Connecting Music and Books

I haven’t watched any good movies or read any more of my books yet this week because I’ve been so busy, so can I talk about music because even throughout all the stuff I’ve had to do this week, I’ve found a little time in there for music which seems to help me un-stress and take a breath. It’s one of the only things that I can always count on to make me calm because no matter what mood you’re in, it is always there. Another good thing about it is there are different types of music that you can listen to, which helps relieve your other feelings.

                Music is also good at bringing back memories. For example, there was this one book that I read one time Looking for Alaska which I talked about in another blog post as being my favorite book ever, and it still is, but anyway, after reading that whole book, cover to cover, I heard a song called Play it Again by Luke Bryan which reminded me of the story and the way to two main characters interacted. In the song, during the chorus, it explains a girl listening to the radio, waiting for her favorite song to come back on and when it finally comes on, she grabs the first boy she sees to dance with her. The guy thinks the girl is pretty and wanted to dance with her anyway and when she asks him to dance, he is reluctant that he doesn’t have to ask her. This reminds me of Looking for Alaska, because the same relationship between the two main characters exists and it just makes the book much better to read because you want to know how the two are going to strengthen their relationship.

                I really like songs and books like that can connect because it helps liven up both things. I think that the music really brings a new musical aspect to the book which helps bring it to life and when you find a book that match the music, it helps give the music a kind of story line and make it more connectable.

Blackfish

                Over the past couple weeks, in my Language Arts class, we have been talking about animals rights and just rights in general and comparing the two and that got me thinking about all the different rights that we have compared to the different rights that animals have.

                Before we had a discussion, we watched a film called Blackfish which showed all the SeaWorld orcas and how the behaved and cooperated with the other whales and the trainers. At the beginning of the film, I had the idea that orcas are very harmless animals as long as you don’t upset with them. Then after they showed the first death that was caused by one of the whales, my perspective change. It didn’t change however to say that it was the orcas fault, I thought it was more of the owners at SeaWorld for putting these large animals in captivity for so long. It would be like us living in a bath tub the rest of our lives and, I don’t know about you guys but I would think that would be the worst thing ever. These large animals should not be put in this relatively speaking, small tank for show. They should be put back out in the wild so they can grow up in the environment they are supposed to be in.

                Later, after watching and discussing the film, we read an article that outlined whether animals should have rights or if they were just things that we have to live with on Earth. In this article, there was one sentence that stood out above all others, which made me actually really mad because it just was very unthoughtful and, quite frankly, stupid, in my opinion. This sentence said something about the comparison between mentally disabled people and “normal” people was the same as animals and humans. This just upset me so much, because earlier in the article, this same person had said that animals deserve no rights because they aren’t able to think the same way as us. Now looking at the first sentence again, you can see how upsetting (I hope) this actually is. It’s pretty much saying at mentally disabled people aren’t allowed to have the same rights as “normal” person because they aren’t able to think about things as others are. That just isn’t fair at all because, it’s not like they can help it, just like animals aren’t able to help be what they are. And just because they are different doesn’t mean that we have full right to do whatever we want with them just because they can’t tell us to stop.

                What I’m trying to get at is that animals don’t have the same expectations, but they should have the same rights because we are all trying to live our lives on this Earth together and the second one starts taking advantage of another group, the second they become the superior power and then that just leads to them thinking they can get away with anything because they got away with the first thing. So in my opinion, if we could all just live equally and in our own environments without taking some and putting them into captivity, we would have a better outcome in the balanced ecosystem.

Taken 3

                Switching from books to movies in this blog post because I saw the third movie in my favorite movie series I guess you could call it. The movie was Taken 3 and I thought the movie was beyond phenomenal! To be honest, I was a little concerned because when I saw the second one, I didn’t like it that much because it was almost exactly like the first one so I thought the third one was going to be just like the others. But when it started I could tell it was going to be good and different from the first.

                In the first two movies, you could see the relationship between the father and daughter and I think the reason I liked the third one so much is that even after tragedy struck in their family when the mother is killed, they don’t let that get in the way of their father-daughter relationship. I feel like if most families hear that a father is the only suspect for killing his ex-wife, most people would believe it because there’s no other proof to counter it. And hearing this could easily tear any family apart in seconds. However, with the strong bond the father and daughter had, she knew that she had to trust her father because one he was the only one there left for her and two it was the type of personality he had and it just allowed her to trust him better.

                I also just really like the fact that it wasn’t like the other movies. In the first two movies, Bryan’s (the father) family members were actually being kidnapped and taken somewhere that Bryan has to try and track and find. But in the last one, someone was taken but Bryan didn’t have to try to actually find them because they were left in the apartment dead. That kind of changed the atmosphere of the movie because he wasn’t trying to find his family, he was trying to protect what was left and you could just tell while you were watching it that he had a different mindset in this one than in the other ones. It made you engage in the movie a little more I think since they had it in this format rather than in the other way they have done it. I think if they would have had it be another movie where someone was kidnapped in the family and then found in the end all happy and peaceful again, it would have been boring because it wouldn’t have any differences in them which would not have been fun to watch.

                If you haven’t watched Taken 3 yet, I would highly suggest you do because it is such a great movie and I don’t think you would be disappointed in it!

Middlesex and Into the Jungle

For my next book, that I have to read for school (you may be thinking ugh but im actually really excited), I’m reading Middlesex by Jeffery Eugenides. For our assignment, we had to choose a contemporary literature book and this book really caught my eye. Not only did it catch my eye however, I asked my teacher what she would suggest and that was one of them.

I think it caught my eye because when I read the summary and heard my teacher talk about it, she said it was about a person who was biologically both a male and a female, called a hermaphrodite. I thought that it was going to be really interesting because, me being a biology student, was very confused and curious has to how this could happen. I haven’t started it yet, but I hope to start it tomorrow and I couldn’t be more excited.

Another thing I’m really excited to learn is how this individual learned to deal with this condition and what they decided to do. I don’t quite understand how this really could happen because not to be blunt with this, but its not like someone could have both parts, so that’s what I really hope they explain in this story.

                This is different from the topic I was just talking about, but while we are on the topic of starting new books for school, I also have to read a book about evolution called Into the Jungle for my AP Biology class. I can honestly say that im not as excited to read this book as Middlesex, but I guess its going to be pretty interesting to go in depth about all the different evoultionary aspects and theories that are more complicated than they seem. For example, it would seem easy to explain how we get every different species and different animals. The answer would be mutations, but the really hard question would be why do mutations occur because there is no set reason why. This concept is hard for me to wrap my head around, but hopefully I learn something interesting from this book.

Beautiful Boy Part 2!

                So over my winter break, I didn’t finish the Mortal Instruments series because I was a lot busier than I thought I was, but I did finish Beautiful Boy. Since I finished it, I can honestly say that I loved that book so much because it gave me insight to other families and how they run things in the family. I also thought it was really well written because, the way David Sheff wrote it made it feel like you were standing in the room when all of this was happening, like I said in my other post about this novel.

                In the novel, you learned straight off that the family was one of those “perfect families”. You know those families, like the ones where the parents are happily in love and the children never talk back forever give their parents all the respect in the world. That’s how I like to think my family is because it most of the time is. Sometimes we have our days when we don’t even want to be in the same room as one another, but we quickly get over that because at the end of the day, we all will have each other and we love each other until the end. Steering off topic, let’s bring it back. Okay, anyway, soon the family the Sheff’s thought they were was soon broken because David and his wife realized that they didn’t feel the same about each other so they got a divorce. This is the point in the story where I think all “bad stuff” started to happen because Nic, David’s son, had to constantly go back and forth between parents, which he started at such a young age and that makes me think that it put a lot of pressure on him to choose between his parents and keep both of them happy.

                As time progressed in the Sheff family, Nic and David became more distant from each other and that also could have been one of the major causes to Nic’s bad choices. David also never really explained to Nic how dangerous drugs were and why it was bad to become addicted to them. I think that would cause Nic to be more curious to see what would happen if he tried them. I know my parents used to stress how dangerous drugs, like meth and pot, were and how much better and more successful your life could be without them. It makes me wonder what would have happened if David would have stressed it a little more, if it would have make Nic stopping using.

                When I look at the novel and the story as a whole, I realize that David might be very disappointed in what happened with his family and he wants to try and get his story out there so other parents and families could try and base their decisions off the Sheff’s and try and make good decisions for their families. What do you think?