What I Like About a Book

Since I can't come up with anything to write about, I'll go to my default topic: reading. If you know me, you know that whenever I don't have anything thing to talk about I always ask about how your classes are going and what books you're reading. I guess it's just my little thing.

Last night I was thinking about what I liked about books. My first thought was to wonder about the kinds of books I've been reading lately. I've recently changed my favorite author from JRR Tolkien to David Eddings. If you haven't heard of them, they're both fantasy writers that came around in about the same period, though Eddings was a little later. On reason I love his books are because he adds in a lot of dry humor. I love when people can really use sarcasm, and it isn't just mean. Lots of contemporary books have sarcasm, but it is never quite as funny because you feel guilty because it was really a rude remark. Another reason I love Eddings is his books are very well written. The books don't seem choppy or stilted at all. I hate reading books that don't seem to flow easily. Books should be written so that every sentence builds on the others and go logically together. Eddings does a very good job at that, and it makes you get really sucked into his books. He's also a fantasy author, which is one of the biggest perks of all.

I love fantasy books. I'm not quite sure why. I hear some people talking about how they don't like them. In October Sky, there was a part where Sonny (the main character, if by some chance you aren't reading the book) says that he loved books about space as long as they don't go into fantasy. He said that he didn't like people who could do magic or lived in a strange land. I do!! I think that it may be my escape from reality. When I was younger, I used to pretend that I was a fairy princess, and all that other stuff little girls do. It's kind of been a continuation of that. I also love that the people in them have to come up with answers to things that we wouldn't normally be faced with. I mean, how often do you have to figure out how to get a giant ship up a cliff, before the evil priests catch up to you?? I love that in lots of the fantasy books they have an old, wise man with a sense of humor. He usually turns into my favorite character. One problem with fantasy, though, is that all of the plots tend to moderately resemble each other. One time, I made a list of all of the similarities in a couple different fantasy series. It was almost two pages long! I'm sure now that I could make it even longer, seeing as I'd get some of the more subtle things, now. There's a lot of stuff in books that I'm sure I didn't used to catch.

Another thing I realized is: I love classical books. They are so well written and I love the style of them. I liked that they're old fashioned and that they use big words. I also love the deeper meanings that the books have, that it seems is being left out more and more in today's books. One of my favorite authors is Jane Austen. I read Pride and Prejudice last year, and now I know why so many people enjoy it. I love that even though all of the girls are so strong-willed, smart, and independent, that they still fall for a guy. It has a great story in it, and even though the first third of it is really hard to read, just keep going, because you'll end up loving it. I also read Dracula recently. That is a very disturbing book. It scared me for than any book I've ever read. It's very sad at parts, but I loved that it ended moderatly happy. It also has a smart guy in it who does a good job at thinking logically.

I don't like books with really sad endings. I'm okay if the book is sad, throughout, but it must end happily. I know that is very unlike real life, but I don't want to know that the character I've been following is really going to have to sacrifice themselves, even if it is for the greater good. I want everyone to live!! In a book I read, I had really liked it, until the end, when the author needlessly killed two of the three main characters! I couldn't get over it for days. Why would you want to kill someone, who's death was completely crucial to the plot??!! My favorite is when someone you think is dead, really isn't. Those are the best endings, when they come back and save the day.

Well, I hope that this hasn't completely put you to sleep, but has given you a small incite into my thought on books.

Testing

Don't you absolutely hate it when you take a test, and then in a later class period you realize you've done something wrong? That is one of the worst feelings. I did that earlier today on my my math test. I guess that I need to be more careful on those tests because it seems like I've been doing that a lot lately. I did another mistake on a different test that I had written in my notes, in capital letters, not to do. I guess that's just me not being careful, though, but those things quickly kill your grades! Well, back to today: I realized I had mistaken a minus sign for something else, and I messed up the whole problem. The worst part is not knowing how much the teacher will take off, because it never seems that teachers grade things fast enough. I know, it takes a lot of time and they're doing it for 200 students sometimes, but I can't help being anxious about it. I really shouldn't be talking about this, because I usually do fine on tests, but it's just really bugging me that I've been doing this in math. Honestly, all I want is my test back!

I can't believe the amount of homework I've been getting lately! It's like the teachers decided to triple it because we're "in ninth grade and high schoolers now." What's up with one of my teachers wanting two current events each week?? Then we have to come up with a word we don't know, but sometimes it's really hard to find, because I read somewhere that newspapers have to be written on a 6th grade reading level. Basically how I do it is have my mom go through and quiz me on all of the big words, and I choose the one I know the least about. Then it seems like they can't give us enough science homework! Every night I have something, or multiple somethings, to do. I really like doing math homework, though. I'm getting all of the things this year, and I get to use my sweet calculator!! I love that thing so much. My favorite thing to do (since I don't have any games on it, yet) is write long messages to myself. Another thing I figured out was this odd probability thing, and you can roll dice, or draw cards, or spin a spinner, or whatever, and I race my family because we all choose a different number or item. I guess that sounds really weird, but it's fun. The only downside to the math is that it takes hours to get it done.

Now, don't get me wrong, because I love school, and I usually enjoy homework. It's just that when it gets heaped on, then it gets tiring. I'm really starting love my classes! The people in them are great and, as usual, I'm starting to like the teachers I was worried about. It's so great to be the oldest in the school. I mean, most of them time, you don't feel any different, but when you get around a bunch of little 7th graders, you feel so tall, and I'm not usually tall, so it's cool! Or when kids come up and ask me questions. I love it when they do that! I mean, no one before ever wanted to know where to pay fees, if you can go to the library at lunch, or which line has which food in it. But then, alas, we go to the high school, and we're the babies of the school again! I can't wait for real high school, though.

How Easily Things Change

Hurricane Katrina has really made me think about how quickly life can change. We are consumed by our daily lives, but what would happen if something big did come through like that? It seems like most things that we tend to worry about would become pretty unimportant. Suddenly we wouldn't care what our hair looked like or if we had our cell phone. Basic things would begin to dominate, like safety, how we were going to get food and water, and where our family was. It would have to be a nerve-wracking and heart-wrenching experience to feel all of these things. It seems crazy that something like this would happen to us, but it really could. I’m sure that the people in New Orleans weren't planning on any of this happening. Sure, they knew that the danger was there, but the hurricane wasn't even supposed to hit them, originally. I can just see people rationalizing that it wouldn't happen to them or that their lives would be changed so radically. Now many of them have no homes, don’t know where their family is, and don’t even have enough food for today. They have no idea what the future has in store for them, but they know that it will be hard. Then I’ve thought, what if this happened to me?

What would I do if something like this, not necessarily a hurricane, but maybe an earthquake, happened to me? Would I be ready? It’s made me want to carry a water bottle around in my backpack and to always know where my family is. How quickly our lives can change! I just can’t get over that point. What would become important to me? I think that family would come up my list pretty fast. I’m the oldest in a big family, and I love them so much. I would really want to know where they are and if they are safe. It would worry me to death not to know what had happened to them. Then if you saw them and knew they were okay, you wouldn’t even remember that your brother had been teasing you or that your sister had broken something precious of yours. You’d be genuinely happy to be back together, and the other stuff wouldn't matter any more. Another things I’d worry about is food and water. If you really think about how much water you use daily, it kind of boggles your mind. From the showers we take, to just the water we use to drink and cook. It seems like water would be gone pretty quickly, and you would learn to be very careful with what you did have. Then what would you get it when you ran out? You can’t plan to rely on other people, because most likely they barely have enough, if that, for themselves and wouldn't have enough to give to others. It makes me want to be more prepared and to make sure you have enough on hand for yourself. It also makes me want to be sure that we have things that we can grab, if we had to leave in a hurry. What would I grab if I had to leave in two minutes?? I think I would grab extra, warm clothing, and food, but what of my personal belongings would I take? I don’t think my current book would make my short list, but more important things that can’t be replaced, like scrapbooks and journals. I don’t know, though, and it really makes you think! Where would you go? You can't plan to rely on near by family because there's a good chance they're in the same boat as you.

As I was writing this, I just realized that it’s September 11th. These same kinds of awful, life changing things happened to people four years ago. It seems hard to believe that that happened that long ago. I can still remember waking up and hearing of all the devastation that was going on in New York and Washington. It makes you think how nothing is ever guaranteed in life. It truly seems hard to believe that our lives can be changed so permanently and so quickly!

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