"What are some questions and concerns you have about growing up and adulthood?"

     I'm not altogether too frightened by adulthood.  This sounds immature and all, but I'm actually pretty excited.  I mean, of course i love youth and all-But I'm not afraid of responsibility. I'm not afraid of taxes.
    What I'm more afraid of is the journey to being a complete adult, and who i'll be when I'm an adult.  As a teenager,  I feel like these are the days when you start learning about yourself and what you are going to become.  Right now, I have no idea who I'm going to turn out to be.  And that frightens me.
    I guess what i require is a passion.  For me, there isn't that one thing that keeps me going, I haven't found that one thing that i want to spend my whole life doing.  I have many different options, but i don't pursue any of them. Instead, I spend my life wasting away at the computer, or doing nothing but talking about nothing with my friends.
    That's why i'm afraid for the journey ahead, because i don't feel like i'm even ON a journey. At all.   I guess last year i took a journey from childhood to adulthood (That was in the period where nothing went right and i lost my naivete and i was an awkward, depressed half-child.) But that journey to find myself ended up in me changing.  I found myself, but she's gone. I guess the biggest question I have as i mature is:  How am i supposed to find myself, when myself is such an intangible, capricious thing?

****SPOILER ALERT****** 

Reading Response to Impulse By Ellen Hopkins.

          Impulse  is a story that tracks the lives of three teenagers, with very different lives, who end up in the same mental hospital. Vanessa is the pretty, charming daughter of an army dad and a bipolar mother. Tony is a bisexual juvenile delnquent who spent half his life on the street, and Connor is the priveleged, handsome boy who spent half his life trying to live up to his sister's standards and his parent's cold expectations of him. These are three teenagers who end up at the same mental hospital, all for different reasons, but end up best friends.  This book, Impulse, shows that it doesn't matter where you come from, your problems can connect you with everyone around the world.
      I have confusing feelings towards this book. While her books are very "teenage-y," they can have some beautiful language and themes i can connect to. So this book didn't quite live up to the standards i had set for it. But while it wasn't quite as geniusly written as Identical, I still really enjoyed the underlying theme that we're all connected through our problems. In this book Vanessa, Connor and Tony are all connected throught the facct that they can't stand living their lives. For Vanessa, it's the overwhelming guilt she feels at her mother's death and her bipolar disorder.  For Connor, it's all the days he's plastered a smile when he really wanted to die inside. For Tony, it's the terrible past that keeps on flashing back to him. Though they all deal with their self-loathing in different ways, it's their problems that connect them.

            Vanessa keeps coming back to the razor blade because that's the way she deals with the depressive side of her manic-depressive, when she "sinks all the way into blue." Vanessa is attracted to danger, that's why she lusts after Connor and eventually falls for the bad boy Tony.  Although her depression and bad qualities shouldn't connect them all, it was part of the reason that they formed such a strong bond in the first place.  But i can't help thinking that it's part of the reason that Connor eventually killed himself.  In the last chapters of his life, Vanessa and Tony had noticed that Connor had stopped taking his pills, grew "tense and stiff-shouldered when [Connor] saw [them] snuggling".  Although Vanessa and Tony's relationship might have contributed to his sucide, Vanessa and Tony also helped him realize what his life was really about.

         The plot to this story disappointed me.  I mean, we spend the whole book anticipating the recovery of the three protagonists, and smack, at the end Connor's dead.  The book keeps on showing flashbacks, but does nothing to connect it to the future.  I think that is something that is required in stories, if you show flashbacks, they can't be meaningless. They have to connect to the innermost feelings of the characters, not just show

what a terrible life they have.

        However, this book still had essential qualities that made me appreciate it alot.  :)  You really felt for the characters.  Although I don't have any severe depression-y stuff, and y I can connect to the feeling of self-loathing that these characters have.  In a less mild sense, i know exactly how it feels to have to live up to high standards, yourself and others.  I know how it feels to need to get away from things.  And what makes the book even more special is exactly what my thesis statement is about: The characters can all connect with eachother through their problems, and so can i think the readers.  It's easy to connect through problems, it gives you a more full sense of their personality, makes you feel like you know them on a deeper level.  I don't know if it's a good thing or not that we find it easy to connect to others through our problems...

Response to "Impulse"

***SPOILER ALERT***

Reading Response to "Impulse" By Ellen Hopkins.

Impulse is a story that tracks the lives of three teenagers, with very different lives, who end up in the same mental hospital. 

 Vanessa is the charming daughter of an army dad and a bipolar mother, and when her mother is pushed over the edge Vanessa resorts to cutting to hide her sadness.

Tony is the bisexual juvenile delinquent who spent half his life on the street, but turns out to be a lot sweeter than what he might seem.

Conner is the privileged, handsome, smart, athletic boy who spent all his life having to try and live up to his  sister's standards, his cold parent's expectations of them.  

And they all meet in Pinebrook, a mental clinic in Nevada. 

I usually like Ellen Hopkin's books,  while they are very "teenage-y" they can have some beautiful language. Especially Identical, while the concept is sad and odd, the writing is beautiful.  So this book didn't live up to my standards for her.  With this concept and the intense writing she can do,  she just kind of failed.   And the plot wasn't for me either.  

I mean, Conner's in love with an older woman.

Vanessa's in love with Conner.

They all have flashbacks.

Tony's in love with Conner.

Conner's in love with Vanessa, and the older woman.

Conner lusts after his therapist.

Tony and Vanessa become very close.

Tony realizes that he might actually not be gay.

They go out into the desert on a wilderness survival program. 

Conner stops taking his pills. 

Tony and Vanessa fall in love.

Conner jumps off a cliff,

and then, boom it ends.    I mean, really?  Really!?   The plot was both uninteresting until the end, and sounded as if it was made up as the author went along.  That's one thing I can't stand in books, possibly because i do it ALL THE TIME.  J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" is a really good example of a book that doesn't do that.  You can tell that Rowling plotted out all the 7 books in the series before even starting the first one. 

In those ways, the book disappointed me.  Also, i just hated the ending.  Conner was really the character who could have done so well in his life, if he didn't just stop taking the pills.   But in that way, the book was quite obvious.  Conner is the one who would kill himself, he was no longer necessary to the other characters, besides his depression he was perfect, and he was the one who had a terrible life to return to once he got out of the hospital.  

But i still thought that the emotions of the character's were expressed very well.  Their problems were real, raw, relatable.  Although, obviously, I've never been in a mental hospital, nor am i manic-depressive, nor is my life shit,  I can really connect to the feeling of hopelessness that Conner, Vanessa and Tony all have felt.  The realization that you don't think you can do shit to improve your life, that you're either just going to have to keep living a life you're not entirely satisfied with-or, not.

And, i think that's something we all have to face, all have to get over, and everyone can connect to. 

Three favorite blogs

One blog that i thought was really exemplary was Sarah's blog.  In her posts, she managed to show a lot of emotion while also making both her poems and her responses very factual, strong and clever.  That perfect mix of emotions and facts is something not a lot of people can come across. 

Her sonnet was quite impressive, and it seems like she actually took time and effort to write it-With the perfect iambic pentameter and perfect sonnet form, and it actually developed well and beautifully as a poem! It's written beautifully! 

Great Job Sarah!

Another blog I really admired was Julia's blog.  Everything she writes flows out with precision, making sense and sounding beautiful.  It's not choppy at all. (A big problem everybody always complains about in my pieces is the choppiness.) 

Her sonnet is also beautiful.  It leaves room for the mind to wander, and out your own interpretation, while also stating some things very clearly.  And the things she states are very connectible, without sounding cliche. The next entry down, her poetry forward, is also above standards.  It sounds beautiful, and is just so TRUE and cool. 

Great job, Julia!

The last blog I'm writing about that really impressed me was Tomin's. (No surprise there.)

Every time I read any of Tomin's posts I'm blown away. Also, I'm blown away by realizing that some guys actually CAN write.  It just seems sometimes that boys are not capable of expressing emotions or writing anything meaningful. I know that's really sexist of me, and looking at Tomin's blog reminds me that I'm totally wrong. He is not only capable of expressing things and writing with emotions, he does both things amazingly! Tomin has a voice in his writing that i wish i had in my speaking.  It's really gorgeous, and never bores me.

Bravo, Tomin!

A Sonnet on A Thunderstorm (Cliche, I know.)

A Sonnet                                                  Ana Gross 807

A giant thunderstorm, the sky expands

The trees in front’ my house the lightning sears

The hail calls me an ordinary man

The rain tells me that my fate is not clear.

My heart, it seems, is caught up in the past

The thunder says to care about the now

But I won’t let this storm dissuade me, fast

I run outside, forgetting the storm’s growl.

The rain, it stains my face and knots my hair

And into my clothes freezing water seeps

But this exhilaration does not care

Peace with myself I’ll try so hard to keep.

I know not where I am, nor where I’ll be

But I trust now that I can wait and see. 

Salt/Fresh- Foreword

FOREWORD: “Salt/Fresh,” Poems about the water

         My book, “Salt/Fresh” is a collection of poems written simply about water. It does not pertain simply to the ocean; it does not pertain only to lakes, or pools.  This book is about all types of water, from the water in your sinks to the eighty-percent chlorine in your pools.

            For, don’t we all have stories to share about water? I know I do.  I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with water, with stories backing up other sides.  I’ve been caught in terrible riptides, choked and slapped around by water.  I’ve been blinded by chlorine, and stung by jellyfish.  But I’m also in love with the ocean. I have an inexplicable connection with the water, one that sends me swimming all the time.  A connection that gets me called “mermaid,” and “dolphin.”  A connection that makes my favorite animal an octopus-

            And my connection with the ocean is one I’m pretty sure we all have. Sure, you might not feel it the way I do.  But after all, water is the thing that keeps us living.  You can only live a couple of weeks without water.  Your own body is up to 70 percent water. 

            So whether you read these poems while bored, or you read these poems while yearning for a beach vacation-these poems have a specific meaning.  If I’ve done my job, you should be able to relate to these poems in some way.  These poems should evoke memories, or at least do something.  If they don’t, either these poems suck or I’m just really weird and believe that I’m not the only one who has this weird pull towards water. You can decide which one it is.

Response to "My Papa's Waltz," by Theodore Roethke

My Papa's Waltz

The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.
    
 In class  today, my group and I were discussing the father in the poem.  Some of us believed that Roethke, (or the character he made up,)  is being physically abused by his father.  Others chose not to believe that, and to believe that well, they were actually waltzing.
  I happen to think that to believe that Roefke is writing a happy poem about just waltzing with his father as a child, and the feeling of being naive to his father's drunkenness, is deluded.  I mean, sure, i get a BIT that this poem could just be about how  when the narrator was young, he did not understand what being drunk meant.  He had thought that his father was merely acting a little off tonight.  But who's to question? You're young, right?
  Let me tell you-that's not how that happens.  I know on an intimate level that even when you're very young, you understand that something is wrong when a member of your family is drunk.  You understand that the drawl, the bloodshot eyes, the inept care of others, is not normal.  You understand that it's wrong, even if you badly don't want it to be wrong.
And so, no, I don't think that this is a happy poem.  You can tell just by the tone of the poem, can't you? It has a sad, mellow feel.
  But do i think it's about abuse? Not necessarily. I was outraged in class today when a classmate said that, "of course the dad beat him up, he's drunk.  It's what drunk people do."   That's so not true.  There are many different ways that you respond to intoxication.
However, from the tone of the poem-It is about abuse.  The lines, "You beat time on my head," and "At every step you missed/ my right ear scraped a buckle," can be hints at the fact that he was abused.
  OR, they could just be literal.  Actual, with no meaning behind the words.  But that almost violates the laws of poetry, huh.
This poem sure is mysterious.  That's almost what i don't like about it, it reminds me of myself in too many ways.
I myself write poetry to be interpreted in many different ways, but often find that it just turns out confusing or weird.
But maybe me and Roethke have something else in common: It's hard for us to let out our  emotions plainly.  It would hurt too much.