Month: November 2022

In the book Washington Black by Esi Edugyan, Washington is a slave boy born on a plantation, ironically named Faith. Washington’s master has died, and the master’s nephew has come to take over the plantation. The new master, Erasmus Wilde, was accompanied by his brother Christopher Wilde. Christopher was nicknamed Titch because he was sick as a child and was very small. Christopher has asked to be called Titch because “Mister Wilde is my father.”(p. 36) Titch and Washington have climbed a nearby mountain, Corvus Peak and Washington has been asked to draw the landscape.

But as I surveyed the terrain, a slow feeling was growing in me, a feeling I could not account for. I watched Titch at his exertions. And as I began to draw what I saw with a clean accuracy, I realized I was troubled by the enormous beauty of that place, of the jewel-like fields below us, littered as I knew them to be with broken teeth. The hot wind snapped at my papers, and in a kind of ghostly sound beneath this I thought I heard the cry of a baby. For the few women who gave birth here were turned immediately back into the fields, and they would set their tender-skinned newborns down in the furrows to wail against the hot sun. I craned out at the fields; I could see nothing. Far out at sea, a great flock of seagulls rose and turned, the late afternoon light flaring on the undersides of their wings.

I chose this quote because it speaks of the double-sided nature of everything we see. The quote talks about the beautiful landscape, yet the evils contained within are still there. It makes you think about how if you walk far enough from something it becomes more perfect. I sort of think of the quote as unfocusing a camera, it can become beautiful, yet you miss half the details. So what problem have you not looked hard enough at recently?

The Catcher in the Rye is a novel by J.D. Salinger. Holden Caulfield is a 16-year-old teen who ran away from boarding school because he doesn’t find passion nor motivation in passing classes. He decided to stay in a hotel since he didn’t want to go back home.

Then, all of a sudden, I got in this big mess.  

The first thing when I got in the elevator, the elevator guy said to me, 

“Innarested in having a good time, fella? Or is it too late for you?” 

“How do you mean?” I said. I didn’t know what he was driving at or anything. 

 “Innarested in a little tail t’night?”  

“Me?” I said. Which was a very dumb answer, but it’s quite embarrassing when somebody comes right up and asks you a question like that.  

“How old are you, chief?” the elevator guy said.  

“Why?” I said. “Twenty-two.” 

 “Uh huh. Well, how ’bout it? Y’innarested? Five bucks a throw. Fifteen bucks the whole night.” He looked at his wrist watch. “Till noon. Five bucks a throw, fifteen bucks till noon.”  

“Okay,” I said. It was against my principles and all, but I was feeling so depressed I didn’t even think. That’s the whole trouble. When you’re feeling very depressed, you can’t even think.  

“Okay what? A throw, or till noon? I gotta know.”  

“Just a throw.” 

“Okay, what room ya in?” 

I looked at the red thing with my number on it, on my key. “Twelve twenty-two,” I said. I was already sort of sorry I’d let the thing start rolling, but it was too late now. “Okay. I’ll send a girl up in about fifteen minutes.” He opened the doors and I got out.

“Hey, is she good-looking?” I asked him. “I don’t want any old bag.”  

“No old bag. Don’t worry about it, chief.”  

“Who do I pay?” “Her,” he said. “Let’s go, chief.” (p. 99)

This reminds me of times when adults tried to take advantage of me since I am a kid and tried to sell products to me that are illegal and illegal to kids. This is sad because this is the reason that some kids get themselves into trouble or addictions. 

As I venture onto my second book in the Hunger Games series, I am placed in the shoes of a young teenage girl, Katniss Everdeen who has been met with one of her largest challenges in life as a resident of Panem, the reaping. The reaping is an event where two candidates of ages 12-18, male and female are chosen to participate in the Hunger Games, where they are to fight to the death amongst themselves and the candidates from other districts. At the beginning of the book, I was fascinated with Collins’ detailed description of imagery especially in the part where Katniss goes hunting with Gale, her childhood friend and start to make jokes about the reaping to help relieve themselves of their fear of getting selected for the games.

“Look what I shot” Gale holds up a loaf of bread with an arrow stuck in it, and I laugh. It’s real bakery bread, not the flat, dense loaves we make from our grain rations. I take it in my hands, pull out the arrow, and hold the puncture in the crust to my nose, inhaling the fragrance that makes my mouth flood with saliva. Fine bread like this is for special occasions.

The part of this quote which really stood out to me was the imagery associated with the bread and the way they joke around to take their minds off the reaping. The inclusion of the very detailed description makes me imagine the current situation of the citizens of district 12 and how hungry and desperate they are for something as simple as a loaf of bread. The way how the bread was described, the smell, the feeling, and even the mention of it being fine bread compared to their traditional flat bread made me imagine that this surely is a loaf of bread to be cherished.

I am still currently reading It starts with us by Colleen Hoover. Atlas and Lily have reunited and they have started dating. Lily told Atlas she wanted to take things slow because she know that her ex husband Ryle hates Atlas. Sure, she has no feelings for Ryle anymore but he is the father of her child and still has to see him almost everyday. After Ryle and Lily have a fight/argument on the rooftop of her old apartment building (where he lives now), she feels overwhelmed and goes home. She then gets ready for bed, as she’s climbing into her bed she gets a FaceTime call from Atlas. She tells him about her day and he offers to come by her house and give her a hug. Lily says;

“You’re going to drive five miles just to give me a hug?”(p.122)

Atlas then replies with;

“I’d run five miles just to give you a hug.” (p.122)

I love these quotes because it shows the love and appreciation he has for her. He is saying that no matter what happens he will always be there for her, and that there is nothing more important than making her feel like she’s is the most important person in the world and making sure that she feels and is loved and cared for.

Roddy Doyle captures the quintessence of childhood abandon in Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha. For 10-year-old Paddy, the world consists of his friends and family; the universe consists of his small north Dublin neighbourhood. Paddy and his school mates are a rowdy bunch. Their complete lack of restraint can sometimes lead to cruel behaviour, and sometimes to beautiful inhibition.

I’d hold my arms out straight till they ached and I’d spin. I could feel the air against my arms, trying to stop them from going so fast, like dragging them through water. I kept going. Eyes open, little steps in circle; my heels cut into the grass, made it juicy; real fast — the house, the kitchen, the hedge, the back, the other hedge, the apple tree, the house, the kitchen, the hedge, the back — waiting to stop my feet. I never warned myself. It just happened – the other hedge, the apple tree, the house, the kitchen — stop — onto the ground, on my back, sweating, gasping, everything still spinning. The sky — round and round — nearly wanting to get sick. Wet from sweating, cold and hot. Belch. I had to lie till it was over. Round and round; it was better with my eyes open, trying to get my eyes to hang onto one thing and stop it from turning. Snot, sweat, round, round and round. I didn’t know why I did it; it was terrible — maybe that was why. It was good getting there — spinning . . . The world was round and Ireland was stuck on the side; I knew that when I was spinning — falling off the world. (p. 173)

This quotation perfectly exemplifies the weird, random acts kids sometimes feel compelled to do without really knowing —or caring— why. The sensory overload Paddy experiences spinning, takes me right back to Year 2 hanging out in Coram’s Fields. One time, Mateo coerced Davide and I to climb onto the merry-go-round. He promised he would stop when we told him to, and of course, never did. The world was spinning; Mateo was running; and we were shrieking; equal parts terror and delight. Eventually, Davide and I were flung aside and landed with a crash onto the playground sand. Just like Paddy Clarke, I stared up at the sky, feeling a frenzied, swirling state of serious delirium. 

I am reading “It Ends with Us” by Colleen Hoover. This book is about Lily Bloom and Ryle Kincaid, who meet each other on the roof top of an apartment building, as they were both up there for some peace and quiet because they were struggling with a few traumatic events occurring in their life. At first glance they were both fairly attracted to each other, and their personalities meshed well together, yet Ryle didn’t want a long-lasting relationship whereas Lily is a hopeless romantic. As their conversation flowed, Ryle got called in from the hospital where he works as a Neurosurgeon. Ryle leaves Lily on the rooftop where again she lays alone.

He looks at me. Like really looks at me. His eyes meet mine and he just stares, hard, like all my secrets are right there on my face. I’ve never seen eyes as dark as him. Maybe I have, but they seem darker when they’re attached to such an intimidating presence.   (p. 9)

Lily describes Ryle as an “intimidating presence” and as the book proceeds, he doesn’t appear to be that intimidating and instead he listens to her, he is interested in what she has to say. They both have instant chemistry when they meet and their energy flows between each other which is why I find it so interesting to read, how complete opposites in the social view can be so alike when they are alone together.

This week I am reading a book named Legend by Marie Lu. The characters in the book are living in a dystopia. The world is at war and there is a plague spreading rapidly. The main character named Day is a criminal to the government. He is trying to gather enough money for plague cures for family before they die. His younger cousin Eden is currently suffering the most.

“From up close I can see that Eden’s dark eyes have somehow turned black. There is absolutely no reflection in them, and I realize with horror that they’re black because his irises are bleeding.” (pg. 152)

This quote from Day stands out to me because it emphasises his families suffering and the urgency of the situation. Eden not being able to get a cure without being wealthy tells me that the world they have to live in is a dystopia. There are many others without money which means there are many others suffering and dying.

In “The Da Vinci Code” by Dan Brown, Robert Langdon gives his companion Sophie a not-so-brief history lesson about the Priority of Sion. In it, he talks about the Templar Knights and how they came to an end by the schemes of the Pope and the king of France of that time.

By the 1300’s, the Vatican sanction had helped the Knights amass so much power that Pope Clement V decided that something had to be done. Working in concert with France’s King Philippe IV, the Pope devised an ingeniously planned sting operation to quash the Templars and seize their treasure, thus taking control of the secrets held over the Vatican. (p. 134)

It is odd how such a powerful organization was taken down only because the Pope and the King of France were jealous of their power. History is full of these cases were people just destroy entire concepts and groups as to obtain more power. This entire situation even becomes ironic when you discover that the Templar Knights who so strongly held the Catholic values were disbanded by “Blasphemy”. Betrayed by the Church themselves, the Templar Knights came to an end, leaving behind any real authority they ever had, all in order for those who resided in positions of power to retain their thrones.

The Ghost Woods by C.J. Cooke is about a mansion called Lichen Hall where pregnant girls who are not ready to have kids are taken in for care. This story develops in two timelines, one in the present (1965) and another in 1959. Pearl, the character of the present timeline gets up and sees Richard at the dining table. She has gone out on a walk at 3 A.M. the night before to contemplate her life.

He is smiling, but Richard always smiles, a strange little grin that never reaches his eyes. He never laughs, or says kind things, and so the smile sometimes makes me think he’s imagining dark things and taking pleasure in them. (p. 43)

In the previous chapters, Pearl has been portrayed by Cooke as someone who is stuck in a dark place, not knowing how to move forward because she is pregnant. In turn, she sees the worst in people. She sees Richard who is always smiling to be thinking of awful things instead of being happy. This paragraph helps show who Pearl is to the readers who is trying to understand each characters earlier on in the story.

In my book Love and Olives by Jenna Evans Welch the main character Liv is still visiting her father in Santorini. Liv was forced by her mom to spend her summer break to hopefully connect with her father after their divorce. During her stay she hasn’t been the most open minded with the idea of having her father back in her life. Initially Liv had disregarded the thought of seeing her dad again but the more time she spends in Santorini the more she starts to warm up to her father. In Liv’s past her and her father would dream of discovering the lost city of Atlantis together. When livs dad moved back to Santorini she felt abandoned and tries to forget the thought of Atlantis and her dad. In this quote her father is doing a documentary about the Atlantis, you can see that even thought she has turned a blind eye to Atlantis she still has some longing for it.

“He hadn’t looked at his notes once. He hadn’t even paused. And he’d quoted Pleto like he was someone he met up with once a week for coffee. Listening to him I latched on to every word, every rise and crackle of his voice. He had completely sucked me in.” (p.230)

 This is an important part because liv had always tried to push away her feeling toward her father. It his paragraph you can see some feelings of trust “I latched on the every word, every rise and crackle of his voice”, and her feeling of letting go toward her past thoughts “He had completely sucked me in”. I feel like after this important paragraph she finally started to trust her father and became more optimistic towards her new life, including her father again.

I am still continuing reading the book Love and Olives by Jenna Evans Welch where the main character Liv was forced by her mom to spend the summer break in Santorini to reunite with her father. Liv used to have a good relationship with her father, they would dream of one day discovering Atlantis together. After the divorce her father had moved away and they haven’t seen each other for years. This broke little Liv’s heart and ever since then Liv had shut her father and their shared love for Atlantis away. Liv had tried to forget her loving memories with her dad, because she felt betrayed that he left her behind. However, the longer she was visiting her father on Santorini, the more she realized that being around him made her aware of how much of an influence he had on her.

“Listening to him, I latched on to every word, every rise in crackle of his voice. He had completely sucked me in. One minute I’d been sweating it out with the rest of the residents with modern Thira, and the next I was transported back in time to the moment when it had all changed. I had heard the panic of the Minoans waking in their beds, confused, then running for their lives. I’d smelled the sulfur. I’d felt the impending rush and terror of the tsunami. I’d been there.” (p. 230)

In this quote you can see that even though Liv had closed her heart towards her father and their love of Atlantis she still has hope to return to her childhood adoration of her father and the shared dreams they had.

The Silence of the Girls is a book from a Trojan woman’s perspective, who has become a slave after losing the war. The woman, Briseis, was the queen of Lyrnessus. But after losing the war, she is presented as a trophy to Achilles in an instant. Briseis frequently expresses her grief and anger caused by being treated as a slave and losing her country. Among them, this is the most impressive part for me.

No, he’s the lord of mice, like rats, carry the plague; and Apollo, the lord of light, the lord of music, the lord of healing, is also the god of plague.

…

Until, finally the forbidden words erupting from my mouth like blood of bile; God of plague, hear me!

(Pg. 55-56)

This is the scene where the priest, Chryseis’s father, who is also a trophy, prays with Briseis. Seeking vengeance as his daughter became a slave, the priest prayed to Apollo, who was also the god of the plague and spread it to the Greeks. Briseis’s prayer seemed to represent the anger of all the enslaved Trojan women. In particular, Briseis dreamed of revenge by praying only for curses to Apollo, who is usually described as the god of light or music.

In the classic novel Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, a young boy named Tom goes on daily adventures, including average, day-to-day excursions and wild, life-or-death escapades. Near the beginning of the novel, Tom attends boring Sunday church, and finds relief from the many droning prayers in a beetle, which is one of his many fine possessions. After taking the beetle out and playing with it, the beetle bit him. With a quick reflex, Tom chucked the beetle to the ground, where a poodle found interest in the creature:

Presently a vagrant poodle came idling along, sad at heart, lazy with the summer softness and the quiet, weary of captivity, sighing for a change. He spied the beetle; drooping tail lifted and wagged. He surveyed the prize; walked around it; smelt at it from a safe distance; walked around it again; grew bolder, and took a closer smell; then lifted his lip and made a gingerly snatch at it, just missing it; made another, and another […] grew weary at last […] His head nodded, and little by little his chin descended and touched the enemy, who seized it. There was a sharp yelp, a flirt of the poodle’s head, and the beetle fell a couple yards away, and lit on its back once more. The neighbouring spectators shook with a gentle inward joy, several faces went behind fans and handkerchiefs, and Tom was entirely happy.

What’s so great about Twain’s books like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn is both how realistic they are and how detailed they are. Twain describes the scene with the poodle and the beetle in such detail as to perfectly illustrate how attentive children can be in times of crisis; including times of extreme boredom.

The book I’m reading is called “All This Time” by  Mikki Daughtry and Rachael Lippincott. Kyle is improving each time more with his feelings, he is realizing more and more the situation. Sam, Kyles best friend, is still looking for Kyle and wants to keep their friendship together but Kyle has been having problems with Sam and doesn’t know if he wants to keep being his friend. They are getting into fights because of Kimberly although Kyle was already over it.

“I never knew love could feel like this. That it could get so deep inside me that I have two hearts beating in my chest…“ I pull her hand up to rest above my heart. “Yours and mine. As long as we love each other, Marley, this will last. Nothing is going to stop or change that. I will love you forever. I promise.“ page. 198

Kyle is still seeing Marley and they are trying to have a relationship even-though  their personal problems. This quote is important because it means that Kyle is accepting the love he has for Marley. All the emotions and feelings are finally showing and he is confessing to Marley. He is experimenting new emotions, feelings he had never felt and he is scared of it, he doesn’t want his heart to break again.

I started this book, “Six Crimson Cranes”, and it is a kingdom based in the town of Kiata. Shiori, the princess of this kingdom, the only girl of 7, has special magic she can tell no one. Magic is sacred in this kingdom, and if you are found to be using it, you get sent away to a school that reduces your power, and soon causes you to lose it.

Shiori and her 6 older brothers, have a step mother, she doesn’t talk much, and doesn’t involve herself in the kids lives. Shiori’s mother died when she was little, she doesn’t remember much of her, only her brothers do.

Shiori is 17, and forced to marry a prince from another kingdom. Her father and step mother are very persistent to this happening, and Shiori will do anything to stop it.

“I’m not going to enchanter school” I said, the bitterness whether Father would actually exile me, or have me executed, if he found out about my abilities had kept me more nights than i had wished to admit. (pg. 47)

This book is very interesting and I like the storyline to it. It keeps having surprises that I don’t expect, and I do not get bored, which is really important to me. I am excited to keep getting farther into this book, and learning new things.

Calla Eastgaard-Zaharko

The novel I am currently reading, is titled Some Girls Do, written by Jennifer Dugan. It is about two girls; one named Ruby who loves nothing more than tinkering with her car but is stuck perusing her former beauty queen mother’s dreams when competing in local beauty pageants for extra money. Morgan on the other hand, a track star for running and has just been kicked out of her catholic school for being gay, because apparently it is against their school code of conduct. The first chapter is about how their world collide. One passage found relatable and that stood out to me;

But there are some things you can’t say out loud: like how her dream isn’t my dream anymore, hasn’t been for a while, no matter how hard I tried to force it. Like how I wish that post-dated check word for bills and groceries and not tap lessons I hate and spray tans that won’t do anybody any good. like how I’ve been faking my smile for so long, I’m scared I don’t know what the real one feels like anymore. (P. 22)

I found this relatable because I know what it’s like to do things for other people when you’ve either lost passion, or never had any in the first place. Or for having the pressure to find the passion out of fear of giving up. And the last sentence about faking a smile, for me I lost so much of my passion for music that I don’t feel like I have passion anymore, or if I do, what it feels like. This quotation gives the feeling of nostalgia can be relatable for many people for any circumstance, which is why I found this passage so impactful.

In beginning of Margaret Atwood’s celebrated novel “The Handmaid’s Tale”, we understand that the book is written in first-person. Within the first few pages, we do not learn the narrators name, but can understand some aspects of their life. They describe what life is like in what is described to be an old school. They sleep in the gymnasium, take two walks per day around the football field. Angels, who are armoured guards, patrol the outside. These guards have their backs faced to those walking around the enclosed space, never to speak to them. The area is described in a very mundane and gloomy tone. The narrator seems far from enthusiastic about their living situation.

No guns though, even they could not be trusted with guns. Guns were for the guards, specially picked from the Angels. The guards weren’t allowed inside the building except when called, and we weren’t allowed out, except for our walks, twice daily, two by two around the football field which was enclosed now by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. The Angels stood outside it with their backs to us. They were objects of fear to us, but of something else as well. If only they would look. If only we could talk to them. Something could be exchanged, we thought, some deal made, some trade-off, we still had our bodies. That was our fantasy. (p. 4)

The following quote is taken from the rather short first chapter. By this point in the book, this is a fair portion of the information that has been described to the reader, making it rather significant as of this time (in the book). The character from whose perspective we are interpreting the story from speaks of this place as a very secure and potentially frightening. We begin to take the impression that this place is closer to a type of jail rather than a school. Overall, the beginning to this book sets a very clear tone on how the rest of the story will progress.

Nyah Sharratt – 11/29

In the part of fire and blood when the next ruler takes power is very interesting. This is because A large section of “Fire and Blood” that I am reading is dedicated to the reign of Jaehaerys I, the longest-ruling Targaryen king. Known as the “Wise” king and the “Conciliator,” his reign starts out with conflict, when he chooses to marry his sister, Alysanne. Jaehaerys resists the attempts of many — including his own mother and advisors — to stop the marriage or remove him from power. Jaehaerys’s reign involves many ups and downs. He institutes many reforms in Westeros, from changes in taxes, to creating a comprehensive set of laws. He also deals with both man-made and natural disasters, including a famine and subsequent plague that kills indiscriminately, including one of Jaehaerys and Alysanne’s own children. The couple have thirteen children, with nine making it to adulthood. Notable among them are their eldest son and heir, Aemon, who marries a Baratheon lady, and Baelon, who marries his sister Alyssa and has three children: Viserys, Daemon, and Aerys.

The book Golf is not a Game of Perfect, written by Bob Rotella, it is about a professional golf teacher who shares stories of him interacting and teaching many pros. There is a certain moment when he was teaching one of the most famous pros, Tom kite, that really grabbed my attention. The pair were talking about full swing, more specifically, approach shots. the coach (Bob Rotella) is talking about your pre shot routine. This includes your practice swings, your 1 “trigger” which gets you in the right place to hit the shot, and arguably the most important one, the target. Before every golf shot, whether it is a driver or a putter, you should always pick a target beforehand. Bob would then explain the exact details of the target your picking.

Whenever you are choosing a target, try to make it as small as possible. A tree, or a house way in the distance are best. This is because you have a more precise thing to swing toward, and this results in a better golf shot. p 133

This is some of the best golf advice I have ever heard. My dad was the first to tell me this before my provincial golf tournament, and I went out and shot 79 – 76, which are pretty good score for me. Bob is overall a great teacher, who understands the game of golf deeply. I have learned a lot from his book already, and i am eager to learn more.

In Girl in Pieces by Kathleen Glasgow  her life is entering a new chapter, a better chapter. Yet we still don’t know too much about her we have found out her name is Charlotte/Charlie. She’s trying to explain how she got to this point in her life and she put it in a poem that she reads. In one point of the poem she says

Girl listens to radio. Girl finds music. Girl has whole other.               world.

Girl slips on headphones. World gone

Girl draws and draws and draws. World gone. (Pg.82)

In this specific part of the poem I felt very touched sort of understood. Not only was she stating how music and the arts as a hole can affect your life, personally she was talking about the things I love. I listen to music 99% of the time and when you really listen to it it feels like the whole world can disappear, it’s an escape from reality. Not only that but art is a way of expressing your emotions. Sometimes explaining how you feel it’s too hard to put into words, and in this book she has mentioned that before for example.

I wish my eyes could tell her sorry because I had no words (pg.19)

For meany girl such as Charlie and I instead of using your body or your eyes to tell someone what you’re trying to say we use art. This book portrays arts not only as a pass time, Or a creative outlet but away of communication and within it’s a hole world.

The cruel prince by Holly Black became a popular book this summer. I am always scared to try popular books because I get too overwhelmed by everybody’s reactions and that might ruin it for me. But this book did not disappoint. The main character Jude is a human girl from the human world. But her mom had a secret. There is a different world with creatures that she thought are just in books. When a man from her mother’s past visited their house and killed her, Jude and her two sisters were taken and forced to live with him in Faerie. She has a very hard life as a human among magic-gifted creatures because, for them, she’s just an inferior human, a servant.

“Would you forswear a promise for me?”

“What promise?”

“Any promise,” he says lightly, although it is no light thing he is asking.

“I guess it depends,” I say, because the real answer, a flat no, isn’t what anyone wants to hear.

“Do you love me enough to give me up? Isn’t that a test of love?”

“I-I don’t know,” I say. All this must be leading up to some declaration on his part, either of affection or of a lack of it.

“Do you love me enough to weep over me?”

“You mean if you were hurt?”

“I mean if I hurt you.”

I chose this quote because this was the first time she trusted a faerie after her whole life hating them. He told her how beautiful she is, how special she is, and made her feel like never before. And she fell for it. This dialogue happened at a royal ball when they were dancing together. He was just playing with her feelings and dumped her. It was a big betrayal from his side that I did not expect at all which made this book even more interesting (I got really mad tho).

I am still reading Stephen R.Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, it has helped me develop some better habits and learn more ways to operate and be a better person and student. The fourth habit he writes about in the book is to think win/win. It is the mindset of trying to achieve something with mutual benefit in all human interactions. He shares a story about how a manager was using a trip to Cancun for the best worker as an incentive to get people to work harder. This tactic was not that effective because it was a win/lose situation. There were employees who would not go to Cancun and one that does and so there are some people who are demotivated. Stephen R.Covey also the goes on to describe each situation.

Win/Win is not a technique; it’s not a total philosophy of human interaction. In fact, it is one of six paradigms of interaction. The alternative paradigms are Win/Lose, Lose/Win, Lose/Lose, Win, and Win/Win or No Deal. (p.206)

Win/Win is obviously the best out of these because both parties are benefiting and we should all try and get Win/Win situations in all aspects of human interaction and the stuff that we do in our daily lives.

In “The Da Vinci Code” by Dan Brown, Teabing gives Sophie a lengthy lesson on Leonardo Da Vinci’s opinions on the New Testament; which were not very positive. He then comes to explain how Jesus was named divine, and Sophie was truly shocked to figure out it wasn’t by consensus, but by a close vote.

“Right,” Teabing said. “Jesus’ establishment as “the Son of God” was officially proposed and voted on by the Council of Nicaea.”

“Hold on. You’re saying Jesus’ divinity was the result of a vote?”

“A relatively close vote at that,” Teabing added. “Nonetheless, establishing Christ’s divinity was critical to the further unification of the Roman empire and to the new Vatican power base. By officially endorsing Jesus as the Son of God, Constantine turned Jesus into a deity who existed beyond the scope of the human world, an entity whose power was unchallengeable. This not only precluded further pagan challenges to Christianity, but now the followers of Christ were able to redeem themselves only via the established sacred channel— the Roman Catholic Church.” (p. 197)

I found this piece of the book to clear up many doubts about the Catholic religion I dint even know I had. It makes sense if you think about, at some point in time, people had to decide if Jesus was actually divine or not, and it was likely that people wouldn’t quite agree on such a broad topic. The entire plot of the book revolves about the church hiding Jesus true mortality, so explaining to the reader how the church decided upon his divinity was something you should expect, yet, this piece of the lore certainly caught me be surprise; just like it did with Sophie.

In “The Da Vinci Code”, by Dan Brown, Robert Langdon explains The meaning of Saunière’s written message: “So dark the con of man.” Langdon then reflects about how the message referred to how the Christian Churches use of propaganda was able to convert the world from matriarchal paganism to patriarchal Christianity.

Nobody could deny the enormous good the modern Church did in today’s troubled world, and yet the Church had a deceitful and violent history. Their brutal crusade to “reeducate” the pagan and feminine-worshipping religions spanned three centuries, employing methods as inspired as they were horrific. (p. 104)

It is very interesting to think as to whether the Modern Church is to blame for the sins committed centuries ago. I found this topic very intriguing when reading the book, specially since this debate has hundreds of different views as to what their sins are and how they should be punished. Though it doesn’t seem like Dan Brown is specifically trying to demoralize the church in “The Da Vinci Code”, it does lessen your view of the church after the books completion.

The book that i am reading now is titled “The Handmaids Tale” I have finished the first chapter of this book and i have found the book interesting to read.

The book is about Offred, the narrator of the story whom describes sleeping on army cots in a gymnasium with other women. Aunt Sara and Aunt Elizabeth patrol with electric cattle prods slung around their waists, and the women are forbidden from speaking aloud, whisper to avoid drawing attention. The women walk in the former football field twice a day, which is surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. Angels, armed guards, patrol the perimeter. The Angels stand outside the fence with their backs to the women while the women go for their walks. The women yearn for the Angels to notice them. They believe that if the men look at them or talk to them, they will be able to use their bodies to make a statement.

I like that the book is nicely paced with words that i find slightly challenging but i learn new words from it.

The novel Picnic at Hanging Rock By Joan Lindsay is about a group of female students at an Australian Boarding school. they vanish at Hanging Rock while on a Valentines Day picnic. Their disappearance has  intense effects  on the on the school and the local community. Two things that stood out to me was how Lindsay presents the ideas of freedom and control in different manners, exploring the motivation behind control, and its consequences. Control is portrayed as futile, as the strict regime at Appleyard college and societal pressure at the Fizhubert manor only exacerbates the character’s desire for freedom and exploration, rather than repress it. Freedom is presented as an inevitability. The more a character is controlled and made to conform to a certain set of behaviours, the stronger their desire to escape said control becomes.

One way Lindsay presents ideas of freedom and control is through the portrayed futility of control, ultimately resulting in freedom. This notion is depicted through the change of behaviour in Micheal and the three girls, and the consequent disappearance of the girls – excessive control and restriction being  being the catalyst for this. Mrs Appleyard’s instructions to the girls before the picnic depicts the stern control the girls faced daily.

I have instructed Mademoiselle that as the day is likely to be warm, you may remove your gloves… Once again let me remind you that the Rock itself is extremely dangerous and you are therefore forbidden to engage in any tomboy foolishness in the matter of exploration

This furthers the idea that control is futile, because the girls ignore Mrs Appleyard’s warnings and proceed to explore the rock, leading to their disappearance. Mrs Appleyards meticulous control backfires, as it only exacerbates the curiosity of the curiosity of the girls, from a very traditional, very wealthy English family.

I’m currently reading a book called “loveless” by Alice Oceman. This book is about a teenage girl who hasn’t experienced being in love with someone and that makes her feel different from the other teenagers. The book tells us what she is been through to discover who she is and why she feels that way.

Aromantic 

Asexual 

I came back to the words until they felt real in my mind, at least. Maybe they wouldn’t be real in most people’s minds. But I could make them real in mine, I could do whatever I wanted.

I’m not sure when I realized that I was no longer feeling melancholic distress about my sexuality. The woe is me, I’m loveless. (p. 297)

This quotation is important because here is where she fouds out why she felt that way. The moment of realization is important because now she can focus on discovering more about herself and know she is not alone.