Looking for Alaska - Before (Part 1): Summary, Prediction, Connection to the World, and Connection to my Life

BEFORE

Looking for Alaska is a book by John Green. In the beginning of the book, Miles Halter is about to go to boarding school in the middle of his high school career. He is doing this because he doesn’t have much of a life at his current school and wants to do more things with his life. When he gets to Culver Creek Boarding School, his roommate (Colonel) meets him when Miles is getting out of the shower and seeing how skinny and lanky he is, decides that they should call him Pudge to be ironic.

* Prediction *

I think that Pudge will become the man of the hour at Culver Creek. I also think that he will not stay friends with the Colonel. I think this because the Colonel seems like a hotshot who doesn’t care much about others, although he is very smart.

After Pudge gets dressed, the Colonel takes him to see his friend Alaska. She is telling them a story about how over the summer, a boy was sitting with her on a couch and then he “honked her boob.” Alaska is very pretty and immediately, Pudge falls in love with her. Then they go out to smoke and they get to know each other better. Pudge loves learning people’s last words and Alaska tells him some last words that she likes. “He was shaken by the overwhelming revelation that the headlong race between his misfortunes and his dreams was at that moment reaching the finish line. ‘Damn it,’ he sighed. ‘How will I ever get out of this labyrinth!’” This quote is a big part of the book because they bring it up again and again. That weekend some kids called the Weekday Warriors (they board at Culver Creek during the week then go home to their parent’s mansions on the weekends) tied Pudge up with duct tape then dumped him in the middle of the lake. He almost drowns but ends up making it out of the water. When he gets out of the water, he goes to Alaska’s room because the Warriors had said something about the Colonel being the reason they almost killed Pudge. Alaska gave him the cold shoulder and told him to deal with it because she didn’t know he had been tied up. With all the other kids, they just throw them into the lake and leave them to swim out. The next day, she was very upset as was the Colonel and their other friend, Takumi. For a few weeks, nothing else happens at Culver Creek. It’s just business as usual but then there is the first basketball game of the season. Since Culver Creek and other schools in the area are too small to have football teams, they have basketball in the fall instead. In the beginning of the game, the leader of the Warriors, Kevin, comes over to ask for a truce with Pudge and his crew but they decline. The Colonel did some crazy cheers and got himself kicked out of the game because he has a record of getting kicked out of 37 games in a row. As time went on, Alaska and Pudge got to know each other better and they (Takumi, Alaska, Pudge and the Colonel) all became better friends. Since Pudge had started at the Creek, he picked up the habit of smoking. One day, Takumi, Alaska, Pudge and the Colonel were caught smoking by the “Eagle” (the dean). They had to go to Jury where 12 students decided their fate.

* Connection to the World *

The fact that there is a Jury similar to the court system reminds me of a movie I saw. The movie is called Wild Child and in it, a girl gets sent off to boarding school in England because of her behavior at home. Her name is Poppy and she is somewhat of a brat and is very spoiled. When she is at the school, she is playing with her lighter and it started a small fire but then she put it out. It was at night and she heard footsteps so she ran away. Another girl who didn’t like her snuck in and started a huge fire but she saw that Poppy’s lighter was there and put all the blame on her. Poppy has to sit in front of the entire school and tell them whether or not she started the fire. They then will decide whether or not she should be expelled. When she was first accused, she didn’t know whether or not she started the fire because of the small fire she had started. But then she figured it out. The same girl who started the fire and blamed it on Poppy also hacked into Poppy’s email account and made her friends turn on her by writing mean things. When Poppy is on trial, she explains this all and it ends up that the jury (the student body) lets her stay at the school and they expel the other girl.

When they were there, Alaska and the Colonel took the blame for Takumi and Pudge to show Pudge that that was how they did it at the Creek. They had each other’s backs. After that, Alaska decided to set Pudge up with Lara, a sophomore from Europe. They went to a basketball game on a group date and the ball ended up hitting Pudge and giving him a concussion. When he sat up, he puked on his date’s pants. Needless to say, they did not have a goodnight kiss. Later that week, the Warriors flooded Alaska’s room and ruined some of her “Life’s Library.” They really want to get revenge now and start planning how they are going to go about it. Then it is Thanksgiving break and Pudge decides to stay at the Creek with Alaska. The first night, they drank wine and read on a soccer field. Then next day, Alaska took Pudge to look through other people’s dorm rooms. She told him how to read other peoples rooms to know more about them. That Monday, she took him to go looking for people’s secrets in their dorm rooms. After that, the Colonel came back from his mom’s house before Thanksgiving Day and invited them to stay with him and his mom. They obliged and Pudge found out that not only was the Colonel poor, but he was dirt poor. Regardless of the quality of house they were in, they all had a great time. They got to know each other better and the Colonel’s mom is a great cook. In between Thanksgiving break and Christmas break nothing important happens. When Pudge goes home for break, he doesn’t have a lot of fun but he is glad to see his family again. When they get back, they are almost ready to proceed with the prank. They have decided to have on a pre-prank before the actual prank to throw everyone off and get them caught off guard. They all get permission to go off campus for the weekend. Instead of leaving campus, they stayed in a barn on the edge of campus. Up until then, only the Colonel and Alaska had known the plan and now they were sharing it with everyone.

* Connection to my Life *

Although I don’t remember it, when I was little my big brother’s senior class pulled a prank at his high school. For their senior prank, they decided to fill thousands of little specimen cups with oil then they put them all over the floor, next to each other. You had to pick each one up by hand or else they would all spill and oil would go everywhere. Although this was a time consuming prank, I think that it is very clever because although the class caused some trouble, they didn’t hurt any of the school’s property. This is similar to the prank they are about to pull in the book because even though their prank is going to stir things up, they aren’t committing any expellable offenses.

Back to the book, their pre-prank is going to be lighting firecrackers. They were going to light one all the way from the Eagle’s house to the lake where they smoked. While Pudge and Takumi did this, Lara put blue hair dye in some of the Warrior’s shampoos and hair gels and the Colonel and Alaska hacked into the school network and mailed out progress reports to 23 of the Warriors’ parents saying that they were failing three classes. They all went to sleep in the barn. The next day, they hung out and hide together. They weren’t very good at hiding because they were really loud but they must’ve been good enough because no one found them. That night, they got a little bit tipsy and decided to play a drinking game, Best Day/ Worst Day where everyone had to share the best day and worst day of their lives and whoever won didn’t have to drink, everyone else did. They got to know a lot more about each other. They found out that Alaska’s mom had died when she was eight and that Alaska had been there but hadn’t thought to call 911. This made a lot of things that Alaska had said and done make sense. Two nights after, the Colonel and Alaska were having a drinking contest and Pudge was just there, watching. Then the heat got turned up and Alaska and him made out.

Then she got tired and said, “To be continued.”

They both fell asleep but the phone rang and Alaska went to go get it. She came back in sobbing and say that she HAD to leave. She had the Colonel and Pudge distract the Eagle and they lit up some firecrackers so that she could slip away in her car unnoticed. They went back to their room and slept like babies. They had no idea what had happened as they dozed off. To be continued….