Posts

Book of the Week: Part Two

This week, I have started and finished The Lovely War by Julie Berry. It was a fantastic historical fiction novel with a dash of mythology added in.  The book takes place from the beginning of World War I to the start of World War Two. To begin, it paints a scene of a music hall, where one of our main characters Hazel is playing the piano, she catches the attention of soon to be soldier James, they end up dancing together and forming a connection that strengthens throughout the novel. They go on three dates before James is sent into combat early at the French front. Hazel goes on to play music for American soldiers at a YMCA to pass the time, both Hazel and James send correspondence every chance they get.  While at the YMCA, Hazel meets a Bulgarian girl named Collette, who has had every semblance of a home ripped away from her during Germany's siege of Belgium. The YMCA director, Mrs. Davies, really gets under my skin, she is so racist that it made my blood boil. When Hazel aske
Post a Comment
Read more

Branching Out

Recently, I have decided I want to commit to SUNY Oneonta. I haven't sent in my deposit yet, but I know that Oneonta is the college for me. Usually, I am not one to communicate over text messages, but after I joined the Facebook group chat, I made some friends; now we talk on Snapchat almost every day. I am in three Snapchat group chats, and so far, I can tell there are people from each group that I have common interests with. Today, we had a conversation about our favorite Netflix shows. I told them that I enjoyed The Order and several reality tv shows. My friend Alexandria said that she loves The Circle ; a show, I wrote one of my very first blog posts on, one that I am totally trash for. Now I know that we'll get along great, anyone who you can watch a show with is a necessary friend in college. I'm so glad I'm meeting new people, there has been a variety of different personalities that I have been in contact with over the past weeks; from a prospective DJ to a p
Post a Comment
Read more

Book of the Week

This week, I started The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert. It follows a girl named Alice. Alice and her mother have spent their lives running from the bad luck that has attached itself to them. Ella Alice's mother wants to be as far away from the Hazel Wood as she can. The Hazel Wood is the place where Ella was raised. Ella's mother, Alice's grandmother, was a fairytale author. Not the normal happy go lucky ones that we know and hear when we are children, but the kind grimmer than Grimm's Fairy Tales themselves. Ella has never let Alice read her stories. The only time she ever got a glimpse of them was when she sneakily looked at a page while her mother was in another room. It was the story "Alice Three Times". It started by saying how Alice was born with the blackest of eyes that even made the nurses run afraid. Alice only had time to read the first sentence before her mother came in to reprimand her.  Before they knew it, the fairy tale world that enraptured
Post a Comment
Read more

Michelle V.S Mites

Image
 On Wednesday of this week, I was getting worried about my dog. I always get so overdramatic and have hypochondriasis about my dog, because I am so afraid of losing her. She had scabs on her ears and dispersed throughout her body. I looked up what could be wrong, I found out that she had mites. In the meantime, while I waited to get antiparasitic shampoo and ear mite medication, I used a natural method for getting rid of parasites: olive oil. For then, I only put it in and around her ears because I didn't want the oil to get everywhere. After that, she stopped itching and shaking her head so much.  Friday afternoon, my dad picked up the products from Tractor Supply. Last night, I bathed her and put in the ear drops. She has stopped itching completely, and her fur feels so soft and reinvigorated. I'm so relieved that she seems to be more comfortable. She is the light of my life, and I don't know what I would do without her. She has been a huge comfort to me for around eig
Post a Comment
Read more

Hobby or Obsession

Spoiler Warning! Right now, I am reading this book called  The Hand on The Wal l by Maureen Johnson. This is the third book in the Truly Devious series, I read anything by this author, she is my favorite. As I was reading the novel, and throughout the series in general, the main character Stevie is accepted into this private school for gifted children called Ellingham Academy because her hobby is solving crimes. She just so happens to be obsessed with the Ellingham Murder Case, as you read further into her story, you see how increasingly consumed she is by these murders, and the deaths happening around her as well. There are riddles and mysteries galore, and Stevie somewhat dissociates from her friends to try and solve these cases.  In this book, Stevie has solved the Ellingham case. Now she is trying to solve the case of her friends Ellie and Hayes. Hayes suffered from CO2 poisoning by dry ice, Ellie was suffocated in the walls of the Ellingham estate, and Stevie's mentor Dr. F
Post a Comment
Read more

Labels Are Lible

I've been reading a lot about labels lately. Unintentionally, like for school, and a book that I was interested in at the library. They both talked a lot about names people place on others, as a stereotype. For my sociology class, we had to read "Teenage Wasteland" by Donna Gaines. In this article, it showed 4 teenagers who committed suicide because they felt that life wasn't a game they could win. They were the "burnouts" of their school, misunderstood, even after their deaths their town blamed it on the label, they were "burnouts" it was bound to happen. Gaines discusses how social structure is bound by labels, schools track students by ability. Cliques form based on subcultures and interests like nerds, athletes, gamers, etc. The "burnouts" are grouped together, leaving them stranded in the so-called teenage wasteland. If people start to feel lost in a label, unable to rise from their forced reputations, it leaves them helpless.  Fo
Post a Comment
Read more

What Would You Say

The other day in class, we talked about what we would put in our will if we had to write it. In the book we're reading, The Martian by Andy Weir, he is stuck on mars with a high probability of dying before help reaches him, there is a part in the book, where he is finally in communication with the rest of his crew, and he asks his best friend Martinez "If I die, I need you to check on my parents. They'll want to hear about our time on Mars firsthand...I'm not giving up. Just planning for every outcome" (Weir, 192). This line really got me thinking, it's such a heavy subject but after a while, I knew what I would choose to say. I would say thank you to everyone that has impacted my life for the better, the ones who taught me lessons, as well as the ones who supported me through everything. New friends, old friends, and family. I wouldn't be who I am today without them, and I just want them to know how grateful I am. A couple years ago, a teacher of mine wa
Post a Comment
Read more