Trixie’s mother Laura, a professor at a college who teaches Dante’s Inferno, whose own problems seem to be brought out in the mist of her daughter’s troubled times. They also meet her father Daniel, a stay-at-home father and comic book artist, who throughout the book learned that he really hadn’t changed all that much from what he was like as a young boy. His past was hidden from his family, and the troubles he and his family faced brought out the old Daniel. He was willing to do anything to protect his daughter, so he basically travels through hell and back, in his comic and in real life, all for his daughter. The ending will leave you very surprised...

Jodi Picoult wrote this book using the theme of self-deceit, meaning that it is way too easy to deceive yourself. This theme is part of the issue that the main character goes through. Trixie was ready and willing to believe that something was false even if it meant that her wishes came true, instead of believing the obvious truth just because she didn’t want to admit that was true. Another way to look at the theme would be that you never really know the real person behind the character. The literary element that the author uses to enhance the theme is characterization. Trixie’s character goes through a period of self-deceit. She went through a tragic incident, but she never let herself believe the truth behind what actually happened (this will make more sense when you read the book). The author gives the Trixie’s character’s certain traits and flaws that help create their personality. Behind her personality, there is the actual person, and she changes from what she used to be a whole lot during the book. She deceives herself, which really led to all her problems. Without her character the meaning of the story would not be as apparent because she is the person the whole story is about, and it is her actions that really set the theme of the novel. The characters are what help shape the story and create the theme that the author wants to present to the reader. This applied to Trixie’s parents in the book as well. There are certain occurrences when her parents both go through the same issue of self-deceit that their daughter did, and they definitely enhance the theme. All of these characters end up realizing the actual truth and they all deal with it in different ways. Some of the ways they do this are very unexpected, but it is all because of the real person the character is on the inside. In this book, the author actually hid a secret message in the comics between each chapter of what she thinks the theme of her book for the reader to find themselves. It is a famous quote, but don’t worry I won’t spoil it for anyone who wants to find it themselves!

Overall, I think that the book was pretty good. It was well written, it flowed for the most part, and the subject matter was interesting. I really enjoyed how descriptive the book was, I picture everything in my head. All of these things made the book an easy read and extremely hard to put down. A strength in the work was the way the author was able to portray the characters flaws and somehow still manage to make them likeable. She made the reader feel a connection towards the characters somehow or another. Even though I probably should not have felt bad for the characters in certain situations, I still did because they were like real, relatable people. Another strength was the way that the book was presented. The book was a comic book inside a book; it was really fun to link the story with the comic book. It was very unique, and the way the two worked together made the book even more enjoyable and fun to read. Also the fact that the story was told by her father, instead of having the story teller be Trixie who would have been the expected person mixed it up a bit. This made it different and not the typical set up for a book like this.

For weaknesses,  I think that the author dropped the ball a little bit when it came to certain parts of the story. For example, she should have let the reader know a little more about Laura and her situation outside the home, the detective’s story, as well as the character that Trixie meet later on in the book that I cannot tell you about with out given away some surprises. Their stories were not really ever finished, which I was disappointed with. Another weakness was that there was so much going on. It kind of seems like the author tried to throw to many things in the book and the ending never really tied up everything. Even though those things bothered me a little, I still think that the book was a pretty good read and I would recommend it to any mature person because it does involve sexual content. Pretty much any high school student and even adults would like the book. I feel like it would appeal to the female audience more than it would the male audience. It just does not seem like the type of book a male would enjoy, it does not have all the blood, guts, and glory that men seem to enjoy, but I am sure that there are several males that would like it and that there are some girls that probably would not like it. Overall, I would recommend this book to people who enjoy dramas and mysteries because it involves both.

It's that time of year again!

So, it's March Madness time. Yippee! It it such a bid deal to a lot of people, that I like to keep up with it as well. I mean it's not like I'm one of those die hard fans out there that watch every single game there is, but I do like to watch the big ones, especially since my dad watches them. We get to spend some quality time together when we watch some of the games, and for the past couple of years we have been filling out the brackets for a little friendly competition. It is usually between us, my brother, and a few friends. This year it is just me, my dad, and a friend, so I would really like to come out on top this year!

I don't know all that much about the college teams, but I do watch a lot of the Syracuse games. I would definitely say that they are my favorite team, but I am glad that I didn't fill my bracket out before I heard the Fab Melo was not going to be able to play. If not, I think I would have had them going further in the tournament and I don't think that will happen this year. What I don't understand is how a player could not have good enough grades to play, I MEAN COME ON! Don't these players have a person that practically does their school work for them!  It just doesn't make any sense to me.

I filled out my bracket in practically five minutes, using just the little I knew about the teams and their ranks. My dad on the other hand spent like three days filling out his bracket, and right now I am winning in our pool. If I were to win, I think it would be hilarious because he pays way more attention to college basketball than I do. I just hope that there aren't any other upsets like Missouri (who I had going to the Final Four), and luckily I did not have Duke going very far like my dad did.

So to everyone who has been glued to the television these past couples of days, good luck to your teams and have fun with your brackets, and let's go Kentucky (my pick for the champs) and to Syracuse (even though I didn't pick them to go past the third round)!

P.S. Look at the pretty pictures. I think I'm stepping up in the blogging world!