The Tenth Circle:5 Post B

In the beginning of this section, Jason Underhill's Ghost visits Trixie. Trixie wasn't really surprised that he was there. As for Bartholomew's case, he was trying to figure out what exactly happened on the night of Jason Underhill's death. He concluded that someone had pushed him over a bridge leaving him to die on the ice below. Bartholomew also realized that on Jason's bone structure around his face was some bruising, that the reader knows is from the fight with Trixie's father, and thinks that it is because of the death. Bartholomew comes to Trixie's home to ask some questions. He first talks to Daniel and asks him about the night that they got into a fight. Daniel denys everything and Bartholomew knows that he is lying. Bartholomew knows he needs to talk to Trixie but Daniel will not let him. Trixie sees Bartholomew walking out to his car and helps him over the ice. Bartholomew finally got his chance to talk to her and ends up tricking her. "Something happened that night between your father and Jason, didn't it." "No." The detective sighed." Trixie, we already know about the fight." (241) They actually never actually talked about the fight but Bartholomew had to know what she would say. Trixie did end up telling him about the fight thinking that her father told him too. Bartholomew finds out that Daniel Stone was not the suspect because of DNA results and now knows that the suspect is Trixie Stone. Jason's ghost comes back to Trixie's room and tells her that she needs to go to his funeral. Trixie ends up going with her Dad even though she knows people will be looking and staring at her. Bartholomew comes by again looking for Trixie and finally after a big hesitation Daniel goes upstairs to get her only to find her window open and Trixie gone.

The Tenth Circle:5 Post A

> *perorate: To conclude or sum up a long discourse (237)
*efficacious: Possessing the quality of being effective; producing, or capable of producing, the effect intended; as, an efficacious law. (245)

>One of the emerging themes from the book is "Don't go looking for something that is right in front of you." I chose this theme to represent this section because it describes many different events that happened in this section. A lot of this section was about the rape case diseasing because of Jason Underhill's death. Because of his death people were looking for how it happened and concluded that someone had pushed him. They accuse almost everyone until they realize that the suspect was right there before them, Trixie.

The Tenth Circle: 4 Post B

Daniel kidnaps Jason and brings him far away from town. Daniel strips him of all his clothes and ties him to the tree. Jason already considers this as torture because of the freezing temperature outside. Daniel threatens to kill him with his knife but doesn't end up doing it. Instead he drives away and leaves Jason behind in the cold. Laura and Daniel's marriage and relationship is pretty much back to normal and they are doing really well. They pick Trixie up from the hospital from the hospital and bring her home. Trixie is now supposed to go to a shrink twice a week from now on. Zephyr comes over and apologizes for everything she had done to Trixie. Trixie feels very cautious and doesn't open up very easily like she used to with Zephyr. When the family meets with Bartholemew they get tests back and Trixie tests positive for date rape drugs. We now know that Jason is starting to develop depression too. He has lost his scholarship for hockey and knows that he is being tried as an adult because of the use of date rape drugs. We also find out that Seth, the college student that Laura was having an affair with, has sold drugs to the kid that had used the date rape drugs on Trixie. When Daniel forces Trixie to come in the car with him to go to the store, Trixie restrains but ends up going. She is really scared and doesn't want to go because she's afraid what people might say if they saw her so she just stays in the car. When Daniel goes into the store and leaves Trixie in the car, Trixie gets really scared when she realizes that she's alone. When she can't take it anymore she run to the store and slips on some ice. She sees Jason coming towards her and helps her up. He tries to get Trixie to listen to him because he says no one believes him. Trixie is shocked because she thinks no one believes her. Daniel comes out of the store right when this is happening and starts beating him up. Daniel has never been more furious in his life. "Lucid thought gave way to utter feeling. His body started to burn; his own anger buzzed in his ears. He saw through a crimson haze and tasted his own blood." (211) This is describing what Daniel is feeling when he sees Jason close to Trixie. Daniel can't control himself and goes and starts beating up Jason. Trixie runs off and Daniel doesn't even notice because he is so angry. When he realized Trixie was gone he and Laura go looking for her and they end up finding her. The next morning they find out that Jason had committed suicide the night before.

The Tenth Circle: 4 post A

> *Siege:the act or process of surrounding and attacking a fortified place in such a way as to isolate it from help and supplies, for the purpose of lessening the resistance of the defenders and thereby making capture possible.(176)
* Quarantined: a strict isolation imposed to prevent the spread of disease. (188)

>*"'What?' He could hear the bright blue edge of panic in Laura's voice." (213) I knew this was personification because the author gave the character, Laura's, eyes, which are inanimate objects an action.
*"She'd held the word adolescent on her tongue, enjoying the way it fizzed like a bath bomb." (217) This is a metaphor because it says that a word fizzed on her tongue like a bath bomb. This is giving a something a literal stance.
*"Seeing Trixie, her eyes wide, her face as white as chalk." (218) I chose this quote to represent a simile. It compares Trixie's face to chalk using the word "like".

The Tenth Circle: 3 Post B

Section three starts out with Trixie starting back at school. She gets all sorts of mean looks from people. Zephyr doesn’t believe Trixie and Trixie goes even further into depression. People play mean pranks on her and she wants to go home immediately. Her father comes and picks her up and while they drive away they get a bottle thrown at their car and kids yelling at them. Later, Laura and Daniel start mending their relationship. The mending starts out really slow and doesn’t seem like it would happen. This doesn’t help Laura either. Laura is also having a hard time. She is breaking things off with Seth and is still afraid Trixie will find out. When Trixie does find out they have a huge argument and but it ended really well and they were closer than ever before. Trixie’s case is not looking good with the information coming from witnesses. It shows that Trixie had been lying and that she was the one endangering herself, not just Jason. Later we find out that Trixie was only lying because she was afraid that no one would believe her. She was hoping that it would help her win her case. Later on in the section Laura opened the bathroom door looking for Trixie and saw her on the bathroom floor covered in blood. She saw that her wrists had been bleeding and that she was bleeding to death. "Laura held her daughter's limp body up againt her own, knowing that she had to get to a phone and equally sure that if she left Trixie alone, she'd never see her alive again." (165) I chose this quote because it shows how far in a hole Trixie is at this point. She feels there is no way out of the way she is feeling except death. This connects to a lot of girls her age. There are many girls out there that are very unhappy whether its with their self image or lack of friends. These girls result in suicides and leave their family and friends behind because they feel there is no way out.

The Tenth Circle: 3 Post A

> *gyrating (131) - to move in a circle or spiral, or around a fixed point; whirl
* profuse (147)- Pouring forth with fullness or exuberance; giving or given liberally and abundantly; extravagant.

>" She was crying just as hard as Trixie was now, to the point where it was impossible to tell which one of them was clinging to the other. Laura felt, in that moment, like the survivor of the train wreck, the woman who steps outside the smoking wreckage to realize that her arms and legs still works, that she has somehow come through a catastrophe unscathed." (160)
This quote was significant to the story because it shows how no matter your age you need someone to take care of you. The comfort of your own child can sometimes help you get over everything else that is happening in your life. When you are having trouble with your husband and all you have left is knowing your child will forgive you can sometimes help you get over the other things in your life.

The Tenth Circle: 2 Post B

The second section starts out with Trixie being at the hospital. She is being examined for infections because she had just gotten raped. Doctors question what happened and what she had been doing that evening. When Daniel goes back to their house to get Trixie new clothes, Laura come the the hospital because she got the message that Daniel had sent her. When Daniel gets back from the house, he's surprised to see Laura with Trixie. When they finally get to go home from the hospital, 27 hours later, Trixie is deathly tired but can't sleep. She can't get what happened with her and Jason out of her head. She is always replaying it over and over in her head and she can't focus on anything. Daniel also finds out about Laura's affair. This puts a major dent in their relationship and marriage. Laura tried really hard to make up what she did to Daniel but he has no interest in what she has to say. Trixie tried to go back to school. Daniel doesn't feel she should go back to school but the counselor feels its the best thing to do. Trixie's best friend Zephyr also hasn't spoken to her since that night. Trixie is hoping its because she doesn't know how to apologize to her but not sure if that is the reason why.

The Tenth Circle:2 Post A

> *Florid: flushed with red; also, excessively ornate. (80)
*Facetious: playfully jocular; humorous (87)

> One theme that is emerging in the book is, things might not be as they appear. I chose this theme because of the way Trixie wanted to have Jason so badly and when she finally got him back for a little bit, he took advantage of her condition and raped her. Trixie thought that she wanted to have sex with him until it was actually happening. She begged him to stop but he didn't listen. She also thought that Jason was the whole package in the sense that he was a nice guy and really cared about her, along with being the schools hockey all-star. Jason just ended up being a shallow guy that only cared about himself and his image.

The Tenth Circle: 1 Post B

The Beginning of the book, The Tenth Circle, was very interesting. We find out that Daniel, Trixie’s father, is a successful comic’s writer. He has a rocky relationship with his wife Laura. Laura is a College professor teaching a very popular course on hell. We find out that Laura is having an affair with a college student but breaks it off and becomes very upset. Trixie is fourteen, and has a best friend named Zephyr. Trixie becomes some sort of a rebel when she is with Zephyr. One night Trixie tells her dad that she is having a low key night at Zephyr’s house and then sleeping over there. What her father doesn’t know is that Zephyr was planning on having a big party at her house including all kinds of inappropriate games. Trixie was planning on fooling around with other boys to make her X-boyfriend, who she is still crazy about, jealous. When Trixie starts drinking her head was spinning and all she could think about was Jason. When everyone left except Jason, and, Jason’s friend, Moss, Trixie was ashamed and embarrassed so she hid in the bathroom. Jason went up to meet her and they started kissing. We later find out that Jason had raped her. When Daniel finds out, he takes Trixie to the hospital for some exams.

The Tenth Circle:1 Post A

> * foundling (7) - A deserted or abandoned infant; a child found without a parent or caretaker
*maladroit (38) - Lacking adroitness; clumsy; awkward; unskillful; inept.

> "You should work at home, Daniel said, when what he really meant was, why does it sound like you've been crying?
No, I'll get more done here, Laura answered, when what she really meant was, Please don't ask." (49) I picked this quote from the book because it helps the reader understand the marriage between the two. As a reader, the quote helped me understand that the marriage between Laura and Daniel is slowly falling apart. They have some communication problems and don't like to talk out their problems. The quote helped set the mood of their relationship.

The Sea Inside: Post 3

When Ramon was dreaming of him and Julia kissing, they used a close up shot to show the intensity. It helped viewers show how he felt about Julia and what he really wanted to have with her. The camera angle really did help show us as viewers what he was dreaming and how he felt about Julia.

The Sea Inside: Post 2

The Sea Inside was a lot like The Diving Bell and the Butterfly in my opinion. In both stories the main characters were quadriplegics. They both had somewhat of a wish to die and felt like their conditions were torture. They both had families that cared about them very much and had no wish for them to die. I thought it was interesting that both Ramon and Bauby wrote books about their condition as well. Bauby in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, had a worse condition than Ramon in The Sea Inside. Bauby could only blink one of his eyes and that was the only motion he could do. Ramon, however, could move his whole head. In my opinion, I thought The Sea Inside was a more powerful message in the way that Ramon spent a huge chunk of his quadriplegic life trying to die. It was a more in depth story and had a wider variety of conflicts which made it more interesting.

The Sea Inside: Post 1

I thought that The Sea Inside was a good movie. I enjoyed the storyline and thought it was really interesting. I thought that Ramon's request for assisted suicide was understandable. His condition, to him, was somewhat like a torture and he wanted to get out of it. The way the court reacted to Ramon's request was expected. They weren't just willing to give Ramon the OK to go ahead and commit suicide without a fight. I think that Ramon's friends must have really loved him to have the strength to let their friend die. I don't know if i could have been able to let one of my friends commit suicide even though it was what they really wanted.

The Glass Castle: Section 5

In this section, times in their new house were getting really harsh. Jeannette realizes that everyone in Welch fights. People at school, people on the streets, and their family. Rex Walls starts disappearing and again coming home drunk. They don't eat much and the kids at school notice how skinny the Walls kids are. They made fun of them so Jeannette stayed in the bathroom during lunch waiting for the other kids to throw away the food they didn't eat. When winter came in Welch, times got really hard. The house had no insulation and they didn't enough money for coal for their fireplace. The branches from the trees were too wet to burn from the snow so the house was just as cold inside as it was outside. They had to wear coats inside and put fire against the icicles coming out of the faucet to melt them. They had to go to their gandfather's house to bathe but Jeannette had a hard time going back once her uncle started sexually assaulting her. Her mother told her to not make a big deal about it and that it will only make her stronger. When the kids' Grandpa Erma died they went to the funeral, but got in trouble when they started making fun of her. Their father was so mad that he yelled at them in front of everyone and Rex said that he was ashamed of them. Lori was mad at him for saying that and remarked, "you're ashamed of us?" One day when Jeannette and Brian went scouting for firewood they found a diamond ring that belonged to the woman who lived there previously. They got really excited, hoping that they could sell it and make a bunch of money for food and hopefully they would be able to get a new pair of shoes. But when their mother decides to keep it for herself the kids get very disappointed. When Jeannette finds out her mother was keeping the ring she tells her mother to leave her father. Rose Mary was appalled but never told Rex what Jeannette said. A man came to their front door asking for Jeannette's parents. She told the man that they worked even thought they didn't. She got so furious about the man coming to the door, and she asked her mother to get a job so they could eat and have a chance at living. Her mother told her she would get a teaching job after she said that Jeannette was so focused that it was scary. Once Jeannette started high school, she started working on the school newspaper, The Maroon Wave. It became all she could think about and stayed late to work on it to stay in the heated school. Rose Mary feels she can't manage her life so she turns the money over to the kids. They start a budget until their dad starts taking money from them for beer and gambling. One night Rex takes Jeannette to a bar and he lets her go to an older man's apartment alone when she was only thirteen. The man tried to rape her and her dad knew that he was going to try. Jeannette was furious with her father and the only thing he said was that it was just like when he was teaching her to swim. Jeannette got a job at a jewelry store because she told the owner she was seventeen. Not long after that Lori and Jeannette came up with a plan of getting out of Welch and going to New York. Lori was just about to graduate and she and Jeannette started a savings to Go to New York. After they saved for almost a year there dad had stolen all of it. They had to make most of the money back and then Jeannette was off to New York after graduation. Once Jeannette Graduated, Jeannette flew to New York to meet Lori.

2) My reaction to this book only gets more surprised and disturbed. The childrens' parents' actions shock me to no end. When Jeannette was sexually assulted by her uncle, and her mom told her that it would only make her stronger, i couldn't even believe it. My favorite part of this section was when Lori and Jeannette decided to move to New York. They started saving money and working together to get out of the hell hole they were living in. I loved when Brian decided to help make money for their move even though he wasn't originally apart of the plan. I also loved when their life started looking up because they couldn't believe that they were living in an apartment that had ceilings that didnt leak, flushing toilets, and an endless supply of fresh running water. Another part I enjoyed reading was when Jeannette said goodbye to her dad even though he was trying to make her stay. She stayed strong and knew that life would be better if she left for good.

The Glass Castle Week 4: Part 2

The family decided to get out of Phoenix and go to Welch, West Virginia. It takes them about a month to get cross country and finally get to Rex's folks house. The house is very worn down and Rex, you can tell, is really embarrassed. Erma, Rex's mother, opens the door and tells the kids to call her Erma, not grandma. The whole town gives off a very weird vibe. The kids enroll in school without birth certificates and previous school reports and are placed in classes with kids who have learning disabilities because they can't understand the principle's accent. The kids have a hard time adjusting to their peers. Jeannette gets beat up by a group of black girls. They keep bothering her and beating her up until she, one day, saves the leader of the black girl's gang's neighbor. Soon she befriends her and she helps her with her homework. Rex and Rose Mary leave to go back to phoenix to get all the stuff they left behind. But when they got there they found that everything was taken. While they were gone, Erma takes advantage of Brian and Jeannette gets Lori to come in and help him. Lori and Erma get into a fist fight, and by the time it gets out of control their grandpa breaks them apart. Erma gets so mad that she sends them to the basement for the rest of the time their parents were gone. When their parents got back, Erma banishes their entire family from her house so they find a new home in the mountains that has no running water and is falling apart, literally.

The Glass Castle Week 4: Part 1

" 'Erma can't let go of her misery,' Mom said. 'It's all she knows,' She added that you should never hate anyone, even your worst enemies. 'Everyone has something good about them,' she said. 'you have to find the redeeming quality and love the person for that.
'Oh yeah?' I said. 'How about Hitler? What was his redeeming quality?'
'Hitler loved dogs.' ( The Glass Castle p.144)

This quote really stood out to me because it is sort of a reassurance that one of those children's parents has some sense and can teach their children some of the right ways to act.

The Glass Castle Week 3 part:2

1)The Book starts out with the author, Jeannette, riding in a taxi and she spots her mother digging through a dumpster. She doesn't want to be seen by her mother so she ducks in her seat. By the time she gets home she is so mad at herself for no saying hello to her mother that she called a friend of her mother's and left a message. this was the only way she could get a hold of her considering she was homeless. About 3 days later her mother called and they decided to go out to lunch to a Chinese restaurant. While they're eating Jeannette says how worried she is about her mother and father. She offers to help them out and her mother says they don't want their charity. She also says how embarrassed she is of them and her mother tells her, her values are all mixed up and she needs to accept them for who they are.
The next part of the book goes back in time to when she was about 3 years old. She was cooking hot dogs by herself on the stove wearing her favorite pink dress. Not long after she'd been cooking the hot dogs she felt heat coming from the right side of her dress. She looked over and noticed she was on fire. She started screaming and the flames quickly spread. Her mother and father came into the room with a big wool blanket. As the flames go out her mother takes her and calls everyone else out to the car and they ask a neighbor if they could have a ride to the hospital. While they're at the hospital all the nurses question Jeanette's parents parenting. They wonder why she was allowed to cook hot dogs by herself at age 3. The doctors also ask her many other questions such as, have her parents every tried to hurt her, and how she got burned. Jeannette said her parents have never hurt her before and she got burned when she was cooking the hot dogs. The nurses couldn't help but wonder what was going on in their home.
While Jeannette is at the hospital her dad tells her how much she hates hospitals. He didn't take her sister Lori to the hospital when she got stung by a poisonous scorpion. After she got stung she went into convulsions and because her father didn't trust hospitals he took her to a Navajo witch doctor instead. On the sixth week at the hospital, Jeannette was stolen out of her room by her father. Her dad threw her over his shoulder and ran out the door to the running car where the whole family was sitting. He put Jeannette in the back and drove off as fast he could.
Not long after the hospital incident, her dad tells everyone to pack essentials and meet him in the car in 15 minutes. They take off from their trailer home and hit the road. The family cat Quixote started meowing and Mr. Walls threw her out the window of the moving car. He told the children that cats don't like to travel and he thought that was a good enough reason to toss the cat out the window. As the day turned to night they pulled over and slept under the stars. Mr. Walls confesses that the FBI is after him and that's why they had to leave their home.
They keep traveling from city to city and one day as they're traveling they car door pops open and Jeannette falls out of the moving car. Once she collects herself from the fall she sees the car travel further and further away. She starts to cry as she notices her cuts and bloody knees and nose. It takes the car a long time until they come back for her.
The Walls family lives in a depot in Battle Mountain, Nevada. The kids start going to school and come in tact with all sorts of trouble. Jeannette's mother starts a new job as a teacher and her father works in the mine. Jeannette has an admirer, Billy Deel, but has no interest in him. He goes out of his way to show how he wants her to be his girlfriend but she shoots him down one time after another. Billy shows signs of an insecure childhood and questionable behavior. He attempts to rape Jeannette and she decided not to tell anyone about it. Only a day or two after the attempted rape Billy comes over to the Walls' house with a BB gun and starts shooting. Lori, Jeannette's older sister, grabs their father's pistol to scare him off. Later that night their parents come home with the police and they ask the children questions about the fight. As soon as the police leave Mr. Walls decides the family should flee to Phoenix where Mrs. Walls' mother once lived but recently passed away to start their new life.
he Walls family moves into Rose Mary's mother's house. They consider it a mansion compared to what they were used to living in. When the kids get enrolled in school they get their ears and eyes checked and Lori ended up getting glasses, which their mother disapproved, but because the school offered to pay for them she allowed Lori to get the glasses. Because Mr. Walls got a solid job with a steady income, he decided to buy all the kids bikes. The kids were so surprised and thought for sure life was looking up from there.
Not long after they moved into their new house they started having trouble with the neighbors. The first bad encounter was with their "gypsy" neighbors. They has supposedly stolen Brian's pogo stick and Rose Mary fought "magic with magic" to get the pogo stick back. The second encounter they had was with a neighbor that intruded in their open house at night which they called a pervert. He molested Jeannette in her bed and when she realized he was there, her and Brian chased him out all by themselves. We also learned that Rex doesn't like going to church because he doesn't have a faith. Most times when they take him to church he very rudely interrupts the sermon and gets them kicked out.
When Rex Walls hears about a women getting a Mountain Lion killed he gets furious and takes the kids to the zoo to show them how all animals aren't harmful if you know how to interact with them. He takes the kids to see the cheetah and he lets them stick their hands in the cage and shows them how harmless they are. The cheetah licks their hands but then a woman calls security on them and they have to run out of the zoo.
Rose Mary tells the kids that she thought it was going to be a great Christmas that year. They went out and bought a dead tree and put their grandmother's ornaments on it. When they get kicked out of the midnight mass they go home to open presents but their dad is too drunk that he sets the tree and all the gifts on fire .
For Jeanette's tenth birthday her dad asks her what she wants for her birthday to make the rest of her life better while she's living with them and she asks him to stop drinking. He takes this in a very strange way and he secludes himself from his family since she asked this of him. One day when she comes home from school she hears her dad yelling from his bedroom and he's tied to his bed. She asks her mom what's going on and she said that he's battling his own demons.
After Rex recuperates from not drinking he decided the family should go on a road trip to the Grand Canyon. They end up breaking the car down by making the car go as fast as it can. They end up having to hitch hike home but Rex decided to walk home. Three days went by and he came home completely drunk and started yelling for Rose Mary. They got in a huge fight which involved knifes, but didn't take long to taper off.

I think that the book is very well written. When I'm reading i feel like I'm actually watching it happen. It is very descriptive and easy to follow. There are some things that I sometimes question and I wish she would follow more in depth with but overall I am really enjoying the book. This book also is somewhat disturbing to me. The way Jeanette's parents handle certain situations makes me sad for her and her siblings. I couldn't even imagine living the way they lived and I just have to wonder what my life would be like if I were in her shoes. I don't really have any relations to her in my own life. My life is completely different from the way she grew up.

The Glass Castle Week 3 part:1

1) In this section the Walls family moves into Rose Mary's mother's house. They consider it a mansion compared to what they were used to living in. When the kids get enrolled in school they get their ears and eyes checked and Lori ended up getting glasses, which their mother disapproved, but because the school offered to pay for them she allowed Lori to get the glasses. Because Mr. Walls got a solid job with a steady income, he decided to buy all the kids bikes. The kids were so surprised and thought for sure life was looking up from there.
Not long after they moved into their new house they started having trouble with the neighbors. The first bad encounter was with their "gypsy" neighbors. They has supposedly stolen Brian's pogo stick and Rose Mary fought "magic with magic" to get the pogo stick back. The second encounter they had was with a neighbor that intruded in their open house at night which they called a pervert. He molested Jeannette in her bed and when she realized he was there, her and Brian chased him out all by themselves. We also learned that Rex doesn't like going to church because he doesn't have a faith. Most times when they take him to church he very rudely interrupts the sermon and gets them kicked out.
When Rex Walls hears about a women getting a Mountain Lion killed he gets furious and takes the kids to the zoo to show them how all animals aren't harmful if you know how to interact with them. He takes the kids to see the cheetah and he lets them stick their hands in the cage and shows them how harmless they are. The cheetah licks their hands but then a woman calls security on them and they have to run out of the zoo.
Rose Mary tells the kids that she thought it was going to be a great Christmas that year. They went out and bought a dead tree and put their grandmother's ornaments on it. When they get kicked out of the midnight mass they go home to open presents but their dad is too drunk that he sets the tree and all the gifts on fire .
For Jeanette's tenth birthday her dad asks her what she wants for her birthday to make the rest of her life better while she's living with them and she asks him to stop drinking. He takes this in a very strange way and he secludes himself from his family since she asked this of him. One day when she comes home from school she hears her dad yelling from his bedroom and he's tied to his bed. She asks her mom what's going on and she said that he's battling his own demons.
After Rex recuperates from not drinking he decided the family should go on a road trip to the Grand Canyon. They end up breaking the car down by making the car go as fast as it can. They end up having to hitch hike home but Rex decided to walk home. Three days went by and he came home completely drunk and started yelling for Rose Mary. They got in a huge fight which involved knifes, but didn't take long to taper off.

2) Jeanette Walls had a shaken and wild upbringing. She Had 2 sisters and 1 brother. They traveled all around running from people her dad got in trouble with and never could depend on living in one spot for too long. Their parents had questionable morals and rules t which sometimes got them hurt or in trouble. Her father was an alcoholic and when drunk was abusive to her mother. He didn't set very good examples in front of his kids but his kids didn't know any better than to believe everything he said. Her mother was a painter and sold paintings for very little money. She started her own gallery in their house in Phoenix, but it didn't last long. Today she is an entertainment gossip columnist and is now a known author for her book "The Glass Castle."


sources: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7139443/
http://conversationsfamouswriters.blogspot.com/2005/10/jeannette-walls-glass-castle.html

The Glass Castle: section 2

Loaded Words:
> character, p.55
- This word is loaded because it is used as calling Mr. Walls this name. The author is emphasizing how other people view him as a person.
> wimp, p.59
-This word is loaded because it's describing how Jeannette and other kids view her dad. The author uses this word to show the little girl's age using her vocabulary.
>loathe, p.64
- This word is loaded because it tells the reader how the mother feels about her husband's budget skills. The author uses this word to show her deep feelings about her husband's quirks.
>Innocence, p.73
-This word is loaded because it tells you how Mr. Walls wants to be viewed in a certain situation. The author used this word to show the depth of the situation.
> mentally slow, p.73
-This word is loaded because it tells you how the kids in the classroom were learning. The author used this word to tell the progress in Mrs. Walls' class.
>Brilliant, p. 74
- This word is loaded because it's used to show Lori's intellect compared to the rest of her family. The author used this word to show how much more educated Lori is compared to the rest of the family.
>scarce, p.77
- This word is loaded because it tells you how much money the family has. The author used this word to show how the family's income comes and goes.
>ladies, p.80
- This word is loaded because it describes how a 6 year old boy views women that work in a "whore house." The author used this word to show the little boy's point of view on adult situations.
>aggressive, p.86
- This word is loaded because it tells you how the little boy is acting to Jeannette. The author used this word to show how badly Billy is acting and how his actions affect Jeannette.
> terror, p. 88
- This word is loaded to show how the children were feeling when billy was pointing the gun at them. The author used this word to explain in further detail how serious the situation really was.

Short Summary:
In section two the Walls family lives in a depot in Battle Mountain, Nevada. The kids start going to school and come in tact with all sorts of trouble. Jeannette's mother starts a new job as a teacher and her father works in the mine. Jeannette has an admirer, Billy Deel, but has no interest in him. He goes out of his way to show how he wants her to be his girlfriend but she shoots him down one time after another. Billy shows signs of an insecure childhood and questionable behavior. He attempts to rape Jeannette and she decided not to tell anyone about it. Only a day or two after the attempted rape Billy comes over to the Walls' house with a BB gun and starts shooting. Lori, Jeannette's older sister, grabs their father's pistol to scare him off. Later that night their parents come home with the police and they ask the children questions about the fight. As soon as the police leave Mr. Walls decides the family should flee to Phoenix where Mrs. Walls' mother once lived but recently passed away to start their new life.

Personal Reaction:
The more I read this book the more shocked I become. The lifestyle these people lived is so far from how I have grown up. The constant fighting of their parents and the unsteadiness of their parents' jobs concerns me. I only have to wonder how their new lifestyle in Phoenix is going to turn out and what surprises their lives have in store for them.

The Glass Castle: section 1 reactions

Section one of this book kind of shocked me. The way those children were being raised really gave me an uneasy feeling and i found it somewhat disturbing. The way Mr. Walls would swear and "care" for his family wasn't the ideal way of raising children in today's world. I think that the hospital should have looked more into their family and help them get back on track. The way Jeannette caught on fire should have been a big sign to the doctors at the hospital that the family needed help.

The Glass Castle:section 1

The Book starts out with the author, Jeannette, riding in a taxi and she spots her mother digging through a dumpster. She doesn't want to be seen by her mother so she ducks in her seat. By the time she gets home she is so mad at herself for no saying hello to her mother that she called a friend of her mother's and left a message. this was the only way she could get a hold of her considering she was homeless. About 3 days later her mother called and they decided to go out to lunch to a Chinese restaurant. While they're eating Jeannette says how worried she is about her mother and father. She offers to help them out and her mother says they don't want their charity. She also says how embarrassed she is of them and her mother tells her, her values are all mixed up and she needs to accept them for who they are.
The next part of the book goes back in time to when she was about 3 years old. She was cooking hot dogs by herself on the stove wearing her favorite pink dress. Not long after she'd been cooking the hot dogs she felt heat coming from the right side of her dress. She looked over and noticed she was on fire. She started screaming and the flames quickly spread. Her mother and father came into the room with a big wool blanket. As the flames go out her mother takes her and calls everyone else out to the car and they ask a neighbor if they could have a ride to the hospital. While they're at the hospital all the nurses question Jeanette's parents parenting. They wonder why she was allowed to cook hot dogs by herself at age 3. The doctors also ask her many other questions such as, have her parents every tried to hurt her, and how she got burned. Jeannette said her parents have never hurt her before and she got burned when she was cooking the hot dogs. The nurses couldn't help but wonder what was going on in their home.
While Jeannette is at the hospital her dad tells her how much she hates hospitals. He didn't take her sister Lori to the hospital when she got stung by a poisonous scorpion. After she got stung she went into convulsions and because her father didn't trust hospitals he took her to a Navajo witch doctor instead. On the sixth week at the hospital, Jeannette was stolen out of her room by her father. Her dad threw her over his shoulder and ran out the door to the running car where the whole family was sitting. He put Jeannette in the back and drove off as fast he could.
Not long after the hospital incident, her dad tells everyone to pack essentials and meet him in the car in 15 minutes. They take off from their trailer home and hit the road. The family cat Quixote started meowing and Mr. Walls threw her out the window of the moving car. He told the children that cats don't like to travel and he thought that was a good enough reason to toss the cat out the window. As the day turned to night they pulled over and slept under the stars. Mr. Walls confesses that the FBI is after him and that's why they had to leave their home.
They keep traveling from city to city and one day as they're traveling they car door pops open and Jeannette falls out of the moving car. Once she collects herself from the fall she sees the car travel further and further away. She starts to cry as she notices her cuts and bloody knees and nose. It takes the car a long time until they come back for her.

This I Believe assignment

1. A link to the essay:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10853582

2. Author:
Michael Oatman

3. Title:
Admittance to a Better Life

–4. One sentence of what the belief is:
I believe that education has the power to transform a person's life

5. 2 examples from the story that showed their belief:
1)I still wonder what happened to that happy-go-lucky semi-thug who used to hang out with drug dealers on dimly-lit street corners. Well, I'm in the library parsing a Jane Austen novel looking for dramatic irony, while many of my old friends are dead or in jail

2)When I was on the streets, I never felt I was good at anything, but I wrote this poem about a girl who didn't care about me, and it got published.

6. 1 favorite passage:
For me, education was the rabbit hole through which I escaped the underclass.

Goals

One goal for my sophomore year is to get straight A's. I'm hoping that i can keep all my activities, school work and social life balanced so that I don't spend too much time in one category than another. I hope to start off on the right foot and not procrastinate with my school work but also put enough time aside for time with my friends and family.

Anxious:

The one thing I am most anxious about at Edina High School is making time for everything. Because we no longer have and A day B day schedule it will be harder to keep up with my homework. I will have to adjust to finding time to do all my homework, go to my sports, and spending time with my friends and family.

Hello!