Short Story thing 9/29/13

A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings is an interesting short story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It is mainly about this family that finds an old man with wings in their backyard that has been knocked down by the rain and was stuck in the mud. I don't like how they treat the old man like an animal in a zoo and get rich off him. They keep him in the chicken coop and people throw things at him. I do like that he is so patient. He doesn't care much about everyone staring at him and throwing things.

I don't think I fully understand the social and the cultural parts of the short stories we read. I don't think my short story has much culture things in it. I think the notes on setting were really useful, but I'm having a little trouble coming up with all the different parts of the story.



Hatching Magic  Ann Downer-Hazell   242 pages  4 hours  I finished the book    

Reading Response 9/21/13

I have been reading A Wizard of Earthsea and so far it's alright. It starts off kind of slow but picks up near the middle of the book. It is the story of Ged becoming a wizard in a land called Earthsea which is like a large collection of islands of all sizes. Ged lives in a small village called Gont and later moves to Roke a larger island. Ged is taught some spells from the village witch then some events happen and he goes to a wizard school to learn more magic.

I didn't like how it started off kind of slow and uneventful, but it slowly works in more action and got better.  I liked all the details it has so far like the cold, fast river with slick rocks. This is the first book I have read by Le Guin and I think I like this author.


A Wizard of Earthsea Le Guin    Page172    2 hours

Bob's thoughts

Ahhh nice to lay down after spending so long in the forest. Did I put up everything, rope, backpack, stuff in backpack, no I left my shoe, where did I leave my shoe; I'll find it in the morning. Note to self bring more water next time. I hope that big tree lives, the one I like to climb near the cliff, it was stuck by lightning three days ago I think. I hope a squirrel was in it. What was that saying about trees falling in in forests, ah if a tree falls and no one hears it will it keep making noise? No, that doesn't sound right, oh well too tired for this. I wonder if I could hear it from here if it fell. I will have to hike out there tomorrow to check.

I hate squirrels they're mean. I glad they can't get inside anymore, last time was horrible. I remember they destroyed the furniture and ate all my food. Did the storm reopen that hole in the roof. I think it was wet yesterday morning. Great, with my luck they'll be in by next week. I wonder who will hike with me tomorrow. I know these woods better than Dan, he's only been here half as long as me. I'll take them to that flowery meadow I found a while ago. I like flowers.

Reading Response 9/16/13

I read The Amber Spyglass this week. It is the third in the His Dark Materials series. This book is about Lyra and Will and they are trying to help stop a war. This is a very confusing series if you don't pay attention to the details or read the first two books. What confused me the most was you didn't have much of an idea of what Lyra and Will were trying to do. During the first part of the book Will is trying to rescue Lyra that's pretty simple; then after that they end up in the world of the dead to talk to someone and go from there, not so simple.

I really liked the creativity of this author. There were many different characters, species and worlds. Like the armored polar bears, or the Gallivespians, tiny people that are spies in the book. There are about 6 worlds in the book all very different. I hate that Lyra and Will are also from different worlds because there too different, if you read the end of the book you'll know what I mean.



The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman  4 hours  finished it

Reading Log 9/9/13

The Golden Compass  Philip Pullman   I finished the book       4-5 hours

Literacy Narritve Update 9/8/13

So far, I don't like literacy narratives. They are ok to read, I guess. The cat one was well written and everything but it wasn't something I would pick out. I wouldn't normally choose to read about how someone changed someone else's writing or something like that. In that aspect I find them a bit boring, but I do like the vivid details people use in them. My literacy narrative is alright in my opinion. but it's still pretty ruff around the edges.

Instead of my literacy narrative being about my development as a writer, mine is about  my development as a reader. This is because I'm not very interested in writing and therefore don't remember or haven't noticed key changing points in my writing, I just get a big blank, like uh I learned some grammar and sentence structure in 7th and 8th grade, does that count? On the other hand I'm very interested in reading, but I feel that I gradually got better at reading and don't remember having very many reading epiphanies. Mostly I hope my topic, how I wrote my paper are alright and I think I needs to add more vivid details, unfortunately I don't know how or where to get them in my paper.

This is Water Response

This is Water is a very interesting speech. I'm probably going to have to watch it a few more times to really understand it. It looks and sounds to me like something that could have several different meanings; but I might also be over thinking that because it did make a point of making the conscious decision of your mind set. I liked how it tried to encourage you to keep a positive mind set while trying to remain neutral and mentioning how hard it could be. I noticed that it didn't focus much on the positive things in day to day life but I think that would have taken away from the speech.

I don't understand how the fish relate to the speech, they seem kind of thrown in there. I thought it was odd how he mentioned all these things that his speech wasn't about like moral or religion. I feel he didn't present the main idea very clearly, but that's just at my first glance. All and all I really liked it especially all the examples and details he used to portray his view point.

Reading Response Parsifal's Page 9/3/13

This book is the 4th book in the Squire's Tales series, set in King Arthur's time. It follows the journey of Pier's as he becomes a page for the knight in training, Parsifal. I didn't like some things in his training. He asked a lot of questions and they told him not to ask so many questions. I also didn't like in the beginning he ate someone's dinner and kissed a women, not knowing that it was very impolite. So after he learned that was wrong and made it up the women later on. 

I did like some parts, like when he accidently wandered near King Arthur's camp two knights jousted with him, he won and Pier's (who was in the camp) went to go see him found out he was asleep and beat the two knights in his sleep! I also liked when Sir Kai proposed to a women she agreed to marry him, King Arthur said "I'm not sure whether I just heard a challenge or a proposal, but I wish you happiness" that was very funny.

Reading log 9/2/13

The Savage Damsel and the Dwarf by Gerald Morris   I read the entire book  8/27/13   4 hours