The Chocolate War #2

            I’ve just finished reading The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier and I have to say it was an interesting book. As I came to the ending I just couldn’t put down the book until I was finished with it. Towards the ending Jerry starts to stand up to the bullies and The Vigils. He doesn’t back down from their beating and continues to do what he thinks is right. Jerry definitely changes in the ending through rebellion.   

            In the beginning of the book Jerry wasn’t really a tough guy. He wouldn’t stand up for himself. But the Vigils helped him with that problem of not standing up for what he thinks is right. Who would have thought that the Vigils, a secret society that basically put fear into everybody’s hearts in Trinity, would help Jerry rebel against them. The Vigils had given Jerry a task of not selling the chocolates for 1 week and then when that time was up he would accept them. But Jerry still refused to sell the chocolates after the 1 week. Later on the Vigils had told him again to sell the chocolates but Jerry still refused. Jerry was standing up for himself at those moments, even after he got beat up.

            I’m pretty sure that if the Vigils hadn’t given Jerry the assignment of not selling the chocolates people wouldn’t start thinking that it’s okay to defy the Vigils and get away with it. After all the Vigils started the spark of rebellion in a way, while Jerry carried it on. What Jerry thought was probably that he’s his own person and no one has control over him. This is where Jerry started to enter adulthood. He started to stand up for himself. But at the end why did Jerry go against his own belief? After he got beaten up so bad by one of the Vigils that he was knocked unconscious and bleeding really badly that he finally came up with his answer of the question “Do I dare disturb the universe?” His answer was no. He thought it wasn’t just worth it.

            There are bullies in this world that are almost like the Vigils. Which means there are also people who get hurt because it’s kind of obvious that there can’t be bullies if there aren’t people who stand up for themselves. The problem of bullies has been a problem for a very long time. People try to stop it but it doesn’t work. The people who get bullied want to stop it too but they don’t because they don’t know how. Well a solution to that might be, why not just stand up for yourself? People don’t have to do it alone. They can do it in a group and stand up against the one person that makes their living hell.

The Chocolate War

            When Ms. Robbins told the class that we’re going to study Coming of Age, I was thinking “When are we ever going to stop doing work?” Then when I looked through the list of the COA books I thought they were all going to be boring to read. So I looked through the list and I wind up choosing The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier. As I began reading it turned out to be interesting. It’s about Jerry who goes to a school named Trinity. He’s focused on making the football team because he wants to be a part of something. He doesn’t want to turn out like his dad, so far away from happiness.

            From the beginning of the story Jerry is focused on making the football team now matter how many times he gets insulted by the coach. So why does Jerry keep on trying to make the football team even after getting brutally tackled down again and again? Well it’s like I said he doesn’t want to turn out like his dad. Jerry’s dad life is completely boring to him. He’s basically a zombie. When Jerry comes home he sees his dad taking a nap. He starts to think how his dad’s life must be so pale and gray. Jerry’s mom is dead and Jerry has doubts about his dad. So why wouldn’t his dad’s life be almost like torture. Later on when Jerry sees himself in the mirror, he almost sees his father’s face reflected on his own face. Jerry then decided that he wouldn’t turn out to be like his dad. He’ll be part of something and he’ll do that by joining the football team.

            I think that’s when Jerry starts to come of age a bit. Jerry has a goal in his mind and he goes through with it. But I also think he resents the fact of him growing up a bit. Right now I’m thinking the only thing that’s going through Jerry’s head must be, “Wow is this what adults do all day? Going to job and coming back? Don’t they do anything exciting?” I agree with Jerry, I definitely wouldn’t want to become an adult after seeing his dad. It would make me think all the thoughts Jerry has right now.

            I’m pretty sure this definitely happens to people. Not wanting to become an adult because some moment in a person’s life they think adults are boring and do work all day. That mostly happens to a little kid I guess. Children are carefree when they’re little and are always having fun. But a time comes when a person has to grow up.

Fear: Entering Hell

SPOILER ALERT!!!

In the book Blood Beast by Darren Shan, Grubbs Grady just wants to lead the life of a normal teenager. That’s kind of hard to do when you’re brought in the world of magic. By that I mean fighting demons that do nothing but slaughter humans if they get a chance. Ever since the end of book 3 Slawter Grubbs finds out he has the potential of being a magician, which is rare because it is said that a magician appears only once every century. He has magic that could make a difference in the war against Demons. But Grubbs doesn’t want to go down that road again. He’s afraid of demons and gives into that fear and hides his magic from Dervish, his uncle who fights against demons. When Dervish finds out he wants to teach Grubbs more about magic and help him harness his powers. Grubbs fears demons and says no. Dervish respects his choice but hopes Grubbs changes his mind. He’s so afraid of going into the world of demons and having to fight them again, he doesn’t notice that millions of humans all over the world will fall prey to those demons he doesn’t want to face. Dervish and Grubbs both know that humans with magic have many responsibilities. It’s like they say, “With power comes great responsibility”.

Dervish really doesn’t blame Grubbs of being afraid of demons. But Grubbs fear is so strong it almost takes over his life. He gets nightmares and can’t sleep for weeks after it. What he doesn’t see is the bigger picture. If he doesn’t fight demons and lets them go on a rampage, all of mankind will die out eventually. He wants to lead a normal life and goes on an airplane with Juni Swan, Dervish’s girlfriend. But when he gets betrayed by Juni Swan and finds out she’s a demon in disguise, demons appear in the plane. When I read that I imagined Grubbs surrounded by flames and demons appearing out of them. I could definitely understand why Grubbs is so scared of demons and why he doesn’t want to become a demon slayer. I’m pretty sure no one wants a life like that, where they have to be afraid almost every minute of their life. But deep down Grubbs knows he can’t hide and cower behind his uncle. He knows that he can’t avoid his destiny of fighting demons until he dies. He’ll probably go mad and might never sleep again. Then in the beginning of book 6 Demon Apocalypse a 3,000 year old magician convinces Grubbs to take the demons head on and fulfill his responsibilities.

Grubbs wanted to try to lead the life like any normal teen would. But magic separated him from other normal humans and made him a magician, a powerful human that uses magic to fight demons. It’s hard to avoid responsibilities when the whole world is kind of depending on you. I guess Grubbs knew that somewhere in his head and just decided to do his chores by killing any demons that come into the human world. By making that decision it proved Grubbs had more courage than anybody in the world.

I’m pretty sure this happens in real life. Not the fighting the demon part, but the part of responsibilities. Sometimes you want to avoid work and live a carefree life. But every human in this world has responsibilities to fulfill. Some people try to avoid them. Might it be homework, or paying a mortgage, or providing food on the table. People feel pressure and sometimes scared or even worried about what they have to do in life. The thing is its ok to feel all of that. By feeling all those emotions is what makes us human but remember just don’t let that fear control your life. It’ll lead you to a pit of despair that you’ll never be able to climb out of.   

Romeo + Juliet The Movie

            Something that really caught my attention in the movie was the different use of colors in Romeo + Juliet. This is actually my first even seeing anything that’s related to Romeo and Juliet. Before I just thought it was a whole bunch of gibberish. They were so confusing and half the things they said didn’t even make sense to me. So that’s why I never even tried to read about Romeo and Juliet or watch it.

            In the beginning like I said the use of colors really got my attention and also how the introduction was. Right off from the beginning of the movie they get into a whole fight scene between the Capulets and Montagues. The Montagues were wearing these Hawaiian shirts and the Capulets were wearing blue. The Montagues were kind of surrounded by such bright lights that whole scene. The Capulets were surrounded by blue and I thought it showed the viewers that the Capulets are elegant, by their fancy clothing and stuff. The difference of colors showed the differences between those two families. One more thing that was unavoidable to see was the close-ups. It showed the tension between the two families. It’s like as soon as they saw each other everybody was expecting a fight to break any moment. It was basically just a moment of time.

            Through out the movie the families stayed with their colors. I just started reading the play and I think the director of the movie did a good job with the interpretation so far. So far I thought the movie was great and I’m guessing the play will be even better.

8th Grade Super Zero Post

            I just started this book, “8^th Grade Super Zero” by Olugbemisola Rhuday Perkovich. The thing that stood out to me was the author’s name. I didn’t even know how to pronounce it until I asked five different people and I’m still not sure how you pronounce it. So far in this book Reginald or Reggie has been made fun of ever since the first day of school. Why? He puked during the first day of school and now almost everybody calls him Pukey. The only two people who have his back are Joe-C and Ruthie who have been his friends since kindergarten.

            If you think that’s the only thing Reggie gets teased for your wrong. He turns out to be Vicky’s campaign manager. Vicky who’s weird and almost made fun of as Reggie doesn’t want to listen at all to Reggie’s ideas. Their competition Donovan and Justin who are the coolest guys in school run against them and Reggie just gets made fun of even more. It seems that every day that goes by for Reggie it gets worse and worse. He’s trying to stay low so the whole thing can blow over but that’s just not going to happen. I think it’s time for Reggie to stand up for himself. How about you?

            That’s kind of like the key idea in this blog post. Standing up for yourself. Don’t let people who bully/ tease you, get to you. Just ignore them and go on with your life. If they don’t stop and keep at it, weeeell I don’t really know the answer to that, but if you do be sure to write it as a comment. By the next blog post I’ll hopefully have answer of my own. J  

Blogs That Are AWESOME!!!

formhttp://pickedappraiseddone.blogspot.com/2011/01/bukowski-is-pure-genious.html#comment-form

I was reading through blogs and this one kind of stood out to me. The thing that stood to me wasn’t what Daisy was writing about but how she wrote it. It wasn’t formal at all. Instead of me reading it, it felt like a conversation. That’s what Daisy does well and I mean REALLY WELL. I always write formally and this kind of gives me a clue on how to write in your own voice. Plus when someone writes in their own voice instead of it sounding like an essay it keeps the reader interested and want to read more.

http://untoldstoryinsideyou.blogspot.com/2011/01/too-much.html?showComment=1297121083349#c4289788853503233134

            Zarrin is really amazing with the things she does to her blog posts. She’s able to write and elaborate so well. The thing that I think that makes her blog posts so good is that she gets straight to the point without giving too much away. By doing that she keeps her readers all the way to the end and on the edge of their seats. To make it even better she added vocabulary words. Her choices of words are unique and make her blog posts interesting.

http://unlimitedmargin.blogspot.com/2011/01/perfection-vs-imperfection-does-love.html?showComment=1297132153895#c287600491207567201

            Last but not least is Hannah’s blog post. Like Daisy she talks in her own voice and that makes it really better. But another thing is all the things she notices. She puts her expressions into her blog. It sounds like she was really excited to do her blog and that made it more interesting to read. Hannah really is infinite. J

Is It Really The End?

                                                                    Death is not the end
                                                             Death can never be the end.

Death is the road.
Life is the traveler.
The Soul is the Guide

...

Our mind thinks of death.
Our heart thinks of lifeOur soul thinks of Immortality.

    

                                                                                                                                 

- By: Sri Chinmoy            

  

The first thing that popped up in my mind when I started reading was a picture of the sky breaking apart by some kind of light. That’s the image I always get when I think about death. I basically think of heaven. In the second stanza it talks about how death is the road, life is the traveler, and soul is the guide. I think what that means is death is the path you have to take while you’re alive. Your soul guides you through the path so it can move on. In the third stanza it talks about what our mind thinks and what our heart thinks. What I think is that what our mind thinks is fact and the thing our heart thinks is hope.

            I think this poem is about how you have to go down a dangerous path of death and you’re the traveler. You’re seeking for life down that path and your soul is helping you. There’s a constant struggle between death and life always. You just can’t avoid it. Even though you know death will always come at last but you’re hoping that you’ll live forever. What you don’t notice is your soul thinks about living forever but you don’t notice that because you’re worried about dying.