Response to "Response to Speak 2"

This is something interesting that I found in Jay's blog that I like to talk about:

“One of the interesting things that we discussed about was how isolated she seemed in her life. (Melinda) We thought that she seemed isolated because she had no friends at all, except for the new girl that she had a one-sided friendship with. Also, in her family life, she was very isolated at home. She did not have much contact with her parents, and when her parents came home, all she would do would be to go upstairs into her room while her parents left her alone and watched t.v in their living room.”

Sadly, this is one of the horrible truth in life. Not everyone's life is perfect and some may have it way better than others. The character “Melinda” seems to be an perfect example for this theory. As to what Jay and his group described the lifestyle of Melinda to be, it reveals to me that she is one of those people that have truly been hurt inside of her heart. A person that has been isolated by everyone around you including your family is a person that can say that they truly know the meaning of pain. The pain of knowing that there is no one out there that you count on and the pain of knowing that no one is out there that would look out for you.

In my opinion, I truly believe that nobody in this world should be treated in such a way. Everybody deserved to have a good family and good friends around you. However, what I'm saying right now is nothing more than wishful thinking. The sad reality of life is that there will always be a person out there in the world that has a life like Melinda. In the hope of having a better future though, I hope everybody in the world can understand what people like Melinda are dealing with, and if they truly understand, they would be willing to help by being there for that person and becoming a person that people like Melinda can truly count on.

Final Group Discussion: the curious incident of the dog in the night-time

After I finished reading the curious incident of the dog in the night-time by Mark Haddon, I felt like the ending of the book needed a better resolution. This was one of the things that we talked about in our final discussion for this book. In my opinion, the relationship between Christopher and his father could have still been further explored since the readers of this book didn't really know if Christopher have fully forgiven his father or not.

Another thing that we talked about was about the topic of why Christopher always relied on violence so much. For example, every time he feels danger around him, he would always hold onto his Swiss Army knife:

“And I stood there and I opened my Swiss Army knife in my pocket to make me feel safe and I held on tight” (page 170)

I told my group that the Swiss Army knife symbolizes an object of security for Christopher. It is an object that has the power to provide him with safeness because violence is one of those only things that people like Christopher with Autism seem to think that can truly keep themselves safe.

Another thing that we talked about was one of the major and overall theme of this book. I thought the overall theme of this book was redemption from Christopher's father. The book started out with the death of a dog which later found out by Christopher that his dad was the one that committed the murder. After the experience of Christopher runaway, his dad then realized how important Christopher really is to him, which is why throughout the end of the book, Christopher's dad desperately tried to make Christopher understand that all of the things that he did was for the sake of Christopher. In order to bring redemption to himself, he bought Christopher a dog in the hope of making up for the dog that he killed.

In conclusion, this book is a really good book and it is especially enjoyable because it was written in perspective of a character that have Autism which really made the book unqiue and interesting to read. The only downside that I felt toward the book was that it ended in a way that made me wanted more which really doesn't really seem to be such a bad thing.

Response to "Into the wild by Jon Krakauer book 2nd response/ review"

This is something that I found on David's blog that I thought was interesting to write about:

I believed that Chris had lived an abnormal life because he didn't want to be successful in college but rather explore nature. He ran away from home. He enjoyed being by himself much more that hanging out with the friends that he makes. He donated all his money instead of using it on his trips. On the other hand, I also thought that it was reasonable because he had many family problems. The parents constantly yelled at each other so only his sister was close to him.

This small summary of the book "Into The Wild" by Jon Krakauer really intrigued me to pick this book up. It sounded really interesting because it is amazing that someone would do all of those things to experience the life of the "wild". Personally, the thought of leaving everything behind to live a life of complete freedom is just mind-blowing to me. It is also something that I would do if I could because the idea of living in the wild by myself seemed to be such an incredible opportunity to me. There wouldn't be anything to worry about at all except for finding of and that shouldn't be too hard since food is everywhere in the wild.

I could also see why doing this sort a thing is not such a positive thing to do since it could ruin the relationship of your family and friends. Like David mentioned in his blog, one of the reason why Chris left on this incredible adventure is the fact that Chris is having family problems. Personally, family is really important to me. The idea of leaving your family when your family already is having problem seemed to be not such a good thing to do. So in a way, gaining ultimate freedom is not such a good idea when you have to make the relationship of your family even worse. In conclusion, this book sounded really interesting, and it really intrigues me to find out how Chris's adventure will end up.

Second Group Discussion: the curious incident of the dog in the night-time

There were many interesting things that was said in our second group discussion about "the curious incident of the dog in the night-time" by mark haddon on Friday. One thing that our group talked about was how Christopher felt after reading the letters that revealed that his mother was still alive and that his dad lied to him this whole time. We thought this was an interesting topic to talk about because since Christopher have Autism, the way how he react to these letters would be very different from what a normal person would react. One person in our group also brought up the question about if Christopher was giving out any emotion of sadness or anger during the moments after he finished reading.

In a way, I felt that Christopher seemed really emotionless but just don't know how to express it after he reading the letters. This is how he responded to his father, after his father was trying to plead for forgiveness after realizing Christopher has found the letters that he tried to hid from him:

"And I didn't scream. And I didn't fight. And I didn't hit him." (page 115)

This action of emptiness from Christopher really emphasize the fact that something inside of him has been broken into pieces of hollowness, and just have no idea how to express it in the outside. We mentioned in our first group discussion of Christopher having Autism made him hard to distinguish people's emotion seemed to also reflect to not being able to express emotions himself either. The way how he reacted to the letters prove this.

Another interesting thing that my group talked about was the way how Christopher's brain work. Although we talked about this a lot already in our first group discussion, we dug into it even more in this discussion. The reason why we kept going back to this topic is probably because of how unique his brain really is and the fact that it had really impacted the story thus far. Many things about Christopher's brain were revealed in the second part of the book. We learned that his brain worked like a film:

"And when people ask me to remember something I can just simple press Rewind and Fast Forward and Pause..." (page 76)

This really showed how amazing and abnormal his brain worked compared to other people's. In conclusion, this discussion went pretty well and it helped me gain many new insights on Christopher's characters overall.

Response to "The Purpose Behind the Game"

This is something that I found in Leon's Blog that I thought was interesting to talk about:

I thought that the I.F. is planning on brain washing these children while they are in Battle school. They are planning to build an army in order to stay in power like Dink said in the book. The I.F. played the videos of the buggers invading Earth was a method of propaganda. They want to keep humans in fear so they would all look up to the I.F. for help. This way, the I.F. can stay in power and do whatever they want to do.

From what I read from his post, the “Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card sounded like a pretty interesting book. It made me feel like it is book that have a lot of deep meanings drilled into it. Even though, it sounded cliché because of the fact that is about humans fighting aliens, I feel like it is a lot deeper than it seemed. If I think about how the events in this book relate to life like what Leon did, I could see that this book can reflect upon the many ways of how our modern society work.

From what I know in history, many countries gave out many propaganda about the horror of doings from other countries to make the people feel like they need to rely on the governments' or kings' powers in order to survive. By doing so, the higher-ups would not have to worry about getting kicked out of their power positions, but instead they just ended up having to get the people in it's army to get stronger and stronger in order to fend other countries if they do decide to invade. In this case, the I.F. brained-wash children in battle school to make them really strong, so they wouldn't have to worry about getting beat and ended up losing their power because of their loss against aliens.

In conclusion, these kinds of analysis really brought out the fun of reading books. The “Ender's Game” seemed to be a really good book to read because it is a science-fiction that reflected itself to how our modern society work despite the fact that this book take place way in the future, but this irony is what make this book so interesting to think about.

First Group Discussion: the curious incident of the dog in the night-time

Based off the first group discussion that we had in class, it had given me a lot of of new insights on "the curious incident of the dog in the night-time" by Mark Haddon. One thing that we talked about was the characteristic of Christopher who is the main character and narrator. We talked about the uniqueness of the way how his mind work and how it impacted the story. This conversation led to the topic about the relationship between Christopher and his mother.

I believed that Christopher didn't really care about his mother as much because the way he acted toward his mother death didn't seem really sad at all:

“But when Mother died she didn't go to heaven because heaven doesn't exist” (page 32)

The view from the people in my group, however, were different from mine. They pointed out that Christopher do care about his mother but because of his disorder, he is not able to express it fully in the book. This is one part from the book that someone in my group mentioned to prove their point about Christopher did showed affection for his mother:

“I said I would make her a Get Well card, because that is what you do for people when they are in hospital” (page 37)

Even though, this was suppose to proved their point on how Christopher shared affection for his mother, I could also say it helped prove my point even more. The part of this sentence that said “this is what you do for people in hospital” made me feel that Christopher made the Get Well card just because he felt obliged to do so and now from his own good will.

Another thing that my group talked about was the way how this book is written. It is written in a way where it would jump from the “main” story about the dog incident to telling more about Christopher himself. I thought this was pretty interesting because it made it felt like I was reading two books in one. Someone in my group also mentioned that the book was written this way because it reflected the way how Christopher think since his mind doesn't work exactly like the average person would. I thought these conversations were quite interesting, and it definitely made me think more about the uniqueness of this book.