The Hunger Games

This series is one of those books that I've heard about over and over again, and kept putting off reading them. I finally got my sticky paws on the trilogy and read through it in a week. (Which, is impressive because I've done a lot of textbook reading and homework too, and usually if I do one I don't do the other). Regardless, it was a terrifying tale. One that leaves imprints of dread on my heart. I felt as though I knew the character, as if she was my friend, and she just experienced one of the worst things imaginable. Honestly, by the end of the third book I couldn't stop crying. I am glad I finally got the nerve to read it.

Memorable Quotes:

“For there to be betrayal, there would have had to been trust first.” Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

“You don’t forget the face of the person who was your last hope.” Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

“I’ll be able to wash the damage done by the tears from my face. But no tears come. I’m too tired or too numb to cry. The only thing I feel is a desire to be somewhere else.” Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

“Because sometimes things happen to people and they’re not equipped to deal with them.” Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire

“I can honestly say he’s never been attractive to me. Maybe he’s too pretty, or maybe he’s too easy to get, or maybe it’s really that he’d just be too easy to lose.”

Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire

“I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now, and live in it forever,”

(Peeta) Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire

“It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart.”

(Finnick) Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

“...because something is significantly wrong with a creature that sacrifices its children’s lives to settle its differences.”

Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

 

“...collective thinking is usually short-lived. We’re fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction.”

Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

 

Failure

1. As a young adult, I experienced many different things. Some of these proved to be traumatic and left me damaged, mentally/emotionally. There came a point where I even recognized that I was in over my head with painful emotions and needed help. I went to the Doctor I had seen my entire life, and asked for recommendations on what I should do. I was prescribed an anti-depressant. After weeks of taking the medication, I hadn't felt much better and I was experiencing adverse effects. I was crawling in my own skin, I was uncomfortable. I explained these symptoms to my Doctor and said I no longer wanted to be on the medication and was looking for alternative solutions to my existing problems. My Doctor insisted that I did not know what I was talking about in regards to the adverse effects and said I should continue taking the medication. I told her that I know my body and was not going to and she gave me no other options. I walked out of the office no better than I was before. I turned to an age old medication, of alcohol, and realized if I drank enough I didn't have to feel anything, or even really think of anything. Before long, alcohol was my crutch, my best friend, my escape. Making my problem far worse than it had been before, and then some. My Doctor had failed me, the health system had failed me. My problem however minuet was ignored, and denied...and pushed me to another disease of alcoholism.
2. I read the news the other day. A local lady held up a gas station, one I had been to often. The first report of the incident was a recollection of events that made her appear as if she were evil and an assailant. With understanding, she did hold a cashier at hostage with a gun, this initial article was based off of stereotypical understanding of that situation. Later, another article was posted that stated with her gun she made suicidal remarks and asked the cashier to call the police. She held him at gun point and pointed a gun at the police. The police fired various rounds at the lady, and she was pronounced dead at the hospital. She was failed by us, our doctors, our medical system.
3. My heart breaks because any type of failure in mental health is detrimental to ones future. The lack of proper care of these problems causes more problems, causes irrational behavior, causes death. I am disappointed because as I look now with proper assistance from a certified counselor, I could have had further solutions. With less stigma, with doctors who cared about their clients and not making a buck from a prescription drug company, for more adequate screening tools and availability that lady's life could have been spared.
   I wish to dedicate my life to Mental Health Awareness. To change the way American's view our medical system. To save lives by making it okay to have a problem and okay to seek help and for Doctor's to actually do something that will help.
   
4. I feel like a dreamer.
   I have no idea if such a change could ever happen in a country like this.
   

On the Road

The title On the Road was bounced around a lot during my previous college years. I spent a lot of my time with art majors and literature majors, so I got to learn all sorts of interesting facts and titles of books. One that I have always found intriguing was On the Road, which although character names have been changed was a largely autobiographical work that outlines the road trips Jack Kerouac embarked on. I appreciate this type of work-- traveling memoirs I guess, because there is a gypsy trapped inside of me with so much wanderlust that it hurts. I don't tend to travel to places, I lack the budgeting skills and patience to be able to make a trip, so indulging in the tales of another helps me live vicariously. Due to this, my opinion of the book is biased to be in the like.

As I have made my way through the book, I have noticed a similarity in his writing style to the style of Emma Donoghue in ROOM. His thought processes are expressed as choppy and childish, similar to the five-year old narrator of ROOM. Now, don't get me wrong, Jack Kerouac has a way with words and his prose can be at times melodic and beautiful, it's paired a seemingly immature narrator. This book is recognized as part of the "Beat Generation"; inspired by the usage of drugs and promiscuity. Apparently this was an iconic time period for literature, which is understandable, his free-form style of writing is inspiring enough for myself that I can understand how huge the movement was for literature.

Part two on to the rest of the book it becomes more evident that the characters are neurotic from drug usage. The content is full of jibberish and I began losing my patience and attention to the book here. It was hard to follow. This must be what defined the Beat Generation. Drug usage, confused jumbled paragraphs that are just wild. The men just look for women to make it with, use and leave, while they scour the country looking for trouble. Stealing cars and leaving their bastard children behind. What a puke.

Good to know that men in the 1940s were just a piggist misogynists as they are now.

Pride and Prejudice

Here's the first of an upcoming trend of posts. I am trying to improve my vocabulary, as well as improve my reading and writing skills. I used to read/write often and now I do neither, except on rare occasion. Therefore, to practice vocabulary usage and writing I will be doing writing about stuff I have read, giving my opinion and whatever else I feel like it. Since no one reads this it doesn't really even matter.

I tried reading this because I have heard it mentioned several times, and in some of the literature classes I wish I had taken to be forced to read these stories (although I would have probably blown it off anyways), this one has been mentioned time and time again. Some of the women and girls in my life actually enjoy this story, so I thought let's give it a try.

What a bore!

TO have so much praise and recognition the plot line was egregious for my taste. To me, this is just portrays that the women of varying economical/social backgrounds had nothing better to do with their time than trying to pair off with rich men or their cousins so that they would be taken care of with "wealth" or their "family wealth". On top of that, instead of doing anything productive with their lives, they gossiped and gossiped some more. (Times have changed so much!!)
What a life that must have been!
Don't get me wrong, I realize this is a different country and a much different time, but I have always envisioned this time as so romantic. I, sometimes, wished that I could just experience the feeling of being "courted" and "wooed". I was mistaken, since this time was full of gold-digging. I wonder if the men felt as disgusted about "gold-digging women" as they do now, since we have Kanye singing about gold-diggers...Well maybe those women were just taking a lesson from pride and prejudice and looking for men that could give them money or keep their family wealth alive.

I did not finish the book, but for what I am guessing the idea is that there was a false pretension when the characters judged someone right off the bat as a jerk. I'm guessing that at the end, they realized their first impression of a prideful, selfish man was false and lesson learned. Or perhaps, to fit alone with the hours of snore reading, the end is just continued gossip and them finding out that he is just the way they perceived.

I guess I am happy that the main goal in my life is not whether or not I will be married off to someone, ANYONE, who will be able to provide for me. I am also happy to see that we are not in a culture that revolves around the "felicity" of men, and women making sure that is maintained... that would make me puke.

Thank god for the feminist revolution, so now we have different things to gossip about and our parents aren't consumed with who will marry our children, more hopefully my child will not end up "knocked up" before marriage and will find a job/education to sustain themselves... since now we just have high divorce rates, a lot of bastard children, and a lot of families who cannot sustain on their own but in fact need government subsidized everything...

I guess romance has truly always been nonexistent.

Jimmy Eat World- The Middle

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost, 1915

R.I.P. Caylee Anthony

Hey Everyone,



If you are truly upset by what happened in court with Casey Anthony, channel this energy to a positive.



It is incredibly repulsive how many people have posted how disgusted they are that Casey did not get convicted of murder and how they want to get Caylee Anthony justice.



BE PROUD to know that in our justice system the verdict is not based on emotion or opinion. As it should, verdicts and convictions NEED to be based on FACT, and if you paid attention to the trial, there was absolutely, NO PROOF and NO FACTUAL EVIDENCE to prove without reasonable doubt Casey Anthony committed this crime. You should be happy to know that if you are being TRIED for anything that you won’t be put in jail because someone simply thinks you are guilty of whatever crime or someone is upset & you are the scapegoat for their emotional energy. (That being said, I am not PRO-CASEY ANTHONY, nor do I think she is necessarily NOT GUILTY, but I do believe it is our ethical and moral obligation to base accountability of a crime on fact).



It is hypocritical for any person to complain consistently that they care for the death of Caylee Anthony when they only paid attention to this case because the media glorified and broadcasted the trial religiously for over a month. It is hypocritical to say; well I care because I watch the trial from day one. Had this trial not been advertised and covered by almost every form of media possible, would you had even known or cared? How many cases of child abuse/neglect and/or other children’s death have you read about, caught up on, and followed through until someone was tried in court? How truthful are you being about how much you care about the welfare and justice of children, when you only truly post anything or care because everyone else has jumped on the bandwagon of caring for ONE child vs the thousands of children that are facing similar tragic experiences.



We can create millions of candlelight vigils, host a mob to attack Casey Anthony, complain on facebook and join groups that show just how much you hate Casey Anthony, but let’s face it. We cannot bring Caylee back from the dead, and we can’t retry Casey for the death of her child. It is over. What is NOT over is the children suffering every day without a single media source covering the damage that is happening to them and not a single person caring THAT MUCH to personally involve themselves in ways to change the system. To fight for their rights since they are incapable of speaking up for themselves, and putting them first. Don’t wait until it’s too late to try and make a change for the children who still need YOUR HELP and YOUR VOICE. Read, research, find a way to make a difference, use Facebook as a tool to unite a group to save the children of our country, our world. Fight for the children to save their lives, don’t lazily write posts on facebook that will do nothing positive or make any change.



Think about it.

http://news.yahoo.com/caylees-law-petition-drive-missing-child-laws-change-234203533.html

http://www.socialworkers.org/pressroom/2011/070711.asp

http://www.childwelfare.gov/systemwide/statistics/can.cfm