Looking for Alaska -After (Part 2): Summary, Connection to the World and Prediction

After

The next day, the Eagle woke up Pudge and the Colonel early. He asked them to go to the gym. When Pudge was confused as to why, and the Colonel told him that the year before, this had happened when their elderly religion teacher’s wife had died. They thought that the religion teacher had died this time. On their way to the gym, Pudge thought about how sad he was that the religion teacher died (allegedly) and how wonderful it had felt the night before to kiss Alaska. When they got to the gym, the religion teacher was there but when they started looking around for Alaska to sit with her, they could not find her anywhere. Pudge and the Colonel both had an idea of why and were starting to get scared. Pudge started to tell the Eagle but the Eagle started talking.

He said, “Last night, Alaska Young was in a terrible accident.” He had been crying but it got worse after he said this, “And she was killed. Alaska has passed away.”

Right then, people started crying all over the gym. Pudge had an urge to throw up but when he ran out of the gym, nothing came up. When he went back in, it was even worse. Every single person in the gym was crying. The Colonel was screaming, “I’m so sorry” over and over again. They blamed themselves because Alaska had been with them, drunk and angry yet they let her and even helped her drive. They were both extremely melancholy and apologetic to Alaska for what they had let her do. The Eagle told Pudge that she had run straight into a police car that had come to check on a jackknifed truck. Pudge could not stop thinking of how he know so many other people’s last words but he would never find out Alaska’s. He couldn’t sleep that night and the next day, the Colonel left. He couldn’t take it anymore. People came in throughout the day to check on Pudge and give their condolences. Whenever Pudge slept, he dreamt of Alaska. The next day, the Colonel came back and was in bad shape. He had walked 84 miles without stopping except to turn around. While he was gone, he had memorized the populations of every country. That Sunday, they went to Alaska’s funeral but instead of going with the school in buses, they went Takumi’s SUV so that they didn’t have to pass the spot where Alaska died. They talked about her on the way down and then at the funeral they met her father. The poor man had lost his wife and now his daughter so understandably, he wasn’t looking too hot. The next day, the Colonel decided to go eat at the cafeteria. The Eagle sat with him and asked if they had set off the fireworks the night that Alaska died but he didn’t rat. The Eagle told him to clean out Alaska’s room because her aunt was coming the next day and she did not want to find anything inappropriate in there. When they were there, they found Alaska’s copy of The General and his Labyrinth which is the book that has the quote I talked about earlier, “Damn it,’ he sighed, ‘How will I ever get out of this labyrinth!”

Alaska had written in it, “Straight and Fast.” The Colonel and Pudge think this is odd since she ran straight into a cop car. But they write off the thought that she could’ve killed herself since she drove six miles off of campus to do it. Eight days after Alaska died, a Tuesday, classes started again. For quite a while Pudge and the Colonel try to figure out exactly what happened that night. Throughout their investigation, there was a lot of time when they got angry with Alaska for what she did and then they hated themselves for it. When they found out that she had a .24 BAC, they wanted to know if that was drunk enough to not see a cop car in front of her. It took an entire Gatorade bottle, but they got the Colonel drunk enough to find out. Although he wasn’t doing so well, he could see a cop car in front of his face and that brought them back down the suicide route. Takumi started to talk this over with them and eventually, so did Lara. They knew that while she was talking to her boyfriend, Jake, she had said she was doodling something and then flipped out saying that she forgot something. Pudge found the doodle and it was of a flower. This didn’t really get them anywhere but it made Pudge believe that they might actually find out what happened. A week after, they decided that they should have an annual Alaska Young Memorial Prank. Alaska had left an idea for her next prank and that’s what they decided to do. All you know for a while is that it involves a stripper and Pudge’s dad.

* Connection to the World *

Recently, I read a book called Tricks. At the beginning of the book, all the kids are living semi-normal lives but by the end, they have all become involved with stripping, prostitution and pornography. They are tricked into doing things they don’t want to by people older and more influential than they are. Every person in the book is less than 20 years of age and none of them should have had to do what they did to survive. This connects to the book because they use a stripper in a prank, although the stripper is most definitely not forced to do anything bad. It also connects to this book because Alaska hated people objectify women and valuing their bodies, not their brains.

At Culver Creek, there is always a Speaker Day where each class invites someone to speak (if that wasn’t obvious enough). First, Pudge had called his dad and asked him to pretend to be Dr. William Morse on the phone. His dad obliged and when the Eagle called, he pretended to be a professor on human sexuality. The Eagle approved but what he didn’t know was that Dr. Morse was actually going to be a stripper. On Speaker Day, the stripper they hired to be part of the prank came and spoke about men objectifying woman and subverting the patriarchal paradigm. While he was speaking, Lara yelled out and told him to take off his clothes because he was so hot. He did and started to dance in front of the school to Prince’s song, “Get Off.” The Eagle knew who did the prank but let them slide as long as they didn’t do it again. Almost two weeks later, Alaska’s death finally made sense to Takumi, Pudge, Lara and the Colonel. The day that Alaska died was January 10. Her mom had died on January 9, 1997 and she hadn’t remembered. While she was talking to Jake on the phone and doodling flowers, she looked at the flowers, thought of how her mom had put flowers in her hair when she was younger and remembered. She had forgotten her mom and that made her feel terrible. She had screwed up yet again, at least in her mind. First she didn’t call 911 and then she forgot. She took off with the flowers to put on her mom’s grave and on the way there, there was a jackknifed truck and a cop car and she thought she could squeeze by. She couldn’t and she died. The other theory they had that made sense was the same but when she saw the cop car, she thought, I’m done with this and ran into it. Although they’ll never know which happened, at least they’ll have some idea of her reasoning. Pudge and the Colonel decided to drive through the spot where she died. It was a farewell, not to Alaska but to her death. They were done and over with thinking about it but they would never stop thinking about her. After that, they went through the motions. They got their good grades and went their ways for summer.

* Prediction *

I predict that the next school year, the Colonel and Pudge will remain close friends but they will stay distant from Lara and Takumi. Alaska was the one who connected them all and even in her death, she connected them. They clung to each other because of that and because they needed each other to get the closing of finding out what happened that night. I think that some people are meant to be in your life all the way through but others are only there to make an appearance. They had their good times and their bad times but those times are done and over with. Being with Alaska that night brought Pudge and the Colonel closer and gave them a bond that won’t be broken. I also predict that the Colonel will do well enough in life to give his mother a beautiful house like he wants to. I believe this because he is a genius and because what he has been through has only made him stronger.

Looking for Alaska: Connection to My Life

In this book, they are at a boarding school. I myself have had an experience similar to boarding school before. This summer I took History of Western Art at Johns Hopkins University. Although all the other kids were my age (13) it was like I was at college or boarding school. I could relate when they skipped breakfast so they didn't have to wake up early and they just had to go straight to class. I can also relate to having a roommate and similar to Pudge and the Colonel, we got along very well. I think that if you had a roommate that you didn't get along with, your life would be living heck. Luckily, that didn't happen to me and I had a great time this summer.

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….

The Choice - Summary, Connection to My Life and Visualization

The Choice is by Nicholas Sparks. In the beginning of this book, Travis Parker, has a neighbor named Gabby Holland. They don’t know each other very well but he sent her a welcome basket when she moved in. Gabby is very upset at Travis because she thinks that his dog impregnated her beloved dog. One night when Travis has music on late on a Saturday night, Gabby marches over to his house. On the way there, his dog accidentally knocks her over. Once he helps her up, it seems rude to yell at him but she does anyways. She doesn’t give him a chance to defend himself or his dog but he does have time to tell her that she should definitely take her dog to the veterinarian the next day because it could be an infection, not a pregnancy. The next day, when she takes lunch from her job as a physician’s assistant at a pediatrician’s office, she takes her dog over to the vet’s. When she gets there, she finds out that Travis is the vet.

*Connection to My Life*

A few years ago, I had a neighbor who was rude and did not like my dog. He tried to annoy her and get her aggravated so that he could blame her for being a bad dog. Unfortunately, once we got to know him, he didn’t get any nicer.

Back to the story, after Gabby finds out that Travis is a vet and that his dog was fixed, she couldn’t really blame him for her dog being pregnant. Gabby avoided Travis for the next two weeks. When her dog gave birth to the puppies and had complications, she had to call Travis over to her house to help out, he asked her to go parasailing with him and his friends that Saturday, she obliges, after informing him that she has a boyfriend that she is in love with. She decides to go because she has nothing better to do. They go up in the parasailing parachute. Gabby loves it and insists on going up again. Once they get to the beach for a picnic, Travis and Gabby sit together and have a conversation. After everyone else goes home, they have dinner together at his house. When she is about to go home, Travis kisses her. Gabby is upset with this because she has a boyfriend but secretly liked it and agreed to go on his motorcycle with him the next day. When they went on the motorcycle ride, it was awkward at first. Gabby had to hold on to Travis but she hesitated and held on very lightly. They went through several towns. When they got to Travis’s uncle’s private road, he let Gabby ride on the motorcycle alone for a bit. Once she was done riding, they rode back to Beaufort and he showed her the lot her bought for his future dream house. They have another conversation and they talk about how once her boyfriend comes home, their relationship will be over. When Travis asks why, Gabby says that she would want to be more than friends but then they drop the subject and go to check on her dog and the puppies. Then they plan to have dinner at her place at seven o’ clock that night. While Gabby cooked and got ready for dinner, Travis had to give his dog a bath because he had rolled in fish guts in the creek behind their house. He also had to mow the lawn and all the while, Gabby was shopping, cooking and showering before dinner. She had made chicken, pasta and salad for dinner. When Travis came over, they talked some more and he declared his love for her but right after, Gabby’s boyfriend called. After she hung up with him, she decided to kiss Travis. They kissed again and then went further. They got funky with it. After that, Travis knew that the past weekend was going to change his life forever. They spent every free second with each other over the nest two days. When it came time for Gabby's boyfriend to return from the convention he had been at, Gabby made the difficult choice to break up with him. After this, it cuts to eleven years later. You find out that Gabby and Travis got married, had two daughters and built their dream house on that plot of land Travis had. You also find out that in a car crash that as basically Travis' fault, Gabby had suffered a head injury and had been in a coma for three months. While Gabby had been working at the local hospital, she had met a man who's wife was in a coma. She ran into him a while later and he basically resented his wife for being in a coma, although he didn't come out and say it. This made Gabby decide that she wanted to end her life after being in a coma for an extended period of time if she ever ended up in one. Travis can't do this to Gabby and has her moved to an assisted living home. 4 months later, Gabby woke up from her coma. It took her a while to be able to do all of things she was used to doing but even was still so glad just to have her back.

*Visualization*

Throughout this book, they talk about the creek behind their houses, the beach they walk their dogs on, and Travis' coastal plot. I always imagine a beach like Ferry Beach where you don't just see water and waves going on and on but you can see other towns and islands all around you.Also, since they are always around the water and Travis does a lot of water sports, it is a big part of this book and the picture of it in my head really stands out and is strengthened each time they describe the water around them.

The Hunger Games Summary Part 2 and Connection to the World

Katniss figures out that they were protecting their food with a series of explosives. To set them all of at once without dying, she knocks over a bag of apples with her bow and arrow that going rolling over all the explosives. The explosion makes fly back in the air and when she lands, the wind is knocked out of her. She is dizzy but is able to crawl to a tangle of bushes for hiding. She can’t hear at first but eventually she can hear again out of her right ear but not her left. Right after she gets in the bushes, the crew comes back and is very mad that all of their food and supplies are blown up. Katniss stays in the woods that night and all she knows is that Rue is still alive because she wasn’t shown in the death report. She decides to go looking for Rue but finds her in a trap, about to be attacked by the boy from District 1. He stuck a spear in Rue’s stomach before Katniss could get to him but right after, she shot him. When Rue was in the process of dying, she told Katniss to win for her and had Katniss sing her a song. While Katniss was singing, Rue passed. To show that Rue was a person and not just a piece in the Hunger Games, Katniss wreathed her body in flowers. The next night, Katniss finds out that two people from one district can live and be victors together, according to a new rule. As soon as she gets up, she goes out looking for Peeta. To keep himself alive he had used his cake decorating skills to camouflage himself near a stream. Katniss had to use her water to clean him off because she couldn’t get him to the stream. After she cleans out his wounds, she finds out that he has a fever when she kisses him to play up the lover act. After she kisses him, Haymitch sends a pot of broth for Peeta. The next day, Katniss finds out that there is going to be a feast to give each player/ team what they need most. Peeta doesn’t want her to go but Haymitch sends sleep syrup to knock him out long enough for her to go to the feast. When Katniss gets there, she decides to run in and out, grabbing the backpack that contains the vital supplies. On her way back, a girl who was in the crew with the supplies and explosives tries to kill Katniss but Rue’s district partner grabbed the girl before she could kill Katniss. He let Katniss run because of how she treated Rue, but killed the other girl. Katniss had received medicine for Peeta. When she gets back to Peeta, he is glad that she is alive but upset that she went. He got over that quickly and they continued playing the role of star-crossed lovers. The next day the weather stinks and Peeta and Katniss spend the day inside, sleeping and keeping watch. While they are in the cave, Peeta says something to Katniss that makes her believe that he’s not acting when he says he loves her. In a day or two, they go out to the woods. They had some leftover cheese and bread from a gift from Haymitch. Peeta gathers some berries and before Katniss can tell him that they are poisonous, a girl who has been sneaking around and taking small amounts of other people’s food, stole some and ate them. Immediately after, a cannon fired pronouncing her dead. Katniss and Peeta figured it out right after. They headed back to the cave and spent the night there.

*SPOILER ALERT: IF YOU ARE PLANNING ON READING THE HUNGER GAMES STOP READING RIGHT NOW!*

The next day, Peeta and Katniss find that every stream has been drained dry. The gamemakers want them to go to the lake, which is where they were first entered the arena. They see Cato, the other tribute left, who is in full body armor. Then they see the mutations. They are like wolves with claws but each one has the eyes and characteristics of tributes that had passed on. Peeta and Katniss got onto the Cornucopia, which is a giant metal cornucopia that was previously filled with food, supplies and weapons. They fought off the mutts from up high but Cato also made it. He gets Peeta in a headlock with the mutts snarling below. Katniss considers shooting him but knows that Peeta will go down with him. Instead she shoots his hand so that he releases Peeta but then falls into the crowd of mutts. Peeta got his wound reopened so Katniss makes him a tourniquet with her last arrow. The mutts are hurting Cato but haven’t killed him quite yet so she has to take the arrow out the tourniquet. She shoots Cato and he dies. They wait but there is nothing saying that they have won. Just after they jumped off the cornucopia, they hear that there can no longer be two victors, only one will win. Katniss decides that they should each eat a poison berry so that the Capitol can’t have a victor at all but right before they eat them, there is another announcement saying that there could be two victors and that they had just won. They keep up the act of lovers after they’ve won but Katniss lets it slip that she was only acting when she was kissing Peeta and telling him that she loved him. Then the book ends.

I have connected this book to the TV show, Survivor. It is a reality show where contestants are isolated in an area like the arena. Instead of killing each other in this show, they vote each other off the island. I don’t watch this show so I don’t know a lot about it but I do know that in some ways, Survivor is different because in the Hunger Games, when you kill someone, it’s between you and that person but on Survivor, it’s between the majority of the people, you and that person. You can’t singlehandedly get rid of a contestant.

The Hunger Games Summary Part 1

In the Hunger Games, everyone lives in the nation of Panem. There is a Capitol and twelve districts but their used to be 13. There was a rebellion against the Capitol 74 years before this book takes place but to keep everyone aware that the Capitol has complete control over the districts, they blew up District 13. They also decided that to keep people in check, each year they would hold the Hunger Games. The Hunger Games is an event that is treated as a holiday in the Capitol but is feared in the districts. Each district has to give two tributes, a boy and a girl, to the Hunger Games. They are then brought to opening ceremonies, trained and interviewed before being placed in an arena that is designed for only one person to survive. The games are not over until 23 children, from the ages of 12-18 are killed. The victor then goes back to his/her district and live in a beautiful house and doesn't have to work a day in his/her life. They are only obligated to two things, a tour around all the districts and mentor the tributes after them. This book is about a girl names Katniss. She lives in District 12 and she lives in the Seam. Her mother and sister, Prim, live with her but her father died. To keep them healthy and alive, Katniss hunts in the woods beyond District 12. There is an electric fence keeping out animals but is never turned on. She hunts with her friend Gabe but was first taught by her father. On the day that they chose the tributes out of a jar full of names, Katniss's little sister was chosen. Katniss volunteers to take her place. Peeta Mellark was the male tribute. When Katniss had just lost her father, her mother went into a deep depression and they began to starve. One night, Katniss was digging through a trash can, looking for food when Peeta, the baker's son, came out and gave her two loaves of burnt bread. His mother had beaten him for it and Katniss hadn't talked to him since. After she says her goodbyes, she is shipped off to the Capitol. She and Peeta show a united front and train together. They have a great stylist and he lights their clothes on synthetic flames to set them apart from the crowd. He succeeded and when Katniss scored an 11 for her skills, they again stood out from the crowd. The biggest thing that set them apart was when Peeta proclaimed his love for Katniss at the interviews. When they went into the Games, Peeta teamed up with some of the strongest tributes while Katniss survived by herself. She almost dehydrated in the beginning but then found water and was all set. Another time, she was being chased by fireballs and stumbled upon Peeta's crew but went up in a tree. Peeta didn't try to hurt her but she knocked down a mutt form of a wasps nest and killed two of the players in that pack. Because Peeta defended her, he was kicked out of the group and was cut in the leg by the leader. Katniss was also affected by the wasps stings. She was knocked out for two days. Another tribute, Rue, who was very small and reminded Katniss of her little sister, had been following Katniss after the incident and the two of them teamed up. They decided to destroy all of that group's food source. Katniss is going to go to their camp to destroy the food while Rue makes fires to mislead the crew that someone is around.

Books I Have Read in March

Dear John

Hunger Games

Catching Fire

The Choice

Looking For Alaska

Catalyst

Tricks