Outside Reading Post #2

Tally reaches the Pretty party, and finally finds her old best friend Peris, but not after many peopole see her and realize she is an ugly. Peris helps her escape, and tells her she can never come back until she's Pretty, to stay safe, and Tally believes thats the only reason he doesn't want her to come back. On her escape away from the party, after bungee jumping off the roof of the party tower, and running through the "pleasure gardens" to get out of the Pretty Town, Tally runs into another Ugly, Shay, who becomes her new best friend. They find that they have the same birthday, and start connecting even more. Tally is so excited to become a Pretty, but it seems that Shay is kind of hesitant, and thinks that the whole idea of the operation is wrong, and everyone being the same is not appealing. I kind of agree with Shay, because I really think that everyone getting an operation at age 16 so that they can all be the same is a really weird idea, but to everyone in this book, it's normal. At the part of the book I am now, Shay has convinced Tally to sneak out into the "Old City" on their hoverboards. I'm beginning to realize that this book is about sometime in the future, and whenever they talk about the "old city", it's one of our modern cities today.

Blog #2

I rejoice when Annalise thrusts her pencil. Kelly laughs like a potsticker. The sprinkles swim through stone and jump like a boy. The salty apple paints with bleach right on my funny bone. 88 phones boink the golf book, like a running, speeding, painting, swimming, pig i smile.

Outside Reading Post #1

For my outside reading book, I am reading The Uglies by Scott Westerfield. I am 25 pages in so far, but so far it's very good. In this book, there are two groups of people: The Pretties, and The Uglies. They live on opposite sides of a river, and have completely different lifestyles. The uglies work, go to school, and live boring lives, while the Pretties party non-stop and have no cares. People aren't born into a certain group, all Uglies are turned into Pretties at a certain age. Tally is an ugly and her best friend Peris was as well until recently, when he turned the age to become a Pretty. Tally is only 3 months younger, but she is lonely so she decides to sneak over to visit him on the Pretty side. This is how far I am in the book so far, but I think it's really interesting that this is set sometime in the future, and how different it is from the lives we are used to.

Blog #1 (quarter 4)

So much of spring depends
upon

the birds flittering through the
air

the fresh scent of dew in the
morning

the feel of sticky raindrops splattering your
skin

and the rush of
summer

RESEARCH POST #2

I read an article called "Rwandan Genocide Aftermath" for one of my sources, to learn some of the effects of the Rwandan Genocide in 1995. These are some things I learned:
-From a distance, Rwanda looks pretty and unhurt, completely opposite of the past
-Over 18,000 refugees are crowded into camps
-United Nations are pressuring refugees to rebuild their broken country and get on with life, one example of this is cutting off the water source to camps
-Refugees are scared to go home, "we will be killed if we go home"
-about 1 million Rwandans are dead
-aid organizations have swarmed into Rwanda

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=M1ARTM0010384

Blog #15 (quarter 3)

On Oprah.com, I found an interesting article about Kanye West overcoming huge odds. In 2002, after Kanye was having a late-night recording session, he fell asleep at the wheel and crashed head-on into an SUV. This was a near fatal accident, and his face was crushed by the steering wheel, and his jaw was broken in 3 places. Kanye barely overcame the odds, but he did learn really good lessons. While his jaw was wired shut, he wrote the song, "Through the Wire". He also decided that he had learned that nothing in life is promised except death, and "If you have the opportunity to play this game of life, you need to appreciate every moment". The lyrics and ideas for his album, College Dropout were all developed during his recovery, and later won 3 Grammys. I thought that this article taught a good lesson, because I had never even heard of this accident, and it just goes to show that you can't take anything for granted.

weblink:
http://www.oprah.com/slideshow/oprahshow/oprahshow1_ss_20050909/2

Blog #14 (quarter 3)

For the blog post about love, I found an article on WikiHow called "How to Love". These were the 5 steps: 1. "Say it" This step says that when you tell someone you love them, that means that you reall want them to know that you do, and it's not just what you feel inside. 2."Empathize" This step says that to love someone, you should put yourself in their shoes, and realize that they could love you back just as much as you love them. 3. "Love Unconditionally" This step says that you should strive to love someone unconditionally, and if you don't want to improve their life, then you are not loving them unconditionally. 4. "Expect nothing in Return" This step says you shouldn't let someone mistreat or undervalue you, but you should realize someone might have a different way of showing that they love you. 5. "Realize it can be Lost" If you realize that love can be lost, then you have a greater appreciation for it when you have it. Those were the things I learned.

weblink:
http://www.wikihow.com/Love