* Supposed to be posted on May 4th, 2008

Okay, so I have finished reading Go Ask Alice, and I have started reading a little of this book, but I'm not sure if I want to read it as my independent reading book for school. I started skimming through some of the other books that were on the list for independent reading books, and there were many books that sounded interesting. I read a little of the book named The Secret Life of Bees, but I wasn't too excited to read it. I also thought of reading other books like Twilight, Howl's Moving Castle, Tuesdays With Morrie, Thirteen Reasons Why, and many other books. I really wanted to read Twilight, since everyone who read it loved it, but someone suggested that I should read it when I have a lot of time. I always have a great variety of books to read, but I never know what to start with.

* Supposed to be posted on April 27,2008

I couldn't write my blog for April 27th, but I still wanted to say that yesterday (April 26th) was my birthday! Okay. So, besides that, I have almost finished Go Ask Alice, which is written by an anonymous author. I think that this book is really interesting. I think it's great how I can see what it would be like to live a life as a drug addict. It sort of scares me, but I think that it's cool to see how the life of a fifteen-year-old drug addict is, without actually experiencing it. Also, I think this book is fun, because this author talks about boys that she likes, and I like to read books that I can relate to. This book would be great, it it was longer, even though it was based on someones real life. If it was longer, I think that t would've been better.
After I started to read Go Ask Alice, I noticed that a book that is written with characters of teens that are my age, and one that is written in a diary, or any interesting format is the right book for me. For me, it's so fun reading about teens and their life, even though it might be made up. I can't wait to find another great book to read!

* Supposed to be posted on April 20,2008

Oh my goodness!
I have been forgetting about my blog. Sorry for not writing in this blog for a while, but now I will make up my work.
After finishing my book, I decided to read Go Ask Alice by an anonymous person. I remember seeing this book in middle school, but I never had a chance to read it, so Voila. Heres my chance. Also, many of my classmates have already read this book, and said that it was great. It's a short book, but many students said that it was still great. Go Ask Alice is a book written in a diary form, and it is based on an actual diary of a fifteen-year-old drug addict. I love reading books that are written in diary format, and I think that it will be fun reading about a life of a girl who is the same age as me, but who is a drug addict. I can't imagine fifteen year olds using drugs, but now many younger kids are starting to do bad things. This always makes me ask what is this world coming to? Hahas. That sounds funny, but nowadays, I think that everything is changing, and it seems weird comparing it to my life.

~ Jing-Mei Woo~

Today is the day that I left the Hong Kong Border arriving to Shenzhen, China. As I entered China, I realized that I've never known what it means to be Chinese. I only knew a few phrases in Chinese, even though I am 36 years old. Now, I am on a train, thinking of my dead mother, and her dream to coming home. First, my father, Canning Woo and I are going to Guangzhou. We will visit his aunt, who my father hasn't seen for more than 60 years. As I look at my father, I see tears in his eyes looking out the window of the train. This also makes me tear too, even though I don't have any memories of being here.

My guidebook tells me that we will arrive in three hours, and it also shows me that the spelling of the places have changed. Chungking has become Chongqing, Kweilin is now Guilin, but shanghai is still the same. After we visit Guangzhou, we will take a two housr trip to Chanhai, to see my half sisters for the first time. They are twins, who were from my mothers first husband, and she was forcd to abandon them on a road during an escape fromKweilin to Chungking. I thought about when Auntie Lindo received a letter from my half sisters, and thought about when she didn't tell them that my mother was dead. I saw a scenario where I've arrived to Shanghai to see them, but they ran away.

I look out the window of the train, and I see old factories, and tracks. We're here. We met our family, and ended up at a hotel that looked expensive. I thought it was the wrong hotel, but it ended up being the right one, but it was more luxurious than I have imagined. Time passes by quickly, and I get nervous that the time to meet my sisters is coming close and closer. The time is finally over, and now I am at the airport waiting for what will come next.

Almost done(:

I'm still reading I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, but I'm almost finished! The story is getting really interesting, because when I first opened this book, I never realized that the story would be like this. It's very odd that there are portions in the book about church and religion, but there are also parts which talk about sexual intercourse and sinful things. It's weird that there are things that contradict in this book, but this shows that the book is more on the nonfiction side. This might make no sense, but some parts of this book seem so ridiculous that you wouldn't believe that it's true. Those ridiculous events show what happen in real life, and the most religious people can do the most sunful things. Maya, isn't too much on the religious side, but in this book, there are chapters that talk about the church that Maya goes to. Also, in the book, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, there is a chapter that talks about the church that Maya goes to, but there are many weird things that happen there. I thought that religion would be a great factor in this book at first, but as I get closer to the end of the book, I notice how religion isn't really important to Maya.

Since I'm almost done reading I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, I'm thinking about reading Go Ask Alice, which is a book written by an anonymous author. I'm excited to read this book, becuase I heard that it's really a great story, even though it might be a short book. Sometimes reading short books are better, incase they get boring, but other times, authors make episodes of the book, so you have to wait to get the new book. I think that GoAsk Alice, would be a fun book, even though it has fewer pages that many other books. Also, I think that I would be able to see the point of view of a teenager, who is around the same age as I am, who is also addicted to drugs.

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

While reading I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, I realized that the book was very interesting, but some chapters were just long and boring. This reminds me of the book that we recently finished in class, Things Fall Apart. Both books have a great story, but they also have some chapters that make me fall asleep.(not offense)For example, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou has chapters about the church that Marguerite/Maya attends, and Things Fall Apartby Chinua Achebe has chapters on wrestling matches. As I read throughout this week, I wrote down notes in the book and a short summary of each chapter. I think that writing down short summaries of each chapter is helpful, when you need to look back to what you read.

While reading this book, I thought that many things were very interesting. In the beginning of the book, I didn't know what was going on, so I felt bad that Marguerite/Maya and Bailey weren't living with their parents. I think that there are many different themes in this book, and one of them is something dealing with family. Also, I think that if Maya lived with her parents as a little girl, many things would've been different. As the book progresses, Maya and Bailey meet their parents and they live with them, but that is different from living with your parents when you're a young child.

Besides that, I thought that it was very weird when Bailey and Maya used to play "house." They seem like children, but when I read the parts about playing house, especially with the girl named Joyce, I was surprised. The more surprising part was when the character Mr. Freeman was introduced. He seemed like a nice person at first, but later on, he turned out to be a bad person. There are a lot of characters that I want to talk about, but I don't want to spoil the book TOO MUCH. I spoiled it a lot right now, but I hope that you still want to read the book to find out who Mr.Freeman is and what he did.

As I read, I found a lot of vocaulary that I didn't know.
-aptly, servile, appellations, opulent, anachronism, eke, calamitous, porter, reneged, fiscal, troubadour, kerosene, query, waifs, gaiety

NEW BOOK(:

My new book Pride and Prejudice didn't work out well, so I think the next book that I'm going to read is I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. The book contains 289 pages, and it is written in first person. It would take me less than three weeks to finish this book.

Maya Angelou is the author of many best-selling books besides I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. She also wrote five collections of poetry. In the sixties, Maya Angelou became the Northern Coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, by the request of Martin Luther King Jr. Also, in 1977, she received the Ladies' Home Journal Woman of the Year Award in Communications.

Pride and Prejudice & Symbolism

As my new book, I chose to read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. It contains 332 pages, which would take me about three weeks and a few days, if I read 100 pages a week. It would take me about three weeks and a few more day, but for some books, it might take a little more time. This book was one of many books that were recommended to me by my sister, but she explained how great of a book it was, so I decided to read this book after reading My Sister's Keeper.

So far I read only 30 pages, even though I have spent a lot of time trying to read the book. The assignment states that I have to read 100 pages each week, but I think that it would take a long time to read. Usually, I am a slow reader, but for this book, it takes me forever to read even one or two pages. In my opinion, Jane Austen wrote a great story, but I think that it's on a higher level than what I should read. There is a lot of unfamiliar vocabulary, which make it harder to understand. This leads me to take a longer time to read, because when I read books, I try not to miss anything, so I try to read and understand almost every sentence. I should not do this, but I don't want to get confused later on in the book, just because I didn't understand a few sentences. I read sentences over and over again, and I also try to use the context clues to figure out what the words mean, but that also eats up time. In conclusion, I decided to change my independent reading book, because Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen was on a higher reading level than mine, and it took a long time to read.

While reading Pride and Prejudice, I don't think that I came across a symbol. Even though I read only 30 pages, I think that I can make up a symbol that relates to the book. Throughout my time reading this book, I realized that most of the book so far, was about the Bennet daughers, and their desire to marry rich men. Each daughter liked a certain characteristic in a man, but I think that the symbol of a ring can relate to each person. Since the daughters want to marry a man, or their parents want them to marry, a ring can be a good symbol. It can show something about marriage, which relates to most of the book. When you think of a ring, you think of relationships, although it might not be marriage, so I think that is a great symbol that can be used in the book.

YAYYY! I finally finished reading My Sister's Keeper(: Even though I knew what was going to happen at the end, I was still surprised to what happened. I wasn't expecting the ending to just be like that. I thought that Anna was goingto be the one who would live, but it was the total opposite. I knew, or I thought that Campbell would get back with Julia, so that part wasn't unexpected, but the other parts (I don't want to spoil it TOO much) were really unexpected. When I first opened the book, I really wasn't expecting to get this feeling at the end of the book. WOW! Now, I really understand how Sharon felt when she finished reading this book.

I'm sad that I can't read My Sister's Keeper anymore, but I'm glad that now, I can start a new book. What will it be.... Hmms. I think that I will end up reading most of the books that I want to, but I don't know what I want to read next.

My next book is going to be from this list.

~ Belljar

~ Pride and Prejudice

~ Emma

~ Prep

~ Thirsty

~ Go Ask Alice

~ Flowers at Algernon

Ican't wait to start!

Week Two

I think that the extra credit assignment that Ms.Faughey gave us was a great way to boost up our grade. It also helped me see what kind of books my classmates like to read. While reading some of the posts that were written by other students, I was convinced to read a few books. I think that from now on, I will try to read a lot on my free time, so that I can read all of the books that have great stories and the books that sound great.

Also, while looking throught the blogs of the students, I found out what happens at the end of the book that I am currently reading My Sister's Keeper. Sharon is a fast reader, so she already finished the book. When I read her blog, she had a warning that said spoiler, but I still decided to read it. I found out that Anna dies at the end of the book, because of a car accident. This is an unexpected event that happens, so when I read what Sharon wrote, I was surpirsed. Reading more and more pages of My Sister's Keeper, I feel that I can put myself in the position of the characters, and also I am learning a little about biology. It still amazes me that even though I am enjoying my book, it takes me forever to read it. I think that I try to understand every word that Jodi Picoult wrote, so I tend to read the sentences over and over again. As I read more and more books, I hope that I will try to read faster, while understanding every word the author has written

The homework assignment for this week was to read "The Joyluck Club," which is the first chapter to The Joyluck Club. When I started reading the book during class, I thought that it would be a boring story, but when I came home to reread it, I found it to be great. My Sister's Keeper is a page turner, but I found The Joy Luck Club to be more of one. The book took me less time to read than when I read my independent reading book. I enjoyed reading both of the books, that I read my independent reading book first and then The JoyLuck Club, which led me to sleep at 3 in the morning. This is the first time I have stayed up so late reading a book that I enjoyed reading so much. I can't wait to finish these books so that I can start reading new ones.

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult is an interesting story so far. I felt that I was able to connect with the protagonist, which is Anna. There are three children in her family, and her sister is sick, so her parents pay the most attention to her sister who has leukemia. Annas brother moved to the room which is above the garage, so that he could get his privacy. In the beginning of this book, I got a sense that the parents only focus on the sick child. If I was a parent with three children and one of them had a rare case of leukemia, then I would pay the most attention to them too, but in this book, the parents pay too much attention to one child. That is why Anna gets a lawyer, and decides that she wants to go to court. I think that the parents knew that they were giving the most attention to Kate, but they didn't really know how Anna really felt. Also, at first I thought that there was only one point of view(I thought that Anna was writing in first person), but as I kept on reading, I noticed that the book is written in different point of views.

My First Independent Reading Book for E2

For my first independent reading book, I decided to read My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult. I chose to read this book, because my friends and family recommended it to me, and by reading the summary of this book on amazon.com, it sounded like an interesting story. I'm a slow reader, so even though My Sister's Keeper is a great book, it will take me some time to read it. I have to read about 100 pages a week, and it contains 448 pages, so it will take me three or four weeks to finish.

A short summary of this book is that in a family of a mom, dad, and three kids, there is a child named Kate who has a rare form of leukemia. The parents try to find a way for their daughter to live, so they decide that their other daughter, Anna will give a kidney to her sister. Anna thinks that it is not her parents decisions to give her kidney to her sister, so she gets a lawyer and goes to court with her parents. This is a chaotic situation, but their brother also causes trouble, making the family become more disastrous.

After reading a short summary of My Sister's Keeper, I think that I will learn about a family with many problems. Also, I think that I will be able to learn a little about Biology, since one of the daughters has leukemia, which requires information about biology or some sort of science. I will also be able to learn about a family who goes to court, and I can see what the laws and rights a family has to each other.
The author of this book, Jodi Picoult, was born on May 19, 1967 in New York. She started writing books as a child, and during her time in college, she met her husband, and also published stories in Seventeen magazine. Now, she lives in Long Island with her husband,Tim Van Leer and her three children. Some surprising facts about Jodi Picoult is that was awarded the New England Bookseller Award for fiction, her first book The Lobster Which Misunderstood was written when she was five years old, and she that she attended Harvard University.