LAST BLOG POST FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE :)

So this is my last blog post. Yeah. I probably won't ever use this blog again but I did learn a lot about myself as a reader writing these posts every year. I learned that when I read books I don't really think much about the characters as one as appose to thinking of them as a whole with the plot. I sometimes think about the character if they really catch my eye but not most of the time. I think the way I benefited from this blog is know I know to dig deeper into the plot and characters rather than think about the whole story as a whole, I learned I need to focus on little chunks of the book to understand it better. 

I think writing online is not as different as writing in a notebook except for the fact that anyone can see it, so you have to sort of be careful about what you are saying. Usually when you write in a notebook, only the teacher and a few other people may see it but online, your whole school can see what you think and say about something. I think that writing online or having like a "online identity" in general depends on what the person wants to do. Some people act the best online knowing that everybody can see what they say, or some just be who they are and they don't care what people think about them, it's the person's choice on what they do online. I think that most teenagers abuse the freedom of being online (but i don't!) on sites like Facebook because they don't think about how what they say or do can affect them in the future. Some teenagers curse out people online or like say stupid things to other people the probably won't say to their face, because online you can't really be physically harmed, and online it is less scary to say something to someone than in person where you wouldn't know how they would react physically or in words, if that makes sense.

I think in the future I would probably never make another blog. I don't get the point of having a blog because if someone wants to know who I am or what I like to do like or what kind of person I am I think they should just meet me in real life and talk to me rather than just talking to me online where we probably won't recognize each other in person. Which is why I don't the point of blogs because what did people do bad in the good ole days where there was no internet or telephones or anything? THEY TALKED TO EACH OTHER IN PERSON.

Blog Post #31: Looking for Alaska by John Green

So far in Looking for Alaska by John Green, Pudge has gotten to know Alaska and Colonel better and a lot has been revealed about Alaska. I passed the part where Pudge and Alaska stay on campus for Thanksgiving and Pudge and Alaska went to Colonel's trailer/home and they all sort of opened up to each other and learned more about each other's backgrounds. And Alaska told Colonel that she was the one who ratted on Mayra and now he feels he can't trust her with pranks by herself anymore. 


I think after the big unknown thing happens Alaska is going to be in A LOT of danger. I know that she goes missing but I don't know exactly what happens to her. I think that the Weekday Warriors get her for being good friends with Colonel because they almost drowned Pudge for knowing the Colonel in the beginning of the book. Or another reason why she goes missing is because of the unknown prank. Maybe she gets caught and gets punished by someone or maybe it backfires. 


So now I am going to focus on Alaska, I think she is the kind of girl who actually doesn't mind getting herself into trouble because she has before. So I think that she never expects to get into deep trouble which is why maybe she is careless about her prank this time and it comes back to get her. And I also think this has something to do with her ratting out Mayra. But I get her point of view because that was the only way she would have stayed in the school, and I understand why she wants to stay in the crappy school so badly, because she has no home, no family. I think she physically does, but I think "home" is full of bad memories and I think emotionally, she doesn't have a family. Which is why I wonder, why does the author keep so much about Alaska away from us? We don't know much about where she comes from or her past or background. We just know who she was when she came into the school. So I wonder, who is Alaska? And I want to know how this affects everybody else. Also, I think this will mostly affect Pudge because he likes her a lot and wants her so bad, but it might also affect Colonel because he knew her wayyyy longer.


In conclusion, I hope the book reveals more about Alaska because right now the book isn't giving many clues about what is going to happen. 

Blog Post #30: Finished Catching Fire

I finally finished Catching Fire!!! Even though this is my second time reading it I think this time I understood the book more and developed more ideas and since I'm also rereading Mockingjay now I might not be as bored this time! I think one reason why I understood Catching Fire better this time is because I saw The Hunger Games Movie. That sounds pretty weird but that is because, now that I seen the movie and seen the actors who play each character its easier for me to imagine the scene of the story in my head. I don't know why but every time I read books, to truly understand the book, I have to find out all the characters, choose the actors to play the parts, then picture acting out all the scenes in my head like a movie. And now that I know all the actors like Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Alexander Ludwig, and Amandla Stenberg, I know even more about their personalities and how they would act in a specific event like a reaping or an interview before the games. 


This time reading the book, I understood the ending a lot better. This time in one of the last scenes where Beetee and all the other tributes start the plan to blow up the force field, I FINALLY understood why Johanna had to stab Katniss's arm, why Beetee had the wire the whole time, and how Katniss ended up in District 13 in the ending. The first time I read it I was confused about what happened and just thought it was a bunch of chaos, but now I knew all the tributes were willing to risk their lives so Katniss can survive the games and become the mockingjay for the rebellion.


Overall, I read like that this time reading the book I enjoyed it even more because I understood it. I also liked how now that I really liked Catching Fire, I would be more excited reading Mockingjay!!!

Blog Post #29: Catching Fire and Philosphy

In my book Catching Fire, the citizens of Panem are isolated in this controlling world of the rich and the extremely poor. That's it. There is no middle. In the book the people of Panem have absolutely no freedom, they shall do as the President says or face severe consequences. You can try to agree that the citizens still have freedom and is just punished if they do, they technically may still have freedom but they will be punished, so I wouldn't consider that freedom.

In Panem, freedom is a big issue because in every district every year two tributes are forced to fight to the death with twenty two other tributes and it isn't a choice, they can be executed if they choose not to. I believe The Hunger Games takes away their freedom, its not like they even have a choice its just that it's that this is their punishment for doubting the government centuries ago. But I believe the government doesn't have the right to take away their freedom because if the government haven't made such harsh rules before none of this would have happened, Panem would still be a happy place where the citizens weren't in poverty. I believe that since Panem is the only piece of land left on the earth that The Hunger Games can prevent overpopulation which may be a good thing, but also forcing kids to lose sanity and kill each other because they have to, is cruel and not the way to punish the country. 


Another way I think freedom may be a huge issue and concern in Catching Fire is because in this book the citizens of Panem have absolutely no freedom at all. 
Some people may think yes yes, some people say they can see the future so then you don't have freedom they just have options but they aren't really options since the choice was already chosen for them, but in terms of rights and having democracy and all that good stuff, the citizens have none of that. They can't vote for a president, they cannot know what goes on outside of their own districts, and only the richest people in the world can have access to the Capitol. If they want to change all this and get freedom, their only choice is to either start an uprising or runaway and live in the woods, and both of those choices would be punishable by death if any person of authority like a peacemaker, are to find you.


In conclusion, in The Hunger Games trilogy freedom is a huge issue, and not having freedom is one big part of the story and series in general. The reason why Panem even has a Hunger Games and districts and stuff is because the government don't allow the citizens to be free. 

Blog Post #28: Catching Fire and Terra Nova (the tv series)

Usually I would do a cross book inquiry, but for this post I want to talk about how Catching Fire and The Hunger Games trilogy in general, reminds me of the television series "Terra Nova" on FOX (mostly before they went back in time.)

The Hunger Games trilogy is about a destroyed planet thousands of years in the future with very strict laws and is not a democracy, there is a president, but the president is more of a dictator than a president. And in The Hunger Games, everyone is basically poor living in harsh conditions. In Terra Nova, the setting is also thousands of years in the future, but instead of everyone being surrounded by nature, everyone is surrounded by technology. And that is the biggest difference about these two stories, in The Hunger Games, only the most wealthy people use technology daily but poor people still manage to eat or get some food in their mouths like when Katniss goes hunting to find food, but in Terra Nova, everyone uses technology, the series is about a portal that sends the people back into Jurassic times! But in Terra Nova, its harder to find food than to use a computer. But alike The Hunger Games, in Terra Nova, their society has very strict rules, there is barely any space left on earth for humans to live just like in The Hunger Games, so everything is limited. Also there are very harsh living conditions in both stories. In The Hunger Games, kids are chosen to fight to the death every year in an arena as a televised event! And also, there are 12 districts, most are very poor that they have to break the law to get food. And in Terra Nova, the citizens of America often have to wear an oxygen mask since the air is so polluted! And there are also strict laws that one family cannot have more than two kids. And in the Shannon family (the family in which the series is about) has to hide their third child in the family every time the police comes to check on them.

In Terra Nova, the 3/5 of the Shannon family get chosen to go through a portal back to Jurassic times where dinosaurs were alive and roamed the earth. The point of this portal is to go back in time to change human ways, make the earth a better place, and start a new civilization. When the mom, Elisabeth, and her son, Josh, and daughter, Maddy, go through the portal, Elisabeth's husband, Jim (the dad) runs and jumps illegally through the portal with the third child, Zoe, who is only five years old hiding in his backpack so the whole family can go back in time to the place the commander of this journey, Taylor, calls Terra Nova. This is the point in the story where Terra Nova starts to really relate to The Hunger Games. In this part of the show, Jim gets rejoins the police force (he was fired from this job before coming to Terra Nova for punching a cop in the face for wanting to take Zoe away when she was still a toddler, and was imprisoned for years.) Here in this part, everyone struggles to learn all the pros and cons about Terra Nova. They have to become more involved with their environment like Katniss from The Hunger Games is and learn how to look for food and berries. Now, they have to learn to survive like Katniss does and become a fighter because here there are not only EXTREMELY strict laws like in Panem, there are also dinosaurs trying to eat you. 

Overall, these two series remind me of the other for some reason and I really like stories like these. I think they are alike the most though because they are Sci-Fi stories and the two stories have situations where it is hard to live and the characters are going through very tough times.

Blog Post #27: The rebellion starting in Catching Fire

So right now I am half way done with Catching Fire and now the rebellion or uprising is starting. I wonder why everything started all of a sudden. District 8 was the one who started the idea of this uprising. District 8 didn't seem like a district that would be the one to start an uprising since during the games, Katniss or Peeta didn't kill an tributes from there, and this district wasn't always talked about. If I were to predict which district would start an uprising, I would guess District 11. I would expect District 11 to start an uprising because one of their tributes in the last games, Rue, were killed by one of the Careers and since she was the youngest in the whole games, (she was 12 at the time) and this was considered sort of a murder (which it technically was) of the Capitol, because the reason why she died was because the Capitol created this messed up game. 


This uprising starts a whole series of events. I forgot exactly what happens after all this but I do know this all eventually leads to a rebellion and the discovery of the secret underground district that should have been destroyed years ago, District 13. I think that this kind of society would definitely lead to actions like this. I can never imagine America as a country other than a free democracy, let alone a country where people are killed in the street and kids are picked every year to kill each other as a television program!!! I think if an uprising like this would ever happen in America, the government would never punish us by getting the police to kill us off in the streets, since the U.S. is pretty organized now, I think the only time when this would ever happen here is if the condition of the world is so bad where we would have to go into a phase or way of life where everything is limited and the rules are extremely strict.

Blog Post #26: So far in Catching Fire...

So right now in Catching Fire, Katniss and Peeta finished the victory tour through all the districts of Panem and they have just finished visiting the Capitol where Peeta proposed to Katniss. I think now at this point in the book, all the action is gonna really start. I read this book over a year ago so I only vaguely remember what happened, the really important parts. I forgot all about all about the victory tour and the proposal. 

I think that in this point I will start to see many new characters like I remember there was allies Katniss had in the Quarter Quell like Beetee, Finnick, and many others. I think this is when many new characters are introduced and new personalities are introduced. Soon, many characters start to change, like one example is how Peeta gets manipulated by the Capitol and turns from good to evil. As I remember this starts to happen either during the games, or at the end of the games (if he is in the Quarter Quell because I totally forgot!) 

But as I remember from the book, Katniss doesn't change much throughout this book, the one thing I think has definitely changed about her is that she knows how Panem works, she knows how to work the camera. Katniss is still the same shy, brave, adventurous girl she was since the beginning of the series but I think now she knows what President Snow wants from her, especially cause she put the whole country in danger. So basically I think that Katniss is the same person she was since the start, just when she's not being recorded, or in the media, or with her superiors.

So overall, I think this is the part of my book where everything gets complicated and intense and this is where the real action starts. So I can't wait to keep reading to find out what happens because I can't remember all the specifics on this book so I hope to develop more and complex ideas of the book reading it through the second time!