Identical 100-150

Raeanne goes to a party arriving with Mick but Mick starts to hang out with Madison so Raeanne goes and hooks up with some random guy in his car after smoking pot with him. She finds out his name's Ty and mainly just does it to get a reaction out of Mick. Kaeleigh talks about her inner child and how they she felt like her insides were sobbing. Her Dad creeps on her like usual after he gets home and drunk. Kaeleigh gets tired of Madison's non-sense so she makes a humiliating remark in front of the whole drama class and Ian makes Kaeleigh feel awful about it. She talks about her work at the nursing home and how the old lady, Greta, can tell something is very wrong that Kaeliegh won't let out. Mr. Lawler asks Kaeliegh to stay fter class and everyone including her sister, Raeanne, get jealous. At the end of these pages I found out about Kaeleigh's binge and puke method and that she has an eating disorder, and it's really the only thing she has control over in her life.

Shelby

This is my friend, Shelby. We cheered together freshman year but never became real close. We just recently started hanging out but I realized she's one of the few girls I like to hang out with. We always do fun things together and she's not what I expected at all. I think it just shows how you really should get to know someone first so you know who your true friends are. We even decided to start working out together since summer's coming up :) We'll see how long this lasts....

My 6 poems

For my anthology I decided to use poems about the the feeling of loss.
1. The Little Boy Lost - William Blake
2. The Loss - Anne Stevenson
3. Lost - Carl Sandburg
4-6. I chose 3 poems out of the book CRANK by Ellen Hopkins


For my video I'm thinking of using the poem The Little Boy Lost by William Blake.

Identical 60-100

Raeanne starts to give off the impression that she has a problem with drinking and drugs. When comes home late at night after partying she still steals her father's alcohol and pills. She even does it alone just to not feel the pain. She talks about how jealous she is of her twin Kaeleigh since she gets all of the attention from there father. ( even thought it's unwanted attention ) Kaeleigh then got the lead role in the school play, Grease. Ian has always been in love with Kaeleigh but she can only think of him as a friend. Shelby is one of her friends too. Madison, a girl from school, gets upset about not making the lead role and hits Kaeleigh in the face during gym class with a volleyball. Kaeleigh's father won't let her get her license but it gives her too much freedom, but she's been old enough for months. There mother finally comes home for a day just to have the press come to her home (making herself look like a family type of person) and ask her questions and take pictures. There father made sure that both girls were dressed appropriate for the press conference and couldn't keep his eyes off of Kaeleigh.. There mother sticks around for a day but doesn't really pay much attention to them. She doesn't even admit that she misses them. Raeanne drinks a few bottles of wine with her mother and then decides to call Mick to sneak out and have some more fun.


People have told me this book is good so I'm going to continue reading just because i'm so curious about there father. I probably just haven't gotten to the good part yet!

Action List 3 Response

I read the article "wired family" and my own family could definitely relate. My mother's phone is attached to her ear a majority of the day and when it's not she's watching movies on television. My younger brother is 14 and is never seen without his phone either. He's constantly playing video games or listening to his mp3 player. I'm even guilty myself, I use my cell phone quite often and on the computer using facbook/blogging way more than I should be. I don't think my families the only one, a lot of families these days are "wired."

Pages read .

I have read 180 pages in the last two weeks. I finished up reading A Child Called It and began reading Identical :)

Identical 1-60

I started a new book called Identical by Ellen Hopkins. So far in the book I learn about the two twins and how different they are. There mother is running for congress and is always on the road. She avoids coming home to her family as much as possible so it's just the two girls, Kaeliegh and Raeanne, and there Dad at home. There father is a lawyer and likes to drink when he gets home. There's something going on between the Dad and Kaeliegh. He has a special liking for her but sounds like it has almost come to a point where it has been sexual abuse but I'm not quite sure yet. Raeanne is more of a rebel out of the two and gets into more than what she should when it comes to boys and how to keep herself entertained. She strives for attention from her father, but doesn't get half of the attention Kaeliegh gets from him. There family started to fall apart when the girls were in the 4th grade and there was a bad car accident. There father was driving and I know there mother has many surgerys to cover up the scars. I'm excited to keep on reading.

Alice in Happy High

Alice in Happy High blog really caught my eye. You can tell this person puts a lot of time and effort into the blog. They recently put a blog about the movie Water for Elephants. After reading that blog entry I really would like to see that movie. This person always has a good Tuesday response and keeps up with the blog well.

Fine Arts Show

Jake Furnace's art work really caught my eye when looking at the art work. His art work is amazing and i've seen him work on it before and he makes it look simple to do. My favorite piece of his is the picture he drew of him and his friends at IHOP. It looks exactly like each of them and is full of excitement. I think he's a very talented and guy could do very well in the art industry.

pages 79-153 (end)

Dave's mother gets real upset and as usual takes it out on him and starts to beat him. She was drunk while yelling at him and had a knife in her hand threating to kill him if he didn't finish his chores in time. She was swaying back and forth and "accidently" fell and stabbed Dave in his lower chest. She cleaned him up and for a second Dave thought that she actually felt bad until she told him to get back to work. He was losing a lot of blood and couldn't finish the dishes so his father helped him. It wasn't long before his mother forbidded his father from talking to him. The whole family stopped acknowledging David. He realized that his wound was infected but refused to ask his mother for help even though he was throbbing in pain. He stayed in the basement sitting on his hands until his mother called for him to do more chores day by day. Dave's father then started spending less and less time at home. His mother of course got meaner by the day to him and he started to worry about his life. It wasn't long before he began to think that he'd be better off dead. Kids at school constantly told him to kill himself and that he wasn't worth anything. His fear towards his mother soon turned to anger and for a day he tried to rebel. He soon regretted it when his mother gave him even worse punishment. One of the cruelest that she came up with was she'd make Dave eat ammonia, burning his throat and tongue and was his least favorite punishment. She'd fill the bathtub with freezing water and almost drown Dave in the water and make him sit in there for hours on end freezing. He was obviously not allowed to eat or even look at his family. His father finally had enough and gave up on his family and packed his bags to leave. Dave, his mother, and his brothers dropped off the rest of his father's belongings at the motel he was staying at. Dave was devistated and as they pulled out his mother said " You're all mine now. Too bad your father's not here to protect you." David said a prayer the rest of the way home and the book ended. I thought this was an awful book and a horrible ending. I was expecting something much different and a lot happier. It leaves me with a bad image and I've been thinking about it for days. It's a gruesome true story but with an ending like that it makes me want to read the sequal to the book to hopefully get a happy ending.

pages 33-79

David began to see a drastic change in his mother. She stopped dressing up and putting make up on and just taking care of herself in general. Her displine with her kids, mainly Dave, got out of hand. She started hard core drinking and would just watch tv and shout orders. David's father began spending less and less time at home and making any excuse possible to get out of the "mad house." Dave's mother would beat him worse when his father was gone so he thought of his Dad as his only protector. His parents would drink together all night and when they fought, his mother would take it out on him. She began by beating him and making him stay in the cold basement for hours on end. When she thought that this routine was no longer working she stopped feeding Dave. She constantly told him that he was a "bad boy" and that he wasn't worth anything. She'd go days at a time excluding Dave from family meals until he'd barely starve. His only hope to get food was at school. When he was good and did all of mothers chores in the right amount of time he would get his brother's scraps left from the cereal from breakfast. Dave's mother's way of humiliating him was making him wear the same shirt and pants every day at school and kids were always making fun of the way he looked and smelled. His shirt looked like "swiss cheese" with all of the holes in it. Dave began to steal food from school any possible way he could so he'd run super quickly too school to steal some of his classmates packed lunches before class began. When he finally got caught the school called his mother and he paid for it when he returned home that night. He then came up with a new strategy that if he wanted to live he was going to have to try again. So he began stealing from the market up the street from his school during recess time and of course then got caught not long after. His mother would force his finger down his throat when he'd return home from school to see if he managed to steal any food that day. The day he stole a packaged lunch of frozen hot dogs from the school his mother made him throw it up and eat it. As his father sat and watched, and didn't do a thing about it Dave began to lose hope in his father. His father always promised him that he'd soon get Dave and himself out of the house but the drunker they got the more they fought. And the fought was usually based on Dave. Dave's last chance for life was to out smart his mother. Part of his daily chores as being the "family slave" he had to clear the dinner table and get rid of the trash. He began going through the trash and eating whatever scraps he could find. When his mother finally caught onto him she starved him even more after a beating. It's really hard for me to continue reading this book knowing that it's true and that these kind of disgusting things actually happen to kids. I feel bad for Dave and my antipication for him to be more brave or have a change in his life kills me as I read on. No one on earth, bad boy or not, should be treated the way Dave's mother treats him. His father being no better in my opinion for allowing the abuse to happen to his child.

Action List : tuesday response

I thought Alysia Cazares relates to me the most because i'm also interested in psychology. She also has had a similar childhood and experiences and wants to be able to help people. She feels as if she's more mature because she's been through it. I thought Jana Tran was the most interesting. She wants to become a photographer which I also think is cool. She's not worried about being wealthy, she just wants to take pictures. I thought that Shauna Casale was probably the most deluded of them all dreaming to become an actress. Acting's a hard business to get into and it's not very realisitic. In ten years, I hope to be married and be finished with college. I'm not quite sure what I want to do yet but I'd like to have a stable job and maybe even a kid or two. I'm thinking about psychology. I want to live some where warm and just be happy with my family.

A Child Called "It" pgs 1-33

I lost interest in the last book I was reading and decided to try another one. Everyone has always told me how good the book A Child Called "It" was so I decided that I'm going to read it. The first chapter, The Rescue, starts off with this young boy getting abused my his mother because he has not finished his chores in time. She smacks him around and gives him a good beating. Because of this he's late to school and so he has to go straight to the office. The nurse does her daily routine of checking the young boy, Dave, for bruises and marks. This had been going for about a year, since his mother started abusing him. She found some more cuts and Dave gets caught in a lie when he tells the nurse that he ran into a door and it was an "accident." Dave's teachers, the nurse, and the principle sit down and talk with him about his mother. He ends up telling them the truth about her and is then sent back to class. He's only in class for a short period of time before the kids start making fun of him for the way he smells and how dirty he is. His mother makes him wear the same shirt every day to embarress him and it has holes in it, as well as his shoes. He's then called back down to the office where he's greeted by a police officer. He starts to panic and begs them not to call his mother because he'll only get it worse when he gets home. They assure him that they're not going to tell his mother so he tells the officer the truth about her. The officer escorts Dave out of his school while kids are laughing and pointing. When they get to the police station and the officer asks Dave for his mother's phone number he panics. He assures him that he'll be okay and gives him some cookies, which Dave savors every bite of. The officer calls Dave's mother and tells her that Dave will not be coming home that night and gave her a number to call if she had any questions. They begin driving on the highway and the officer told Dave that from now on he's free. This gave Dave a great deal of comfort, but he couldn't actually believe it. The second chapter, Good Times, is about Dave and his family before his parents split. His Dad who was a firefighter, his mother before she was abusive, and his two brothers he thought of as another version of the Brady Bunch. He talks about how his family used to be and how happy his mother used be. They used to do everything together and his mother would teach him and his brothers about everything. They had a beautiful home and his mother had a garden that the whole neighborhood envied. Every Christmas his families house was the best decorated and they did everything as a family. They decorated the house and the tree and that was his favorite holiday. He also loved going on vacation with his family and his mother used to love organizing them. His favorite place to go was to the Russian River that he distincly remembered going to when he was in kindergarden with his family. It was more like a flash back of the good times he had with his family when he was younger before things got bad. So far I think the book is sad, especially since it's a true story. No one should every have to go through such a thing and seeing how his life dramatically changed so quickly is scary. The difference between the two chapters is tremendous and it shows just how bad his mother gets. I'm excited to keep reading but then again it makes me cringe.

Diction 3.1

Here, Bullet by Brian Turner

a.) gristle, clavicle, aorta, adrenaline, inexorable, esophagus, rifling, puncture
b.) Elevation: Complicated, multi-syllabic
Connotation: harsh, cacophonous
c.) Claim:
The clinical complexity of Turner's language in the poem Here, Bullet tells a rugged cacophonous story and leaves the reader with a disturbing feeling.

pgs 200-230

Kristina's Dad doesn't may much attention and tries to give Leigh a hug and talk to her since he hasn't seen her in so long. Leigh gives him the cold shoulder but her partner, Heather, is very friendly to him. He's not so sure how he feels about them being lesbians but he manages to make the family reunion very awkward. He smelled like meth and so did his girlfriend, Linda Sue, which makes things even more awkward.He was excited to meet Hunter, his grandson, for the first time. Mr. Snow and Linda Sue over stay there welcome and everyone is ready for them to leave so they can take Kristina out for her birthday. They give a few hints for them to go and they go out on there way but not before asking Kristina if she can hook them up with some stash the next day to "celebrate" her birthday. She agrees to share and make plans with them.

Reading these 30 pages kind of made me lose interest. Kristina makes so many bad choices that I don't even want to keep reading and see how badly she can mess up her life. It sounds like a real life situation though with all of the family drama. I'm going to keep reading for a little bit to see if she really ends up doing meth with her own father and his girlfriend for her birthday but then after I might consider a new book that has catched my eye.

pages 150-200

Kristina's stoked that she got the job at seven eleven because now she doesn't only have unlimited ways to get ahold of stash, she can now also get ahold of tobacco whenever she wants to. Kevin, the boy Kristina knows, welcomes her to the crew. She also met Midge who works there and did not seem to impressed when they were introduced. She gets really excited that she's now going to be getting a steady income and will soon be eighteen. She feels as if she's finally getting the wings to fly that should have had a long time ago. She drives around to smoke her meth and starts to realize that it's no longer a social thing, she's often doing it alone. When she gets home her Mom gives her a birthday card and gives her all of her birthday money and of course that excites Kristina. Kristina's Mom wasn't so impressed with the job situation she thinks that she should be focusing more on getting her GED. Kristina's Mom and Jake go to the airport to pick up Leigh and her new cheerleader girlfriend. When they return Kristina and Leigh's girlfriend start off on the wrong foot and she notices that she's very thin. She also notices that Leigh has put on a few pounds. That night at dinner Kristina notices that Leighs girlfriend, Heather, didn't barely touch her food, just like Kristina. Heather constantly brings up Kristina's baby and makes a remark about how he's cute so it must be from the fathers side which is a touchy subject for Kristina because she was raped by Brendan, the father. Bre takes control and can't help but be mean right back to Heather. Finally Kristina's Dad and his new girlfriend show up at the house. They stall and wait out in the car for a few minutes and the whole family instantly got uncomfortable, especially Leigh.


I think that Heather is into the same stuff that Kristina is. I can't imagine how this family reunion is going to go over seeings how Leigh feels about her father. Especially since Kristina's Dad is into meth worse than she is it's going to be interesting how it turns out. I don't really like Heather with all of her rude remarks, and if I was Kristina I would be rude to her also. I wish that Kristina's parents would pay closer attention to what's going on with there daughter and stop handing her hundreds of dollars.

pages 125-150

Kristina's Dad calls and leaves a message that he's coming to visit. He hasn't been to visit in many years and her Mom and sister throw a fit about it. Especially Kristina's sister,Leigh, has a huge problem with him coming to visit. Especially since she's bringing her new girlfriend, yes girlfriend. Kristina asked Leigh to be Hunter's, Kristina's son, god mother and she accepts. Kristina struggles with taking care of Hunter since the drugs is making her want to crash for days at a time. Kristina is constantly thinking about finding a new guy, whether she loves him or not she just wants someone to care about her and look at her the way people did before she had Hunter. She constantly refers the meth as the "monster" and when the monster enters her body Bre shows up. She acts completely different when she's on meth so she refers to herself as Bre. Bre constantly nags her to do the wrong thing and act with devaint behavior. She constantly is finding any excuse to leave the room to get a few hits so she can get her buzz. She stops by the seven eleven to drop off her application and luckily the boss is there. He takes her in his back office and is very obviously attraccted to Kristina. Bre takes over and flirts right back with him and he offers her the job, so she starts Monday.

I find this book interesting but watching someone be so self destructive is hard to read about. I don't agree with anything she does but it's sad how the drugs have taken over her life and she can't stop. I really feel bad for Hunter and hope that he can have a normal life because Kristina isn't making responsible decisions and if she keeps up with what she's doing then life will go down hill for all of them. I also find it pathetic and kind of repulsive that she has to be so flirty and vulgar with the boss and seven eleven to get her way. She's manipulative and i've learned that's what drugs make people do.

Gabriela Muntor - Jawlensky and Werefkin 1908-09

Etymology 3
Close Reading #1
14 February 20110

Gabriele Muntor’s portrait at first glance can be misleading with the beautiful sight and settings, but when being closely observed you obtain much more. In the portrait, there is a beautiful sky cut in half by darkness and light. A male and female lie in the graceful pasture abundant with flowers both wearing hats to avoid the sunlight. The man and woman are facing away from each other. This portrait portrays a negative environment with the resentment between the two. The sky looks as if the sun is going down and the darkness is giving off a mournful feeling.

Betsy's birthday celebration!

My sister, Betsy, turned 21 on February 10. Even though we have our ups and downs we usually get along well for the most part. She's taught me a lot and is one of my best friends. We worked at Mocha Lounge together for awhile and I must admit she is what got me into the coffee business. The picture above is Betsy and I at Woodhouse Day Spa getting massages. We also went out to eat and had a surprise birthday party for her at Mocha Lounge after. So, I hope she enjoyed her birthday because I sure did. :)

pgs 100-125

Kristina goes to seven eleven once she gets home from her long drive because she obviously can't sleep high on 'the monster'. She goes in a little before four o'clock in the morning and happens to recognize the guy behind the corner. His name was Grady and as soon as she asked for an application he trys to warn her about how horrible of a job it is to work there. But high on meth she can't help herself from spilling her guts to him telling hims all about Hunter, trying to move out, trying to graduate and her desperate need for money. She bums a cigarette off of the 'slot machine guy' thinking that just one more won't get her addicted again. She sneaks back into her house quietly and wired up on drugs she wasn't going to be sleeping for days. She laid on her bed and stared at the ceiling all night thinking about what she's gotten herself back into but thinking (hoping) that it's not going to make her go back to her old ways. The next morning while Kristina was talking to her Mom she messed up and told her that seeing Robyn was great and forgot that she told her Mom before she left that she was in Sacremento at a college fair. But being on meth helped her lie like it wasn't a big deal and quickly got herself out of that mess. Her Mom then broke the news about Leigh coming in for Kristina's birthday with her new girlfriend, and that she thought it'd be a good idea to get Hunter baptized since the family was going to be in town. Kristina agree's and has been missing her sister, Leigh, anyway. Scott, Kristina's step dad, then gives Kristina a long lecture about how irresponsible she was and how she's a mother now and needs to act like it. The phone rings and Kristina didn't get there fast enough and her father leaves her a message on the answering machine talking about coming to visit for her 18th birthday.

Through out these 25 pages I read Kristina was constantly argueing with herself about whether or not she can keep her drug use to a minimum and how she think's she can have it under control. With her new born baby I can't believe that she would consider going back to the 'the monster'. I think that shows how much drugs can rule someones life and really make them not be able to think straight. And from what I know about how Leigh, Kristina's sister, feels about her father I think that it's going to be a uncomfortable family reunion. I hope that her family catches on to her and can help her overcome her addiction.