Goals!

An academic goal for me this quarter is either, teach myself, watch from others, or learn more in class to improve my writing skills. I plan to write more descriptively, use better vocabulary, and learn more about proper punctuation. This is probably the thing I want to achieve the most this quarter, and most likely for the rest of the year. But, for now I focus on just this quarter instead of the rest of the year. I want to do this because I feel as if I can do a lot better on my writing than what I'm doing now, and with just some practice I can and will do so. I think that, even if I don't succeed, I would be learning useful things. I plan on getting there by teaching myself, reading, or during assignments that require paragraphs to be written. Definitely, a lot of practice. I plan to write a lot this quarter, in and out of school.
A personal goal for me would probably have to be a tie between drawing, and controlling my emotions better. Drawing is more of a thing that would be nice to have and to do, since it mostly cheers me up. Although, at times, it could be really frustrating. I look at the drawing and always pick at it, saying the hair could be better, I did bad on the face, and all these different things. I believe that doing better would probably make me less frustrated so I will at least be content with it instead of picking at it.
Controlling my emotions, there are a lot of emotions going on in my brain right now. So many, that even if someone asked what I was feeling, I would have to sit there contemplating which one would be better to say. I know this isn't the easiest thing to control, or may even be impossible to control, but I would like to at least try. With controlling my emotions, I'd be a better person in my opinion. I won't be so, confused. I won't get so easily hurt, offended, or angry with a conversation. Being too sensitive like I am is a difficult thing, even if something little was muttered or said, I assume the worst. I'm really paranoid about people talking about me, so I try to trick myself into thinking that there really isn't a reason for people to speak about me behind my back. It works, for the most part.
Hopefully, all these things will be accomplished! I'm wishing for the best.  

Winter Book: Scary Stories Treasury

Again, another short story from the Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark series.
This is by far my favorite story of all the books. This short story is titled, "Wolf Girl." It's about a couple who lived where Dry Creek runs into Devil's River in Texas. Mollie, the wife was pregnant after a while of living there. Her husband, John, went on horseback to find their nearest neighbors when her water broke. After he got to their neighbors, they agreed to help them, unfortunately, a storm came along just before they could get going. Along the lines, John had died. The couple who had agreed to help Mollie give birth still went to search for their cabin. They did manage to find it, although it was the next day. When they got to Mollie, she was dead as well. It looked like she gave birth, but they baby could not be found. With the wolf tracks all around, the couple had made the assumption the wolves had gotten to it. Years later, reports began rolling in left and right of the wolves killing animals. It wasn't something serious in these days however (1830's), the thing that was really being reported was the girl like thing running with the wolves. She was seen and hunted after for some while as sighs became reoccurring. Soon, everyone was making stories, wondering, or spreading rumors that this "wolf girl" was really the missing child of deceased Mollie and John Dent.
This story is probably my favorite because of the time, it was the 1830's, which means things weren't as simple as today. Babies would pass away during birth, so would mothers, technology was not how it is today. This is also kind of hard to believe that the wolves raised her as a cub instead of eating her, which I liked since it was less brutal. In my opinion, this story is the best one out of the book, from it's actual stories going on in and around Texas. It's really not something people think about today, wolves, or wolf girls. It seems more of a story from before, which is still really cool to me.

Winter Book: Scary Stories Treasury

I have been reading a complete collection of Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark, although these are just short stories it really is a great read. It's something for when you're bored, don't really have a good attention span, or maybe just don't have as much time to read an actual book where you have to keep up with the characters to understand what is going on. I'll be doing one blog for one short story.

This is one one of my favorites because of, I guess the story. It's titled, "Clinkity-Clink." It is about an old women who passes away, she has no family or friends. Her neighbors were caring enough to get a gravedigger for her, they have a coffin made, everything they had taken care of for her. The only faulty thing about this, though, is that her eyes were wide open. So, to solve this problem, the neighbors found two silver dollar on her dresser and set them on her eyes to keep them closed. It worked, so the next day a preacher came to say some prayers before her burial. The gravedigger decided to take her silver dollars, not knowing of why they were on her eyelids. Obviously, her eyes opened. He was startled, but still decided to take them anyway. After he did that however, her ghosts haunted him for taking her money. She does various other things as an attempt to get her money back, and make him realize what he did was wrong of him. 

I think why I like this story so much is probably because it's sort of like karma in a way. It's almost as if it's teaching you a lesson: Do not take anything, from the dead or living, it'll come back to haunt you. Well, really not just taking something, doing anything with severe consequences.

As weird as it sounds, I think this little story is cute.    

The Devil's Arithmetic Summary

Thirteen year old Hannah Stern is a young Jewish girl, who travels back in time to 1942, during the time of the Holocaust. She's transported to a quiet, little, farm town in Poland. Hannah is addressed as, "Chaya," her Hebrew name, by two people. They are Gitl and Shmuel, Chaya's aunt and uncle. Hannah still has her memories of her time and family, but she's in Chaya's body. She's too confused to try to look around and figure out where she even is, so she is standing with them both speaking to her, things only Chaya would know. They spoke about her deceased parents, about how they passed away from a sickness going around the town she used to live in, Lublin. Confused and overwhelmed, Hannah was being hugged and shown emotions to. She was quickly sent off to bed by her aunt, who said she must be experiencing something from the sickness she is still recovering from. When she wakes up in the morning, she tries explaining frantically that she isn't from Poland, nor their time. They wouldn't listen and shook it off, yet again saying that it was the sickness. Hannah/Chaya will later on be taken to a concentration camp, along with a group of other people by Nazis. Hannah whimpers what she can remember from school about concentration camps, but no one will listen. She's forced through events, months in a concentration camp, trying not to get killed or hurt. Only the book will tell if she lives or not...
I think one of the themes in this book is really, don't take anything for granted. Whether it be your family, or your religion. Be proud of who you are, try to hear out what your family is speaking about. Understand what your family has been through, their suffering to get to where they are today, and all the suffering you might go through as well. The elders in your family are the wisest, listen to the life lessons they teach you, they'll get you far in life.

The Devil's Arithmetic

The beginning of the book was really interesting, the plot was good. Hannah is going through her "rebellious" teenage phase with the, "Do I have to go and celebrate the Seder?" and "Why do we celebrate the Seder?" She didn't want to eat anything either at her relative's house, because she had eaten a lot of jelly beans with her best friend, a non Jewish girl, for Easter. She engaged in many family activities, playing games, praying, eating, drinking, and celebrating. With not knowing completely what she was doing, Hannah gave her full cup of wine to The Prophet Elijah as an offering. With that, her grandfather rewarded her generosity with allowing her to open the door for Elijah. When she did, she began seeing a man, walking towards the front door she had just opened with a hoe propped on his shoulder. He sang a song Hannah was familiar with, one her family sang. She shook her head, assuming the wine had gotten to her, but then she looked again, and the scene changed even more.

Words Of The Wiser is the sign post for this. Hannah's grandfather is showing his tattoo from the concentration camp he was in, yelling at the TV and everyone when pictures of Hitler and Nazis were flashed on the screen. He tells everyone about how horrible the camps were and other things. Hannah remembers when she was jealous of her little brother, Aaron's, arrival. She tried to earn back her grandfather's attention by putting a number on her arm, just like his tattoo from the camp. She pushed so hard it wouldn't come off for a couple days, but he yelled at her, explaining to her again, how horrible the camps were and not to play around with that kind of thing, which she didn't.

Holocaust Blog

I think people were bystanders during the Holocaust simply because they were afraid. It's natural for someone being afraid to take action, they don't want to be sent to a concentration camp, have any of the things that were happening to the Jews and just targeted people, or get themselves or others killed for their actions. 
People were seeing the way the Nazis were targeting specific people and discriminating them for no good reasons, they realized or just knew since the beginning this wasn't the right thing to do. They wanted to take a stand, whether or not they had someone they knew that was killed, or going to be killed. 
I think I would have wanted to definitely help the Jews and others, unfortunately, I would be like the others, afraid. With me being afraid of the same things happening to me, I wouldn't exactly want to take the risk of my loved ones and myself dying. I believe that I read/heard that the people who were trying to protect the Jews would be treated the same way they were, isolated, killed, or even worse, be put in a concentration camp. Those who didn't agree to the Nazi rules and owned a business would fail immediately, so who's to say what would happen to the non-German people who didn't agree with the rules?  

Famous Last Words

"Famous Last Words" is about a girl, Willa, who is new to town. She moved from Connecticut to Hollywood, California. Willa is an average girl, don't let the part where she lives deceive you. The reason for her living there is her mother getting remarried to a rich, successful, directer. She doesn't like the decision, but she can't do anything about it.
The book starts out with Jonathan (Willa's new stepfather), Joanna (Willa's mother), and Willa, driving to Jonathan's house. Since Jonathan is rich, Willa thinks about how his house might look, and about the discomfort she'll have by the huge change. She used to live in an apartment, now she's living in a mansion.
Once they get there, Jonathan explains more about their magnificent household. Willa thinks to herself, "He calls it home, just a house, it's a mansion." Soon enough she finds herself calling her new home just a house, not a mansion. She is guided to her room to get settled it, her version of settling in is connecting to her deceased father. She puts a ring on, lights some candles, and sits silently with her eyes closed, hoping that she'll get a response. Unfortunately, no response, there never was anyway. Soon enough she get's called down for dinner, with that Jonathan begins discussing current events from a newspaper resting on by him. "A killer is on the lose, only killing young upcoming actresses." He reads. It doesn't take long for Joanna to begin worrying about Willa's wellbeing. Jonathan makes a joke about there being absolutely no need to worry, "As long as she isn't in acting,"
Willa is a curious, simple, and loving girl. She's curious about the killings and curious about other things. She is a very simple, calm, girl since she didn't even want to move to Hollywood nor be in a mansion. Last but not least, she is loving. She tries reaching out to her father all the time, she still loves him and ever since he died she has been doing the ritual thing she did in her new home to every house she has moved into. Even though there are no results, she continues to try.
This book is really interesting and cool, I can't wait to read more.