"Dad," I said in as manipulative a voice as I could manage. "You know that Bible verse about giving a cup to a little children is like giving a cup to Jesus?"
Dad grinned and picked my cup up from the windowcill. He placed it on my table.
"It's empty Dad."
"You said cup. Get the verse right."

Dreams

This is a poem I wrote a few months ago. The "she" referred to is supposed to be a ship, not a person, but I wasn't sure how to make that clearer.

Dreams

She waits for me

By the bay

When the evening swallows day.

And when sleep all thoughts belay,

Somber looking in the fray,

So she always waits.

In the wind

Purple sails

Catch the flying breeze's wail

And they flutter, bulge and fail,

O'er the sunset pink and pale

In the flowing wind.

O'er the seas

Of somber dreams

I stand beneath the moonlight gleam

Upon the sailing ship; it seems

To carry me above the green

Of all the somber seas.

When I reach

Those other lands,

Cool will be their yellow sand

Under my feet and in my hands.

And in wandering thoughts I'll stand

On that dreamy beach.

Here are some pictures of my students. I was going to put them up earlier but never got the chance. These are from province celebration day and the school did plays and dances and everyone dressed up in the national clothes. Here are a few.

These are some boys who were doing a play. Like the chin-to-back-of-hand pose? Think Hollywood actors should try that on for size and see if they can pull it off.

Topi--hat.

Boys in their province outfits.

Twins. Funny thing is I've seen them around but never put two and two together that they were sisters.

All the different province outfits.

Best Ways to Loose Weight

Best ways to loose weight:

Table Diet:
Lean heavily on a table while you stand on a scale.

12-Scale Diet:
Buy twelve cheep scales at a thrift store, then use the one which reads the least weight.

Winter Diet:
Weight yourself with all your snow stuff on, then take it off later and read it again.

Wooton Diet:
Cut your toenails, shave your head, sergically remove your kidney and tonsils and any other unnecessary organs.

Space Diet:
Go to Mars. They say the weather's great.

Maze Runner

A book like The Maze Runner is a rare and enjoyable find. Not only does the protagonist's adventure keep us turning page after page, but James Dashner has accomplished the greatest purpose of a good novel: to transport the reader into the book. Thomas's fears are our fears, his friends are our friends, his bravery is our bravery. James Dashner has made his science-fiction story so realistic and logical that he forces the reader to get personally involved.

            At the very beginning the book starts a psychological terror that catches the reader's attention. Thomas's observations blend realism and fantasy to replicate a nightmare. He finds himself in a large concrete courtyard ironically named the "Glade"; he has lost most of his memory and knows only impersonal facts about the world outside. He knows enough to know he shouldn't be here—but he's not alone. Fifty other boys live trapped in the giant stone walls, and their only chance of escape rests in the runners who daily explore the mazes surrounding the Glade.

            Dashner expertly twists the reality Thomas finds himself in. Within the first day of arriving no one tells him why he's there, but he knows something's wrong. The sun is more orange than he remembered. The large "shack" they live in looks as if it can hardly hold itself up, and as he disobeys orders and slips upstairs he witnesses a poisoned boy, veins green and eyes crazed, as he thrashes about in agony. In the woods Thomas spots eyes in the tree tops, and at night he watches as the enormous walls close around them and trap them inside the Glade. The other boys he encounters act as if death and suffering happen every day (and they do). Worse yet, the few people who remember their past vaguely remember Thomas—and hate him.

            Despite the fast paced plot of The Maze Runner Dashner gives the characters plenty of time to develop and grow. We find nothing unsatisfactory in Thomas. He immediately strikes us as intelligently instinctive, learning quickly what steps he needs to take in order to survive. A few days into the story when he's faced with the "Grievers", he captures all of our admiration: not only is he brilliant, but he chooses to do the right thing even when everyone else has given up. When he survives an ordeal that no one has ever survived before, he becomes the only hope for the other boys to escape the Glade.

            Thomas's first friend also proves a very important character. At first Chuck seems annoying and childish—he's the youngest of the "Gladers" and desperate to make a friend. Before Thomas arrived he cried every night. He longs to make it outside, to find his mom and to live a normal life. Thomas realizes that Chuck should not have experienced the cruelty of the Glade, and he promises the boy to bring him back to his family. Dashner sums up Chuck's importance to Thomas perfectly: "Chuck had become a symbol for him—a beacon that somehow they could make everything right again in the world."  Chuck proves an important key for developing Thomas's personality and giving him something to fight for.

            The Maze Runner's secondary characters have unique rolls and personalities: Alby, the leader of the Gladers who could sacrifice anything and everything for their survival, Newt, "a loose cannon" with a sharp tongue, and the girl, Teresa, who shows up after Thomas arrives. Teresa and Thomas are able to telepath and she proves a valuable source of information. Minho, Thomas's friend and fellow runner, witnesses his honesty firsthand and supports his decisions throughout the book.

            Although Dashner develops his protagonists exceptionally, his antagonists deserve some tweaking. Both he and Paolini need to realize that giant killer-snails are probably the least frightening monsters created, no matter how violent and deathly they are. His main antagonists, the Creators of the Glade, are a much more significant and sinister enemy than anything else that Thomas encounters, but they never reach a personal level.

            Since Thomas knows nothing about where he came from, the book flows smoothly and gives off an extra edge of suspense. Every question Thomas has is our question, while Thomas has no need to pause and explain facts to us since he knows no more than we do. Although Dashner's writing can be a little draining at times, his purpose ultimately hits home. Often he repeats jokes, sayings, explanations and descriptions that we've already grasped, and some of his transitions are unrealistically convenient, but despite his small mistakes he dominates his work with a well-refined style and plot. He always keeps the reader hanging, but he doesn't fail to trick him a few times.

            To see children used like intelligent rats in a maze makes us realize not only something about the characters but something about mankind. Many novels like Lord of the Flies, The Hunger Games, and Oliver Twist use childhood as a representation of simplified humanity. As one of my friends put it, "Kids are just adults with less self-control." In The Maze Runner we observe three kinds of boys: those who know there's a way out but are too afraid to find it, those who know there's a way out and will do anything to find it, and those who have lost hope and try to make do with what they have. Even in the direst of situations, there is still hope for those who want it, but Dashner's story makes us question whether desire for freedom proved better than simply giving up and dying. I'm sure Dashner will pick up this string in his later books.

            The Maze Runner presents a puzzle, a puzzle that's unsolvable and deadly. Dashner leaves us with so many questions: was Thomas a good guy or a bad guy before he arrived? What is the "Changing"? Can the Gladers solve the maze?  The suspense engrosses the reader as he hopes against hope that Thomas will be able to escape.

Hunger Games

            24 teenagers will be placed in an arena together and left to slaughter each other until only one is left standing. Sounds easy, right? Oh, but there's a catch: You might have no food or water, you might suddenly trigger a death trap and—did I forget to mention—you're going to have to kill the person you love.

            This is the situation Katniss Everdeen finds herself in at the beginning of The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins. The plot line masterfully depicts the country of Panem made up of poverty-stricken districts ruled by the tyrannical Capitol. Every year two children, one boy and one girl, are chosen from a drawing called "the Reaping" to go to the Capitol and participate in the Hunger Games as punishment for the districts' previous rebellion. When Katniss Everdeen's younger sister Prim is chosen, Katniss throws herself forward unconsciously and volunteers to take her sister's place. Thus begins her journey of truth, pain, rebellion, survival, and love. When she finds out that the boy drawn from her district is secretly in love with her, she must fight to keep them both alive.

            Katniss Everdeen depicts one of the strongest heroines of modern literature. At first she seems a violent, emotionally void outlaw who has toughened and withdrawn from people, but she is not as she seems. Beneath her hard exterior is a heart coursing with sympathy and rebellion, making her a capable "mockingjay," a symbol of rebellion against the Panem's tyranny. Along with her "strong, silent type" personality, Katniss is a skillful fighter and clever wilderness expert, enabled to survive and outsmart the Capitol throughout the series. Collin's strong cast of characters do not end with Katniss, however. The Hunger Games series is packed full of touching characters that are as masterfully created as the Fellowship of the Ring. With the exception of Katniss's mother, Collin depicts every character vividly and distinctively. Peeta, the strong but gentle, Haymitch, a boorish drunkard, Rue the innocent victim, Prim, Gale, Finnick, Snow, Coin, all play their part with powerful effectiveness.

            The book carries a break-neck pace full of poorly-written sentences and few descriptions. Since the book is written from Katniss's point of view, however, the style exhibits her personality perfectly. Collins did not write her book as a literary achievement but so that readers could consume it quickly. Undeniably the books carry an addictive quality that perhaps contributes most strongly to their success; the series pointedly jolts by on cliff-hangers and emotional roller-coasters that make the reader's eyes glued to each page.

            The Hunger Games, the first book of this series, has a strong and virtually flawless plot line. Everything throbs with purpose, and as the book reaches a resounding climax, it ends leaving us thirsting for the next one in the series. After that Collin's strong plot decays into ambiguity. She rushes through important scenes and delays in uninteresting places. The last book of the series seems immature compared to the skillfulness of the other books. Important characters lose their tact, places lose their purpose, and at the climax of the series seven unnecessary deaths happen as Katniss leads her troop down a pointless mission.

            When the series begins we praise Katniss's effort to defy the corrupt Capitol that lets children die of starvation while aristocrats force themselves to throw up food so they can devour more. But when the series ends, we feel like nothing has changed and Katniss's life was ruined for nothing. We wonder if the fight for justice and freedom is worth its cause. The means of winning this freedom may be just as devastating as its effects, and although the characters win the victory as a whole, no individual is left satisfied. Collins depicts this strongly in a scene where Katniss, Peeta and Finnick stare at a map of the death-traps in the Capitol. They realize that even though they have left the arena, they still remain subject to the Capitol's cruelty. Though these books accurately represent mankind's wickedness, it leaves us with no solution to its problem; we finish the book wondering whether mankind will ever change for the best. The wheel of government turns, but mankind and its cruelty remain the same: the Hunger Games never end.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

I watched The Hobbit: An unexpected Journey with my Dad and my little brother last week. It's kind of a bad way to learn we should look up a movie rating before taking a seven-year-old to see it. It was PG-13, not G.

            Nonetheless no one can deny that Peter Jackson has again accomplished a masterpiece. The Hobbit had all the fine qualities that its predecessors had, along with the pleasure of seeing a few familiar faces that we thought we'd never see again—Frodo, thumbs in his overalls and just a mite taller than we remember, Galadriel who brings serenity and wisdom to the craziness of Middle Earth, Gollum (whether we wanted to see him again or not) and, of course, old Bilbo Baggins. The only flaw is that he's old, whereas he's supposed to never grow a day older—still, he doesn't look like it's the eve of his eleventy-first birthday as he narrates the story of his first adventure.

            We could complain that the movie is an inaccurate representation of the book, but if we did find this a problem we should have expected it, knowing what The Lord of the Ring movies were like. Only The Fellowship of the Ring parallels exactly with its book, and even then they leave out Tom Bombadil as completely irrelevant (he sort of is, you must admit). Peter Jackson tries desperately in The Hobbit to bring back the epic battles and dark plotline that The Lord of the Rings carried so well, whereas Tolkien meant The Hobbit to be light and merry: twelve dwarves and a little hobbit going to slay a dragon. When Tolkien wrote The Hobbit, however, he wrote it as a prelude to The Lord of the Rings. Jackson made this movie as an appendix. Thus scenes like Gandalf, Galadriel, Saruman and Elrond sitting around a table worrying their heads off about wolves on the west side of the mountains, and the Brown finding spiders around his hut and the necromancer in a ruinous city, we see strong ties between this movie and its predecessor. The book The Hobbit doesn’t point to The Lord of the Rings, although the Lord of the Rings has its roots deep in this jovial little tale.

            At points the movie draws on and makes the audience a bit squirmy in their seats, but between these dull moments come action-packed chases and battles, exceptional graphics, and the hilarious antics of the Dwarves.

            The Hobbit brings some new thematic elements in as well, giving the plot some finer points. The Dwarf Thorin seems a miniature version of Aragon (literally); he, like Aragon, is a lost prince returning to his kingdom; he is noble, handsome, mysterious, and if a dwarf could be a teenage heartthrob Thorin could manage it. His mortal enemy is a one-armed orc seeking revenge from the house of Thor. Meanwhile Gandalf is pressed by the reappearance of the necromancer, and the jovial tale takes a dramatic turn for the best, bringing it up to the Lord of the Rings standards in almost every way. With the exceptionally good acting Martin Freeman as the young and stiff Bilbo Baggins, we are lead step by step on the journey of a life time, and are left longing for the release of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug next December.

Some Color

This blog is sadly deprived of color. Here are some pictures that me and my Mom took. She denies it, but taking into account her camera she's an incredible photographer.

This picture captures only one of the many beautiful sunsets we saw daily out of our window when we lived in the mountains. I took this one.

 This picture reminds me of beatlejuice. It's Mom's finest work.

 It's a live debate as to who took this picture, Mom or me. Mom has the better memory though.

 :-)

 This is the resort next to my Papa's house. I actually took this one.

Embarrassed

Laura again.
"Sometimes I need to put my hand deeper into yours because...I might get lost," she said to my mom a few days ago as they were walking down the street.
"You won't get lost, I've got you," Mom said.
Laura looked down at her feet. "Now I'm embarrassed."
"Why?"
"Oh--oh, I don't know."
"But why would you be embarrassed Laura?"
"I actually don't know what that means."