Reflection for "Out of the darkness" by Jennie Rothenberg Gritz

Reading an interview of an author can tall you a lot about them and how they write. When I read about her life and learned about some of the violence in her life like her husband going to war, I thought that I new why she wrote suck a shocking story. When a writer writes, they some times, not intestinally, put some of their life in the story. Then when people read the stories that this author wrote, they can tell that he might have been hurt through out his/her life. A story can sometimes be read psychologically.

At the end of the interview she asks the questions. “What does war do to families? And what does war actually do to the common person, to the human being? I think that war hurts families very strongly. Anything that happens in a family that is strong, it will affect the family emotionally either in a negative or a positive way. And what war does to the human being is worse. The violence in the war is so strong that it can stay with you forever. It hurts you a lot emotionally to see that and it is something that is best for people not to see. It can stay with a human being for a life time and it is very hard to get through.

I, thankfully, never had to go through something that hurts someone that much. I have heard of a friend that had to go through something alike to war. It is something that separated her from her family and she will never be able to forget. I can not relate to this author because I am very different from her. I can though notice that she had a good life but with a few complications in it. Thoughts complications would always find their way out and made the best in her life.

Reflection for "The Night Bus" by Ada Udechukwu

Trust for me is something very powerful. It is hard to gain someone’s trust and to keep it might be harder for some people. Trust is being able to communicate with a person naturally; not having to be worried about what you do or say. Trust is being able to just talk to someone knowing that they will listen and not tell anybody else. It is hard to get the trust from somebody and keeping it is something that is nice to do. Some people even trust people with their lives. When you lose some ones trust, it hurts both people. It might be like losing a very close friend of yours because you will never be able to look or talk to the same. It is something that is strong and powerful in people and that it think it is great to have.

In the story “The Night Bus”, trust is shown. At first Uloma trusted Monye to tell her how to keep the money safe. The together were hiding the money and keeping each other safe from the robbers. Then finally when they sit together in the seats, they get close. In that part, Uloma trusted him with her body. Monye was the guy that she had decided that it was alright for to be close together. Then when he grabs the gun from her bag, she is thinking that everything would be alright because he is getting up to save her. He makes her believe this because he wanted to take advantage of her. Later on two robbers come in the bus and they rob Uloma. She is scared out of her mind but still does what the robbers tell her to do. Later they start to rape her. I think it was horrifying to find out that the man raping her was her boyfriend. She trusted him with her body and he took that trust away by taking advantage of her. She was stuck because she didn’t know if she should trust this person that she felt like she barley new. This was something disturbing to find out because he took the trust in the worst way possible.

In my family trust is also a very strong thing. Everyone knows already that we can trust each other and we always do. We can trust the other person with our life and we always did that. When trust is broken in our family, it is something horrible. It is like lying to your loved ones. Breaking the trust of someone to me is like breaking their heart. You will never be thought of or spoken of the same. Once trust is broken, you are a different person. Having trust in our family is one of the most important things that runs through it. This is why I was shocked in the story. It makes my think like that is the worst thing that could happen. I also have to remember that trust is broken a lot in life and that I have to be ready to take it.

Reflection2 for Peaches

The most important experiences in your life are the ones that you remember. Those experiences are the ones that taught you to be who you are and the ones that hold your mistakes. The ones that show you who you are are the experiences that came from the people you think as your role models. These people are usually your parents when you are little. When you learn from them, you start to use their way of living, ours. Because of them, you are who you are. As you go on in life, you start to meet people and you learn to change your self according to them. The more people you meet that are different to you, the more you learn and the more you can change who you are. This is what I think happened to Leeda, Birdie and Murphy. They came from different families that they learned to be like. Then when they met each other, the started to learn from each other and grow stronger.

Leeda grew up from a family in which every one had to be perfect. Her mother, grandmother and sister were always the top people in their neighborhood and she had to be just like them. She noticed that she was not like them and that she was unique to them. She was always pressured by her family to be the best. Her older sister was the one that got all the attention in her family so she grew up trying to follow by her steps. She found that whatever she did was not as good as her sister and that she would always be ignored. When she met Birdie and Murphy, she noticed that it was ok to be different. She was able to gain the strength to show her family that she was a good person even though she didn’t follow her sister’s steps. She learned that her mother always loved her even though she didn’t show it very well.

Birdie was from a family that fought a lot. Her parents were getting divorced when her favorite place, the orchard, was falling apart. She found her self caught in-between her parents. She was in the middle of something that she could not handle. She was supposed to take care of the orchard and fix her parents problems all by her self. Also, her parents started using her as a messenger. They started to take of all their steam on her just because she was there. When she was living with only her father, he was too sad about the divorce that he didn’t realize that her daughter was growing up. He was still treating her like a child until she gain the strength to tell him that she was growing up. Murphy and Leeda taught her to stand up for herself and show her father who she really was. Without her too friends, she wouldn’t have been able to stand up for herself when she was in problems.

Murphy came from a family with no father and an irresponsible mother. She learned from her mother that to get what you want; you have to fight and put your self on top of the other. Her mother was very young and was always dating other guys. She did not know how to raise her daughter. This is why her Murphy was always a trouble maker. She was a very good student but she was scared to show other people her strengths. She didn’t know how to show friendship to other people because then she would have to tell other people about her. She learned from her mother that she had to be secret. Leeda and Birdie taught Murphy to be nicer to people. They taught her that the violence was not the only way to get peoples attention. They showed her how to be more open to new things and new people. They were able to make her change and be able to become a better person.

These three girls came from very different families that were all missing something. They were all missing love. The three girls weren’t loved from anybody of their family. Birdie’s parents were too busy fighting. Murphy’s mother was too busy going out with guys. Leeda’s parents were too busy congratulating the older sister. None of them had love from their family so they gave it to each other. At the orchard they learned from each other and because they cared for each other, they were able to have love. Together they all felt like there was a reason to wake up the next morning.

Reflection on Peaches

The way you are raised in your family is the way you learn how to act. When you are little, the people you follow and learn from is your family and mostly your parents. They are the people that are in control of your future because of how they raise you. They choose to raise you a certain way and that is the way you will live your life once you are old enough to go on without them. When you are with them, they are the people that tell you what to do and they are one of the only people that have the right to do that. They are the only people that are superior to you; with them you have to follow by their rules. Once you move on, you unintentionally keep on following those rules. They are the only rules that you’ve gone through so far so you unintentionally keep them. When this happens, it means that you are acting the way your family raised you. You later go out into the world using what you learned in your experience so far and by the rules that your parents taught you. The only way to change this is by meeting people that can teach you their way of living. With this you can learn other rules and then learn which ones are good for you.

In the book, Leeda, Murphy, and Birdie each have very different life styles. They each came from different families that taught their children different customs and they each have different characteristics that stand out. They are each very different and they have difficulties getting through some problems if they don’t have a certain characteristic. When they got together at the peach orchard, they noticed how different they were to each other. Once they started to get along, they realized that they could help each other get through problems. This was because each of the girls had something that they other didn’t. They could teach each other those things and then they would all be stronger. After they learned about each other, they noticed that Birdie was a lot stronger than before, Leeda was not as perfect as everyone thought, and that Murphy was not as strong as everyone thought.

When I meet new people, I easily notice if they are strong or weak. I notice how they are with people and alone. If I make friends with them, then I either take some of their characteristics or they take some of mine. Since I have met a lot of people, I have learned a lot about them and I can get stronger. I learn from them and as I do this I can get stronger as well as them. This can happen because I can learn how they react to new places. If I am not good at that, then I can learn from him and I can have this characteristic. This happens to everyone with out even realizing it.

Annotations for Peaches by Jodi Lynnn Anderson

Peaches:


-Page 3. “Murphy was as a girl could be.” What does that mean?
-Page 11. “Sorry, Gavin said, then turned and sprinted leaving her behind.” Why did he leave her and not help her up?
-Page 15. “Every time Leeda’s sister, Danay, came home for the weekend, which was just about every other weekend, their mom spent most of her time gazing at her in awe.” Is she jealous?
-Page 18. “With her mother, Leeda acted a lot.” Her mother doesn’t understand her.
-Page 21. “At times like this, she wanted him more than ever.” She has someone to go to when she is hurt, that is good.
-Page 24. “You were my little bad lucky charm” This is something that she shouldn’t tell her daughter; it could hurt her.
-Page 27. “Horatio Balmeade was the Darlingtons’ only neighbor.” Does she have friends?
-Page 28. “They were so much family that Birdie couldn’t imagine life without them.” They are close to her.
-Page 31. “She fell backward into the grass. So much for luck.” She was nervous.
-Page 33. “Not if I die of boredom first” Murphy is not used to this type of stuff. She is more of a city girl I think.
-Page 37. “Birdie’s bottom lip quivered.” Birdie was just trying to help Murphy.
-Page 41. “Birdie didn’t chitchat.” Birdie doesn’t have a lot of friends so she gets nervous when she has to talk to someone her age.
-Page 49. “I’m in your bio class.” Murphy and Leeda are getting along.
-Page 53. “Birdie has always wanted Leeda to be her friends, and she still had no idea why.” I think it is because she doesn’t have a good social life so she is trying to ‘hang out’ with Leeda who she thinks is ‘cool’.
-Page 54. “Birdie, you’re just like your mother.” This was harsh on Birdie.
-Page 56. “Birdie why don’t you make friends like Leeda does?” Birdie is trying as hard as she can to make friends and her dad isn’t appreciating it.
-Page 57. “We could go to Smoaky Lake… how about we sit in the AC watching a movie?” Birdie is more of a nature girl and Leeda is more of an inside girl.
-Page 63. “The orchard was the world to them, that they’d never seen Taco Bell.” She’s noticing that she is not in a different world; she is in someone else’s world.
-Page 64. “Every few minutes someone made an effort to include her.” They are nice to her when she doesn’t even care about them.
-Page 71. “They both went tumbling down, laughing, sending glossy rings rippling across the lake.” They are getting along. This was surprising; I thought they wouldn’t get along.
-Page 74. “How can you not like trees? It’s like not liking water, or the sun, or breathing.” Now Murphy is getting used to the nature.
-Page 83. “Leeda, her cousin, whom she’d known her entire life, had snuck out with Murphy while she, Birdie, had gone to bed at ten o’clock.” She was left out. She wasn’t part of the group.
-Page 84. “Yeah, okay. Whatever. She scowled at the dogs, at Birdie, then trudged up the stairs.” Murphy isn’t even trying to be nice to Birdie. This probably hurts Birdie and she doesn’t defend herself.
-Page 88. “You could blame him for not wanting to flirt with a chubby girl with a mustache.” She thinks so badly of her self.
-Page 90. “Maybe it’s better for him to get out of farming.” You can’t give away something that has been your whole life that easy.
-Page 94. “Birdie said, I’ll see you.” Murphy and Birdie had a good conversation. Maybe Murphy noticed how lonely Birdie is.
-Page 100. “She wanted to help. She wanted to belong with people who helped one another.” She realized that the life she has to go back too is not a very good one and she want to be part of something.
-Page 102. “Birdie just couldn’t believe how good people could be. And also how disappointing.” Birdie didn’t do anything wrong to them and they let her down.
-Page 103. “Not everyone is as, um, strong… not everyone cares like you. That is it.” Enrico noticed how good of a girl Birdie is and he helped her see that. I like how much she helps people and how unselfish she is.
-Page 112. “Maybe it would be better if I got out of your hair.” Her parents don’t pay attention tow her. She needs someone that loves her.
-Page 117. “Birdie had thought maybe she was reconsidering the divorce. Now it seemed it was just becoming more concrete.” She’s not giving time to think about what is going on. This is too hard on Birdie.
-Page 119. “If her dad had given up and her mom had given up, then how could she hold things together on her own?” Birdie is going through a hard time.
-Page 122. “I don’t need an escort, Murphy said” She’s smart and she doesn’t care what other people think but she strands up for her self.
-Page 127. “When she saw Leeda, she lifted her head slightly and just said simply, you.” They are friends for a while then at school they are not. Does this help them?
-Page 131. “More exhausted then she’d ever been in her life, and also more drained.” She cares a lot about the peaches. This time she is stronger.
-Page 134. “During each commercial break Birdie tried to think of something to say.” She is strong enough to go talk to him this time. They are both very nervous.
-Page 137. “She’d never felt more desperate for someone to talk to. And there was no one.” She needs someone that loves her and that she can trust.
-Page 140. “She never would have imagined that Murphy could look so defeated or that she would want anyone to see her that way.” Just like Birdie, she needs someone to talk to.
-Page 141. “I was wondering if maybe you’d take me to sneak out.” She gained confidence in herself.
-Page 145. “Murphy was doing laps, and Leeda was sitting on the edge of the lake.” She is having fun for the first time in a long time.
-Page 148. “She had this uneasy feeling that she didn’t want to let Birdie down.” Now Murphy also noticed how good of a person Birdie is.
-Page 151. As if she was wondering if they were really friends yet or strangers again.” I think they are friends.
-Page 157. “She didn’t rally know Murphy or even her cousin, at all… it felt like Birdie and Murphy might turn out to be friends like that…Leeda was happy.” They don’t know each other but they are friends.
-Page 162. “It was like they had double lives, separated distinctly into night and day.” They all needed someone that loved them so now they have each other. Maybe they will help Birdie with Enrico.
-Page 166. “How had Murphy noticed when she hadn’t?” They learn about each other by observing.
-Page 170. “I just love crazy people like this.” They are having fun and helping Birdie.
-Page 175. “Next time we’ll call someone else.” They were having fun but Rex was trying to keep them safe.
-Page 179. “It felt weird to have Birdie and Leeda go off with ought her.” She was used to her being the boss and the center of attention.
-Page 182. “Murphy walked back to her garden and did some more work.” She has something to do when she is alone.
-Page 184. “Sometimes Leeda was stunned at how perfect her sister was.” When she is with her sister, she thinks little of herself.
-Page 187. “She really did love Danay better.” It hurts her to know that her family doesn’t love her.
-Page 188. “Will you guys come with me to the engagement party?” They are sticking together. They are all very different but they get along.
-Page 189. “She was not going to do what she’d done last time, with the Band-Aid.” Her friends helped her gain this courage.
-Page 191. “Then he pulled back, fanning the pages of the books against his fingers.” She had the courage but he isn’t helping her.
-Page 193. “Thanks for coming with me, you guys.” They help each other a lot.
-Page 196. “I wonder what those papers are.” I think they want to know because they don’t want it to hurt her.
-Page 198. “Trust me, you’ll feel much better.” They each have different ways of living and they are showing each other it.
-Page 201. “Lucretia, who wanted only one child and was more than satisfied with the one she had.” This is why she doesn’t love her daughter.
-Page 204. “As they started across the lawn, two faces loomed out at Leeda.” Her friends come to support her.
-Page 206. “In fact, she’d never managed to act this mannerly for this long in her entire life.” She is working hard to please Leeda.
-Page 210. “She needs me” They need each other. They all came from different families were they aren’t loved. Now they have each other.
-Page 215. “You okay, Tweety Bird?” They worry about each other.
-Page 217. “It was like it all didn’t work quite right without the three of them.” They are all different but they connect.
-Page 219. “She wanted to share her success with someone other than two Papillion’s.” Her two friends changed her; before the orchard she wouldn’t have wanted to show anybody her success.
-Page 222. “But Rex poked her ribs and, like a little kid, she laughed and felt stupid for being jealous.
-Page 224. “The last days of the harvest were passing by.” Birdie was finally making friends and she was happy. Her dad is taking that away from her.
-Page 227. “The lump in Murphy’s throat was so big that she couldn’t speak.” Just like they once needed her, she needs them now.
-Page 231. “Loyalty was a funny thing. So was love. They both bit you when you least expected it.” But she was still loyal to them and she still loves them.
-Page 238. “She’d never done something this bad, ever, but she felt like an old pro at it.” She got this from Murphy. They all helped each other become better people.
-Page 240. “And maybe it was partly because this was the last of it, and it would never happen this way again.” This is their last night together. What will happen when they separate?
-Page 242. “The old Murphy would have pounded on the door anyway. But this one shuffled back into her room.” The ‘old’ Murphy wasn’t her anymore. Her friends changed her in a good way.
-Page 245. “Leeda’s my friend” I like that she did this. She cares about Leeda.
-Page 251. “Leeda took off down the stairs two at a time and slammed out onto the porch.” Their friendship is falling apart. They all had good things and together they were perfect. I don’t want them to separate.
-Page 255. “Okay, sweetie.” Leeda is mad at the wrong person.
-Page 257. “I guess what I’m saying is we’re lucky to be stuck.” She loved her sister the whole time but just realized it.
-Page 260. “Finally she turned toward the orchard.” She felt happy and safe in the orchard.
-Page 263. “My dear, duh. My car can make it al the way to Texas.” Murphy went back to Birdie and will help her get the boy she wanted.
-Page 265. “I need you guys to get along. I need Leeda to come too.” They all need each other.
-Page 274. “Enrico, standing in a cloud of dust, coughing and looking as love stuck as anyone she’d ever seen.” What will happen now?
-Page 279. “I’ll probably never see you guys again. I can’t stand either of you!” Birdie finally exploded with all her secrets and thoughts.
-Page 282. “Birdie, this is a bad storm. We’ve gotta get inside.” They care about her.
-Page 287. “It would take at least two years for their trees to bear fruit.” This is a miracle. This will keep the girls together.
-Page 289. “Murphy knew what she had, in fact, always known. That it was she who was the coward.” Without her friends, she wouldn’t have realized this.
-Page 293. “It’s funny; you said it was easy to be jealous of a sister like me. I’ve always felt the same about you.” Leeda is original, not a clone of her mother.
-Page 295. “The fact is, you’re the guy who broke up me and Murphy.” She realized that Murphy was better than Rex.
-Page 298. “I exist, dad. It’s my life too.” She wasn’t this strong before to face up to her dad.
-Page 303. “You’re gonna be my boyfriends right?... I’ve never had one.” She makes everyone feel like she is superior but now she is not.
-Page 306. “They were finally complete.” If one was missing then it wasn’t the same. There were made to stick together not to fight and stay apart.
-Page 311. “This time they would know.” With out each other they were nobody. They were best friends from the start. I like the ending.

Reflection for "The Lost Children" by Margaret Talbot

Getting punished for something that you did is a good why to learn. If someone does something wrong, like a child, they need to learn how to do it the right way. A method that parents use on their children is by punishing them by sending them to their room. This is a method that many people around the world are using and have been using for a long time. Choosing what punishment to give however is the hard part of it. You have to choose what they right punishment is for each ‘crime’.

Since this way of learning and teaching has been used for a long time, I think that it is a good one. What I do not agree with about this is how people choose the right punishment to give. A long time ago people used slavery and beating people as the right punishment for almost everything. They thought that beating people, hitting them and threatening them was teaching them how act right. After a while people realized that this was not the right way to punish and people started to use different ways, jail. Jail was what taught them to behave for a while and then it let people out. As I grew up, I learned what I was not allowed to do and what I was a allowed to do by punishments. The usual punishment for my family was getting sent to their room. This is what would be called a good punishment for what they did. A bad punishment would be hitting the child. This is a crime now but people still do it. In very few families parents get very mad at their children and hit them. This is a very bad punishment and people should know this by common sense.

In the story I thought that it was good that Hutto’s environment was changed. I did not think that it was a good place for children to grow up in and live in. Children are meant to be free and be able to run around. In this place they were not allowed to do this. Also I felt that children are innocent, they still don’t know about the troubles in the world. In Hutto they were experiencing how cruel the world is. They are learning about the bad things that happen to people in the world and they shouldn’t have to go through that when they are so small. When they made the changes in Hutto, it was good that they were putting the effort of making it a better place but I do not think that they should have closed it at the end. I do agree that it was not a good place for children but the parents should have been kept their as ‘punishment’. The place had three meals a day, clean beds, open doors to their cells and more. It was a much better place then the other prisons. I disagree with the story when it says at the end “sometimes children have to suffer for their parents sins.” I think that the children shouldn’t have to suffer. The children follow were their parents go but have no say in what is happening. They should be able to be with their parents if they wanted to but they shouldn’t have to suffer because of them.

Reflection for "The Countertraffickers" By William Finnegan

Violence is shown in this story a lot coming from the people that were taken as prostitutes. The girls in this story have to go through a lot of hard times in their lives and one of them was prostitution. This is something that leaves a Permanente emotional scar. This type of experience, however, might make the weak, stronger. Going through hard experiences always helps you get through another experience that is to come. Very hard experiences are not meant to be the ones to keep you from going on in your life and prostitution is one of them. This is an experience that is very hard on people and it shouldn’t be an experience that people are worried about.

I’ve never had to go through any type of violent experience and I am thankful for that. Violent experiences that people have to go through are blackmail and threats with knives and guns. I can relate to this story more than other men might because I am a girl just like them. I know what they feel like when they are taken. I do not know exactly what they are going through but I will never be able to know exactly what they are going through.

In the story the girls are taken and made believe that they are going to have a good paying job. When they realize that they can make money for their children, they accept the job. Later they notice that they were tricked and they are taken to be prostitutes. They suffer a lot in this because the women’s body is shown to a lot of people. They are also beaten and they can do nothing about it. Once of the girls in the story tried to escape their owners. Even though their plan did not work, they later tried again to escape. I really liked this because I showed that they were strong and that they will fight for who they are and try to escape. What I didn’t like and surprised me was that once the girls were able to escape with the help of other people, they wanted to go back. They saw how hard life was with no money, food or shelter and they thought it would be easier in the prostitution home. They wanted to go back and risk dieing. Some of them respected their owners even though the owners didn’t respect them. The ones that respected the owners wanted to go back to them and not leave them. What I think they meant in the story when they said at the end “some things can not be fixed” is that they can finally escape but emotionally they will never be the same. They will be better because they don’t have to go through that life again. What will never be the same is the permanent emotional scars.

Reflection for "Struggles" by Philip Gourevitch

In struggles I noticed that just like “The Rebellion Within” they also used violence as the answer. What I think will happen if this continues to happen is that more and more people will start to you violence as the answer. When one person wins with violence then the other people will believe that violence does help. Because of this, everyone will start to use it. If at least one group of people starts to use peace and show the world how good it will be with peace, then more people will use peace as the answer. Peace will get nobody hurt and it will make people live their lives happier.

Something that shocked me in the story was when they talked about who was the people that were beaten. It said that the foreigners were all beaten and they were forced out of their homes. Even though they think that by doing this everything will get better it does not mean that it is not rude. They try to take the foreigners out of their country for being different. Some people don’t respect the people that are different to them and I do not think this is right. Also it said that they would beat the people that looked like foreigners. They would look at the people and decide if they were foreigners or not. If they thought that they were foreigners then they would beat them. Innocent people would get beaten and the mob would be racist against the people.

Everyone has to fight through struggles in their life and war isn’t one of them. Everyone has a different life and different problems to fight through in their life and other useless things are in their way. People start to get worried about looking like a foreigner in a different place or they get worried about people killing other people for no reason. These are not the problems that people are supposed to have stopping them from doing other things. People should be able to get through their life without having, as a main problem, useless things. These things can be one little thing to think about but not what ruins a persons life.

Reflection "After" Looking for Alaska

Losing someone that you care about is something that is very hard to get over. It is something that you don’t see coming and it happens when you least expect it. When you have the people that you love, you don’t realize that you wouldn’t be able to live if they weren’t with you. Since you don’t realize this, you act as if they were nobody and sometimes you don’t appreciate them as they are. You also want more from them when that is all they can give to you. After they leave you when you least expect it, you realize how much you loved them and how much you miss them now that they are gone. You finally see what you had and how good it was once you lost it. You can lose a friendship and notice how good it was once they are gone.

A question that is repeated a lot in the story is: How do we get out of this labyrinth of suffering? A character in the story, Pudge, answered this question how he thought it was and I disagree with him. He said that to get out of the labyrinth you get recycled and that the real life is what you find after you get out of the labyrinth. I think that there is no answer to this; your life is the labyrinth. You don’t have to get out of the labyrinth; you have to choose which way to go in the labyrinth. I think that the labyrinth is your life and all you have to do is choose which way to go in your life/labyrinth.

The only time that I lost someone that was close to me was when I was in first grade. I had no idea what was going on but I understood that I wouldn’t see her again. This, however, did not change anything because I was too little to understand what was going on. Then another time that this happened to me was that my grandmother’s brother passed away. I didn’t get to know him so when this happened it didn’t affect me as much as it did to other people. What happened later was that I felt like I should have gotten to know him before this happened. I felt like I didn’t appreciate him when he was alive.

When Pudge and the Colonel found out about their best friend dieing, at first, they couldn’t believe it. Pudge started saying that it was not true and that it was just a prank. Then when he talked with the Eagle, he realized that it was true. After that you started to blame himself. He started to think that if he would have tried to stop her, then she would be alive. I think that this happened because of the shock. At first they don’t believe it and then they take fault for it. Later Pudge and the Colonel started to leave other people out from there group thinking that they were the only people who really understood them. By doing this they didn’t realize that they were about to lose another friend. Because of the shock of there best friend dieing, they forgot about their own lives.

Annotations "After" Looking for Alaska

After:

Page. 141 “Ok, seriously, she’s not dead” He is in shock. Neither he nor the colonel could believe that there best friend died.
Page. 145 “We could have stopped her” They’re blaming themselves now I’m socked about what happened.
Page. 147 “Lara came in” How will he tell her that he cheated on her? Will she be able to trust him later?
Page. 148 “Hold my hand will ya?” They are really good friends and they can trust each other.
Page. 151 “It cannot be as hard as being left behind/” I think I agree with him.
Page. 153 “I knew you wouldn’t make me do that alone” They are so good friends and they’ll stick together to get through this”
Page. 157 “e could never be anything but wholly, unforgivable guilty” They shouldn’t feel guilt! It wasn’t there fault”
Page. 161 “I couldn’t afford to lose the colonel” He is very sad but he realized about the other friends he also has. He can’t lose him too.
Page 164. “Ah hope y’all find out whatever y’all’s lookin’ for” What were they looking for and why?
Page 168. “It wasn’t suicide” Would it help them if they found out if it was suicide or not>
Page 170. “I’m tired of following orders, asshole!” He is still sad about Alaska and he’s letting his anger out. He is going to lose the colonel.
Page 174. “She wasn’t there, wasn’t anywhere” She isn’t there but she will stay in there memories
Page 177. “Yeah will he’ll hate us more if we pretend like he doesn’t exist” They are so sad about losing one friends that they don’t realize that they are losing another.
Page 181. “I learned from the best” I like their friendship. They trust each other.
Page 185. “Don’t tell Lara” Pudge can’t trust Takumi.
Page 187. “She tells me to be continued and tells him she’ll talk to him later” He is jealous.
Page 189. “I wanted to know the how and why of it, and Lara couldn’t tell me, and that was al that mattered.” Sometimes al the cares about is himself.
Page 195. “Figure out haw she died and why” Why do they want to know how she died?
Page 197. “She fell apart because that is what happens.” Maybe the only way out of the labyrinth was to fall apart?
Page 199. “It seems to me that we finally lost her” The memory of her is slowly going away.
Page 200. “She deserves a prank” They are trying to remember her and not forget how she was.
Page 207. “I was worried that it wouldn’t work because Alaska hadn’t planned it” It will never be the same without Alaska.
Page 212. “She left me enough to rediscover the Great Perhaps.” What is the Great Perhaps he found?
Page 214. “All the time later, which you are still alive” It is sad to realize that you are alive and she is not. Also that even though this happened, they are still alive and they have to get past it. Page 214. “We didn’t talk much. But we didn’t need to.” They are good friends so there aren’t any ‘awkward’ silences. Page 218. “So I let her go, too” Everyone says that they ‘let her go’ but I think they were just saying their goodbyes. The Colonel got drunk with her, Pudge kissed her, and

Reflection "Before" Looking for Alaska

Friendship can be shown in many different ways and Pudge learned how it is shown at Culver Creek Boarding School. Different people show it in different ways according to how they’ve grown up and reacted to people in there life. If someone had many experiences in witch he met a lot of bad people, he would be more careful with other friendships and he wouldn’t be nice and welcoming to new people. Other people have experienced many times were they meat nice people and can get along with them easily. This person would not be scared of new people and he would not judge people by there look. A lot of times you can tell how people are and what experiences they’ve had because of how they react with new people and school.

Since I’ve moved a lot to other schools and I’ve met people that moved to different schools, I was able to talk to them about how it was and I learned about there reactions to the people. Since I knew a little about this, when I moved to my new school I was cautions about people knowing more about me because of how I reacted to the new school. Since the school that I changed to were both in different countries, I new that I would find something a lot different from what I was used too. When I went to my new school I had to see how friendship was show there. I think that friendships, since they can be shown in different ways, are hard to get but then harder to let go. It is hard to find a good friend because it is hard to see if you can trust them. Friends are the people you choose to keep but it hard to find them. Once I thought about it, I found that I had many friends but I didn’t know witch ones I could trust. People can usually only trust the people they’ve known more.

Pudge, in his first school, was not used to the type of friendship they had and he was not able to make friends. The preps were friends with the preps geeks with the geeks. He did not like that so he decided to move to another school. In his new school it was easy for him to find out the type of friendship that they had, trust. He learned that, to be friends with the people, he has to make sure that they trust him. What confused him at a point was when one of his best friends lied to him and betrayed the group. He did not know ho to react to this and he just followed what other people did. What I noticed that happened in part one is that they would always stick together. If something happened to one person, for example in a class room, and a teacher got mad at them, then another one of the friends would leave the class with him and stand up for him. After Pudge made friends and had a good relationship with people, something happened to Alaska and nobody new what. After this, she ran away and we didn’t hear from her yet. Nobody knows what happened to her yet but Pudge really misses her. Also something that I noticed in the book was that a lot of times people would get together and be friends even though they didn’t talk or have anything in common. I thought that it was just because they needed someone to be with. Everyone at sometimes need someone to be with so they choose this person and be with them for no other reason.

Annotations "Before" Looking for Alaska

Before:
o Page 3. “My mother insisted on throwing me a going-away party” Does this mean that he didn’t want one? Why”
o Page 3. “My mother preserver, awash in the delusion that I had kept my popularity secret from her all these years” Is she not happy about whom her son is?
o Page 4. “I could feel them both looking at me, waiting me to burst into tears or something” Is he sad about not having friends?
o Page 5. “I go to seek a great perhaps” What is a great perhaps?
o Page 7. “I watched them drive the winding road off campus” What was he planning on doing one the were gone”
o Page 10. “I laughed and nodded my head at him (that’s cool right? The nod?” I can tell that he is nervous. He wants to start over and make friends.
o Page 11. “I laughed… he smirked” the friendship is starting good.
o Page 15. “So, Alaska, sell us some cigarettes” He didn’t know that this is how it was going to be.
o Page 17. “The smoke will drive the bugs away” He is trying new things to fit in. Is this good or bad?
o Page 21. “Run, run, run, run, and took of, polling me behind her” I think that they are going to be good friends and help each other get through their problems.
o Page 23. “The geeks hate the preps” I can relate to him about the groups because had groups in my old school.
o Page 27. “Have a good time, he said, ya, I had a ball” This surprised me! How will he know who his real friends are?
o Page 29. “In a place were you never know what will happen or when” He is learning what is it like being alone.
o Page 33. “Nothing you can do! She said excitedly” I think he found his group of friends.
o Page 38. “I’m a bad boyfriend. And she is a bad girlfriend. We deserve each other!” Are they really staying together because they have nobody else?
o Page 40. “I’m sorry… but that’s bullshit…were not allowed to glance out the window?” Alaska was standing up for hi. I think this surprised him.
o Page 43. “Y’all smoke to enjoy it, I smoke to die” What is the point of this”
o Page 46. “So they just suck?... I don’t understand the point of watching your terrible team gets walloped” Maybe it is an excuse for the school to get together.
o Page 49. “The ref came up and kicked him out of the game, I followed him” They always stick together.
o Page 54. “You spend your whole life in a labyrinth thinking of how you will escape it” Maybe your life is the labyrinth.
o Page 57. “You don’t need to be nervous” They are helping each other.
o Page 59. “We found you a girlfriend” The group of friends keep a lot of secrets but they always help each other
o Page 63. “Lara ran out and sat down next to me, are you okay?” hay did she got help him if he ignored her?
o Page 66. “Sadder than I thought I’d be, anyway” He realized what he had after it was gone.
o Page 67. “The rain came all at once in a furious torrent” Is this reached peace.
o Page 73. “She was smart, really, to rat on one of her friends” Why did she rat on her friends?
o Page 74. “Survival at the creek meant loyalty, and she had ignored that “She pretends to be someone she’s not.
o Page 77. “And plus, it’s really nice to have, like, friends” He is happier here. It bothered him before that he had no friends.
o Page 79. “Still, I felt unmistakably homesick” He sometimes doesn’t like his friends but they are the only ones he has.
o Page 81. “But I wanted to trust her, so I did” He needs someone to trust and really call “friend”.
o Page 88. “If people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane” He thinks of himself as very little. Maybe he thinks this because of all his other experiences.
o Page 93. “I’m grateful for just having had my best thanksgiving in a decade “what is her family like?
o Page 95. “She didn’t have to rat” Now he’s getting mad because of this but… can he trust her now?
o Page 97. “I had a family” Did he forget about his family because it had been so long since he was with them?
o Page 99. “You don’t have to care for her” He really does care about her even though he can’t trust her.
o Page 110. “I’ll take the fault with Alaska” They always help each other.
o Page 115. “Best day of my life was today” Whatever happens later they all know that they love each other and they’ll always stick together.
o Page 117. “I just never cared anymore, about being a loser or not having any friends” He really did care and now he doesn’t have to worry about that
o Page 119. “Your dad blamed you?” Alaska showed everyone and made them think about not having a family.
o Page 123. “It was a fine end of the best day of my life” He is finally happy.
o Page 124. “Pudge, what you must understand about me is that I am a deeply unhappy person” Why is she so unhappy? How did she get this way? What does she want that she doesn’t have?
o Page 125. “Jeez, go easy on the guy? Why does Pudge want to go easy on him if the almost killed Pudge. Maybe he noticed how bad revenge is.
o Page 129. “I didn’t know how to talk to her” They barley know each other. Why are they together?
o Page 32. “I just have to go! Help me out of here!” What happened to her? Why did she want to leave? Was it because she cheated on her boyfriend?

Reflection on "The Rebellion Within" by Lawrence Wright

I did not like this story because of all the revenge that it had. I noticed that in all the cases all the people like Zawahiri asked Imam, always wanted to have more control or make sure that other people know who they are. Since they wanted this, all they did was rebel against other people or find revenge. A lot of the times, however they tried to rebel or find revenge and they did not succeed. Even though this happened, they did not learn from there mistakes and they continued doing the same as before.

I do not understand the point of rebelling. If you lost a war or anything then that is were it is supposed to end; you are not supposed to add on to the discussion. If you rebel or take revenge on the situation, it is just adding on to it and asking for more. When this happens you may or may not get what you want but you get nothing except pride. In the story they never tried to take peace instead of rebelling. If they had tried to take peace, the ending might have been a little better that it was with rebellion. Taking a peace also shows that you did not give up but you still want it to stop. This way nobody wins and nobody loses.

I did not like this story but it still shows a lot that happens in the world. In the world there is a lot of rebelling and revenge going on and even though some people do not want to face it, it does happen a lot. I said that I did not like the story because of that and maybe I thought that because it is showing me how people really are in the world. It has gone around so much that I probably do it without even noticing it. Everyone around us always wants some revenge and we have grown so used to it that we don’t notice it anymore. This story can show people and make them think about our world a little more.

Reflection on "Communion" by Uwem Akpan

I thought this story a confusing but good one because of how the boys acted in the different situations and the different environments. When the boys were in the street, witch was there “home”, they were disrespectful and they were trying to steal money from the main character. Later when they were in the church, they were still disrespectful but they tried to copy what the other people did. Once they got into the line to have there communion, they were respectful to the other people and they did the right thing. In each of the environments that they were in, they acted how they thought it was appropriate. Even though they didn’t have any manors, they tried to act right. They were raised to get money to live from people from the street and that is what they did to the main character. They did not know that what they were doing was wrong. What I think was very good of them to do, however, was that when they realized that they did something wrong when they took the umbrella, they gave it back to the owner at the end.

Many people act differently in the different environments. They act differently when they are in the park and in a stranger’s house without even realizing it. When someone is in there house, they act how they were raised. Then when someone is in the park, they have fun and they can run around everywhere. Sometimes, however, someone can mistake these two places and act as if they were in the park, in there house. I think that this is what happened too the children once they entered the church. As people grow, they start to mistake these two things a lot less. When someone is young, they start to learn how they should act in each place and they start to experiment the places. Once they learn about every place, they know how to act in the places.

Since the boys in the story got confused about how to act in the places, I got confused if they had good or bad intentions. When the boys gave back the umbrella to the character, I noticed that this was a good intention. But, in the beginning of the story, the character explained how they kids picked pockets and stole. This showed me that when they stole there were just trying to be able to live. When they steal I did not notice if they were doing it because they were raised that way or it was because they had to do it to live. Because of these two parts, I did not know of the boys on the street were doing things with good or bad intentions. I liked this story because to fully understand it, you had to think about it.

Reflection on "Marie Micheline" by Edwidge Danticat

I really liked the story “Marie Micheline”. This story is a personal history story and it is a very interesting one to read and learn. It is a story that can teach you things about these people and how they lived. It does not, however, teach it to you like it would in a history book; it teaches it like a story. It is a good story to read and I liked it because it taught me a little about these people. After I finished reading I thought to myself, do all these people have lives like Marie Micheline? Do they all have this relationship with there family? Do they all act this way against pregnancies? I think that these questions could be answered with another story like this about these people. By reading another story about these people, I would have been able to read about two different families, not one.

Marie Micheline’s life was a very hard one. She went through many complications in her short life and I think that this happened because of the family she lived with. I think that your life changes if you do not live with your real parents. She called her uncle her dad but this was not true. Her real mother and father did not raise her and they passed away a long time ago. Because of this, she was raised by a family that wasn’t really hers and she wasn’t loved like a daughter; she was loved like a niece. The difference in these two is how you are treated. The parents would always love there daughter more without knowing it. I think that if she had living parents, then she would have made better decisions and been able to have gotten more help.

This story really shocked me. What shocked me were all of the decisions that Marie had to take and what she was going through. Her experiences where harsh and they made me think about other people that might have gone through the same decisions. Marie Micheline was a girl that always tried to think about other people before herself. She put other people before her. She mainly thought about her children first though. For example, when she was hurt and her uncle came to help her, the first thing she thought about was her little girl. Also she died thinking of her children. When she was going to close the door to hide away from the solders and be able to live, she thought about her children wanting to come in and finding the door locked. When she thought of them she got so scared that she was frightened to death. She died trying to save her children when she could have saved herself. Her intentions towards the situation really astonished me because it showed how the most important thing in her life, her children, was more important to her than her life itself.

Reflection on "Crabs" by Edwidge Danticat

This story to me was very upsetting. In his religion it is known that you would pray for food when you didn’t have it. His family was all suffering of starvation just like him. When his uncle taught him and his cousins that they had to pray, they did it to be able to get food and live. After they started to pray, they noticed that there prayers were working because they got more food. The little boy said that he was praying for hope but also because of terror. I think that he shouldn’t be praying for terror; he should only pray for hope. I believe that prayers only work if they are with hope. As he prayed more, he was getting more food witch taught him that praying do work. I thought it very upsetting when he was praying a lot and he stops praying when he gets food that he is allergic to. I think that the food was only supposed to teach him that he doesn’t always get what he wants. What it really taught him was that praying doesn’t work. Because of this, he stopped praying ever again. This is the wrong solution that he took. His prayers have worked before and only because they don’t work once; it doesn’t mean that he should stop. By never praying again he is betraying his family because he is not trying to help himself or his family live. This story is teaching people to give up on what they believe in. It should teach that following what you believe will help you get through your life.