My top 5 Top 5 Lists

1. Places
2. Movies
3. Artists (musical)
4. Actors
5. Kinds of Food

The sad story

The woman’s name is Scarlett, and she is a waitress. She is 5 foot 3 inches tall, thin and has long, straight blonde hair that goes down to her waist. She loves to wear red and prefers scandalous things. Her life revolves around the baby. She loves to have fun, and is a good cook. Her bad qualities are that she is controlling, has a temper and can be promiscuous. She comes across as a dangerous flirt. Her weaknesses include ice cream and good-looking men. She hates her boyfriend (with who she had the baby) but depends on him for help with the baby and money and she hates her job. She loves to go out dancing and her baby.

Jack came out of the bedroom and yelled at Janet to give him back the picture. She told him to just pack his things and get out, fast. Jack saw her holding the baby and knew that it was the thing that mattered the most to her. I’m taking the baby he said. She screamed at him, telling him no way you’re crazy. But he said no, he wanted the baby and he would get someone to come get the baby’s things. The baby started to scream and Jack grabbed at the baby in her arms. She shielded the baby but to no avail and Jack got a hold of the baby. They both pulled, completely forgetting that the baby would get hurt. There were both trying to win and then the baby ripped.

The End

Chapter 7-13

Rob is conflicted because, like we talked about in class, he wants what he can’t have and when he gets it he doesn’t want it anymore. He only wants to be with Laura when she does not want to be with him. It’s kind of weird. And it is kind of bugging me a little bit. Towards the end of chapter 13 he calls Laura again and asks her about getting back together, so he’s doing it again. I don’t really know what is going on with Rob at this point. I’m a little confused. He seems to want to get back together with Laura. His relationship with Marie is nothing more then the one night that they spent together. Marie is similar to him in that she wanted him because she thought that he didn’t even like her. She was intrigued by him. But then after they sleep together, their relationship becomes kind of awkward and weird. Rob is behaving like this because he is still depressed about his relationship with Laura and then after sleeping with Marie she tells him that she just wanted to sleep with someone and it ended up being one of the first guys that she met in England. Marie telling Rob this and the awkward way that their romantic experience ended probably only made Rob's depression a little worse. Even though he says that the night had not been humiliating for both of them, I think that the way that it ended made it an overall awkward experience.

Chapters 1-6

Initially I felt really bad for Rob. He seems to have a lot of girl trouble and Laura left him. But towards the end my opinion started to change a little. Especially at the very end when the friend, Liz, only went to the pub to call him a jerk or something. So now I’m assuming that he did something bad that we will find out about later. I think his obsession with music and top ten lists is funny and works for him since he doesn’t really have a great life. I think he needs something like music, it seems to help him get through his breakups. As Rob’s mom says, almost all of his adult girlfriends leave him. And I think it’s partially because of what we talked about in class. Rob cares so much that it ends up working against him and freaking out or bothering the girlfriend so much that she leaves him. Right now, I don’t really sympathize with him anymore. I would think that he would be able to figure out what he was doing wrong by now. I still like his character, and I don’t really know why, I guess I’m hoping that he will be able to change and figure himself out and keep a girlfriend for more then a couple of years.

"How to Read" by Nick Hornby

Nick Hornby’s philosophy about reading is if you are not enjoying whatever you are reading stop reading it and put it down. It doesn’t matter if it’s highly acclaimed by critics or on a list of the best books of the year, if you are not enjoying it it’s not worth it. I think this is great advice and I completely agree. A book should not be difficult to read. I love what Hornby says about the prose of a book and how it should not be super difficult to read and that when he is writing he keeps it as simple as possible because he believes that the words are not as important as the world that he is describing. I basically agree with everything that he was saying. I definitely have the same mentality when I’m reading a book, even if it is for school. If I am not enjoying it I probably won’t finish it and will end up using sparknotes or something. For example, for school one year we had to read the book Lord of the Flies. That was extremely difficult for me to read and I did not finish it, I just was not interested in how a group of stranded boys were surviving and going crazy. The whole story was just too weird and boring for me. Sophomore year we read the book Last Days of Summer. I loved reading that book. It’s hard for me to explain why the book was so good. It was hilarious and by the end I was laughing and crying at the same time. I think it was really well-written, not because it had big words but because it was written all in letters from a boy to his hero and I had never read anything like that before. I think it’s important for us to really be “sucked into” a book and I definitely was in the Last Days of Summer.

Feelings about reading

I usually find the books that I enjoy by recommendations from other people, whether it’s friends, family, librarians or people working in bookstores. It’s hard for me to describe what catches my attention about books, I like a lot of different types. I guess in my opinion trashy books would be romance novels and some teen novels which are not written very well and have basically no point. It is hard to say what exactly is quality but I am going to say that any book that is well written, has a point and makes the reader think and keeps the reader interested is quality. I think that every person has different tastes and opinions therefore it is hard to decide what is quality and what is trash. I do not think that matters what people read, unless they only read comics or children’s books. Even magazines can have informative and well-written articles. Some people just do not have the time to read books, even newspapers can be good to read. Each person deals with school reading differently. Some will read a little, skim, finish the whole book and some will not read a word. I usually read the whole book, especially if I like it. I enjoy reading, so when I’m asked to do it for homework I am usually pretty happy. Over the years my tastes have not changed very much. I’ve never been a big fan of books about the wilderness or war and I’ve always loved historical fiction and mysteries. My tastes have matured slightly, for example I have moved on from Nancy Drew. The only time that I tend to expand my choices is during school and I am basically forced to. I do think that it is worth it to try new genres because you never know what you are going to like and you never know what you might learn. Over the years I have ended up loving books that I never would have read if I did not have to for school.