Just Like That...

Ten years of friendship blown apart. Two kids dead. Sex with a fourteen year old boy.
The ending of this story is anything but closing. As Hanna arrives at Will's Dad's meeting, as a congressman Mark has several meetings a week. Their she sees a mysterious older women, clearly flustered about something. When she meets up with Will's sisters Aerin and Beth at the meeting she encounters Will for the first time since the drama between him and her went down, awkward to say the least. Hanna decides to go out with Will's sisters for a night of dancing at a club just out of town to listen to a new band that has come highly recommended by Aerin. As the three girls sit and sip their drinks three guys approach. Aerin accepts an alias, hoping nobody will recognize the troubled rock star. She was an icon in the music world, until after her and her band hit the top of the ratings and a drunken mistake and a split second leave her the only survivor and also the one at fault. The girls dance all night with the guys as the center of attention on the dance floor but all Hanna has on her mind is that older woman she saw at Mark's meeting earlier that day. She asked the girls about their grandmother only to find she is supposedly dead. This causes Hanna tor reflect on her own family, a mere two people, and how her Grandmother had walked out on her mother when she was only three years old. When Hanna got home she looked at the only three picture she had of her Grandmother. She researched her all night to find she was living somewhere in Spain. This was good news and Hanna promptly sent a letter to her hoping for a response. Hanna had fallen in love that night, in love with another family...

Week 5: Top Links

Most interesting links:

http://redlightedmovies.blogspot.com/
-http://www.stumbleupon.com/

http://rushingrivers123.blogspot.com/
-http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/best-trips-2012/
http://pagenotfounderror404.blogspot.com/
-http://www.blogger.com/profile/09609242884573542091

Short list

<script src="http://audio.thisamericanlife.org/widget/widget.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
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1. Neighborhood Watch. In the many acts of this American Life, Neighborhood Watch, the protective sanctity of a neighborhood is a special net of what seems to be distant family members to an outsider but in fact are regular people all looking out for each other. These people live in a microcosm of a neighborhood and feel the need to protect and secure not only their own safety but the safety of others. In this podcast neighbors can rely on other neighbors with incredible requests, like caring for their children after they have died. Even a simple neighborhood watch has saved lives, like when a post man noticed a near deadly assault. Things aren't so serious, however,  once the neighbors start to crack down on the science of a forever neighborhood plague, dog poo.



http://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/will-adler

2. In this collection of photos, Will Adler, creates a connection to the most unconnected objects. You wouldn't think anything could be similar between a donkey and a child but in the photographs presented in his collection, even the most unruly eye can see it. The way he makes the connection is not through color or what is in the picture but instead its presence and shape. Will Adler uses 11 photos and two by two the last one seems to connect to the first one is some sort of way and with their being an odd number of photos it seems to be a never ending circle of pictures, the most recent being related to the last some how. The pictures are simple yet so much is shown with in them.



http://www.itsnicethat.com/whats-on/christopher-baker-hello-world

3. YouTube is a website full of talent, flops, and feelings. Billions of people have posted videos to YouTube and in Christopher Baker's, Hello World, he shares all the YouTube videos where people share their feelings, most have a lot to say. He combines all the small videos onto one picture and as they play all at once a blur of voices enters the ear. You can't tell who is saying what and by listening to the diction little by little the fact of judging doesn't once come to mind. By not being able to see the person, most can't judge on their appearance and connect it to what they are saying so by mixing it all up in a concoction of video, all you can do is listen. A goal most posters are just trying to achieve.

Readin in the snow!



Shout out to the Bloggies in the Blogging World!

A shout out to other blogger! I thought Vivir, Sonar, Leer was the best made blog so far; what a cool background and writing style they have going! The blog just looks cool not to mention all the post, this person goes into great detail in their posts and the description leaves you feeling like you have read what they have. Also another blog I thought was cool was Wicked Lovely. The way their title matches the background of smokey purple and black made it so much cooler. Their posts are deep and the book they are reading seems really cool. Each blogger also had great posts about their books as well as Dead Poets Society, however, the blogger with the best Dead Poets Society post was definitely There is Nothing in the World but the Mind Itself. This post was longer then most and quoted the film many times but what I thought was most intriguing was the detail. The little details in their blog is everything everybody else seemed to over look and not notice but the blogger did and described what they thought was the meaning behind it all which gave another point of veiw then the rest.


http://vivirsonarleer.blogspot.com/2012/01/book-i-thought-i-would-never-read.html?showComment=1327067717174#c7224787574627437456

http://kaleidoscopicgeneration.blogspot.com/2012/01/analyzing-dead-poets-society-1989-film.html?showComment=1327067658500#c3602069601706402795

http://sinclair-wickedlovely.blogspot.com/2012/01/dead-poets-society.html#comment-form

Dead Poets Society

Just Like That...

Well the theme of this book is really representing its title in a good way. Just Like That is a central theme in this book because Hanna is learning that "just like that" things can change. Hook-ups become break-ups, friends become foes and life becomes death in an instant.  In the next 100 pages things really get turned upside down for Hanna. As her friends try to console her over her ending friendship/ hook-up with Will, information is left to slip between the cracks of trust. Hanna's friendship with Maura and Kelsey has lasted over ten years without a break but things are slowly about to crumble with them. After her friends find out Will has a famous, rouge, rock star sister and that Hanna was the last to talk with the teens who fell through the ice and died things get heated. There was a simple phrase, "talk and you die", something the three girls knew was never to be broken but when drugs and alcohol get involved everything slips out. Maura slips it to her boyfriend one night after a few too many shots and a few to many hits. His big mouth gets it around the whole school and beyond and when Hanna is approached at a party and ridiculed for starting a vicious rumor she is sent over board. She sits the girls down and they all try to avoid the elephant in the room, somebody has talked and now they will die. Maura confesses to telling her boyfriend and Hanna is enraged. The fallowing week she skips Monday and Tuesday, however, Wednesday when she goes to school Hanna can sense the two girls are keeping something from her. When Hanna confronts them Kelsey admits to kissing Spencer, Hanna's ex-boyfriend, while they were still dating and realizes he was never upset about the break-up but rather at the fact that he had thought Hanna knew he cheated.
Hanna is so full of emotion she goes to see her counsoler, she has asked for drop out forms and being 18 and enough credits to graduate, she can do so. After a week she realizes she is suddenly out of the loop when party invites go out and she isn't on the list but that isn't her main concern, she is a working girl now. Her mom is consensual with her decision because she says that "sometimes school just isn't the place to be", kind of like Aerin Walker, Will's Rock star sister with a dark past.

Dead Poets Society

In Peter Weir's 1989 film, Dead Poets Society, the military like structure and wide range of ages in the boys depicts Welton's motto of tradition, honor, discipline, and excellence. The ideal image on the walls meeting the incoming boys implies a stern and sophisticated  schooling system but the emotion from the boys that do not want to attend says otherwise. In the church like building where the meeting is held the "light of knowledge" is highly prized by the elders and parents but the students seem to be more worried about impressing and meeting the cut. As the bagpipes play and the boys march in with the flags, it seems to be more like a rush for a fraternity but rather in a more proper manner. This contrasts the more playful and joking manner of the boys once the ceremony is over and they are back with their friends where they do not have to worry about impressing the dean. The school's name and its reputation for being the best boarding school in America has put pressure on the boys and emphasized education more then anything but in reality just made them more crafty in their teenage boy ways.

Just Like That...

The book I'm currently engaged in is "Just like that" by Marsha Qualey. This book's first 100 pages were filled with all kinds of details and information. The main character is Hanna Martin, an 18 year old girl living in the city of Minneapolis with her mom and a passion for drawing. She was very talented with a pencil but when it came to interacting with other people she was hardly seen. After her father had died nothing short of six years ago, her mother began dating again. Hanna's mother is a theater teacher at a very pristine university, the same university where Hanna met her boyfriend of 9 months Spencer. Lately though Hanna has lost her connection with Spencer and she breaks up with him. He doesn't take this well and all sort of names are thrown out at her. Hanna's two best friends, Kelsey and Maura, however, are there to help her through; the only problem is Hanna doesn't want it. Hanna is perfectly content with accepting the break-up; she is in fact the heart breaker and feels no regret.

After her mother and her boyfriend Charles go out dancing for the night like they usually do Hanna tries to clear her head. Its three days until Christmas, dark, and cold. Anything could happen to a teenage girl at night but she figures nobody will be out anyway and figures with the attitude she portrays nobody will mess with her. She decides to go for a walk around Lake Calhoun like her and her father use to when he was still alive. This was her backyard, she was totally safe but this walk would change her life.

She stops at a bench to sit and think for a while, hoping the obsession with the break-up she refuses to confront will go away. As two skiers approach, Hanna tries to sink into the corner of the bench, knowing they most likely aren't a danger to her, she watched as two women skiers took off their skis. As she started to hear more intimate sounds she called out sarcastically. They turned to the sound of the call. One skier had showed great concern for Hanna's well-being, warning her of the thin ice on the lake, while the other was good with the answer "I'm fine, thanks."

A short while after the skiers left another couple showed up on an ATV. A guy was driving his girlfriend around after a night of frisky behavior, showed by throwing a used condom at Hanna. They were from out of town and were trying to get to the nearest diner, Hanna pointed them in the right direction and they took off across the lake.

The next morning while watching the news with her mother Hanna had recognized a couple shown on the TV, it was the couple on the ATV. They had fallen through in the middle of the night and both had froze to death, the girl found on shore by an unknown jogger and the guy's body still had yet to be located. Her shock was immediate but she decided not to share the news with her mother, realizing she could have warned them and saved their lives.

Later that week Hanna starts seeing a guy around town she had never seen before, he was very tall and he wore a yellow cap and had long hair. She had seen him at the memorial for the two teens that had frozen to death at the lake. They later meet up and introduce themselves. He was a talented baseball player who had found the frozen body of the dead girl and they made an instant connection. After a day of talking between works breaks, Hanna invites him to her house knowing her mother was out dancing with Charles again. They go up to her room where they talk for a bit then do sex, she had taken his virginity. As she drives him home she can't help but draw him as he gets up to his room and his shadow shines down on the snow. After another risqué night, he meets her mom, she had worked with teens for her whole life and immediately knew how old he was, something Hanna didn't find out, he was 14. After going to his house to confront him with the news he confesses his age, 14, she had had illegal sex with a minor.

Night Hawks

Elements of Genre:
-setting
-character
-actions
-style
-color
-center focus
-outer focus
-lines
-flow

Observations:
-nice couple in diner
-night time
-hunched over man
-creepy, dark and sad looking
-nobody else in town with them
-all having a drink of coffee
-the mysterious man has his back to us
-dull colors
-name of the diner is "Phillies", assuming in the city
-no door to diner, appear to be locked in
-the mysterious man looks upset with himself or by somebody
-picture focus is the diner, outside is dark
-the light on the inside makes it look safe

In Edward Hopper's picture "Night Hawks" there is an inventive use of color as well as character and focus to create unique observational pieces.

My Reading History

To be blatantly honest I can never remember a time in my childhood where I loved to sit down and read. All throughout my childhood I was always moving and never stood still. The last thing I wanted to do was sit in a quiet room and stare at a book all day, I always wanted to be outside or playing with friends. I can remember in first grade when we were starting chapter books we would have forty five minutes of quiet reading. I was the kid who read for 10 minutes then stared out the window for the rest of the time waiting for it to be over. It seemed like hours. All I could think about was getting to recess or what was for lunch that day or what we were going to make in art that day. I could read just fine, the problem was I just didn’t want to. My mom would always push me to read but she had a free-willed child on her hands that had to go fishing with her dad or swing on the swing set with the neighbor kids.

                Once I reached fifth and sixth grade I did start to read more. The books I read were always non-fiction My America books, they weren’t the longest but the non-fiction history interested me. This didn’t last long however because I was finally doing something with all those tumbling classes I took throughout my childhood. I had joined an All-star cheer team and had also made the cut for my middle school cheer squad. With homework and practices after school, I had stopped most reading. I cheered for these teams up until this year when I quit my high school cheer team. During high school, unless the books were for school, I never really read much. Only if the English class had an interesting book would I read it anyway. The only two I have read for school all the way through are The Book Thief and To Kill a Mockingbird. These novels were interesting and so I made time to sit down and read them. I’m not use to reading every night or on weekends but I think now that I’m in a situation where I can choose the book and how much of it I read, I will do more reading on my free time.