I'm in love with my book the secret Life of bees! I'm just finishing up the last couple of pages and I really enjoyed reading it. And since this is my last blogpost I'm gonna make it a really good one (:

In the book the secret life of bee's the main character lily's father is a very angry man, and he seems to have a lot of built up anger for Lily. Lily's mom died when she was little because an explosion that lily had accidentally caused and lily's father had told her it was all her fault and such cruel things as your mother never loved you and much worse. I think the ways of the father are the reason that Lily is forcing herself to grow up so fast to try and get away from her father and try and be her own person with out his nasty remarks.

This book also explores many big topics and issue's and one of them is definitely racism. It shows how people back then ar very different although it still may go on in the world today. While Lily was staying at the house with the sisters and they had just found out about may passing away t hey had to police come in to the house and when he came he saw that Lily was staying with them and was shocked to see her around them. Then when the cop talked to her I was shocked to hear some of the rude things he was saying and at on point he had said to Lily "Take my advice and call your aunt and tell her to come on and get you, even if she isn't a hundred percent well. These people are colored people here. You understand what I'm saying?" it grossed me out how the cop could talk as if they we're some kind of animals and not people.

I was always pretty mature for my age and I would always be with older people and it seemed like I was trying to grow up faster than I already was and that's why I really connected with this book so much because I think that Lily somewhat resembles me and what I would be like in her situation. I also read some pretty amazing and inspiring quotes like "let's imagine for a moment that we are tiny enough to follow a bee into a hive. Usually the first thing we would have to get used to is the darkness..." and it kind of says that in order for you to get to the best part of life you have to go through the bad times and the darkness befor you see the lightandit really inspired me to hear something like that.

Secret life of bee's

"See, Lily, when you hear about some misery out there, it might make us feel bad for a while, but it doesn't wreck our whole world. Its like we have a built-in protection around our hearts that keeps the pain from overwhelming us."  As I read this it made me think this is what life is like. This is the point when someone realizes they've grown up, and that all these little problems that you face when your a teen mean absolutely nothing when you become an adult. When your an adult you learn to put your problems behind you and you have to keep moving on as if it was nothing. 


Everyone faces a point in their life when they realize their growing up and some times we have that one thing in our loves that shape us. Lily Owens has shaped her entire life around one devastating, blurred memory. Some things impact our lives and we'll never get over it and it'll drag with us for life, In the secret life of bees Lily is trying to escape her misery any way she could. It also shows that in life you shouldn't dwell on your past and you always have to keep moving even when it gets hard, and its really tough just know that its never too late to start over. 

In the secret life of bee's Lily is forced to live with her mean hearted father. Lily gets treated like no little girl should ever be treated, she gets beaten, screamed at, the father even tells her that the mom dying was all her fault and her mother never loved her. As I read this it seemed as if her father was slowly sucking her childhood out of her, and pulling her to grow up .  I can somewhat relate to this book, I've had a lot go on in my life and I understand that its really hard and somethings just force you to grow up, and there's nothing you can really do about it. 


But, it also kind of seems that Lily is running away from her problems instead of facing them head on and opening up to her dad and telling him off. I think she should've tried to open up to him and tell him what she was feeling and tell him how much he hurts her and tell him how cold hearted and mean he is to her and how she can't stand to be around him any longer, instead of running away with the house keeper to start a new life and make something new out of herself. Its really brave what she's doing, but I believe she would've felt a lot better if she would've told him what was going through her mind before she left him . 


I feel like the main theme of this book is being stuck on a cross road and having to chose how you want the rest of your life to be like and I think that when I was reading I found the perfect quote " you could say I never really had a true religious moment, the kind where you know yourself spoken to by a voice that seems other than yourself, spoken to so genuinely you see the words shining on trees and clouds. But I had such a moment right then, standing in my own ordinary room. I heard a voice say, Lily Melissa Owens, your jar is open."  This in my mind shows that she finally realized what she had to do for herself to change her life, and to make it what she wanted, not what everyone else wanted for her. 

No Rules, No Regrets.

Since your reading this blog post, I think i should inform you that I just started reading this AWESOME book and I'm super excited to be writing a blog post about it ! ** possible spoilers **

So, I just started reading this perfect book called The Mission by Jason Myers yesterday and I love it. I know I say this about a lot of books, but from the first page I didn't want to stop reading in project real. So far what's going on is the main characters is talking about their past and his relations with his family. Ever since I read Romeo and Juliet I try to find a way every book I read relates to it. In The Mission they have the same relationship Issues with their parents, their completely distant. In the book, the main character Kaden says  "Much to the dismay of my dad. The only time I've ever met him was at a reading he did in Minneapolis for his second book. He nodded and said what's up to me, and then spent the next hour talking to my mom over a cup of coffee." In this book so far, it seems that the parents are basically just background characters. Somebody either talks about them for a short while, or they have a small conversation with some one.  I think its a symbol to show how distant kids put their parents from them.

I've saw movies about people going to war, heard family stories, and even read books about it. But in this book it goes so deep into detail about the extreme anguish and distress of a person in battle. the main characters brother, Kenny went to war and he wrote letters to Kaden and he wrote this one amazing letter to his brother about how its going where he is and he puts so much detail and emotion into his letter, not knowing it was his last.  Kaden keeps this letter with him and reads it whenever he wants to think about Kenny, and in the letter he told of so many sickening things that would deaden a persons soul.

In his letter he said "the only thing we know is thats its becoming increasingly more difficult to figure out who the enemy really is. A group of insurgents who arrives here to fight the Jihad from one of the neighborhood countries? Or members of a family who seek revenge on the soldiers who've turned their relatives into collateral damage, destroyed their neighborhoods, driven their people out of the area, and turned their country into a lawless melting pot of religious ideology and horrific street justice more brutal than you are ever shown on the screens of the televisions at home. I've seen decapitated bodies slung from buildings while entering certain neighborhoods. Children missing hands and eyes. Or a baby, man... I saw the body of this baby girl who couldn't have been more than three years old in a trash can in this house. Her throat had been slit and intestines pulled through her stomach. The rest of her family was found stacked together in a pile in the living room with all their throats cut too." Reading this perturbed me completely, I sat their reading this in disbelief that people can be so mindless and hateful to do things as gruesome as what he mentions in his letter. It seems to me that The people in war are basically being turned into zombies where they are, from seeing and experiencing all this violence. Like I had mentioned before this things blacken a persons soul , and prevent them from ever unseeing what hey had saw and staying with them forever.

It disturbs me to realize how mean and inhuman people can be to one another under the disguise of war. Also how governments and armies don't take into consideration the consequences of these wars and how they are affecting innocent people. I don't understand how we are helping out there when we were just as bad as any of those iraqis. They might be killing our soldiers but we are over there capturing families, shooting up neighborhoods, and attacking adults in front of their children. He spoke about soldiers hog tying people up in front of their children. What example are we showing these children other than violence is the only way to solve our problems? how are we helping in any way? Humans are supposed to be the smartest species on the planet, yet for as smart as we are we still cant come up with a way to resolve our differences without killing one another.

Final Youth In Revolt Blog Post !!

Yes, I know I've been reading Youth In Revolt for a while now, but everything got really busy so now I am basically 20 pages from the end of the book, and I have A LOT to say about this intoxicating book !

In Youth In Revolt it shows another side of parents and how bad they can really be. How mothers can act as if they had no children at all and were 17 again, And how step fathers can be so violent and hateful towards their step children. Not only is nick's family completely dysfunctional but you can also see the exact opposite which is how Nick's best friend Vijay's parents act, they are extremely strict and caring with their kids. Un this book I believe that the only reason their parents act the way they do is probably because of how their kids act. Have you ever went against what your parents want ? try breaking the law, stealing cars, catching houses on fire, being the reason for a persons death, sending an innocent kid to jail, breaking into your own house and destroying it.

I believe that somewhat Nick had a part in his family being torn apart completely. He disregarded almost everything his mother had told him and did everything he could have possibly done to make his mom miserable. Nicks mom isn't the best mom someone can have considering the fact she slept with a different man every night, and treated her son as if he was garbage, but there were some times when she actually tried to be a good parent to him and tried to be nice.

Another idea that I have when reading this book was that relationships have a huge impact on how peoples personalities are or how they change. In this beginning when I first started Youth In Revolt I thought how innocent and nice Nick was but then it seemed as if the second that Nick had met Sheeni his entire personality changed to what she wanted him to be and how she wanted him to act. In the book Sheeni was talking to Nick over the phone and told him that he needs to be more audacious and take more risks in his life, and he took this to an extreme. I don't think its even possible to keep track of how many laws that Nick has broken just to get the attention and to keep his girl friend. It's insane how he goes completely out of his way for her and she's just like all over everyone else, and I don't think that Nick and Sheeni should be together, Their bad for each other.

Another topic that came up in almost everything that happened in this amazing book was peer pressure. The mom after discovering she was pregnant with her dead ex boyfriends baby was pressured into marrying the jerk jerry the cop. Nick was pressured to go to the extremes for his snobby girlfriend Sheeni. What it most importantly showed in this book was that when you give into the peer pressure and the pressure people put on you to fill their needs the outcome of giving into that peer pressure is always bad. showing from everyone's lives in this book slowly falling apart.

Final edited version of Exit Here blog post !!

I was definitely looking forward to writing a blog post on this book, I just started reading the book called Exit Here yesterday, and I already am beyond into it. It gives you like a slap in the face of what reality is past high school and even for some in High School, and what happens to those kids that are the gods in school, past school and how its all "just a name" while your stuck in school.  There's this boy named Travis and he was the big shot in school and he had girls falling head over heels for him then while he was in High school he started using drugs and after a while he was a druggie wand he isn't so much of that god anymore and they say that the drugs ruined him, it shows you how people change and goes inside their heads. Travis and all of his friends are druggies and as I read this I began to realize each character symbolizes what happens to people when they become a druggie and all the paths that you take the chance of going down when you make the bad choice to become a druggie.

Also , when he came home from getting kicked out of college he had to go to dinner with his family and met this girl who was the waitress and I think she's going to turn out to be a huge character in this book, because there's always that character that inspires the character and makes them change or helps them . Now that Im rewriting this I am starting to realize that Travis' father reminds me of Capulet and how he treated Juliet and that just like in Romeo and Juliet whenever Capulet didn't get what he wanted with Juliet he would go out of his way to try and intimidate Juliet to get what he wanted and thats exactly what Travis' father did to him to try and help get his life back on track and put him back in college. 

This book also makes a huge statement on how drugs impact everyone around you and its not just you thats going through the fight with drugs. I always saw those unrealistic above the influence commercials but after I read most of Exit Here it got me thinking that maybe the commercials aren't so realistic and it made me not  only have a new view of the commercials but the commercials gave me a better view of my book. I remember watching one of those commercials and my mom turning to me and saying "katie if you ever need to talk to me about something like this, you know you can speak with me." and it made me think going back to what I said about Travis' father that his parents never really asked how he was and even made any attempt whatsoever to what was going on in his life and tried to truly help him, sure they offered therapy and things like that but it was never something they really wanted to do and it made me realize that his parents might've been another reason why he pushed himself to do drugs and to ruin his life, maybe to get his parents attention or maybe to prove a point but I really think the only person who knows this is Travis. 

There's not too much more I can say about this book right about now , but Im completely looking forward to reading more of this book and writing another amazing blog post all about it, and I hope it gives you as big of a reality check it gave me !! (: 

shakespeare (:

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ 

In my class we fortunately got to watch an amazing movie called romeo and juliet by Baz Learman and it is definately one of my favorite things we've done in class so far this year.


Most of you should be familiar with the powerful and thundering story of a young boy named romeo who is a montegue who stumbles into love at first sight of Juliet who is a capulet, two rival families. You could see the stars in Romeo's eyes, but is this really love ? thats a question that popped up quite frequently in the story, In my opinion I believe it is, as young as they are. I believe you are never to young to fall in love , personally I think teenagers have a better perspective of what love truly is and its exactly what Romeo and Juliet had. Back in the times that Rome and Juliet were, they had to be married and have kids by a person their parents whom chose for them, they say that most of them are happily married but I don't think they love who they are married to because you can't choose who you fall in love with it just happens.


Another topic that popped up in the story was family relationships, and In my opinion they werent as close with their families as we are in our times. It seems as if the parents only talk to their children is they have to, when watching the movie I saw Juliet's mother talking to her maybe once or twice but that because she needed something from her. In Romeo's family the most we saw ere his cousins, the only time we saw his parents were after he died, but both Romeo and Juliet were both closer to their friends then they were to their family. 

I think there are many intentional details that Baz Learman made in this movie that made it as amazing as it was I think the best one was probably when the letter was being sent to Romeo about Juliet faking her death so that her and Romeo can finally be together in peace, That Romeo was leaving because he thought she had died and just missed the mail man. Also another was the fish in the tanks they were the montegue and capulet colors and I think it symbolizes that since the fish tank was in between them that it means that the montegue's and the capulets will try and keep them apart. 

Youth in REVOLT

What can I say about this book besides that it had me hooked and wanting to read more ? It just explains everything and the story and the plot and the characters just make this book absolutely amazing !

Nick has an unbelieveable connection with a girl named Sheeni, it was as if when he first saw her he just knew, somewhere deep down in his mind that he was going to end up feeling this way about her and her feeling the same way for him.  I mean at first Sheeni made it seem that she was totally repulsed by him and that she wouldn't even have thought about ever being so close with him, but now its as if she is repulsed by the fact of not being able to see him every waking moment, and it just relates to A LOT of things that happen to teenagers.

I haven't gotten that far into the book but I am already in love with it, despite maybe sometimes it goes too far into detail about Nick's thoughts and stories about his mom and her "boyfriend". It basically goes deep down into the mind of a teenage boy, and it really shows you another side of people that maybe, you don't think of when you see people, you would never think that some kids that are as young as 14 would even come close to be thinking things that Nick Twist would be thinking of.  maybe its the hilarious comments he has about his mothers boyfriend or the cute details about his long distance "romance" with Sheeni.

Youth in revolt somewhat reminds me of the movie that we are watching in class which is Romeo and Juliet, because of the family issues, and the love, and many other themes between these two stories. In my mind I think its similar, because they clinged when they first met and then they immediately fell in love and their taking it very fast just as in the movie romeo and Juliet are doing, and when we were discussing the movie someone had mentioned that romeo's parents are more layed back and Juliet's parents are clingy and protective but she doesn't really care and sorta disreguards them, and it really reminds me of a teenage version of how Romeo and Juliet would be in our times. (:

http://epiceyebrows.blogspot.com/2011/01/cloudless.html?showComment=1297204920613#c7047541534769476659

I chose this poem by Molly smith because I really though tit was deep and I love how she compared things in her poem like how she compared the poem to the dance , I really thought it was amazing. Her poem is really detailed and it makes you really think and i just thought it was really good (:

http://ferny-nandez.blogspot.com/2010/12/yet-another-youth-in-revolt-post.html#comments

wow , wow , wow !! I absolutely love this blog post, she really went in depth with everything she was talking about and it was just an amazing post and I absolutely loved it , thats why I chose it as a mentor.
I also chose this blog post as a mentor because she says "Have you ever seen someone in a crowd, and wanted to get to know them? Well that happens to me all the time, but now that I am reading Youth In Revolt I start thinking of everyone I don't know fully as a dirty, horrible liar." I think in just this small couple of sentences it basically can describe the whole book/ movie and now I REALLY want to read/ see it! (: 


http://benselablog.blogspot.com/2011/01/what-if-he-hadnt.html


what an amazing blog post ! I chose this as a mentor blog post because it relates to what's going through my mind when I'm reading a book like what if they hadn't done this? and what if about everything and it really helps me connect with what he's trying to say.  I also thought i t was really cool how he compared the things that were happening in this book to memories from when he was little it helped me to like take his blog post more serious and it also made me slightly think deeper when i was reading this. :) 

wind torn tree

^^ by vincent van gogh

wind
blown
tree
standing there
all torn
and worn
dead
nothing left
to do
just sit
there
and wait. 

my papa's waltz .

My papa's waltz
by; theodore Roethke 




The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.

exit here.

I was kinda looking forward to writing a blog post on this book, I just started reading the book called Exit Here yesterday, and I already am beyond into it. It gives you like a slap in the face of what reality is past high school, and like what happens to those kids that are the gods in school.  There's this boy named travis and he was the big shot in school and he had girls falling head over heels for him then BAM he's a druggie like it shows you how people change and goes inside their heads. In this bok there are friends and they each .

Also , when he came home from getting kicked out of college he had to go to dinner with his family and met this girl who was the waitress and I think she's going to turn out to be a huge character in this book, because there's always that character that inspires the character and makes them change or helps them .  I also think that the father is going to be a problem in the story and there's gonna be a problem with him and his father some where along in this book. 

There's not too much more I can say about this book right about now , but Im completely looking forward to reading more of this book and writing an amazing blog post all about it !! (: 

the totally true blogpost of a student

**sorry I'm doing this one right now it got saved onto my drafts instead of publishing :( **

the absolutely true diary of a part time indian, is probably the funniest book I have ever read. I don't exactly "like" reading but WOW i really liked this book it made me looked forward to reading it. 

I think the reason why I liked this book so much is I can relate to how this kid thought and felt, I mean he doesn't like school and he makes a joke out of everything to see the better side of it.  And some of the things he did cracked me up like people looked at me as if i was crazy laughing at myself. 

Every kid when they go to a new school never knows what goes on and its like a whole new world and some people no matter where they are and no matter how hard they try are just not meant to fit in and thats junior.  Its like a race to the finish line trying to fit and and have that thrown as the "cool kid" or maybe even "the bully"  and some people give into the push of being those kinds of people like junior, he didn't fit in on the rez and he ran from it to a new school in a different town to start over but its just not as easy as he wants it to be.