Novel Reading blog- 11/30/08

Now I will resume with part one of Paper Towns, The Strings. In chapter 5, after they leave the flowers for Karin, they go to Jase's huge Spanish style mansion in a very rich subdivision. Margo takes a fish and writes "MS's love for you lies with the fishes" and throws it through a huge window causing it to break, while she spray painted a huge M on the Wall. They had a great security system so when she broke the window, a deafening siren sounded and the house lit up like christmas. Police sirens were in the distance so they gunned it out of there and made their way to Lacy Pemberton's house, a good friend of Margo's. Lacey's house is in a condo above a nice sushi store, so they have to park somewhere where there is no streetlight. The two of them find her black SUV and Margo has to jimmy the car lock to get the car open. After a minute they are in the car and they both lift up the drivers seat, throw the last of the 3 catfish underneath the seat, let the seat crash down only to hear the sound of exploding catfish guts while Margo closed the door. Q went on top of the car and spray painted a big M on it. Never had he been a fan of vandalism, but he felt it was justice and could not imagine how bad the car would smell the next morning. For part 9, they go to downtown Orlando. Surprisingly, downtown Orlando is not like most downtowns because it mainly consists of only a few skyscrapers owned by banks and insurance companies It's the kind of downtown that becomes absolutely deserted at night and on the weekends, except for a few nightclubs half filled with the desperate. They drive to the SunTrust Building. Margo tells Q that they are there to check on their progress, but Q is hesitant because he thinks that there are too many guards and what not. Fortunately, Margo knows the security man whose name is Gus. They race up to the top of the building to find themselves in the Conference room with the best view of the city. Q says that everything looks perfect from far away, how things get ugly up close. But, Margo goes off saying that it's fake and how it's a paper town with paper people and a mania for owning things. Sitting in the minivan, Margo lets Q decide who to take punishment on next for part ten. Q picks Chuck Parson, a jock who was a bully to everyone except the social elite. Margo asked him if he remembered the Crown School of Dance. Q goes on in his head to explain what it was. In sixth grade, a bunch of kids including Margo and Chuck were forced by their parents to take ballroom dancing lessons at the Crown School of Humiliation, Degradation, and Dance. And how it worked was the boys would stand on one side and the girls would stand on the other and then when the teacher told the boys to, they would walk over to the girls and the boy would say, "May I have his dance?" and the girl would say, "You may." Girls weren't allowed to say no. But one day Chuck convinced every single girl to say no to Q. He has been forever embarrased till this day. They snuck in through his window which was relatively low to the ground. Then, they put veet on his right eye brow and vaseline in his hand. Q proceded to slather vaseline on all doorknobs, windows, and surfaces of his room. As he softly wiped away the veet, Chuck woke up in time just to have Margo slam a comforter on his head while Chuck blindly screamed, "MAMA! DAD! ROBBERY ROBBERY!." After the flew out the window, they sprinted to the minivan. In the minivan, Margo tells Q that the last part, part 11, is breaking into SeaWorld. Q freaks out at this but Margo tells him to think of it as visiting SeaWorld in the middle of the night for free. Margo planned their entrance, they were to go across the highway, through a moat, and into SeaWorld.  As they pulled themselves out of the moat, Q noticed Margo's achilles tendon flex and then he saw the snake bite her. He wretched it free from her ankle and started sucking the blood from where the bite was. Margo yelled to stop because she saw that it was only a garter snake. They both thought of it to be an insult to their ninja like ways. When they get into SeaWorld, an old security guard catches them, but Margo sweet talks their way out of him calling the police. He leaves them alone. Margo tells Q how the pleasure isn't in doing things, its in planning things because they never turn out to be as great as you expect them to be. Then, the speakers turned to a song called "Stars fell on Alabama" and the two danced for a while before they went to a 7-eleven to buy dish towels to dry up the inside of the mini-van. When they were at home in the driveway, Margo told Q "I. Will. Miss. Hanging. Out. With. You." Q told her that she didn't have to but she gave him a smile climbed the tree to her bedroom window and went away.

This is the end of part one, The Strings. 

Novel Paper Towns Reading blog- 11/26/08

As noted from a previous blog post, I am reading the novel Paper Towns by one of my favorite authors, John Green. 

     For a recap, the book is about a boy named Quentin Jacobsen who has lived next to Margo Roth Spiegelman in the same Orlando subdivision since they were very young. As children, they played together, until one day when they were nine. That day, Margo and Quentin found a body in a nearby park. Neither of them knew this man, Robert Joyner, who killed himself in the park that the two were playing at. This changed their relationship. Now Margo and Quentin are high school seniors. They still live next door to each other, and Quentin still adores Margo and thinks that she is amazing/gorgeous, but they don't really talk. Margo is the pretty and popular one who is very adventurous while Quentin hangs out with the bandees and has a bright future. One night, Margo climbs through his window and takes him on an adventure, consisting of pranks on the people who betrayed Margo through all her live/popularity, and takes Quentin along to have some fun. 

The book is divided into 3 sections: The Strings(chp: 1-9), The Grass(chp: 10-20), and The Vessel(is broken into hours and then when they reach their destination, Agloe).

The Strings.

This section is only about the night of pranking which consists of 11 separate pranks. First, They go to the 7-eleven and buy: 3 whole Catfish, wrapped separately, Veet, Vaseline, six-pack mountain dew, one dozen tulips, one bottle of water, tissues, one can of blue spray paint. Next, they go to walmart to buy "the club" which locks a steering wheel in place. When they are at the store, Margo blows an air horn and a manager comes up. He mistakes Q for Margo's younger brother which makes him mad, and Margo says that they are a happy couple which makes the manager stop flirting with her. When they leave, they head to Becca Arlington's house. Margo doesn't like her because Becca stole her ex-boyfriend Jase Worthington from her and he was also at her house that night. Margo proceeds to Jase's car and puts the club on the steering wheel of his Lexus. Then, Margo makes Q call their house so that Becca's dad answer's the phone and tells his dad that his daughter and jase were having sex in his basement. This got her dad to go downstairs and yell at them. They hide behind bushes next to the window of the basement for when Jase runs out. Q manages to snap a picture of him making an escape to his car. Then Margo climbs through the window to take his clothes in case he decided to return to get them. On their way out, Q puts a catfish in her closet and Margo spray paints a giant M on their wall and they take off to Karin's  house, where Margo leaves the tulips on her doorstep to apologize for how she said horrible things to her when she delivered the news to Margo about Becca and Jase. 

reading blog-11/23/08

I recently read an article "Why delay till summer?" by Harry Westall. In this article it talks about why Warner Bros. is delaying the release of Harry Potter 6 until summer. The movie was supposed to come out this winter. Many people believe it to be that they want a summer blockbuster, but the Company says otherwise. A main reason for this is the usage of their set. Since it is located on an island, the weather was very extreme and caused damage to the property which had to be repaired. Another is the changes in the script which has been revised more than 2 times. Although this has dissapointed many fans, it will still be popular whenever it is showed.  

READING BLOG-11/19/08

Recently I read an article called "The revolutionary women: Marie Antoinette" by Sofie Aburgene. In this article it talks about Marie's life starting from before she was sent to France to mary Louis XVI to her death at the Guilleton. As a young girl, she grew up in Austria among her many brothers and sisters. At the age of 10, Prussia had become a threatening power to Austria. At 14, Prussia had joined forces with Russia and had taken over the Austrian possession of Silesia. Austria had felt threatened that Prussia might try to take over more of their possessions so they joined forces with France. This was a big deal because they were both originally enemies. For this, Austria sent Marie to be wed to Louis XVI as compensation. Marie felt like an alien at Versailles. Her position was vulnerable until she had made an heir to the throne. She did not do this for 7 years, but she did have a girl in 4 years, but the daughter did not count. Marie had another boy 2 years after the 7 years but he died at the age of 2. Also, Marie's mom died between the death of her son and the birth of her daughter. She became a court favorite by indulging in much jewlery, clothing, shoes, dogs, food, and much more. Also, Marie was a fan of Opera's and had a talent for singing. Unfortunately, her husband was very indecisive about things so he agreed to send aid to the American's in the American Revolution. This put a huge strain on government resources and caused the well being of France's peoples to go down. In turn, all prices of grains went up which to the Middle and lower classes was outrageous. People started to blame Marie as the Queen of debt and that she put them in this trouble. In her later years, things did not get better, and when the French Revolution started, Marie and Louis XVI were killed by the Guilleton.

Reading blog-11/16/08

In Last Christmas, chapter 9, Ariana tells Daniel that she needs to stay later and can meet him in Vermont the next day due to her paper. Ariana gave Daniel the hat that she bought him but he was to pissed of at her being late to care. At breakfast, Daniel offers to help her get out early, but she tells him that he can take up her luggage and try on his hat. But during the conversation Ariana gets a text from thomas that says "Old chapel, 7 p.m. Don't be late, naughty girl." Daniel asks her who it is and she says no one but he wants to know. Ariana tells him that she should get privacy but Paige says that he has a right to know. Ariana says that it's her mom and everyone buys it. When everyone starts to leave Daniel says that he'll come by to pick up her stuff. She says yes and kisses him in front of Thomas to show him that she doesn't care about him. 

Reading blog-11/12/08

I am recently reading the book Last Christmas by Kate Brian. It is a prequel to the private series books. This book is about Ariana Osgood's love life with Thomas Pearson a year before Reed Breenan showed up, and before Ariana attempted to kill Reed. So far, I am at chapter 8. The book starts out with october of senior year, when she killed Thomas Pearson. It says how after Noelle, Kiran, and Taylor had tied him up and beaten him, she had went back to untie him. Since they had a previous relationship, she thought that he still loved her. But, when she says these things Thomas starts telling her she's psycho, crazy, and just like her mother. This hits her hard and she picks up a baseball bat and kills him. Then it goes to december of Junior year where all of the easton students are at the Winter Ball having a good time. She is going out with Daniel Ryan, Paige Ryan, the president of Billings, brother, both of whom are seniors. At the ball, the Billings girls and their boyfriends are sitting, eating, talking about winter break plans when a new Exchange student, Segei who is a photographer, starts taking pictures of the girls at the table. Daniel gets upset when he see's pictures of Ariana on his camera so he takes his camera away. After everyone left, Thomas met with Ariana alone and they talked. She realized that even though Daniel was perfect on paper he wasn't in life and that she wanted Thomas. When she got back to her room, Noelle told her that a fool would pass up Daniel for Thomas. Later, Ariana was trying to write her paper on Madame Bovary, when her mother called. They talked about her plans to go to Vermont with Daniel and how proud she was of Ariana. After the assembly, Thomas catches Ariana and tells her that she likes being called his nicknames and the like, but Paige was there to witness it. When walking back from english, Paige said that Ariana better not be late to Vermont, but Ariana still needed to write her paper in a matter of hours. At chapter 8, Noelle and Ariana go to the North Face Store to get Daniel a christmas present. Noelle leaves to a different store. Thomas surprises her by going into the store also. Ariana didn't want to be seen with him because Paige would get really mad. Then Thomas leans in to kiss her but a girl knocks a rack into them. All of a sudden Ariana fells like someone is watching them and tells Thomas to leave. After meeting up with Noelle, they see Sergei with his camera coming out of the North Face with a shopping bag and Noelle thinks that its cute that he has a crush on Ariana but she knows better.