Last blog- Longer than intended.

This turned out to be quite a bit longer than you intended I think, but it felt good to get it out. So..

I’m going to write about a moment in my life that will stick with me forever and has changed me to become the person I am today. It happened this summer, and a place I used to live to visit, my summer camp. It is a camp that I attended as a camper for 4 years, and was a staff member for another year after that. This past summer was my 6th and final summer to return there.

This past summer, I was scheduled to go on a trip to Europe for 18 days, and since the weeks there fell awkwardly with the camp’s schedule, I had already decided that I would not be returning as staff that year. I would find a different job, stay home with my horses and my boyfriend, and maybe try to make it work the following year. That being said, the camp is a fantastic place in southern Ohio, isolated from civilization, radiating beauty and pleasure. Therefore, when Mother’s Day weekend rolled around, and the camp hosted their Indian Princess’ weekend as usual, I volunteered to come help, knowing I would not have much chance to visit anytime other than that. I went, working for little pay, sleeping in non-heated cabins, and having the time of my life for one quick borrowed weekend in paradise.
Towards the end of Sunday, as we were getting ready to head back home, the owner of the camp, Dave, and his wife Emily as me personally if there was anyway I could work this summer. They had appreciated me the previous summer, and felt that they were in great need of someone like me in the stables that summer, being short staffed in comparison to last year.
I should interject here that while Dave is possibly the nicest person anyone could ever come across, his wife Emily is… less so. To put in plainly and improperly, the woman is a flaming bitch, knows it, and is proud of it. I have always felt like this, and I promise that nearly anyone, including her husband, will back me up on this. The woman has no regard for your feelings, has no respect, and has no boundaries. She is inappropriate to the campers and shouts all of them to tears if she comes to give lessons at the Horse Camp that is offered. She is a favorite’s player, and I was never, ever a favorite. This would not be an issue had she not chosen to make that a prejudice against anyone who was not a favorite. They become her targets for fire.
So, you can imagine that Emily asking me personally to come back in any way shape or form that I could was flattering. I was not expecting special treatment when I went, knowing she probably asked me out of desperation that desire, but again was flattered nonetheless. I did my best and worked out that I would come for the remaining half of the summer; in total, four weeks.
I arrived at camp happy and ready to work, although slightly put-off from some of the letters I’d been getting from other friend’s telling me that Emily’s favoritism was worse than ever. Ally, another staff member, has been a long time favorite of Emily’s and she was to stay until I got there, although would end up staying for my first entire week.
Basically, what I gathered from it was that, while Ally was there, I wasn't important. I wasn't helpful. She didn't need me and, despite asking me personally to come back, she didn't want me there. Ally has the money to pay for her favorite horse to have a good home in the winter. Therefore, while she is there, She is queen and I am scum. I found out later that the Stable Manager, Kay, was twisting nearly any sentence I ever said into strange, untrue things. Kay is not exactly known for being a helpful friend to anyone that won’t help her get closer with Emily, so I’ve never confided in her. I know where to draw my boundaries. For instance, I, according to Emily, informed by Kat, told the whole staff that I had an "in" with Emily and that’s why I got to go home for my own graduation party the first weekend I was there. As I recall it, this was my condition to coming back to camp- I would be happy to come, but if I couldn't go home this weekend, I really couldn't work for them. We had already planned the party and they asked me again to come back in May, so she knows this. I thought.


Anyways after a week of being treated like shit, I came home and thought about what I was doing with my summer. I decided that if she blew up at me for nothing (for example, telling her there is no fly spray upstairs and she screams "DO NOT TALK BACK TO ME, SASSY. DO WHAT I TELL YOU AND GO CHECK HORSECAMP FOR FLY SPRAY" in front of numerous campers, counselors, Kay, and several dogs) again, then I would quit. But, since Ally had left the previous Thursday, I was hopeful that things would continue to be slightly better, as they had the Friday before I left, when she neither shouted at me nor blamed me casually for things I wasn’t aware I had any part in (for example, a few day’s earlier, it had been my fault some stalls that were Kay’s job to clean, hadn’t been cleaned).

And for a week, it was. Emily wasn’t nice, per-say, but she was at least calm and didn't bitch at me to my face. I have no doubt, especially now, that it was going on when I wasn't there, but at least she wasn't shouting at me in front of my campers, because that is I something I really couldn't handle.

Then, the following Wednesday evening, after I had cleaned the majority of lower stables (despite A) it being Kat's job, at least half of it, and B) I was in Horsecamp anyways, so I did it as a favor to her (although now that I think about it, no favors to her were ever acknowledged)) a woman named Penny came to give the driving lesson, and I asked Dave if I could take a shower during evening activity-Not Emily, because she was rampaging in the kitchen. Dave said that was fine. However, here I made a mistake. I did not realize that Dave did not know that my other staff member, Leah, who was in my unit had gone on a night off. Not realizing that Leah had left for the evening, and my not saying anything, I was granted the time to go and take a shower and rinse away the remnants of dirty horse bedding that I was covered in.

So I shower, while Tessa L (our other senior staff member in Horse Camp) and Patty (who had been sitting next to Dave, had waved goodbye to Leah, and had heard me ask said "its fine!" when I asked Dave if I could shower) headed out to the barn. About 20 minutes later, after the lesson has started, I am slightly cleaner, and on my only time off so far that summer, I decided to go help with the lesson anyways. I had really just wanted a shower.

So I go up there, and Emily is coming down from the ring with Kay, and quite literally, charges at me like a mountain lion. The sight was frightening, to see a 50+ woman running half crouched over, screaming,

"I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU HAVE THE SELF RIGHTOUS NERVE TO SHOWER, AND TO PUT YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES ON SOMEONE ELSE! YOU ARE SO SELFISH AND PUT YOURSELF BEFORE ANYONE ELSE HERE! LET’S MAKE THINGS CLEAR- YOU ARE NOT SPECIAL AND YOU DON’T GET TO DO WHAT YOU WANT HERE!" she proceeds to call me a seriously incompetent counselor, who has told everyone that she gets special treatment, has obviously hoodwinked Dave into thinking I should get an evening off, and quite frankly, it went on for about 5 minutes but I've done my best to block it out of my head.

I was in hysterics at this point, shouting back trying to answer her accusations (she, as you can imagine, didn’t care to hear them). She stormed away, to talk to Dave I believe, and I stood there for a minute and then decided I was done, and I was quitting. I was about ready to go down to Dave right then (who, I found out later, had heard out shouting match form the dining hall, even though we were in the stables) but I knew I had to go back to the campers- if nothing else, to appease Emily for the moment. I had already started walking down, so as i walked across the bridge, I meet up with Kay

And for these next few moments, I am proud of myself. Instead of apologizing and trying to make up for mistakes I didn’t believe I’d made, I took a stand. I looked at Kay and said,
“I know you think she's right, but she's not. That’s not what happened." She just looked at me and said
" You should go back to the campers". Ah. I will refrain from swearing here, but I was beyond tears, you cannot even imagine. It took me another ten minutes before I could go into the ring with the kids to not be sobbing in front of them of course, in the first 10 seconds, one says, “We heard shouting, was that Emily and you?" and Penny, "Are you ok?" and of course I start crying again. It was a disaster. Of course, none of the kids like Emily, so they were all really sweet about it.

But in these moment’s, I grew up a lot. I had decided I was done, and it was time to leave behind this camp that although I loved, I knew I had been making excuses for to keep it a happy memory. The facilities, the campers, most of the staff truly are great people. And most of the time, they make up for the few unpleasant things that you have to endure while you’re there. But there are somethings that should never be said to people, no matter what the situation. I would parallel this conversation Emily and I had with the one Elizabeth Bennet and Lady Catherine DeBourgh have in Pride and Prejudice, where Elizabeth Bennet says,
“You have now insulted me in ever possible way and can now have nothing further to say.”
I find that this line describes best how I was feeling. I would be Elizabeth Bennet and say ‘Enough’.

Later that evening, my campers and I found an unclaimed raincoat the needed to be brought to the lost and found in Emily’s office. I chose to bring it to her, rather than send a camper like I could have. I opened the door to find Emily, happy and calm as can be having reduced me to dirt about an hour previously, along with Kay, quietly working beside her. I handed her the raincoat, explaining it didn’t have an owner, doing my best to not mention a word of what had just happened. She, however, did the honors of that.
“I’m sorry I got so upset with you, Kelly, but I just couldn’t believe you would be so inconsiderate! I thought I was done with my ego problems when Lori (a previous staff member, who happened to be my own counselor) left! Jesus!” She laughed. Kay smiled, and giggled.
I was in disbelief. If I walked away, she would know I was angry and have even more satisfaction that was currently radiating from her which was making me sick. I chose my words carefully.
“I think you’ve made yourself very clear, and can now have nothing more to say on the topic.”
I was thinking of Elizabeth Bennet when I said it. I may be beginning to idolize her. Emily’s face gave nothing away as she turned back to her work, but I like to think she was at least confused by my civility.

The next morning, Emily pulled Leah and I into the kitchen (during breakfast, so in front of the whole camp, mind you) and proceeded to, yet again, tear me to shred as she compared my horrible work ethic to Leah's brilliance, and Ally's superiority in everything. She told me that none of her staff complained as much as I did, and that I was unreasonable! Why should I be so self-centered! If I put in half the work that Ally did, I’d be a mediocre employee.

She didn’t know that Dave and I had talked the night before and I was quitting. When Dave had pieced the story together, he looked at the floor. He said quietly,
“I won’t defend a thing she said to you. I’m sorry. Do you need to leave?” He looked at me.
“Yes,” I said.

I have not spoken to either of them since. These words, these accusations have haunted me since the day they were spoken, and I doubt that they will ever fade entirely. It has shaped me as a person though. Being egotistical OR self centered is something I strive my very hardest not to be. I will always make sure that no one can reasonably say those things to me every again. And because of this, I am who I am today.

What's in your wallet? Intertextuality

I chose this youtube video of the captial one commercials featuring the Vikings:


I thought this was a good representation of intertextuality because it incorporates modern day America, but references the ages of the Vikings. The commercial is actually mostly accurate in the apperance of the vikings, as they did wear the helmets and use the weapons that were shown. Interestingly, The also have a scene where a viking is helping a woman, which was not uncommon to their kind. While in many cultures women did not have rights to have money or property, the Viking women were second class only to the law. They could manage their own finances, and could even divorce their husbands if they wished! While the Vikings are known for their brutaility (and this is not necessarily wrong) they had a strict law that was upheld in their homes, and law breakers were trialed and punished accordingly. The reason Vikings are known for their violence is because of their brutal raids on villages.

Blog about Blue Highways #1

I haven’t read all of the assignment entirely, but I’ll go with what I’ve read so far. The book is.. slower…. Than Northern Lights. Especially at first, coming from a fast paced book like Northern lights, and having read Harry Potter over spring break, I tried to dig into this novel and was somewhat stunted. It was not enjoyable first, but I find the more I read, the longer I can keep reading. It does seem, however, like a book with no plot and if you’ll look back on my previous vent about my school-assigned sagas, I despise books with no plot. At least, no mission, laid out adventure, key goal, etc. This is a guy on a road going somewhere. Yee-haw.
I can relate to William Least’s style of writing in a way though. He seems to write like I think, which I’m noticing is really annoying and I hope I don’t speak this way. Any errant though that is somewhat related to a topic he is or was talking about gets said. It’s very distracting, and I personally do not fancy it. But, to each his own, I suppose.
I’m hoping for more dialogue coming up in this novel because I actually do enjoy the novel when there is a dialogue to follow as opposed to his thought process in narrative form. Meeting these strangers makes a direct story, and his irritating random facts or thoughts or wisdom that show through during the dialogue make him seem considerably more enjoyable to listen to. For example when he notes that the people who have the least are always the ones to offer a meal, whereas the ones who could afford a guest never do. It’s so true! More things like that, and I will be a happy camper….

Narrative Sequence Paper Draft

Kelly Herdman
Narrative Sequence Paper
Joseph Griffen

This morning, after waking up for the umpteenth time in my special room for special people with special problems, I got a phone call from my sister who had fled the scene of Dad’s death. Wondering if I was ok, telling me that she was. How ironic it is, that despite me being the one with the ‘mental disability’ she is the one in pieces.
When I was young, Mom tried to send me to school, where I was met by an aid each morning. She was a nice lady named Beth, who tried tirelessly to help me to speak. Downs Syndrome doesn’t generally include the symptom of being speechless, so there was no known reason to them why I wasn’t talking, or making any noise at all. The truth was that I spoke at night, trying to sounds of the letters in my mouth, and the words they formed, but no matter how hard I try, they always sound like mush. It embarrassed me, so I never let anyone hear it. Beth told my mother that while lack of speech was an unusual characteristic, lack of hearing was not. But Mom had given up on my at that point.
The night after hearing this, when I thought I should some how tell her than I was able to make noise, Mom came into my room to tuck me into bed. Usually, she read me a story quietly, although she was right next to me, and after straining to hear what she was saying, I would give up and allow myself to drift to sleep. This night, however, Mom came in, sat on my bed per usual, but bore no book in her hands. She spoke to the lamp beside my bed, rather than looking directly at me, but she spoke in a clear voice that for once I was able to hear.
“Since you can’t speak, I know I can trust you to hold my secrets,” She began. I wasn’t sure what to make of this, because as long as I could remember, Mom had never made much effort to be close to me. She was always willing to let Clarissa babysit me, or hand me off to the aide.
“I was raped, a long time ago. Your sister- well, half sister, technically- is the living result of the incident. And I don’t know how to love her because I can’t look at her without thinking about it,” she said this in a rush, so I had to concentrate to keep up. Clarissa was at a friend’s house for the night, and Dad working late, so she spoke loudly and freely. More freely than I had ever seen.
She continued for nearly an hour. She told me how she had suffered out in somewhere called ‘Laplin’ and how she had married a man who had promised to help her. She spoke of her departure from this man and his promises with little remorse, although from what she had tried to teach me, it didn’t sound like good manners to me. She told me how she had wanted to start over, a redo, and had left ‘Laplin’ with Clarissa in her arms, catching bus after bus after train after plane, and had some how had ended up with a new husband, a new life, and me.
“I thought this would be everything I wanted. But Clarissa is a living, walking, talking reminder of Laplin and I don’t know how to love her like a mother should love her child,” she finished, a little more quietly. She seemed ashamed to say this, but had spoken it aloud nevertheless. She looked around to glance at the clock, and decided it was time for me to sleep.
That was the first of these encounters. Every time we were alone, she would make my bedtime story into a monologue. As I grew older, and bedtime stories became too childish, she still would enter my room before bed, and tell me her secrets. After listening to her speak about her struggles and her apparent release to be able to tell someone all of these things, I made the choice to not speak. By not speaking, I could not only have a relationship with my mother, but relieved me of the responsibility to quite literally answer to anyone.
For two years, I listened to my mother. I listened because it was one of the few things she said that I could hear. And I listened because as I began to know more about her life, the more I saw the potential to be just like her in my sister, Clarissa.
Clarissa was always longing for my mother to speak to her, perhaps to have the very relationship I had effortlessly with our mother. As she grew, I saw the demented, abnormal reactions she had, the same one that I witnessed in my mother in present day, and the ones I heard about in my mother’s stories about her past. It scared me, to watch as the similarities grew stronger.
One day, we went to visit a friend of my mother’s. Clarissa hung to every word my mother said out loud, whether it was to her or simply a remark to no one. When we arrived, Clarissa was assigned to entertain me, while Mom caught up with her old friend. After some time, I needed to go to the bathroom, so Clarissa escorted me. Once there, she noticed the earwax buildup in my sub-par ears, and began to attack them with a Q-tip. I didn’t want to tell her to stop- I couldn’t let Mom know that her secrets were safe not because I didn’t have the choice, but because I had made the choice to keep them. Clarissa dug harder and harder until I had no more self-control to stay silent. I let a scream of pain escape in hope that Mom would think it was Clarissa. She came to discover the source of the emotion, and realized that it had been her silent son who had screamed. Who had made noise, and who had the potential to spill her deepest, darkest secrets. That in one single scrape, the daughter she had been trying to be kind to and to love ad snuffed out the single outlet she had in this life.
After that day, Mom never came into my room. Her outlet was no longer foolproof and therefore unsafe. She went through the motions she usually made if front of the rest of our family to pay attention to me, but our previous bond was extinguished.
One day I saw her out on the porch through a window, looking like she was enjoying herself. The expression on her face was the same as it was when she used to talk to me in my room, and she seemed to be talking. I cracked open the door, wanting to hear, wanting to listen, and wanting to be apart of her life once more, only to scare a cat that had been nearby, and rouse my mother’s attention. A few weeks later, I wandered into my room to find all of my things in boxes. It made me mad, for things to be different, and I began to unpack, putting things back where I thought they had been.
“Stop that, Jeremy,” a voice commanded. I turned to find my mother standing in the doorway, casting a shadow over me so that I couldn’t see her face. Her voice was almost unrecognizable, though.
“You’re moving to a new home tomorrow. A place with other people like you, where people can look after you better than I can. And if you want any of your stuff to come with you, you’d better leave it packed up.” She turned and left, and I sat on the floor. I was struggling to understand. I hadn’t been bad, not on purpose at least. Where was I going? It was time to speak out, to tell Mom that I didn’t want this. Of course she didn’t know, but I needed to tell her. I had listened to her for so long, so would undoubtedly listen to me.
I found her on the front porch again, with that happy expression on her face. Instead of using the door this time, I crept to the window, and discovered her talking to a cat, the same one I had scared the last time I had spied on her. The cat was lapping up milk from the cap of the milk jug, and my mother, stroking it’s back, was talking to it like she talked to me. Freely, openly. Her secrets were as shallow as the milk in the cap, and suddenly it was clear. I had been replaced. Her outlet had been restored. This cat was her son’s replacement.
And once again, I made the choice to not speak. It was time to leave. It was exactly what I wanted, and clearly, it was the solution to my mother’s problem.

Many years had passed since then. Soon after I was moved into my new room, my mother had disappeared. Dad and Clarissa came to visit me, but really to figure out if she had been here. But the nurses told them she hadn’t been to see me since I moved in.
The damage it had done to Clarissa was evident just by looking at her. Before she could open her mouth to confirm it, she had the look of someone in pieces. From that day on, she stopped growing, stopped living. The neglect that had occurred all these years from Mom constantly being unable to love her like a child she could have planned on had built up and spilled over the cause permanent damage.

Book Review and Narrative Sequence

First off, I will start with my reflection of the book. I think the assignment was to finish the book, which I had done a while back so that is what I will reflect on, regardless.

I cannot decide if I liked this book or not. It was an intriguing read, and I finished it within a day, so it was clearly not a complicated read. However, the story line was such a wandering unpaved road of plot that I was just increasingly frustrated with the story as it progressed. Although I thought the book ended in the most not-cliché way, I would have rather seen more of a conclusion, more ends tied up, than what we got.

I felt like the author had poor planning for her novel. There were so many open routes to follow in the first few chapters, and even more as the book when on. She could have given a huge role to Jeremy, who basically stands only as a metaphor for the failed attempt at a normal marriage for Olivia. There was also Henrick, that Clarissa could have learned to love and be normal with, but instead there was an awkward cover-up attempt of brother-sisterly bonding and they part ways. Vida seems to write the story as it drifts into her brain, rather than writing out a guide for her details to follow.

That being said, the book has the potential to be very deep. Some of the characters and descriptions seem pointless or unnecessary on the surface, but upon further inspection play a key role in foreshadowing Clarissa’s future. Constantly, the book gives in-depth descriptions of objects or scenes that Clarissa sees but does not seem to take any meaning from. These briefly mentioned details tell us more about Clarissa’s character- about how she is prepared to tell her reader every nitty-gritty detail of her life and life journey. That perhaps she has missed details in the past, and is making up for it now by accounting for everything there is to account for. And while she may not interpret a deeper meaning to these details (after all, who stands next to a door in their daily life and thinks about how it could be a metaphor for their ability to carry on with their life journey?), the reader can take the in-depth, closer analysis of every inch of her description and find themselves with a pretty good idea of where she is at in her life, what might be coming, and why everything is the way it is with her.

Alrighty, so for the second part of this blog I believe we are supposed to get going with some sort of rough draft attempt for our Narrative Sequence papers. I haven’t really decided on what I want to do, but here is a narrative of Jeremy, the brother with Downs Syndrome:

Jeremy

This morning, after waking up for the umpteenth time in my special room for special people with special problems, I got a phone call from my sister who had fled the scene of Dad’s death. Wondering if I was ok, telling me that she was. How ironic it is, that despite me being the one with the ‘mental disability’ she is the one in pieces.

When I was young, Mom tried to send me to school, where I was met by an aid each morning. She was a nice lady named Beth, who tried tirelessly to help me to speak. Downs Syndrome doesn’t generally include the symptom of being speechless, so there was no known reason to them why I wasn’t talking, or making any noise at all. The truth was that I spoke at night, trying to sounds of the letters in my mouth, and the words they formed, but no matter how hard I try, they always sound like mush. Beth told my mother that while lack of speech was an unusual characteristic, lack of hearing was not. But Mom had given up on my at that point.

The night after hearing this, when I thought I should some how tell her than I was able to make noise, Mom came into my room to tuck me into bed. Usually, she read me a story quietly, although she was right next to me, and after straining to hear what she was saying, I would give up and allow myself to drift to sleep. This night, however, Mom came in, sat on my bed per usual, but bore no book in her hands. She spoke to the lamp beside my bed, rather than looking directly at me, but she spoke in a clear voice that for once I was able to hear.

“Since you can’t speak, I know I can trust you to hold my secrets,” She began. I wasn’t sure what to make of this, because as long as I could remember, Mom had never made much effort to be close to me. She was always willing to let Clarissa babysit me, or hand me off to the aide.
“I was raped, a long time ago. Your sister- well, half sister, technically- is the living result of the incident. And I don’t know how to love her because I can’t look at her without thinking about it,” she said this in a rush, so I had to concentrate to keep up. Clarissa was at a friend’s house for the night, and Dad working late, so she spoke loudly and freely. More freely than I had ever seen.
She continued for nearly an hour. She told me how she had suffered out in somewhere called ‘Laplin’ and how she had married a man who had promised to help her. She spoke of her departure from this man and his promises with little remorse, although from what she had tried to teach me, it didn’t sound like good manners to me. She told me how she had wanted to start over, a redo, and had left ‘Laplin’ with Clarissa in her arms, catching bus after bus after train after plane, and had some how had ended up with a new husband, a new life, and me.

“I thought this would be everything I wanted. But Clarissa is a living, walking, talking reminder of Laplin and I don’t know how to love her like a mother should love her child,” she finished, a little more quietly. She seemed ashamed to say this, but had spoken it aloud nevertheless. She looked around to glance at the clock, and decided it was time for me to sleep.

That was the first of these encounters. Every time we were alone, she would make my bedtime story into a monologue. As I grew older, and bedtime stories became too childish, she still would enter my room before bed, and tell me her secrets. After listening to her speak about her struggles and her apparent release to be able to tell someone all of these things, I made the choice to not speak. By not speaking, I could not only have a relationship with my mother, but relieved me of the responsibility to quite literally answer to anyone.

For two years, I listened to my mother. I listened because it was one of the few things she said that I could hear. And I listened because as I began to know more about her life, the more I saw the potential to be just like her in my sister, Clarissa.

Clarissa was always longing for my mother to speak to her, perhaps to have the very relationship I had effortlessly with our mother. As she grew, I saw the demented, abnormal reactions she had, the same one that I witnessed in my mother in present day, and the ones I heard about in my mother’s stories about her past. It scared me, to watch as the similarities grew stronger.

One day, we went to visit a friend of my mother’s. Clarissa hung to every word my mother said out loud, whether it was to her or simply a remark to no one. When we arrived, Clarissa was assigned to entertain me, while Mom caught up with her old friend. After some time, I needed to go to the bathroom, so Clarissa escorted me. Once there, she noticed the earwax buildup in my sub-par ears, and began to attack them with a Q-tip. I didn’t want to tell her to stop- I couldn’t let Mom know that her secrets were safe not because I didn’t have the choice, but because I had made the choice to keep them. Clarissa dug harder and harder until I had no more self-control to stay silent. I let a scream of pain escape in hope that Mom would think it was Clarissa. She came to discover the source of the emotion, and realized that it had been her silent son who had screamed. Who had made noise, and who had the potential to spill her deepest, darkest secrets. That in one single scrape, the daughter she had been trying to be kind to and to love ad snuffed out the single outlet she had in this life.
After that day, Mom never came into my room.

Response to Northern Lights Reading Assignment

So. Despite sincerely disliking the character, I chose to finish the book yesterday during our half snow day. I will however, do my best to reflect on the reading assignment actually assigned.

I found the nature, I guess, of Clarissa's mother disappearing disturbing. How does a mother simply decide at that moment, when someone relying on them to be there, that that is the moment to leave everything they've made for themselves behind? Or was it predetermined, a planned leaving? The mother seems to have psychological issues (which, to be honest, become more reasonable later in the book) and therefore no conscience. But to erase yourself out of someone's life like this- no later phone calls, no reassurance, no hints, and never once letting them know that the woman they loved is still alive, but changed all together. I guess I just can't fathom doing such a thing- to a human or animal. Anything.

Still though, despite this traumatic childhood of Clarissa, I still find her reaction to finding out her father was NOT her father is unreasonable. In fact, looking back on her mother's way of life, the chaotic instability, her strange characteristics, it almost seems likely. This goosechase around Lapland seems like a really poor way of finding her own history.

I don't want to talk about her near-loss of virginity, because it gets touched on later and the book and I'll spoil it.

Journal Entry #1- Reading Habits

I have this nasty habit of hating any and all reading that has ever been assigned by the schools I have attended. Although I try very hard not to be prejudiced against said books, they do have a general tendency to truly suck.

It started with the Giver, in seventh grade. A book that may have had potential at one point, but after reading six pages and discussing them and their most deepest meanings for several days, the book, quite frankly, made me pissed. Not one detail went undiscussed, not one character unanalyzed. Everything had a significance. I’m convinced, if thoroughly read, the Giver could have given me not only the meaning of life, but also directions on where to find the Holy Grail.
I’m passing on a few books here because they were tolerable- Fever 1897 (?), Summer of my German Soldier, Night, and a few more. These books actually allowed me to read them with entirely nodding off. Also in this category is Elle Minnow Pea, A Prayer for Owen Meany, Of Mice and Men, Romeo and Juliet-

As I sit here reviewing my book lists of over the years, I’ve decided I should shorten this original plan of giving the blow-by-blow of my greatest and worst assigned readings.

The Gook Books
• Romeo and Juliet
• Summer of My German Soldier
• Ella Minnow Pea
• Night
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• Pride and Prejudice

The Books that should be Burned
• The Giver
• Wide Sargasso Sea
• Jane Eyre
• Scarlet Letter
• Lord of the Flies
• The Great Gatsby

I’m not sure what books have to contain to make me really hate them or really like them. There is really very little I can connect or relate to in most of the books that I don’t care for, but there is plenty of that also in the books I truly enjoy. To Kill a Mockingbird was completely out of my league as far as personal connections go. I also don’t really have a reliable tendency when looking at the time of the setting is. Naturally, I can relate more to a more current novel, but Pride and Prejudice is one of my all time favorite books, so who really knows what I like?

I have a few guilty pleasures as well. I am known to read and reread hundreds of times the books I like. I do similar things with movies I really enjoy. The Harry Potter series is constantly sitting in my room, and one book will almost always contain a dog-eared page from wherever I have left off in the series. If I’m not reading Harry Potter in my leisure time, I’m probably reading the Twilight series, which is a newer habit of mine. I can be a total bookworm and spend countless hours curled up on my bed with a fuzzy blanket or comforter and waste the day away with my nose buried in the pages of my series indulgences. They are my brainless reads, my relaxing yet pretending-to-do-something-brain-stimulating enjoyments. I can always find something I missed the last [many] times through these books when I read them again, but for the most part I don’t have to concentrate or try to see the meaning behind those seemingly meaningless words- because if there is one, I probably already know it!
Anyways, that’s my reading woes in a nutshell. Hope you enjoyed!

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-Miss Kelly Renee