post B week five

Dear Jake,
You are home, back to the place where you grew up. Where you got married and had children and where your childhood is. But, i know the real reason you are back. You know that Helen killed her mom and after she told you, you went to Clair's house and you broke in and you saw her dead. Now you’re an accomplish to murder. It's not looking good for you. You can't hide your secret for long. Now that the police are involved the true story is going to come out some way or another. Now you know that Helen slept around and that she had sex, but you still try and help her? That's very nice. And you tell her it’s not a we, it’s a you. But you’re involved now you so are in this battle just as much as she is. Also, you told Helen, you never wanted the marriage to end but you were the one with the divorce papers. When you tell Helen that you don’t want to be involved with this murder, how come you two made a plan up together? How come you guys made up a big lie so you both can get out of it no problem?

Post A week five

quote:
"he finally did it." page 193
I think this represents more then just Helen's dad killing himself. I think this also represents Helen killing her mother. They finally did it. They killed. It is said in some sort of way that it took them long enough. Like you knew it was coming. Finally.

theme:
Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.

Post B week four

It was on a hard day-
"Are you okay, Mom?"
"It's a hard day, Helen."
-that Billy Murdoch was hit by a car in front of the house.
I think this quote is very important to the book because it talks about the hard day Helen and her mother had. That day a young boy got hit by a car in front of their house. And Clair was the only one to see it. But instead of calling for help she just stood there and watched him and sang to him. she couldn't make herself go and do anything to help she just stood there and watched him lay in the road until someone finally came and got help. Unfortunately, Billy died. I think this quote symbolizes this hard time and I think this quote represents all the other "hard" days for Helen's family. Which what I think, is every day. Helen had to stand up for her mom when a group of men came to her house looking for Clair. They didn’t think it was right that Clair didn’t get help for the little boy. She made Helen go outside for her. Helen was hit by one of the men. She stood up for her mom and got hit. That’s a very hard day.

post A week four

Vocabulary words:
conical page 117: Of, relating to, or shaped like a cone.

bilious page 125: suffering from, caused by, or attended by trouble with the bile or liver.

Theme:
your conscience always knows.

Post B week three

Helen starts to have flashbacks towards her childhood and how much her mother had put pressure on her to act older than her age. Her mother would not leave the yard, let alone the house. This was a hard time for Helen and her father. Before Helen kills her mom she has nightmares, and after, it was a reality. Helen washed her mom after she was murdered her. Her mother, Clair, soiled herself so Helen thought she should clean her so people didn't see her like that. Helen thought she was respecting her, even though no one else can see it because Helen just killer her mom. I think Helen’s mother put her through some very hard times and kind of brought this on herself. Helen was only a child when she could see the difference between her family and others. She knew her mom wasn’t the same as everyone else’s mom. She knew her dad had to work a lot harder to keep the family together. I think Clair was a burden to the family somewhat because she wouldn’t even try to get over her condition she just stayed there and waited for her family to help her. She didn’t even try for herself to keep her family together.

Post A week three

Vocabulary words:
reservoirs (63): A natural or artificial pond or lake used for the storage and regulation of water.
polarized (80): (of an electric plug or outlet) designed so that the plug and outlet fit together in only one way.

Theme:
Go with your instincts.

Post B week two

"I could not cut my mother up, so i walked over to her body and bent down near her head. I hovered over her briefly, then unwrapped the blankets around her face. There were her eyes, staring up and me, milky and blue. With the scissors in my right hand, I dug out her silver braid and sheared it off at the root." -page 61
I think this is a very important quote because it shows that Helen still cares enough for her mom after she murdered her that she can't cut her mom up. But Helen shoes that she doesn't have that much consideration because she can cut off her mom's hair for no purpose. I think this shows that she still had all the respect in the world for her mom but her dignity was gone. I think Helen knew that all her mother's dignity was gone. Helen knew she made a mistake but she couldn't take it back and i think the problem overwhelmed her and she didn't know what to do about it. She cleaned her mother up and made her look beautiful but she cut off her hair.

Post A week two

theme:

You can only trust the one's who trust you.

Quote:

"I like the man next door," my mother had said when Carl Fletcher moved in six years ago. "He's pathetic which means he keeps to himself." -page 24

I think this quote is very important because Helen's mom is describing herself in a way. She always kept to herself and didn't want to get in anyone else's business. I think she liked Carl because she saw herself as a reflection in him.

Post B week one

Dear Helen,
I can't believe you actually did it. you killed your mom and now you are going to have to live with it for the reast of your life. I know times were hard and i know things were rough with the way she treated you but she had demencia so she couldn't really help herself. She didn't really know what she was doing to you or others and she had no control over the way she was acting. You smothered her and people are going to find out. You can't cover up what you did and now you have to live with it for the rest of your life. Also you had sex with your best friend's son- when you are married with children! You keep making wrong decisions and nothing seems to be going right for you. You need to start thinking about what your doing before you do it and you need to tell someone what you did. You should trust your husband and he should be able to trust you but obviously he can't do that if you are sneaking around with other guys. Especially one that you can consider your own son! I think you should see a therapist or you need to start getting your life on track and making the right decisions for yourself because the things that you have done aren't right and you need to fix them. You need to go make things right. And you need to tell your husband what you did.

Post A week one

vocabulary words:
brackish page 1- distasteful; unpleasant.

totemic page 2- a natural object or an animate being, as an animal or bird, assumed as the emblem of a clan, family, or group.


Theme:
One wrong move and your life can be full of regret.

outside reading quarter two

1. The Alomst Moon, Alice Sebold
2. October 2007
3. Nonfiction
4. 291 pages
5. The book is written about Murder and Death, a tough subject for most people.
6. I chose this book beacuse I have read two other books by this author and hey were outstanding!

The Sea Inside

To me The Sea Inside was shot at the mostly the same angle and technique. In the movie they use firehosing alot to show when he flies and dives. They do this to show where his direction is going and how he feels like he is free. The use a colse shot when Ramon is talking to Julia to show their relationship and how close they are to eachother. In the movie a medium shot is used to show how small of a room Ramon has to live in how thats where he lives. They use a close to show when Rosa asks Ramon to live for her. I think the way they move the camera shows the feelings that people have and it is setting the mood of the scene.

The Sea Inside

The similarites are that they are both quadripligic's, They aren't happy with their lives, The wrote memoirs about their accidents, The have people trying to help them, People who love them but don't know what to do.
The differences are that in The Diving Bell and The Butterfly he can only blink, and in The Sea Inside he can move his whole head. In Diving Bell and The Butterfly he loses love, but in The Sea Inside he finds he can actually have love.
To me, The Diving Bell and The Butterfly is the more powerful one because it talks about hoe he can't communicate or talk or tellanyone how he feels. He can't describe it and he has no choice living the way he does.

The Sea Inside

I think that this movie was really deep and on a subject most people don't really think about. Its hard for some people to accept that others don't want to live in that sort of situation. I think that if Ramon doesn't want to live his life that way that he shouldn't have to. It's his life it should be his choice. I don't think the court has any right to tell him how to go and live his life it should be his choice on what he wants to do. It was his friend's choice if they wanted to help or not so I think if they think that they are doing the right thing then they can do that. I think that they didn't have to help if they didn't want to but they obviously wanted him to live in peace.

outside reading final post

In this section Alice and Lila are very good friends. They go back to school and becoma clones of eachother. Alice and a boy named Steve start to have a relationship and then Alice starts to like another boy named Marc. After a whiole of dating two boys she doesn't know who to pick. One night when Alice and her new roommate Pat were out. Lila was raped. She didnt know how to act towards Alice or anything after a while they decide they can't live together anymore. They give up on their friendship and don't even talk to eachother when they see eachother at graduation. Alice then goes on with her life. At the end of a book she has sex with a guy and feels that it is like shes a virgin again and none of this happened.

In this section Alice finds out a girl named Maria inher class tried to commit suicide. She asks Alice to visit her and Alice there finds out that Maria had been raped by her family for many years when she was growing up. Alice's poem had made Maria think of all the memories and made her very sad. She thanks Alice for not letting her ignore it. This section also talks about how Alice loses her virginity for the first time after her rape. She was drunk and lied to the man, she told him she had already had sex. She catches herself falling in love with him. They never spoke afterwards. Alice now has to face the main trial in her rape case and She is put on the stand she is asked many questions then starts to break down crying. But she got it over with. After she was on the stand Gregory Madison pleads not guilty, but he is found guilty on six different accounts. Alice asks for as much time in jail as possible and he has to be in jail for at least eight years. She finally won and her and her family are very happy that they dont have to deal with this any longer.

This was a very hard section for me to read and i found myself crying on more than one occasion. I felt like I had a first hand account on what happened and it was really hard for me to really feel how Alice was feeling. It must have been so hard for her to go through all of this. Then she had to face Gregory again in the court room. She had to point him out and look at him. I was very happy after she won. I thought that this was going to be so good for her and her family. They really needed this and then they finally got it. I thought that Alice wouldn't make it this far in her case but she kept on trying.

week 4 outside reading

quotes:

1. " 'i've been in this business for thirty years,' he said. 'you are the best rape witness i've ever seen on the stand.' I would hold on to that moment for years. page 198, Lucky, Alice Sebold
This quote is very important cause Alice just eneded her trial and the baliff told her that she was calm and collective and still managed to win her case.

2. "I had done it." page 200, Lucky, Alice Sebold
This quote is really important cause Alice and her family won. They got Gregory Madison in jail and they won everything and now ALice has a sense of freedom.

outside reading week 4 post 2

After they found Anna's killer they now have to put him on trial. She has to be questioned by the defense attorney and answer many questaions realted to the rape. After the preliminary trial is over then Anna has a break. During this time she has to choose her killer out of a line up. She hurries herself, and ends up choosing the wrong man. Anna later learns that the killer put his friend next to him in the line up to make it harder for Anna to choose. She chose on fear rather than based on facts. Now Anna has to state her case in front of a grand jury and as she tells her story she cries. After she does that she realize it will help her so much more in the long run. After the trial is over they have to sit and wait until they here from the judge.

The Diving Bell and The Butterfly

My feelings on The Diving Bell and The Butterfly are mixed. I think this book is very well written but i think it is too hard for people to understand and it doesn't always make sense. I think this book is very descriptive and the author really makes you feel what he is writing. He wants you to know what he sees and how he feels. His condition is really bad and i'm sure no one could really understand it but he tries to get you to know how he is after the accident. He uses alot of loaded words and makes you think under the surface to find the true meanings he is using. I think alot of people struggle with this book because he flips between memories the present and dreams alot. You can't really understand which one it is until your half way through the chapter or almost done reading it. He also kind of rambles. He puts chapters together that don't make sense with each other and some sentences don't seem to fit together. This book really makes you feel bad and like you want to help but you know you can't do anything for him. It makes you really not want to have locked in sydrome happen to you. At the end of the book you can tell that he is just giving up and doesn't want to live anymore. This kind of makes you take pity on him. The author can't always remeber what happens so it gets kind of confusing when he is thinking then can't remember after that. You wonder where he was going with that thought and why it all of a sudden stopped. I think this book does a very good job at taking you inside his head. You start to feel everything he is feeling and you know exactly whats happening.

Post 4 outside reading

To me the book has been really good so far. It is very good at giving feel and emotions of how evreyone is feeling. It also is very decriptive. It describes everything very deeply. Some things i think that would be better is if Alice could remember more things so it doesn't feel like something is missing when you read it. Another thing the book could work on is that it is kind of bias. You only hear one point of view the whole time and you can't really know what happened to the other people or how Alice treated them worse or better. When i first read about the rape it got me scared and i kept wanting to read on. It brought up feelings of hate for me towards the rapist and it made me mad. I don't think i could ever imagine this happening to me. But i have felt like i was trapped in my own body before, like no matter what you said people still wouldn't understand you. I think that even though they have caught the guy something bad is still going to happen. Either to Alice or to one of her friends. I think that Alice is going to help and the problem is going to get resovled. After i read the part about them catching the guy I was very happy for Alice i think that she is going to start feeling closure because now she can be peaceful and rest knowing danger isn't out there anymore.

Post 3 outside reading

Alice talks about all the colleges she wants to attend and how her sister felt about leaving first. She thought that after her sister left for college and stayed near to home, that Alice needed to get away from her "weird" parents and travel a longer distance. She talks about how she has only had fun with her Dad once at their trip in Boston. At college she also met someone who hated college too. She learned who was virgins and who wasn't. alice never wanted to go to parties so she would sleep in the art classes. Her parents never could really take the fall of her being raped. It all fell heavily on them. She decided she wanted to go back to the same college for second semester so she could have a fresh start. She tried to focus heavily on her studies. But one day they had to write a poem about something very important to them so Alice wrote a hate poem to her rapist. A few days after that she was walking down the street when she saw him. She called the cops and they came and drove her around looking for him. There was no luck. She then went down to the station to look at mug shots and when she was there she got a call in that they had caught the guy. He was put under arrest and is now going on trial. That night Alice kept having the same drean about gregory coming after her again and she was going to kill him.

Alice Sebold was born September 6th, 1962. She grew up around the suburbs of Philadelphia and went to Syracuse college. After college she went to live in Manhatten and had a career as a waitres even though she wanted to pursue a career in writing. She started the book Lucky as a school project but then it turned into a book for herself. Then she had it published. She also has written another very popular book called Lovely Bones. Her newest book Almost moon came out in 2007 and she is already starting a new book.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Sebold

http://www.bookbrowse.com/biographies/index.cfm?author_number=786

Post 2 outside reading

1. rape
page: 50 negative
the author made this the toughest word in the book. Its the most negative word for the Sebold's. This is the word that everyone stumbles over and no one says.

2. animals
page: 54 negative
Mr. Sebold uses this word to descrice the men on the streets. He now sees every man as Alice's raper.

3. stunned
page:55 negative
This is how everyone sees Alice now. They all just look at her and stare because they don't understand what happened.

4. attack
page 59 negative
She feels that when people dont understand what happened to her. That she can't attack them she has to accept they don't get it and she has to explain it to them.

5. unsaved
page: unsaved negative
Alice feels that only you ca save yourself. No one can pull you out of where you are at.
you have to do it yourself or remain unsaved.

6. understood
page: 67 positive
Alice feels no one can really understand what she is going through. No one can really help her. Now that she has talked to Myra she feels thats as close as people can get.

7. erect
page: 72 negative
This is the awkward feel between Tom and Alice. now that he knows the truth he can't look at her the same was as he did before.

8. love
page: 75 positive
this word is tough for the Sebold family and Alice feels no one really understands it until after she has been raped and now everyone can show how storong their love is.

9. virgin
page: 77 negative
Alice was a virgin before she had been raped and now she feels that a nice boy will never love her again because of this. She thinks everyone will act differently and no one will look at her the same.

10. Alone
page: 80 negative
Alice feels this is how she lives now because no one can understand what she is going through. She thinks she is alone in this fight.


Alice went with her mother and father to pick up her sister from college and she saw many men on the roads and couldn't help thnking that they were all bad even though they hadn't raped her. She realized that she was being strong and she had to be there for her sister and mother. The church was told about what happened to her and many people came over to visit. Alice thinks that no one is going to ever love her again because of the rape. She thinks guys will never look at her the same again. She goes and sees a therapist and realizes that no matter what no one will really understand what she is going through. She is going to have to get over it herself. And help everyone along the way.

post 1 outside reading

Alice Sebold was walking home one night from a friend's dorm room when she was grabbed by a man and told he wont kill her if she does what he says. She then put up a big fight. But she was dragged to a tunnel in a park near the entrance of an amphitheater. There, she was raped. She was a virgin so she didn't know how to give a blow job when she was told to. After he was done with her he told her to put her clothes back on and then he took the little money he had. She then had to walk back to her dorm room when everyone was staring at her and trying to help her, she just ignored them. When she finally got back to her dorm she went straight to her friend Mary Alice's room and told Linda, another friend, she had been raped. Linda fainted. When Alice knew she couldn't help her she went to the RSA and told him she had been raped. He then took her to his office and called the police. When the police arrived they took Mary Alice out on a gurney and drove her to the hospital. When she arrived there she was taken to a room where she was going to have to have a vaginal exam. Dr Husa had managed to find some DNA from the raper. She then was told to pee and when she did all that came out was alot of blood. After the exam was over she was told she could take a shower. She wasnted to scrub off all of him. After she tried she knew that she couldn't do it. She then went back to her dorm room and had to go into the dean's office and have a talk with the police. She tried her best to explain what he looked like. No matter how much she tried it never seemed to come out. She then was able to go back to her room because she needed to call her mom. On the way she saw a man named Victor who gave her a hug but she couldn't hug back. Then she made it into her room and called her mom. Her mom was worried but came and picked her up. She had to go back later to follow up. As she drove home she dreamed about her childhood. How her mother was enver able to make the crops grow, how her family was different than everyone else's and how her mother drank. Her mother would have flaps. That are just like panic attacks. She remembers her dogs and how they would steal her mom's used maxi-pads and the whole family would go on a chase to get them back. She remembers how her father never showed any love towards her mother and she remembers how on hwer fifteenth birthday her mom took her to New York but couldn't make it cause of her attacks.

After reading this passage from the book it makes me a little more scared to go out. I think i am going to be a little more careful. It makes me feel really bad because this could happen to anyone who is in the wrong place at the wrong time. I can't believe that there are people out there like that it makes me unhappy at what the world is. How people can have pleasure from that or think its okay. I don't understand at all. I feel that this book is going to show me something and teach me how i can protect myself.

This I believe.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12643378

Lisa Sanden

I Am Not My Body

People are not their body's

Lisa has a thalidomide defect but she still is a regular person on the inside.
People treat her with prejudice and pity but she is just a normal person.

They were fighters who struck "I can't" from my vocabulary, and replaced it with "I will find a way."

assignment 9-05-07

The thing I am most anxious about at Edina High School is meeting all the new kids. I think highschool is a good experience and I am really excited to meet all the people I don't know and too see all the people that over the summer i lost touch with.

One goal for myself in my sophomore year is to make the varsity team for softball. Last year i made JV and this year i'm going to try out and try and make varsity. I think that if I put my mind to it and pracitce that I could do it.