A Christmas Carol

"I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I live in the Past, Present, and the Future. The Spirts of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone."

In this passage from the book A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens was trying to show how Scrooge was giving up his old way of hating Christmas, and everything that goes along with it. He realizes that Christmas is about giving, and not receiving, but mostly its about family. After this passage in the book, his atittude changed and lead to him being nice and buying that turkey for the pour little boy's family. All of his bad atittude were gone and he loved this time of the year for ever on.

Does Love Come Before Family?

How important is love? Does it ever come before family? In the book The Summer I Turned Pretty, Belly has to choose what's more important to her, Conrad, the guy that she has always had feelings for, or he family who has always been there. She needs to decide whether she is going to be there for her mother, or chase after Conrad for her last chance.

Susannah and Belly have always been extremely close ever since she was a little girl. Towards the end of the book, knowing that she might never see Susannah and her boys again throughout this hard time in their life will be difficult. Since they are leaving the summer house, to most likely never come again visits will be limited to see each other, but not only time with Susannah, time with Conrad too will be limited. When Conrad had been the most vulnerable, Belly and him shared a kiss and they had a connection now, but she didn't know if she would see him again. She was left wondering if they would take it any further than just a kiss, and maybe date.

Belly's mother was having a hard time coping with her best friend Susannah's divorce. Belly could tell that her mother's hurt was deeper than she'd been showing. She acted like nothing was wrong, and that she was fine, but it was obvious that she was so emotionally drained. Her best friend had breast cancer again, and it came to the point where the cancer was going to be hard to fight. Belly needed to be there for her mother, but she couldn't stop thinking about Conrad and seeing him. Would she have to leave her mother to see Conrad one more time to explore the possibilities that there could something more?

Everything was questionable at this point. She wasn't sure how her mother was going to be day to day, or how Susannah was dealing with the pain. She hadn't a clue where her relationship with Conrad was going, but it felt to her as if it wasn't going anywhere fast. At this point she has to focus on her family and getting through the next year as best as she can.

Point of View

The book The Summer I Turned Pretty is written in the point of view of Belly, a sixteen year old girl who is in love with her mother's very close friend's son, Conrad.  For almost the whole book he is very to himself, but Belly doesn’t know why. Jeremiah knew what was wrong with Conrad and why he was being this way the whole summer yet she was still left unknowledgeable of this information. First the depressing news about Susannah and her husband getting divorce, and then finding out towards the end of the summer that Susannah's cancer had come back. From her point of view nothing was wrong with Conrad, just the fact that Conrad was acting out, that’s all.

Her mother's best friend Susannah was like a second mother to her, and yet there were things still held a secret from Belly. She didn't know that Susannah and her husband Mr. Fisher were getting a divorce, or about the cancer. She has heard her mother and Susannah fighting earlier in the summer, but didn't think too much about it. Susannah didn't know that the boys knew about everything or otherwise she would have told everyone. She wasn't one to keep a secret unless it was in the best interest of the people she loves, so in the end Belly wasn’t upset, but it was something that if she had known she would have been there more for Susannah.

The whole summer Belly didn't know what was going on around her. She was held back from information that she was obligated to know. Susannah was a part of her life and shouldn't be in the dark about things that were happening in her life. If she had only know all those times her mother and Susannah asked her to just stay home, and be with them was actually because Susannah had cancer again, she would have been there spending as much time as she could with her. Now time is limited and summer is over, what would she do now? She had to go home, where right now she didn't want to be.

Character Analysis

Belly, the main character of The Summer I Turned Pretty, I would consider  a dynamic character. She is always changing her mood, and changing her mind about who she likes. For the most part Belly likes Conrad, who is very to himself during the story, but she also has a love life with a guy she has met a long time ago, who she is reunited with, and his name is Cam. She doesn’t know who to like because she has always liked Conrad, and he's always been there, but Cam, Cam is something new, something different.

Belly in the end still doesn’t know who to choose. She is leaving Cousins, Cam and Conrad, to possibly see them  never again. She had to break things off with Cam, but as for Conrad, Belly was close to his mother so there was a chance of them seeing each other sometime that year. She decided that since her and Conrad shared that kiss that they might be able to work things out and date. In the end she chose Conrad which wasn’t surprising seeing as she has always set her sights on him.

Fahrnheit 451

"A book lit, almost obediently, like a white pigeon, in his hands, wings fluttering."

This quote is showing Guy's thoughts about books and how peaceful they looked to read. The metaphor about the pigeon shows me this symbolism. The pleasant site of the book drew Guy to it. It was something new for Guy, to feel that way about a book by just looking at it. He enjoyed the book and wanted to read it, seeing as it is the only book that lit up to Guy.

Finding Himself

Have you ever been stranded, or lost, and had no clue how to get home, or even if you would make it home? Well in Life of Pi this is what Pi lives through for months. Pi, or Piscine Patel, tells two stories about what happened on the stranded boat, but can we trust him? Are the stories that he told true, or is he hiding reality from the innocent minds of human beings?

As I read Life of Pi I wondered could this really happen? Some parts seemed cruel and downright disturbing. Pi tells a story about a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan, and a tiger named Richard Parker. In this story the hyena beheaded the orangutan and killed the already injured zebra. Afterward the tiger, Richard Parker killed the hyena, for he needed to stay alive in this killing war.

Throughout this journey Pi needed to Figure out where he and Richard Parker stood. He had to mark his territory and stay alive, seeing as the tiger was full for a while, but he would become hungry again. He needed to show Richard Parker that he was in fact the boss, and he did. Pi stayed alive and had very little to no problems with the tiger himself. I think that the tiger represents the parts of himself that he has yet to figure out, and that’s why Richard Parker never dies because that part of Pi doesn’t disappear.

In the people version though, he meets a blind man Pi realizes something important. At first I thought that he was real and that the blind man really did eat the leather boot and kill and eat Pi, but then I really thought about it. Pi really didn’t see the blind man. I believe that I was the part of Pi that wanted to give up and saying why do I have to live through this? The blind man makes him think about his life and he shows him that life is worth living, because if he got that far he can live through anything else that comes his way.

Throughout the book, Pi tells two stories about his journey on the lifeboat. Whether these stories are true or not, I don’t know. Neither seems to be true at all, but I don’t think that the story he was trying to tell was that of him on a lifeboat, or whether he was with the animals or with people, but something else. I think that the real story is the one that you have to read between the lines to find. That Pi found himself. He realized that he is strong and can handle anything no matter what life throws at him.

Relief

Authors Note: This piece was written to go along with the two pieces A Week of Worrying and Healing. I wasnt trying to make it into a poem, but it kinda turned out that way.

The feeling of knowing that you are okay, fills me with warmth everyday.
To see you here helps me be free, from any stress that there would be.
She will show you which way to go, seeing as you need to go slow
Life is returning to the way it was, and he's still doing the things he does
With every day your future brightens, as does hers, I can tell from her kindness

Healing

Authors Note: this piece I wrote to go along with A Week of Worrying. This piece is just reflecting on how I am feeling right now with everything going on in my life.
Time has past and he's still here. Everything's fine when he is near. I feel his pain, for it hurt me too, but what can I do? His doctors are doing all that they can, and the only thing I can say is that if anyone can get though this, he can.