My Reading

My reading, for a long time, has always had sporadic periods. There are many times throughout any given year that I read an outrageous amount and other times that I read none at all. My reading has always been a strength of mine but never a main priority. Since I like to vary my life from a day to day or month to month basis. When I'm not reading I spend my time working or playing games. One might say that my reading is like a sine wave.

However, ever time I've have taken the time to read independently, I read fantasy books. There is a sanctuary that fantasy books provide. I gravitate towards books that have worlds that have no connection to ours other than maybe an atmosphere and humans. However, I do enjoy making connections to the various cultures that authors allude too though they often carry different names.

Diction Observation Guide

In the excerpt from Nicholson Baker’s The Mezzanine, he speaks in a very business-like and scholarly fashion that depicts an almost heavenly imagistic environment with “escalators of daylight.” Baker’s use of diction such as “towering volumes,” portrays a refined and controlled choice of words. The office’s description of “a pair of integral signs” as escalators “swooping” render Baker as a writer who creates mathematically exact metaphors.   With an almost picturesque illustration on an office in which “marble and glass,” “brushed steel” and “black rubber” meets sunlight to create “long glossy highlights” and “radians of black luster,” Baker draws in readers within the very first paragraph of his novel.

Quarterly

I think that of all the reading I've done this quarter, the Demonwars Trilogy by R.A. Salvatore was my favorite. In his writting his character devolpment was much more in depth than those of the Hels Crucible Duology by Dennis McKiernan. Salvatore made you question the true morals of his characters rather than just outright knowing. I think that McKiernan focused more on flooding his books with characters rather than taking the time to devolop his characters to their full potential. This quarter my reading times ranged from dawn to past dusk with no real reading schedule. I read anywhere from Jaeger's room to my office at home to the band field during practice. My goal this upcoming quarter is to reach 5000 pages, something that I have done in a specific period since my summer between 6th and 7th. Also I wish to finsh all of the Halo Books.

Senior Paragraph

This doesn't relate to Etymology directly but I still wanted to post this for my friends to see. Especially since I couldn't email him at the time.

Band, for me, has been my place to develop a love for playing the marimba. Band also gave me the opportunity to make friends before the school year even started. One of my favorite band related moments is from the first time I went to lunch. I was wandering around like any good freshman should and Andy Mockler, known to more as Stump, found me and told me where most of the drumline was sitting. Another favorite moment belonged to my sophomore year of band. Jesse Blevins, Jake Rupp, Quinn Brenneke, Corey Dixon, Mollie Blevins and I all went to the Heritage Parent Show at the end of their band camp. Then we went to the Whippy Dip for ice cream. Funniest part of the whole night was when we were all trying to be quiet and in the end all we did was laugh for minutes at a time. Oh, and I’ll never forget August 3^rd. And while I would love to take first at state, marching band for me has always been more about making friends and enjoying the time spent with “The largest team at Homestead”

Today's Claims

1. In the song "Your Love Is A Song" by the band Switchfoot, the pensive, tenacious air of the lyrics, along with the mellow drum and guitar accompaniment and the powerful, husky, and dreamlike quality of the singer's vocals combine to evoke an overwhelming sense of breathlessness and euphoria surrounding the song's subject, a love so solemn and earnest it becomes the singer's reason for living.
2.  In this shocking yet comically amusing video we observe an unusually grotesque reaction to some news that set a strange wild boy into a mystifying tangent of caterwauling violently.
3.[In this scene from Vincent van Gogh's Cafe Terrace at Night , his colorful and exciting use of setting, busy but pleasant mood, and inviting cozy buildings]
 portrays [a sense of playful benevolence and lighthearted liveliness.]
4.The educationally stimulating childrens' game Questionaut incorporates pleasantly jubilant music with whimsically quaint animation to create an inventively playful adventure.
5.   In this electrifying poster for the film 300, splashes of blood, open-mouthed screams of rage and anguish, and determined, hostile facial expressions,  deliver  impressive  feelings of wrath, exhilaration, and bloodshed that are sure to be felt in the heat of battle.

My favorites were claims 1 & 2 

Fallingwater

In the scene created by Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater house in winter, its bleached colors, flowing movement, calm setting and elegant connection to nature illustrates an awestruck, majestic euphoria.

Currently.

This week, I finished reading the Demon Apostle by R.A. Salvatore and started reading Into the Forge by Dennis L. McKiernan. Unfortunately, Into the Forge is not as easy to get into as Salvatore's book were. However, I am starting a new series so it might take a short while before I enjoy this book.


Sentences of the Week:
1. "He can go pee up a rope." - I found this phrase enjoyable because it is a phrase that I've never heard before.
2. "Ann, was day was up here now its in the low octave."  - I enjoyed this sentence, one cause I said it and two, it was puny. Ann moved the octave in which we played and we didn't like that change and it made my day a little worse.

Loyalty vs Honesty

In R.A. Salvatore's DemonWars Trilogy, some of the largest problems come from blind loyalty to a leader that has gone astray. In the story, the Abellican Church is lead by a father abbot who throughout the story makes questionable decisions that seem to go against the ways of the church. Many of the monks of the Abellican Church follow the father abbot blindly by saying that God choose him to speak for Him so he must be making the right decisions. However, many of the heroes of this book follow true to their heart, a kind of self-honesty, that makes the very distinct enemies of the Church. Ironically, those that are staying true to heart are more in line with the very morals of the the church and should be the ones praised by the church, not hunted and executed. The question is, Is there ever a correct time for blind loyalty or should everyone always follow what their heart tells them to? It seems like an easy question but should soldiers question loyalty? It very may be that a commander has much more experience in combat and his subordinates should follow blindly. It is amusing that this was the first example that came to mind because Salvatore uses that same example within the book. A group of soldiers are asked to arrest a group of "criminals" and while their leader is a exemplary example of a loyal vassal, he breaks that loyalty because he feels as though the wrong decision was made about the "criminals". Personally, I don't think there is a right or wrong answer to this question. It may be that every situation provides a different answer.

My Home

R.A. Salvatore writes in a very intriguing way. Within the books of the DemonWars Trilogy, he separates the books into sections and at the beginning of the section he has the main character give, in a way, a soliloquy in which the author has a way of expression morals or beliefs without the book feeling like a philosophy class. In one such passage he discussed the idea of a home and the facade of power generated by wealth. Salvatore expressed that a home was more a feeling rather than a determined place or household. With this train of thought, one would say that a football player is more at home on a football field than possibly his house. I believe that it is a very wise way of looking and that I might describe my home as being any place among friends. In truth that means that were I a nomad, my home would move with me if I wandered with my friends. He also discussed that nobility [exampled used in the book] was prone to be attracted to an object more based on its cost rather than its real value. We can see this all over the place today. There are people who buy Nike's or Under Armor products simply because they cost more therefore they must be better right? I cannot argue that this is always false, but there are many circumstances very this proves to be true.

Currently

This week I finished The Demon Spirit and starting reading the last book of the trilogy, The Demon Apostle.

This Week's Sentences:
1:  "I know that I cannot know" - from The Demon Apostle
2. the clear pebbles of rain - From Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
3. Boundaries are an invisible thing, a mark on a map and not on the land. - The Demon Apostle

All of these sentences drew my attention this week for various reasons. The first because the seemingly impossibility of the statement makes so much sense. The second because I found it intriguing that raid would be described as pebbles which, to me, illustrate a gritty and dirty image not a clear image of water. The third because I find that to be very true as I think many would if they looked retrospectively.

Blog Tour

 On my Blog tour, I visited:

1: http://almostfacebook.blogspot.com/
2: http://theadventuresofstreamerman.blogspot.com/
3: http://letsgetawesome5.blogspot.com/
4: http://fifteen-to-twentyseven.blogspot.com/
5: http://alix2278.blogspot.com/
6:http://contemplationsxjones.blogspot.com/
7: http://missingv.blogspot.com/
8: http://kebcon.blogspot.com/
9: http://bookwormsfiresidereading.blogspot.com/

Heroism

The book I'm currently, The Demon Spirit by R.A. Salvatore, asks in a kind of soliloquizing way, "Who is more heroic? The strong of arm or the strong of heart?" When I first read the question my immediate answer was those strong of heart. But is that society's answer? How many hero's can you name were considered strong of heart? Maybe a few. But even when heroes are talked about, my immediate image of him or her adds characteristics of one "strong of arm." In context you might understand what I am trying to say. Lets say George is a man who has always feared fires. He joins the fire department -not a wise career path- but does it for the greater good, to help others. Lets say George gets lucky and happens to get a secretarial job without any of it being his choice. Now take Quinn. Quinn has always played with fire and enjoys it but understands the danger in it. He too joins the fire department and is assigned to an engine and to date has x amount of saves. Don't we all count Quinn the bigger hero even though George took a bigger personal risk. Now imagine George too is assigned to an engine and also has x amount of saves. Quinn and George both have saved x amount of people and both should be considered heroic but is George more heroic? Which led me to another question. Is there a proper way to determine a level of heroism. Should we label people as more heroic than another or take it at face value and name both people as heroes? Maybe, maybe not for I can only be so philosophical in one day.

Refereeing...

My parents are always bragging about how they are in professions that they enjoy rather than ones designed to make a ton of money. However, they continue to force me to referee soccer, which I do not enjoy. Their deal is. "Find another job and you can give up refereeing." Which sounds great but my sister, who has the same deal, recently got a job and was still forced to work this weekend. Why would I try to find another job if I am going to have to continue to ref.? Of the frustrations of parent logic...

Friday

When I took this test a previous time, I was deemed ENTJ (the field marshal)

Your Type is
ESTP

Extraverted	Sensing	Thinking	Perceiving
Strength of the preferences %
78	12	75	11

Etymology Goal 1: Controlled Reading

I have come to notice over the many years of my life in school, that I have very little control when it comes to reading during the school year. Many times I will pick up a book and be hard pressed to put it down and work on other things or even give my full attention to a teacher during a lesson. This week I read a total of 515 pages and did very little to none of my homework because reading sounded more entertaining at the time. I would be able to go into the grade book and find weeks at a time where I must have been reading. I can't decide if this problem is truly a problem or not. Reading has never been a bad thing and most English teachers encourage it. In fact, in middle school, a teacher told the whole class straight up that he would never punish us for reading during a lesson. Reading has always been something that I find pleasure in but it is difficult to control the urge to read during other academic parts of my life. Now with being asked to read at least 150 pages per week, I need to find a way to break this habitual cycle. Unfortunately for me, the answer might be as simple as finding something more difficult to read. If I cannot zip through the book, cover to cover, then I think it would be much simpler for me to put the book down. But then comes another problem; If I do not completely enjoy what I am reading, then why should I put the time into reading it in the first place.