"Nelson Mandela" + Quote Post

"Nelson Mandela" + Quote Post

Nelson Rohilahla Mandela has been one of the best role models of my life ever since I learned about him in 6th grade. He was president of South Africa after serving 27 years in prison because of his battle against apartheid. Since then, I have tried to take time and study this man more, even though it is impossible to eulogize him perfectly.

While I was hanging out at the BrainyQuote Site one day, I read a quote by him that really caught my attention and caused me to relate to my life. 

"It always seems impossible until it's done."

Now, I gotta tell you guys that I was real whirled the first time I read the big words like "impossible" and "done." My brain danced around my brain for reading something new. Thinking about my middle school career at that time (since I was in 8th grade at the time I read the quote), I started pondering over how this quote could be executed to my schoolwork for now and later on in my upcoming high school career. Jumping from thought to thought for like ten seconds, I finally came up with an interpretation showing that sometimes, middle schoolwork can consist of long papers and projects and on the day you learn of them, you think it is impossible, but after you finish and carry the task out, it doesn't seem impossible.

Frequently I have coped with this. After every long project I've been through since the day I read that quote, I've always said what the Easy Button would say. I've remembered this quote and refreshed it on me everyday. In high school, this quote has been playing a major semblance in helping me undergo long-term projects. 

Not too long ago, in Mrs. Parkinson's English class, I'd obtained my Creative Nonfiction Project introductory paper and yes, there were long paragraphs in really tiny font that made me think, "ARRRRGH AGAGAGAGAGAGAHHH!!!!!!!!!!! How the heck am I supposed to get this done in two weeks with other academics in hand?!" When I ran through my mind looking for solutions in each and every cranny and corner of my skull, I found Madiba's quote, hanging on a skull wall, and came back to me, were all the words.  

So, that's how Madiba's quote altered the method I have drove safely through high school projects ever since.
Come to think if it today, I can get my Creative Nonfiction Project done today.                                                                 

                                                 

Madiba sadly died on December 5, 2013. Through his journey from a prisoner, to a president, embodied the promise that human beings and countries can change for the better.

Fahrenheit 451 2?

Fahrenheit 451 2?

I remember about a month ago, when I finished the amazing book "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury. After reading the book, I was really amazed at Bradbury's style of writing and how my English teacher Mrs. Parkinson stressed the importance of his style to better understand the story and many more allusions and aspects within the text. 

What I really liked most about the novel, was the main synopsis of it. I talked to Mrs. Parkinson by questioning what if remnants of the old society still survived the explosions after the war. She explained that we should just assume that the old society had ended. But, that didn't convince me quite enough to accept that belief. I wish there was a second novel to this to clarify my doubt, and I am assuming that many more people have other doubts like mine concerning the ending of the book. 

This doubt I have is really convincing me to write a sequel to Fahrenheit 451. After all, I am already near to finishing "About Tennis 2" by writing the final battle scene of defeating the main antagonist and getting the kids back home. Ray Bradbury died in 2012, but he lived a really wonderful life to see real progress happening with his book.

My version of writing Fahrenheit 451 2 would be where Montag and Granger's gang eventually reach the city and they eventually get all the survivors out of the rubble. However, remnants of the old society still remain and there is an old weapons factory situated miles away from where the explosions originally hit. The remnants plan to use the power of the factory to take over the society with the belief that books are bad. They also learn about Montag and the entire book-loving network he is working for. The remnants plan to kill Montag and eventually destroy the entire book-loving network. 

The main synopsis of the story would be the main conflict between Montag, his group and the remnants, while Montag finds a disquieting link to his past family and how his ancestors turned the old society into the way it was before the explosions took place. Montag uses this knowledge for better use within this conflict.

I eventually finished "Divergent" and I have to say like "Fahrenheit 451," it ends on a cliff hanger. "Divergent" is somewhat speculative fiction at the end because it convinces readers to take a step and make "what if?" thoughts. "Fahrenheit 451" is all speculative fiction as well, but I think the beauty of speculative fiction plays its biggest role at the end, where a cliff-hanger is present. 

"About Tennis"

"About Tennis"

"About Tennis" is not a published book. But how do I know about it? I'll tell you who the author is. ME!!!!!

I started this story in 2012 and finished it in July 2013. Why did I go on with this task? I did this because I wanted to show my unique writing in a creative manner and so, I did it along with my cousin sister who lives in Bangalore, India.

To be honest, I didn't go for this book at first, but I eventually agreed. And so, I took a Windows 8 desktop and Microsoft Word, and got to work. The final book ended up being over 100 sheets on Microsoft Word, if I printed it on both sides. I put it in chapter book format and got about 320 pages.

Seriously.

I tried to include a lot of good writing craft in there. And overall I thought it was pretty good. I'm sure some of my fellow freshmen classmates have already read it, and they were really happy with it. 

There are a lot of funny scenes, and really dramatic scenes as well. It mainly concerns a group of tennis kids who have strong feelings against one another that results in various problems that slowly try to break the bond of unity among them.

I made myself one of the main characters of the book. So I play the role of Anirudh Talwar; a bitter and cynical former tennis player who is insecure of his friends' success in tennis and life as high school kids. There are other characters in the book, mostly kids in MHS. But I really don't feel like revealing their names. All the tennis team kids are Indians.

The book received major comments on Blogger but emerged as one of the top 100 best stories of the country.  

When I posted it on my writing blog (not this blog), I got really overwhelmed by the number of +1's I got. In one week, every single post received an average of 204,678 +1's when I calculated all the posts together. That's when I made the blog private, but I keep five unsold copies of the book in my locker, for anyone who wants to read it.


The contents of the book are as follows.

Chapter 1: The Win
Chapter 2: Meeting Sathya

4 years later

Chapter 3: Common Dissatisfactions.
Chapter 4: Dolphins vs. Tigers
Chapter 5: The Hospital Scene
Chapter 6: Sathya Gets Added
Chapter 7: The Dance Scene
Chapter 8: Problems Rise
Chapter 9: The Attempt for Revival
Chapter 10: Arguments

Intermission

Chapter 11: A Possible Solution
Chapter 12: The Conversation
Chapter 13: A Small Reform
Chapter 14: Kings Island
Chapter 15: The Yelling
Chapter 16: The Invitation
Chapter 17: Time Passes
Chapter 18: The Final Match
Chapter 19: The Celebration

Epilogue

You guys can ask me if you want to read the book and I'll be happy to lend a copy to you.
Two sequels will be released soon!!!

The writing blog where I posted the book is anirudhswritingblog.blogspot.com. But don't do anything stupid there.

"DIvergent" + Real Life Issue Representations

     

"Divergent" + Real Life Issue Representation

So as of now, I have finished reading 120 pages of "Divergent." And if you ask me what I personally think about the book so far, I think the book is an excellent choice for high-school readers who want some adventure to divert their thoughts a little. 

So let's get to the main point. A real life issue that I am noticing in the text is adapting to new changes in life. 

In the book, Beatrice had to go to a faction called Dauntless, and she ended up living without her family, but with other people who chose Dauntless as well. The major changes she has to go through in order to stay in this faction (and live a life, basically) involve changing her name to "Tris" and not seeing her family, learning how to fight, and at one time, learn how to use handheld weapons.

Veronica Roth uses Tris in order to enhance this issue's presence because throughout the book, Tris is shown to have a lot of reminiscing scenes about her family, and her brother Caleb. This shows how much she actually misses them, and she has to adapt to a new life with other Dauntless members (Christina, Molly, Al, Will, just a few to name out). So based on Tris's constant flashbacks, the change in her life is not easy, but it really hits on her hard, because now she is forced to do new activities that she has never done before. That's how this society runs. Get into a faction at 16 years of age or you have no life. 

If you ask me over adapting to new changes in life, I'm gonna tell you that they may seem hard for a week or two, but after a while, you start to adapt to the new change and you eventually find some amount of happiness within it. Now our society is distinctly different from the story's society, because we don't even have factions. So I can live with my own family for as long as I want, even though I still have to study hard. But where I see this issue in my life is when I started high school. I left the first week feeling wronged by some teachers and I thought I was gonna mess up here. But after 2 weeks, I eventually started to find some happiness within the high school and now, I am much more happier in high school than in middle school.

So, Veronica Roth basically uses Tris to say that adapting to dramatic, new life changes is just not easy. You can have a lot of reminiscing moments about your life before the change. But as time goes on, you eventually find some sort of adaptiveness to the change, as well as some amount of happiness in it.

Krista Ramsey Homework 4/14 Blog Post

Krista Ramsey Homework 4/14 Blog Post

The column I chose is named, "Locking into the magic of Legos."

This column talks about the following: Many young children are so attracted to Legos over the past 65 years, and while they play with them tiny pieces, they learn about the importance of progress, and trial-and-error situations.

To look at the actual column, click here.

The line that I think is best written is, "At 5 p.m. on the first Tuesday of every month, a long line of small- to medium sized children snakes along the main concourse of Kenwood Towne Centre." This is the very first line in the column. The impact of this line on the reader is that the reader gets lured into reading more of the article because he/she may not know this fact that comes true in Cincinnati, and they may get even more lured into reading this article if they actually live in Cincinnati. So as a result, they want to read more over why this giant line of kids come at this specific mall in this specific city. For diction and syntax techniques that are present within this line, I am finding the presence of concrete diction and a balanced sentence type of syntax. The reason why I say this is that for diction's reason, there is a tangible idea and a physical quality present. And then for syntax, I see that the number of phrases and clauses in that sentence are equal. 

For Ramsey's writing style, I would describe it as journalistic and terse, because she is providing a service to the public by analyzing news and current events that are going on today, so eventually, her writing is emphasized and enhanced to look like a typical news reporter wrote it. Quotes that help prove this are, "In the U.S. alone, the percentage of people ages 12 to 54 who are nearsighted - meaning unable to see things clearly at a distance - rose from 25 percent in the early 1970s to 42 percent now" (From the first article), "And life itself regains the punctuation that says every day isn't the same as every other, that we are all part of a collective experience and that we honor each other and ourselves when we care about how we're groomed and dressed" (From the second article), "Like sparklers and hugs, Legos are things a child can never have enough of" (From the third article).  Her writing is also in a terse style because throughout the article, I can see that she is always talking up to the point about this current event article over kids' attraction to Legos. She never adds any irrelevant information to the article and she always talks in a cohesive manner up to the point. In addition, she also adds some personal opinions to her writing because that's what a journalist and/or news reporter would typically do. This can be seen in the third quote, for example, from the third column. 

Questions I would ask Krista Ramsey, if given the opportunity, are as follows.

1. How long has your career in writing been? 

2. In high school, did you work for a school paper? If so, were your first articles like the ones you publish today, and still continue to publish?

3. Where exactly do you get the information you need to write your articles, and what are your tips into making their writing so engrossing and unique? 

  

"Divergent" + Author Information

"Divergent" + Author Information

So, while I read pages 61-90 in "Divergent" this weekend, I wanted to learn more about the author, Veronica Roth, and what her life was all about. Well, I researched a lot on some reliable sources, and this is what I can say about her.

Veronica Roth was born in 1988, so she is about 25 years old, and she lived in Illinois. Her parents divorced when she was five, so her mother remarried Frank Ross. They all live near the Chicago area.

She is best known for her "Divergent" series. She studied at Carleton College and then Northwestern University to learn creative writing. 

She later married photographer Nelson Fitch in 2011, and they still resided in the Chicago area. That explains why Veronica's "Divergent" series is set in a fantasized version of Chicago.

Later on, in her college career, she wrote "Divergent" over Winter Break, and it immediately became a huge success internet-wise and publicly. She got multiple awards on GoodReads and Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction. She later wrote two more books, "Insurgent" and "Allegiant." I will be reading those books later on, after I finish "Divergent" that is. 

So that is my whole research over Veronica Roth, and if you guys wanna know more about this extraordinary person, you can go ahead and visit her blog. And you can also view her latest interview in the embedded video below.

Have fun exploring her life more with these resources!

"Divergent" + Vocabulary Observances

"Divergent" + Vocabulary Observances

As I am reading this book, what I have learned so far after reading pages 27-60 is that Beatrice has gone to a Choosing Ceremony the next day after her test, and her brother Caleb, chooses Erudite. And Beatrice, is nervous, but she lures herself into Dauntless. She leaves Abnegation, and so, her family as well. She basically treats herself into starting a new life, so she goes ahead and after a long train journey, she renames herself "Tris." She also gets to know the names of a few other people who have decided to be put in the Dauntless faction, like Christina, Molly, and Rita. Another new character, Max, is a man who is one of the heads of introducing the new Dauntless people in.

So that's what's been going on in pages 27-60.

Now, I gotta say that I think there's too little of the overall story being covered in so many pages to read all at one time. And I think that the reason why this happens not only in this book, but in lots of other books is because the author wants to show the reader his/her talent in writing. Like here, Veronica Roth wants to utilize more pages to show more imagery, vocabulary and her talent in writing. Most of the vocabulary she uses makes a huge effect in the overall imagery of the story. She uses crisp and really effective words to paint scenes more clearly. And as a result, I am more able to mentally visualize every single scene that Veronica Roth writes about. S

So I am gonna make an assumption here. I think that the more time an author takes to show his/her talent in real writing by utilizing more pages, more extraordinary vocabulary, and more imagery techniques, the more recognized his/her writing will be in the stories they write, and the more encouragement he/she will get to write more and more, and therefore, make writing a more enjoyable career.

I got a question for you guys to answer:

Do you really think writers utilize more pages just to show their talent in real writing and attempt to make their books more recognized, as well as teach us readers more vocabulary?

You guys can leave your answers in the comments below and thanks very much for reading and answering this question and post!!!