The Struggle Inside

 

      So you all may be looking at my title thinking to yourself "Is this some kind of  horror film?" or "Woah that's deep". The purpose of my post today is to discuss the conflict in The House of Hades. More specifically the conflict I see hapenning between some of the characters and themselves. That's why I chose "The Struggle Inside" as my title. I thought it was pretty creative and catchy, I don't know about you guys. Anyway back on the topic of conflict. There definately is other types of conflict in the book. For example, the battle betweeen the demigods and Gaea and her monsters. For this post, I just want to focus on the character to self conflict. I think it's more relateable. I mean how many people do you know who are at war with a Greek goddess who is sending a bunch of monsters to kill you?! If you do know some one who has this issue, I would love to hear their story!

 

     One character in particular that I have noticed who is struggling with herself is Hazel Levesque. Hazel is a daughter of Pluto (the Roman form of Hades). Hazel finds out that towards the end of her quest she will have to face an enemy alone. Hecate, goddess of magic, tells Hazel she will have to use the magic of the Mist to defeat her. There is a chance that Hazel may not survive. Hecate gave her three paths to choose. Hazel picks the most dangerous and difficult path. It was the only one that had a chance of keeping all of her friends alive. However, it's the one where she has the least chance of making it. Hazel's half brother, Nico is also a child of Pluto. If they are to succeed in their quest only one of them will make it to close the Doors of Death to stop Gaea. The text says, "Nico had warned her [Hazel]. He'd communed with the dead, heard them whispering things about their future. Two children of the Underworld would enter the House of Hades. They would face an impossible foe. Only one of them would make it to the Doors of Death" (Riordan 32). Talk about a bad day, poor Hazel. All this bad news she's getting is really taking its toll.

     Hazel constantly battles with herself after hearing all of this news. She isn't sure if she has the courage to go on with it all. During her account with Hecate she learns about a path where she and some of her friends could escape and not have to particiapate in the war. "A small, guilty part of Hazel found that appealing. She'd secretly been wishing for the chance to be a normal girl. She didn't want any more pain or suffering for herself and her friends They'd already been through so much" (Riordan 24).There isn't a one hundred percent chance of everyone making it through the quest. Her own brother may have to die for her to servive. Or it could be the other way around. No matter what though she has to decide if she is going to finish her quest or save her own skin. I think reading this, most of us would like to say we would risk ourselves for our friends. However, when our own life was actually in anger, would we still make that decsion? Let me know in the comments below what you think!

For a full explanation of Hazel's character and role in the book click here.



A New Book Brings A New Theme

     Recently I started the book The House of Hades by Rick Riordan. Its the fourth book in the Heroes of Olympus series, which I'm sure many of you are familiar with. I realize not all of you may know what I'm talking about so let me take a brief moment to explain the plot. The story follows seven demigods (kids with one parent mortal and one god) on their journey to defeat Gaea, the earth goddess, so she doesn't take over and destroy the world. Hera, Greek goddess of marriage, home and family, had erased the minds of Jason- a roman demigod- with Percy (Yes, Percy Jackson)- a Greek demigod. She then switched them in hopes that they would bring the Greek and Roman demigod camps together to help defeat Gaea. By The House of Hades Percy and Jason have already met each other and with their five other friends they met on their journeys to unite the camps they set off on another quest to shut the Doors of Death so Gaea can finally be killed.

     Now that we are all on the same page I would like to talk to you guys about a theme I see surfacing in this book. Yes I know I'm only fifty or so pages in but I guess Riordan is just that good of an author that he has made sure to quickly get his message across to the reader. The theme I have found is the power of friendship can be strong enough to help you through anything. Riordan displays this theme multiple ways. One example would be when Hazel was reflecting on the important roles Annabeth and Percy played in their quest. "Percy had been their back bone. He'd given them confidence as they ailed across the Atlantic and into the Mediterranean. As for Annabeth-she'd been the de facto leader of the quest...She was the smartest of the seven, the one with the answers" (Riordan 8,9). Here Hazel hints that it would have been very hard to get through some of their challenges without these friends by her side. Another example is when Annabeth and Percy fall into Tartaurus and land in a river that is full of misery. Annabeth hears wispers telling her to give up her struggle and let herself drown, and she almost does. "Percy gripped her hand and jolted her back to reality. She couldn't see him in the murky water, but suddenly she didn't want to die. Together they kicked upward and broke the surface" (Riordan 37). Percy grabbing on to Annabeth reminded her that she had a reason to live and to keep fighting.

     Through this theme I think Riordan is trying to tell us two different things. One is that friends are there to help you get through difficult times. They are always there to support you. Two is that if you're ever in a difficult situation you should think of your friends. They are a reason for you to keeping pushing forward no matter how hard the struggle. I don't think we realize how important friendship is. It may sound silly, but I want all of you to take a moment at some point to hug your friends and let them know how much you appreciate them. I'm not kidding! Do it! And if they ask why, tell them Rick Riordan enlightened you.

Blogging Again!
 

   After a long break about a trimester long, I'm blogging again! It's sad to say that I have also taken a break from reading as well. In my defense I have been extremely busy lately.However I am excited to start turning somemore pages. Since I haven't gotten too far into a new book yet I figured it would be much more intersting to blog about one of my favorite books from tri 1. I have to say the book I loved the most was Tigerlily by Jodi Lynn Anderson. Anyone who knows me could tell you that I have a major obsession with Peter Pan. Random it may seem I absolutly love the classic Disney character and his story. Tigerlily is a different take on the tale and adds quite an intersting spin. Instead of the story being focused on the adventurous life of Peter, it's about Tigerlily, a teenage native american girl who belongs to a tribe in Neverland.

    Those of you who have seen Disney's Peter Pan may remeber Tigerlily as the native american princess who is saved from Captian Hook by Peter. In Anderson's novel Tigerlily is considered an outsider in her tribe and accidentally crosses paths with Peter in the woods. In the movie Peter flirted a little with Tigerlily and Wendy (whom he had already met) wasn't happy with this. The novel creates a powerful love connection between Tigerlily and Peter long before Wendy is in the picture. However when Wendy does show up it causes some trouble between the two lovers. I guess the reason I liked this book so much was that it was a favorite story of mine but told from a different perspective and had an altered plot. Instead of rooting for Wendy like always, Anderson had me pushing for Tigerlily to come out on top. Anderson also told the story in a very intersting way. It was written so that Tinkerbell, the fairy, was narrating. I have never read anything like it before. I thought it required a lot of creativity to come up with a story such as Tigerlily's and write it in such a unique way. For this I give Jodi Lynn Anderson major props!

 

 

Here is Disney's version of Tigerlily for those of you who haven't seen it.

Blog Reflection

     The quality of my writing has improved multiple ways over the course of the trimester. One way that my writing has improved would be that towards the end of the trimester I used a lot more textual evidence in my blog posts than I did in the beginning of the trimester. In the post from earlier in the trimester I connected two different texts and explained how they were similar. However, I didn’t use any quotes to support what I was saying. For example I was talking about how the characters in both novels are similar. I wrote, “The main characters in each book are a brother and sister pair who are very different from each other, both in personality and appearance.” I went on to explain the ways that they were alike but I never used any evidence from the book that showed their characterization. In my post from the end of the trimester I talked about the cliff hangers that ended each chapter in my book. I used actual quotes from the end of different chapters and explained how they were each a cliff hanger for me. For example I wrote, “The text says, ‘Tanya, Elizabeth Elvesden never came out of the asylum. She died in there when she was only twenty-three' (Harrison 108). Reading this gave me the chills. I had to keep reading on to figure out what other mysteries the house held.” Another way that my writing has improved would be that I was able to connect elements in my book to things other than different literature. In my older post I did make a connection from my book but it was with another book. My post said, “Currently I am reading The Throne of Fire by Rick Riordan. This is the second book in the Kane Chronicles. As I have been reading this novel I have noticed it has many similarities to the book Children of The Lamp: The Akhenaten Adventure by P.B. Kerr. Both of these stories are centered around the element of magic.” Connecting a novel to another novel is fairly easy and I found that as the trimester went on, I was able to connect elements in my book to more things. In the post I wrote at the end of the trimester I talked about how cliff hangers are not only used in books such as my own but in other things such as the TV series Touch. I wrote, “Books aren't the only things that use cliff hangers to their advantage. Movies use them to get you to want to see the sequel and TV shows use them so you watch the next season. For example one of my favorite series Touch ended with the biggest cliff hanger.”

            One thing that I struggled with through the experience was the decision of what to blog about. There were some days where I had a perfect idea of what I wanted to write about and then there were other days where I had no clue. To overcome this I had to force myself to think outside of the box and come up with more than just your basic book topics. I began to write about other pieces of writing besides what I was reading and I came up with ideas such as how to pick out a good book. One strength I had with blogging would be my ability to write thorough posts. Whether I was summarizing or discussing a literary element in a book, I explained what I was talking about very clearly with great detail.  I did not meet my reading goal but I found goodreads.com to be a very beneficial sight. It was very useful for being able to get good book recommendations. I liked how you could see what your friends were reading and I enjoyed that I was able to rate books that I had read. Over the course of the trimester I would say that my reading has improved in the sense that I have learned to reflect more on my reading. I also have gotten better at paying attention to literary detail in the books. Before I read only to enjoy a good story, but now I have learned to read so that I can appreciate the effect an author’s style of writing has on the story.

Reading With Your Ears

     You may look at the title of this post and think to yourself ,"Kayla you cant read with your ears, duh!" Well I beg to differ. Ok so you may not be able to literally read with your ears but you sure can listen to a story. Audio books my friends: reading with your ears. I'm sure we all remember in kindergarten when our teacher would have story time. We would all run over and sit criss cross applesauce (doesn't anyone wonder why we say 'applesauce' at the end) on the carpet. Our teacher would read a small picture book written with a sentence on each page and show the picture to the whole class going in a semicircle motion. Do you ever think about why we loved this so much? Some of the slacker kids were probably just like "Yeah we get to zone out for 15 minutes!" Now that I think back on this common school activity I realize how relaxing it is to have a story read to you.

 

     Audio books are like a teacher reading to you only the more mature version. All you have to do is pop the CD into the stereo or press play on your device. Then you sit back, close your eyes, and listen. You don't have to worry about your eyes getting tired from reading line after line and you don't have the problem of the uncomfortable positions you have to read your book in. An audio book does the work for you, leaving you to the imagining. The images described to you can come alive, almost like a dream while your still awake! I have to say though that the voice the audio book is told in has to be engaging. We listened to some of the scenes in Romeo and Juliet on tape and lets just say the voices weren't the best. They were pretty bad, I mean I don't understand how the tape was published! Some voices made the class laugh and others were just plain annoying.

 

     I have made my point that audio books can be more relaxing than books but there's another reason they're good for. In some scenarios audio books are more logical when you want to read. For example when you go on vacation or have a long drive, you may want to read in the car. At least for me this is a problem; I get car sick if I read for too long while in a moving vehicle. Listening to an audio book  eliminates this issue. You still get to hear the story but with out staring down at a small font which leads to an icky feeling stomach. Then there's some strange people who may like to read while swimming or taking a bathe. Hey, I never said I was one of those people but trust me they're out there! A book would get ruined if you dropped it in the water. The pages would wrinkle up and the ink would smear. How about an audio book? No paper, no problem! And of course for those book worms who don't want to look like a nerd. If you put an audio book on your ipod or iphone you can put your headphones in and look like your jamming out to some tunes when really you're reading! Mind blowing right?!?

 

     So for all my avid readers out there, next time when your looking for a book, read with your ears not your eyes. You will be surprised what a difference it is. 

Books and Their Movies

 

     People always say that the books are better than the movies. In some cases this is true. However there are pros and cons to both. Personally I like to read the book, to get the story line in depth, and then watch the movie to see it come alive. There are those books that you would absolutely love to see in theaters and wonder why no director has taken the opportuunity to make it a movie. Whether or not your a book person or a movie person, there are reasons why you have your preference.

 

    Usually the books have way more detail than movies. This may seem like a bad thing but if a movie had all of the same details, you could spend 7 hours sitting on the couch, which would get boring. Books also give you a chance to picture the story however you want. You create the characters and the setting, well based off the authors description of course. We are the directors of the movie in our minds. I have had cases where I see a movie before reading and then I already have the images in my head that were created for me. There's a flip side to that coin. If you picture the characters or setting in a way different from the movie, you could be disappointed the film wasn't what you wanted.

 

     Movies are obviously good for being able to visually see a book come to life. You can see the conflict and chemistry between the characters more easily than if you were reading. The emotions/moods of a story engage you more when you're physically seeing what's going on. The "magic of the movies" as people say is used to enhance the plot and attract a viewer's attention. The stories in books you watch through your own eyes but stories in movies you watch through the eyes of someone else.

 

  I'm not trying to persuade you either way-books or movies. I love both for their own reasons. However I do have something you should think about. Books are pleasing to the mind, movies are pleasing to the eye. Which do you prefer?

Act 3 Scene 5

     Most of you probably know that we are reading Romeo and Juliet in English. Recently we were divided up into three groups and assigned a scene from Act 3. We have to teach the scene to the class as well as act it out. My group got Act 3 Scene 5. This scene definitely foreshadows events that will occur later on in the play. It also reveals a lot about some of the characters.

 

     The scene starts out with Romeo and Juliet. Romeo had just been banished to Mantau for killing Tybalt. The two lovers spend the last moments before sun rise together, then Romeo has to leave. Lady Capulet comes to deliver news to Juliet. The two women discuss their anger with the death of Tybalt and how they're going to make Romeo pay. Obviously Juliet is lying when she says this. The news that Lady Capulet brings does not make Juliet very happy. Her father had arranged for her to marry Paris in the upcoming week. Juliet refuses and when Capulet hears of this he is furious.

 

     Capulet goes on to yell at Juliet and tell her she has no choice but to marry Paris. He says that she is burden to the family and that she should be thrown out on the streets. Sounds like a loving father right? Juliet's Nurse stands up for her only to be criticized by Capulet. He calls her a gossip and a fool before leaving. Juliet begs her mother to postpone the wedding but Lady Capulet tells her she isn't going to say a thing. Juliet asks for comforting from the Nurse. The Nurse tells her that it would probably be in her best interest to marry Paris. Juliet pretends to agree and acts like she is going to confession. Really, Juliet is furious at the Nurse for telling her this. Instead she goes to see the Friar and ask him what she should do.

     At the very end of the scene Juliet says, "If all else fail, myself have power to die" (3.5 243). Here Juliet says that if worst comes to worse and she can't do anything about the wedding, than she can always kill herself. This foreshadows when she fakes her death later on in the play. It also shows her dedication to Romeo. Juliet isn't the only character we learn more about in this scene. Through Capulet's rage with Juliet we learn that he is a hot headed man who doesn't take no for an answer. We also come to know that Lady Capulet isn't really there for her daughter. When Juliet asks her to try and do something about the wedding she says, "Talk not to me, for I'll not speak a word: Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee" (3.5 203-204). Only the Nurse seems to be some what on Juliet's side.

If you want to read Act 3 Scene 5 for your self click on the hyperlink!