Outside Reading #2

I just finished reading Harvesting the Heart by Jodi Picoult. I thought the ending wasn't really the end. The novel just kind of stopped, almost like there should have been a few more chapters. I felt like Picoult left out important parts of the novel by just ending it. For example, a good portion of the novel is about Paige and trying to find herself (similar to Animal Dreams) and trying to win back her husband Nicholas after she leaves to find her mother and find out why she left. In the end though, you never find out if they get back together or not, it kind of leaves it up to the reader to decide. But with that, I also feel that there should have been more.
The novel I started reading today is The Memory Keeper's Daughter. I have only read a few pages of it, byut so far it seems really good. All I have read thus far is that this doctor's wife has gone into labor (1965) and she gives birth to twins, one of each a girl and boy. The boy is born in good health whereas the little girl is born with downsyndrom. At the time, children with downsyndrom were immidiately shipped off to be raised with people "of their own kind" which is exactly what happened. THat is all I have read so far, but it seems to be a pretty good novel so far.

Outside Reading #1

I am currently reading Harvesting the Heart by Jodi Picoult. I chose to read it because I absolutely love her books, and I hadn't read it yet. Harvesting the Heart is about a girl whose mother ran away at age five. When she grows up and becomes a mother herself, she feels she is no good at being a parent and leaves just like her mother did. She leaves her husband, who is a surgon so he is always at work, and her three month old baby at home. When she leaves, she goes out to find her mother. The novel explores the ideas of why her mother left her and how things like this have an long term effect.
"I had expected more from you. The words brought back the image of his father, standing over him like an impenetratable basilisk and holding out a prep school physics exam bearing the only grade lower than an A that Nicholas had recived in his whole life" (Picoult 270). I chose this quote because I think it shows the power of an adult figure, like a parent's, influence and opinion. As much as people want to say that they aren't influenced by what other people say, I think that deep down they care about what their parents say. Also, I think that the idea of falling below what your parents expect from you is also something that alot of people don't like the idea of.

Overcoming Odds

I read an article on two brothers who graduated from Dartmouth College who overcame odds by building a medical clinic in their native home in Kenya. When one of the two brothers won a scholarship to Dartmouth his fellow villagers sold things of their possessions to buy him a $900 plane ticket to the United States. While he was studying, he, some professors, and fellow classmates went to South America to build a medical clinic. That two week trip would change his life forever. Milton's younger brother would soon follow his to the U.S. and also attend Dartmouth College. Milton told Fred about his trip and that he wanted to fulfill his father's dream of having a medical clinic that wasn't two hours away in their native land. They decided that they were going to raise the money that they needed and go forth with this dream. After raising the money- the money they never thought they would be able to raise, they went back to Kenya to begin the build.
Many people didn't think that they would be able to complete this clinic let alone serve nearly 30,000 people since the opening in 2007. They worked hard for what they believed in and their dreams came true.
I think that this story, as wonderful and inspiring as it is, contains a hidden message. I think that this story shows that even when the odds are working against you, when no one thinks what you are trying to do will actually happen, when no one, or at least very few, think that you will succeed, that fighting for your dreams is very important. It seems like it comes down to a saying that I think is really important: "Stand up for what you believe, even if you are standing alone." I think that not only does this literally say stand up for what you believe, but also that you should fight for your dreams and never give up. You never know what you can do if you don't try.

Love

I read an article on love. It's not your typical love story, but just as it is it is a love story in a sense. The story says that a pregnant woman, her husband, and father went goes hunting. Her father was rapidly declining in his health. He wanted to show her that he could still do something right so he shot and killed a goose that had just left the banks of a river. The bird fell into the water and was flowing away. Her husband decided he was going to try to chase after the bird for her father. He ended up going farther than planned and she and her father had to set out to look for him. She was really worried and even though she was pregnant continued on. When she finally found him she was so relieved. The article, talking about finding the bird, then goes on to ask "what’s the difference between hope and denial?" I think that this is really important to be aware of. Say you were to have a child kidnapped, you would hope that they were still alive, you always would. But it comes to a point where the denial starts to set in. You can realize that they probably have not survived, but you can still have hope. This idea is exactly what happened in All My Sons. Kate was in denial though. She was unable to except it and still had hope.
I think that being able to except something is the difference between hope and denial. You can except something and still have hope for something else.

Multi-Flow Map

The yellow are the causes.
The blue are the effects.
The red one: I'm not entirely sure whether it was a cause or an effect by I thought it was a good one.

War

I read an article titled "Fighter pilot lost nearly 20 years ago in Persian Gulf War to remain listed as missing" written by Ben Evens from the Star Tribune. The article is about a fighter pilot who flew in the Persian Gulf War who still to this day remains missing. Capt. Michael "Scott" Speicher's family and military friends wanted to make a point that they hadn't forgotten him and that they would never give up on the search for him; this is why he remains on the MIA list. I think this article is really important for not only his family, but everyone else as well. The article, written about a MIA fighter pilot, is about so much more than that. The article shows how important it is to still have hope, to still have faith in something that you believe in. Also, the article symbolizes never giving up on something you believe in.

Notes #2

The Aztecs Blood and Glory

Article Link

- "Before the fall of the Aztec Empire, the four-tiered Great Pyramid rose to a height of 115 feet in the city's central ceremonial precinct; twin shrines capped its summit, one blue, for the god Tlaloc, and the other red and black, for the Aztecs patron god, Huitzilopochtli. The pyramid served as a temple, but it was more than that. It was a man-made sacred mountain and a venue for human sacrifices, martial triumphs and coronations. Succeeding rulers enlarged the Great Pyramid by expanding or building a masonry envelope around the preexisting structure, burying art, artifacts and caches of votive offerings inside." (Hofstadter)
-this shows that they didn't need the influence of the Europeans religion, they were capable of getting by by themselves with their own religion.

-Matos Moctezuma and his team of archaeologists, biologists, chemists, historians and anthropologists found a kind of encapsulation of Aztec material culture: thousands of objects--ceramics, masses of seashells and coral species, jewelry and mother-of-pearl figurines, model-size canoes and an effigy containing the seeds of all the major cultivated plants of the region. (Hofstadter)
-from a modern archeologist's find, shows again that they could get by without the Europeans.

- "This discovery led to the unearthing of the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan. The excavation, carried out under the direction of archaeologist Eduardo Matos Moctezuma, yielded an undreamed-of trove of art, artifacts, ritual offerings and human remains." (Hofstadter)
-from an archeologist's find