A Catcher in the Rye

As a fellow lover of English along with Holden Caulfield, I decided it's time to make an excuse for blogging, and let Holden have his very own post - just because he wants to.

I don't like school much, but I do like to read. I like to read when I don't have to. If I'm told to read, then I don't want to. There's something about my teachers telling me what to read that's phony. I don't know what it is about it, but I don't like it. I'm really good at English. We read a lot of things for English. I think D.B. should write books, but he's in Hollywood writing mostly movies. Oh well, he's still my favorite author. My favorite things to read include:

My next favorite author is Ring Lardner. My brother gave me a book by him for my birthday. It had a lot of crazy, funny plays and stories in it. It kills me - I like him because he's funny.

This is one of my favorite classic books. "I like them, and I read a lot of war books and mysteries and all, but they don't knock me out too much. What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. This doesn't happen much though. 

I wouldn't mind calling up this Isak Dinesen up. and Ring Lardner, except that D.B. told me he's dead.

You take that book Of Human Bondage, by Somerset Maugham, though. I read it last summer. It's a pretty good book and all, but I wouldn't want to call Somerset Maugham up. I don't know. He just isn't the kind of guy I'd want to call up, I'd rather call old Thomas Hardy up. I like that Eustacia Vye" (17).

Right now I'm reading Out of Africa. I've read this already, but I always like to read things again.

For class, "most of the time we were on the Anglo Saxons. Beowulf, and old Grendel, and Lord Randal My Son, and all those things. But we had to read outside books for extra credit once in awhile, like Romeo and Juliet." I also read Hamlet, but the actors in the play I saw are just too phony.

D.B. had me read A Farewell to Arms last Summer. He said it was really good. I am also crazy about The Great Gatsby. Old Gatsby. Old Sport.

One day when I was walking along the street, I heard this kid singing a poem, and it made me realize that I want to be a catcher in the rye. It's called "Comin' Through the Rye" by Thomas Burns. It reminds me of having to rescue children in case they fall, and I really want to do that.
O, Jenny's a' weet, poor body,
Jenny's seldom dry;
She draigl't a' her petticoattie
Comin thro' the rye.

Chorus:
Comin thro the rye, poor body,
Comin thro the rye,
She draigl't a'her petticoatie,
Comin thro the rye!

Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro the rye,
Gin a body kiss a body,[r] Need a body cry?

Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro the glen,
Gin a body kiss a body,
Need the warld ken?

I'd like to start reading a little more.. Who knows, maybe I will when I go back to school, but I won't talk about any of that right now.

A Growing To-Read List

Hi, all (or Mrs. K and my family occasionally)! I've kind of been slacking during my leisure reading time, but I aim to change my direction slightly.  I have decided to finish all the series of books before I start a different one.  The first trilogy on my list to finish is The Hunger Games, followed by Harry Potter, and then The Lord of the Rings.  I might take a break on some of them by throwing in a short book in my stack, but I will try to keep on track as much as I possibly can.  I cannot wait until Summer! - there's just so much more time to read. But I also aim to accomplish the 50 (or was it 100?) books to read before you die.  Shi has a bookmark, and I've asked her to write down the books listed on it - I'll post them later. Another goal I have decided is to own a small library's worth of books when I am old. :) It is one of my many green lights! Well, a-ta for now - I better get started on my list!

To see a growing list of the books I've read/am reading/ will read, check out my profile on Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/5038233

The High Seas Survival Guide

“For a month we’d neither wittles nor drink, / Till a-hungry we did feel, / So we drawed a lot, and accordin’ shot / The captain for our meal” (116) is a song about under what circumstances Kenneth Kamler, M.D. in Surviving the Extremes describes to survive while being trapped at high seas. As South Dakotans, it’s not quite plausible that we will need to worry about being surrounded by water and quite how to survive under such conditions.  Surviving the Extremes is a guide made to teach how to endure extreme circumstances our body can go through.

The first thing to consider if ever trapped in the sea is to prepare as much as possible before ending up stranded in the middle of the ocean. The main way to prepare for this is to make sure to attack supplies to the safety raft (89) or they will be lost instantly in the large abyss we call the ocean! Also be sure to maintain the raft (94-5), by paying attention to air pressure on the walls of the raft, and keeping supplies in safe places as well to stay alive.

Someone suddenly thrust into the sea might find it difficult to keep from panicking; however, this is the worst possible thing anyone could do. The first objective one should have is to avoid swallowing water and drowning (86). Confusion and fear are typically the first reactions that come with drowning, but “fear automatically stimulates the production of energy” (86).  So sort out the brain’s confusion to maintain higher reasoning centers in the brain so, while almost drowning, the brain is able to make correct decisions that could save lives.

There are often certain mental problems that may come along with being stranded at sea.  One man had been lost at sea for 43 days when he saw a (rather good-looking) woman come up alongside him and offer him an icy, cold beverage – only to be teased! The man knew it was a hallucination and did his best to resist the woman. It may also be vital to life to separate the body’s responses to certain stimuli, such as “separating” oneself into a physical, emotional, and rational being, using the “rational you” to make decisions.

Here’s an interesting fact: starving people indeed smell like nail polish remover!  This is because when fat burns, it leaves behind a residue excreted in urine and exhaled in breath similar to acetone, a common/main ingredient in nail polish remover.  It is imperative that one stranded in the ocean knows how to fish, considering the ocean is swimming (ha-ha, get it?) with food! It’s not as easy as it looks, though, because light is deceiving when fishing and correct usage of fishing gear must be used.  And, although morbid, resulting to cannibalism is often necessary for survival (as portrayed in the poem above). Unlike seafood, humans contain carbohydrates that are also essential for survival, and at time this seemingly can be the only option.  However, there is always fish, and if patient enough, it will be caught!

It may seem ironic to some that, although surrounded by water, DEATH will occur if it is drunk! Maintaining 1 percent salt concentration in the blood is a high priority, so if the body can’t take water from outside, it will from cells as blood passes by (109).  However, after drinking water for about a week, salt accumulation will overwhelm the kidneys and they will shut down.  This time unconscious when kidneys shutdown could be time needed to possibly see a nearby ship or fish to catch for survival!

Although all this information is vitally important to survive at the sea, the main thing to remember is that there will be no surviving without the will to survive.



Water for Elephants

If someone comes up to you and says that they used to carry water for elephants, you could bet your boots they'd be lying! Just ask Jacob Jankowski who, unexpectedly, spent the majority of his years as a young man working with a traveling circus.  Jacob never expected to end up on a circus train when he left, but at that point he didn't care one bit.  Jacob actually was finishing his schooling at Cornell to be a veterinarian along with his dad when tragic events occur.  I'm not going to give away the entire book, because I want people to read it! The book puts readers through many emotions as they see the life of Jacob - we see him grow up and learn the truths about life on the road and the morals of many people along the way.

Sarah Gruen uses an interesting characteristic to separate Jacob from the other men on the train.  Jacob is Polish, and he uses his first language to separate himself from the hard life on the train. For example, Jacob's first day on the train, he must force himself to remember all the norms that the working-men live by.  Jacob is highly criticized when he says something wrong (even though he is usually asking simply questions).  On page 55, Jacob is being shown where he will sleep for the time being, and across the train, he hears a man speaking, but his host tells him to quiet down (in a rather rude manner, I might add).  Jacob recognized what this man was saying "Ojcze nasz któryś jest w niebie, swięć sie imie Twoje, przyjdź królestwo Twoje i nie wódz nasź na pokuszenie ale nas zbaw ode ztego. Amen" as our Lord's prayer.  Jacob does his best to forget about the ignorance of his host, and also says amen.  Gruen also portrays this language barrier when Uncle Al buys an elephant.  The man selling Rosie (the elephant) warned Uncle Al that she is the dumbest animal alive.  Trying to train her, the men became frustrated and treated her poorly.  However, a man working with the circus, yet not responsible for Rosie, had worked with elephants before and knew that elephants were trained in Polish.  Proving this, Jacob says "nogę, Rosalie!" Rosie did nothing.  He then said "proszę?" To Jacob's astonishment, Rosie actually lifted her leg! This goes to show that speaking to and acknowledging one's own language is not only respectful but a moral thing to do.

Happy New Semester!

Why, hello again!  It's a new year and a new semester, but with that comes new books for me to start! What's my New Year's resolution?  I don't have one, because I don't deem it necessary to have a specific day (seemingly like everyone else in our country) to start something that I want to do.  Why wait until the new year? Start right now, no questions asked. My long-term goal has been to read more books, coinciding with my 20% Time project.  I have been doing a superb job so far, but sorry that I've been such a recluse lately, alienating my blog and not updating posts.  Although I abandoned my blog over break, I did not desert my stack of  books in my room!

 Fallen by Lauren Kate




Fallen kind of took me awhile to read, but I got in finished within a day or two or Christmas break. The story is of a girl named Luce that is sent to a boarding school called Sword & Cross for (for lack of a better word to describe all of their wrongdoings) misbehaved teenagers.  We are unsure of what exactly Luce did to get into such an awful place, but we know somehow that she was destined to arrive.  Shadows follow Luce wherever she goes, and with them comes an involuntary feeling of darkness or despair, and Luce doesn't quite know why, but she fights them off (only angering them further).  There are two boys at Sword & Cross that Luce is drawn to, but she doesn't know which one to trust.  Later in the book, Luce finds out that there are angels among her, but they happen to be fallen angels.  We get this clue several times in the book when Lauren Kate alludes to angels at Sword & Cross when she takes time to do an entire lesson on angels.  On page 185, she describes a fallen angel: "there was one who crossed the line" which helps readers know that this angel did something wrong as was punished somehow. Earlier, however, one of the boys, Daniel, wrote an essay on his family for class, and Luce desperately (creepy, right?) wanted to find out this boy's secrets.  So later on in the book, Luce goes to the library to find this book and unveil Daniel's past - only to find that this book Daniel did for his 'family research' was actually a Dictionary of Angels (hint, hint). Luce does not get to read it, because when she opened the book, a part of the library started on fire.  After that incedent, the story unravels and we see who the angels are and who Luce should trust.  I'd recommend this book to younger girls who are into fantasy or love type books.  I wasn't a huge fan, but it's one more book off of my list! *Funny little side note - While I was reading the chapter when the library starts on fire, I was on my way to Barnes & Noble with my mom and there was a fire south of Sioux Falls somewhere.  I had just read a line of how the fire started when my mom said "I hope Barnes & Noble isn't on fire."  How weird would that be!? - reading about a fire in a library while a book store is on fire? Sketchy.

The Hunger Games was next on my large pile of books! Words simply cannot describe how weird, bizarre, amazing, violent, addicting, and how much I loved this book! This is a story of Katniss Everdeen in a post apocalyptic United States where the government has taken total control of the 'districts' and limits anything essential towards life.  Every year, all children ages 12 to 18 are entered into what is called The Hunger Games.  The Hunger Games is an event that 2 representatives from each district (a boy and a girl) compete in an arena against opposing districts and fight to the death. There isn't necessarily a main point to the game but to show the total control that the government has over the people... simply because they can. Katniss and Peeta are the contestants of District 12 and go through an abundance of tribulations during the games, only to find out how strong they really are.  The Hunger Games consists of an adventure of Katniss and Peeta almost defying the government, but who will stop them? The Hunger Games is full of surprises all throughout the book and I guarantee you won't want to put it down!

10 Things

I read this book by Sarah Mlynowski is one day and am almost disappointed to say that I didn't enjoy it as much as I would like to have enjoyed it.  April is a 16 year old girl, whose father and step-mother are trying to drag her to Ohio mid-semester of her junior year in high school.  Of course April was reluctant to leave her friends, school, and 2-year boyfriend, Noah behind.  Stubborn and unwilling to go with, she developed a plan to lie to her parents, and she would live with her friend Vi.  The only problem with that was Vi's mother was out of town working as the lead role of Marry Poppins. They developed an entire web of frabrications to get away with it, and the story informs readers of all the things they probably shouldn't have done.

Without giving the entire book away, here is a list of the chapters to give a sense as to what type of journey April and Vi go through alone - and by 'alone,' I mean no parents, which doesn't exclude boys and friends along the way.

number one: lied to our parents

number two: played I never

number three: skipped school

number four: bought a hot tub

number five: lost our virginity 

number six: spent three thousand dollars on a donut

number seven: harbored a fugitive

number eight: threw a crazy party

number nine: hosted the mr. teen universe contest

number ten: got caught breaking and entering

what I did (and probably should have done earlier)

The book is a perfect rendition of the desires of many teenage girls my age and things that many girls endure.  Mlynowski efficiently tells the story through her main character, April, with a rather attractive and likeable voice throughout.  April tells her story about being a teenager and everything that comes along with it: school, boys, love, parties, sex, STDs, and friendship.  It is well written and easy to read, as it is broken down into memories at times, and certain parts of the day in April's words.

I didn't like this book that much because I couldn't relate to it very well.  I'm not one of the girls my age that parties and is obsessed with sex (as I thought the girls in this story were). However this book has a great lesson for many teenage girls to listen to, although may be difficult to deny.  We need our parents to guide us through these difficult, confusing, and hormonal times.  Although I personally didn't enjoy this, I would recommend it to any girl my age that needs an easy read.

Happy Thanksgiving

Ahh, the holiday spirit is in the air. Reunions of loved-ones we haven't seen since Summer, hugs, kisses, and reminiscing... all the great parts of family, right? Or is it leaving the lights on in every room of the house, not throwing away the cardboard from the toilet paper, and being their normal, crazy, weird self anywhere they are... even if it requires doing the "bend & snap" in public? There's kind of a slight preview of my crazy, although small, family. I am going to slightly relate this to The Help, so this is my last post pertaining to the book, because I will be starting a new one tomorrow.  Throughout the book, Skeeter's mother gets sick, making Skeeter realize how much she actually loves her mother and wants her to be okay, even if she's annoying and demanding at times. Skeeter has to see her mother go through pain and suffering that no one deserves.  She watches her mother deteriorate as her cancer gets worse, making her unable to eat.  She watches her mother die. Must we really wait until the last minute to appreciate our family members?

Tonight, we went to Big Cheese - a restaurant on Benson road, on the same building as Jimmy John's. My family is kind of obsessed with eating pizza, because every holiday or occasion that requires coming to our home, we end up eating pizza 2-3 times... in (not even) a week. My parents and aunt and uncle kept talking about surgeries and pain and other factors of old age.  They also talked about their parents.

My grandmother Austin is my only grandparent left living.  After losing my other three, I cherish the time I have with her.  I took for granted having grandparents... I want to be like Eleanora when I'm old, because she is a fabulous cook.  She taught me how to make cookies, and I remember sitting on her counter, singing a song about losing my front teeth while she showed me all her secrets.  My brothers and I always got so excited when we got to spend the night at Grandma's.  We got to watch movies, have popcorn, play with toys, and play games with Grandma all day! It was the best thing ever.

I miss Grandpa Gene. He died when I was a freshman, and I wrote an essay about him shortly after. I'm ashamed to say that when I was very little, I was almost scared of Grandpa Gene... he used to yell at my brothers and me for being loud and told us to go sit down quite frequently.  I always thought he was crabby and didn't want to talk to me.  I realized too late that Grandpa was indeed a very nice man, but he was actually shy when wanting to talk with us. After he was put in the hospital during his last days, I always went to visit him with my mom, and I really listened to what he had to say. Those last months were probably the most I ever talked to my grandfather at once. I wish this Thanksgiving he could sit in the chair where he always sat, my dog Daisy on his lap with Toby by his side, hear his booming laugh and see his crooked grin. 

While at diner tonight, I actually learned that my Grandpa Elmer basically had Alzheimer's all throughout my childhood.  Symptoms increased when I got into 3rd grade.  I don't remember a lot about Grandpa Elmer, except that he was the biggest kid anyone ever met.  All of his friends from Renner enjoyed his presence and sneaky sense of humor.  He used to take my brothers and I up to the crick (which was about 20 ft. from their house) and we would throw rocks, gawking at the huge splashes they made.  I also remember he used to sneak me Tic-Tacs, and I thought he was so awesome, since I wasn't supposed to have them.  We used to have a bowling kit and he would set the pins up, even though my brothers and I destroyed them within seconds - he just wanted to play with his grandchildren.  We used to fight for his chair, too. Grandpa had the most comfortable chair and we had to take turns to sit with him to prevent from fighting. I have few memories of Grandpa outside of the nursing home, because once his memory started fading, I was old enough to realize what was going on... It was painful for our family to watch our beloved Grandfather go the way he did, but every time we speak of him, my mom mentions that moment of clarity.  We could tell his condition was getting worse, we had the whole family in town to say goodbye (he got to meet his second-to-last grandson), and we stood around him, waiting.  Apparently, when I hugged him, everyone could see it in his eyes - those memories...knowing he was hugging his granddaughter. He had that moment of clarity, looked to the rest of his family, and told us he loved us. My grandpa died that night after we left.

LaBelle Brende is my idol - she was one of the most amazing women, friend, grandmother, and mom anyone could have.  She loved her children dearly, had tons of friends, and always saw the best in people.  Grandma was positive, always looking on the bright side, even making fun of herself when she said stupid things (like calling UGG boots "uggums"). One thing I miss about Grandma Belle is she always told me how beautiful my eyes are. She never hesitated to compliment anyone and always had something nice to say.  She was a fashionista, always wearing the nicest clothes, even when she wasn't feeling up to it. I want to be exactly like my grandma when I'm a grandma, because she was an all-around good person, and everyone enjoyed being in her presence.

The real truth is, I love my family with all my heart.  -Every single crazy, loud, and obscene part of them.  I couldn't ask for anything better and am truly blessed with what I've been given. Skeeter saw the strength in her mother, and became proud of her while watching her beat the cancer. I'm not mad about the time I didn't get with my grandparents, I thank God every day for the time he has given me with all of my family. So enjoy your family, make memories, and have a very happy Thanksgiving!