New Book

I am starting a new book to read over Thanksgiving Break. It is called Life of Pi by: Yann Martel. Shout out to Alex Fortson for the suggestion. The novel is about a young man named Pi Patel, hence the name, Life of Pi. His father is a zookeeper who decides to move to North America and take all the animals from the zoo with. I have seen the movie and now want to read the book so that I can further understand the meaning. I remember in the end of the movie there was something that confused me. Pi writes about his experience in which he has to survive on a lifeboat with some hyenas, a wounded zebra, and orangutan, and a tiger. There was a part in the movie I don't quite remember but it suggested that none of the animals were actually with him on the life boat. That maybe he created them with his mind to get through the struggle of surviving by himself.

I think I am going to find some differences between the book and movie version. I am excited to see what these are. In the movie I remember being kind of sad throughout the whole film. The way he was torn from his family by a ship wreck, the way the zebra and orangutan died while he was right there, how the tiger walked into the forest without ever turning back around after all that Pi had gone through with him. It left me with a lot to think about which is why I'm so excited about reading it. If you want to see a trailer to the movie press play. I strongly suggest watching the movie By the way. Thanks for reading and feel free to leave a comment!

Multicultural Memoir: Text-to-Society Blog Post Assignment

My memoir, A long Way Gone by: James Beah, has opened me up to a new understanding of how great we have it here in the United States. We have a military that can and will protect us from sources of evil and terror. I also get to see my friends and family every day. The memoir has taught me not to take those things for granted. Many of you reading are probably aware of the summary and main idea of A Long Way gone. I am going to restate it anyways. It is about a young boy living in Sierra Leone, Ishmael. There is a war raging in the country that Ishmael thinks will never reach him. Little does he know it will become a part of his life every day. Constantly on the run, losing loved ones, switching groups, he struggles to find himself a midst the chaos. He is captured by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) a radical rebel group who uses child soldiers against their will.

The child soldiers are shown in the picture above. They were forced upon drugs and learned and adopted a brutal way of life in order to survive. Child Soldiers Article

The research is focused on how the RUF forces children that decided to have no part in the movement (even demobilized ones) to rejoin. The RUF threatened to kill everyone in the demobilization camps if not. The article states that over 50 children were removed from refugee camps dude to falsely created rumors about reuniting the children with their families. It also states that female abductees are regularly raped by RUF members. This connects to my realization because the horrors of the war in Sierra Leone are so shocking to me. How the government could allow those things to happen. It once again makes me realize how safe it is here . I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like. This video has more info on Ishmael.                           

Note: (I forgot to publish this blog post and it was just sitting in my drafts). Sorry you haven't heard for me in so long. I have decided to do two  mini blog posts on The Color of Water because I have enjoyed reading it so much. I chose the prompt in which you find and argue for the most important sentence in the chapter and I'm torn between two.

The first sentence is from chapter 12, Daddy. It is the chapter where James talks about his stepfather, Hunter Jordan. He is a classic, old timey, man, who I think James should be thankful for having. Until he doesn't have him. Hunter suffers a stroke during James's adolescence. He becomes closer and closer to Hunter realizing his values of church and academics. He relapses and dies after having one last important conversation with James. This is where the prompt comes in. The most important sentence to me was, "I wanted to tell him that I loved him, that I hoped with all my heart that he would get better, but I could not formulate the words in my mouth. (127, McBride)." This was so important to me; and I'm assuming James, because this happened when he was the oldest of his siblings still living in the house. Hunter influenced him so much that it had to be traumatizing to James and his siblings as well.