TGIF

Ok, I have been a bad blogger as of late. I was very excited earlier this week to begin Ball Don't Lie, but unfortunately the book has sat on my desk untouched, and actually buried under tons and tons (literally!..well not really...) of papers! AP Lit and Comp, AP Lang and Comp, and two vastly different classes of English III....AIS meetings this week, and LTED 626...MY OWN children are coming home with notes from THEIR teachers requesting more help with homework....Let's see if I can finish off this semester without a nervous breakdown....
At least that's the optional read! I am used to putting off what I want to do and instead focusing on what demands I have to meet, so W.D. Meyers, I am reading your Monster right now. I personally do not enjoy this book. I think it lacks depth and is not dynamic enough for me so far. I do think many students would like it, and it would show them a kid maybe similar to them, who wants to be tough on the outside, but inside is scared and never wanted to be in any kind of trouble. I do think Steve is innocent. I think he would have admitted it in his "movie" if he was not. One part of the book I really do like is him pretending his life in jail is a movie. He says nothing seems real, and it is like he is watching someone elses life, and so to put distance between him and his life he is "making a movie" out of his experiences in jail. I think it is a cool way for this caharcter to survive mentally, and it shows in my eyes that he is innocent. He is a kid, and his love for film and his success in his film class show that he is a good kid. But good kids can get themselves in trouble...and that is what I like about this book. So many people have a negative perception of urban students. When Is ay I work at Edison the response I get make me so angry "Oh that must be tough" or "Wow you are one brave soul" or "I bet the kids are real bad." I love my students. 4 weeks in and I love them. They are good and smart and amazing and the environment that surrounds them is often a negative one. It is very difficult to be and act a certain way when the environment you are raised in is conducive to a certain type of ....don't know the word I am looking for. It is like expecting to grow an avocado when you are planting in an apple farm. ??? get it? both fruits are good, but they both grow under different conditions and come in packages that insist they be different....I hope I did an ok job trying to demonstrate that kids are kids, just like fruit is fruit, but there are some differences and its natural and you cannot blame an apple for being an apple, or an avocado for being an avocado. Anyway, my students are often victims of their environmnet, much like Steve was, and now he is scared and the evil prosecuter...."monster" how dare her. Now poor Steve is starting to believe it. Reminds me of A Lesson Before Dying when the prosecutor calls the man on trial a hog, and his grandmother is set on making her sure her grandson goes to his death a man :( so sad.

Can't wait to start this week's reading!

I am very excited for my "optional" read this week! It is Matt De La Pena's Ball Don't Lie, and though I am not a huge basketball fan, if it is anything like his last book, I am sure to love it!

Finished with Hunger Games

Ok, this book kept my attention....and I admit...I was enteratined, and I can say I liked it....but at the same time there was so much I did not like and just made me feel dumb.....

Like the crazy outfits...I am sorry, I just could not fully believe, by into, or take seriously the girl on fire...all the prep and the parading of them and ceremony, I don't know, I truly dislike reality tv shows and how scripted they are too....all aspcts of them bug me, and so of course this did.

I think what really bothered me was that they could dress people up, interview them, test them and score them, and watch them die. It's just weird and I want to say (stupid!) I know it is making commentary on how our society functions, but I just (as everyone has probably noticed in my other responses) have a hard time bying in to things that I cannot "imagine"...I do have a good imagination too...some things though, just do not sit right with me....The whole soap opera love affair too...just...I dont know, not a book I'd push on to students...and actually I was asked to. I guess the RCSD ordered a bunch for the tenth graders and i was asked to take a box and give them to kids to read. I was like...whoa...I have a TON of books I can reccomend to students, this one....not so much....

Hunger Games

I really like Hunger Games so far because it is easy to read and descriptive. I need something easy and enjoyable right now. Katniss decsribes and sets us up well to visialize the setting and her district. She seems like a smart and resourceful girl. I know this is set in the future, but the way they way she hunts and attempts to live off the land, and the way they decribe the hungergames themselves, and the "Dark days" seems more like a time a long time ago, nothing any civilized society would think up or lead to. Sadly, I need to admit that based on the other books we have read so far this semester (Breadwinner, Book Theif, Yellow Star) perfectly good and modern societies impose and commit horrific inhuman monstrous acts againts human beings. But my kid...NEVER. I COULD NOT WOULD NOT put up with this. The idea that so many are ammuesed by the Games is sickening, and....I wonder if today's reality shows are any match in analogy for this. I personally cannot stand reality shows. I have not gotten too far, but I am glad Katniss took Prim's spot, because I don't think we'd have a possibility at a rest of a book if she didn't....

My thoughts on Crank...(the book)

Ok, at first, Crank left me feeling very uncomfortable. I think the subject matter and the roles of parents all contributed to that. It really felt uncomfortable and dirty  and raw, that this man would allow his daughter to be doing meth and possibly sleeping with this boy right under his nose. That whole first part was gray and dark.
Then, when Kristina (or Bree) moved back to her mom's house, even though she would spiral into a much larger drug problem, the book was still "sunnier" than the time spent with her dad. I can't explain this, but I am apt to visualize what I read so much that often when discussing soemthing I read in the past I am convinced I had watched it as a movie because I can "see" everything so clearly (that however, is why i did not like Deadline, I couldn't visualize it fully. It never seemed real enough for me, that must say something about me as far as who I am and my experinces,but I'm getting too far off subject now). So time spent with her dad: grimy gray, dark and dirty. Back at mom's summerish and yellow, yet full of a stomach tightening pain of disgust and of the knowledge that a life is being wasted.

Ok, I get way too personal in these things. When I was a senior in high school my friends and I dabbled in lots of things we shouldnt have. Not meth, but simialr stuff. We were suburban kids with money. We had happy families and cars and freedom. Too much freedom. I remember we got out of work one night (many of us all worked at the same restaurant) and we were going to try "it" for the first time. We all agreed that it woudlnt turn into an everyweekend thing, we were just curious. Well, a week later, it wasn't an everyweekend thing, it was an everyday thing. It was summertime and our bank accounts were loaded up from our recent graduation parties. believe it or not though,  I have a very high moral conscience. I never, repeat never felt "good" or "comfortable" I was the least into all this of all my frineds and I think it's because my family. I have always had a very close relationship with my mom and dad, and am the middle of five kids. I knew what I was doing would hurt them. The worst day, was when my older sister and her new husband came over to show us pictures of their honeymoon in Jamaica they had just returned from. I remember my mom calling me and telling me "Julie and dave just came over, come home!" everyone was excited to see the new happily married couple and their pictures. I was with my best friend, we have known each other since we were five and my family and hers are very close. We go to my house. We were "on" stuff. I did not want to be there. I was trying to act normal and happy for them, but all I could think about was the stuff out in the car. I looked at my younger brother and sister, both 13, and I felt so low. I looked at my entire family, and felt so wrong. I wanted to be with them, I wanted to want that anyway. i wanted to be good for them. I sat there thinking what if I died and how my family would react. I did not like who I was right then. It was not me.
Shortly after that i told my mom what iw as doing so she would make me stop. It was not hard, I never had that strong of a desire for what i was doing. i was done an that was it. My friends kept it up for a little while until they too got over it. Happy to say we all were able to put that part our lives behind us. That was over ten years ago.
Reading Crank really reminded me of me when I was 17 and 18, except, I was not as far gone as she was, and I always wanted to help and love my fam,ily. Kristina made me very mad the waay she acted towrads her family. I understand it was the drugs talking, but I did not relate to how she acted and how she snuck out. I had a job, a car, and freedom. Ok, so please don't judge...it was one summer, but I really could relate to Crank....not the dark beginning though, just the sunny suburban girl in danger of throwing her life away part.