Poetry Everywhere?

I know we were supposed to do the poetry everywhere thing last week, but my computer is not letting me watch them. I have no idea why. So I decided I'd try again this week, and it still didn't work so I figured I'd post about it because I don't want to seem like a slacker! ;)

As for reading (Since this is, kind of, my reading blog) I have about 5 books, mostly borrowed (a.k.a she's forcing me to read them) from my friend, waiting on my nightstand for me to read. I can't wait to get through them all this summer!

But I'm so sad that PATH is almost over! I'm gonna miss you all soooooo much! My portfolio is all printed and ready--except for my TAE. It's been a long, hard afternoon creating my works cited pages and in text citations. Hopefully I did it correctly...

See you TWICE more at path! :/
~Monika

National Poetry Month!

I've read a lot of poems this month, and I've discovered some new favorites. I think my favorite poem is probably Silence, mostly because I spent so much time memorizing it, but I actually do like it. I was looking in the "Most Popular" section on poets.org and I found the most popular contemporary poet, Billy Collins. I read a few of his poems, some of my favorites were: Some Days, Introduction to Poetry, and Forgetfulness. I've also read a lot of Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, and Edgar Allan Poe. Poetry is definitely not my favorite thing to read, but I might continue reading poems then and again. It was fun to read a different poem every day via poem-a-day and creating my own poetry notebook, though.

ONLY ONE MORE MONTH OF PATH :'(

~30N!K@

More Poetry...

This week I haven't been reading very much poetry, but I have read a few examples for the 3 poems we were supposed to research and write our own of this week. I didn't particulary like any of them though. I did add a few poems on poets.org, and I've been reading the poem-a-days, but none really stuck out to me this week. Also, I think I've read my sonnet at least 50 times, if not more! I have it perfectly memorized now, but somehow I bet I'll suddenly forget something tomorrow! :/

~30N!k@

Poetry

Wow, almost all of our homework is about poetry! National Poetry Month! Yay! So I just went through and read about a week's worth of poem-a-days since I don't really check my email very often. And I have to say, I REALLY like 'My Love is as a Fever, Longing Still.' I added it to my notebook right away! I don't actually like most of the poem-a-days so that came as a surprise to me. I find it challenging to randomly find poems at poets.org that I like enough to add to my notebook, but I read a lot of spring poems and a lot of Robert Frost--who is now one of my favorite poets, maybe even my most favorite. The more I work on memorizing my sonnet, the more I like it. I'm doing Silence by Edgar Allan Poe--I've been reading a lot of his poems too. I really like A Dream Within a Dream.

Also, this is kind of random, but a lot of my friends and I are into "epic rhyming texting battles". We "fight" over random stuff but we always have to rhyme. Some of them are really awesome, and some of them don't even make sense. I felt the need to share, since this post was about poetry. ;)

~30N!k@

Spring Break Reading!

Hello from Florida! I'm having a great spring break except I got sunburnt REALLY REALLY REALLY bad so today I'm not going outside at all or doing anything fun so I decided I might as well do my path homework, not that path homework isn't fun...;) Anyways, a couple days ago I finished reading Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. It was one of those books where the first couple of chapters are sort of a drag to get through but once you have your background information, the real story starts, and you just can't seem to put the book down. I know most of you hate Twilight, but I actually like it and this book sort of reminds me of it, but it's better. The second main character, Lena, is a spell caster and on her 16th birthday turns light or dark except it's not her decision to make. Most of the story is about Ethan (from his POV) and Lena trying to reverse her fate. Also it kind of reminds me of my own novel because the two main characters have the same dreams and are often in each other's dreams. It's hard to describe the plot because there are several "mysteries" throughout it. I very much enjoyed it, but if you absolutely HATE Twilight, you probably wouldn't like it. I was hoping to get some more reading in this week, but I don't have any other books and I don't really want to go to the library now since I'm leaving on Saturday.


As for poets.org, my username is monika_d. I've read a lot of poems already, some of my favorites are: The Hand by Mary Ruefle, A True Poem by Llyod Schwartz, I Am Not Yours by Sara Teasdale, and I Measure Every Grief I Meet by Emily Dickinson. I really like poem-a-day, but I was wondering, does everybody get the same poem every day? Or is it just random? 


Hope you're all having a great spring break!!! :)
~Monika.

Even More Trend Reading & Beautiful Creatures

So this week, after researching, I've decided to change my thesis more towards the angle about how Facebook can help boost your self esteem. I've found quite a lot of information on the topic, and even a few studies from colleges. Also, I made a poll on my Facebook about how many of your facebook friends you consider to be really good friends. I made it about an hour ago and so far one person has vote less than 25%, six have voted 25-50%, three have voted 50-75% and none have voted 75-100%. Please, please, please vote if you're my friend on facebook! It would be greatly appreciated! :)

As for free reading, I'm currently reading a book called Beautiful Creatures. So far it's really good, it starts off kind of like Twilight, though. There's a boy whose lived in a small town his entire life and there's like never been a new person, and all of a sudden there's this amazing new girl he feels he's in love with. He gets haunted by a song called Sixteen Moons that seems to follow him everywhere, along with the girl. He dreams about her every night, and it's always the same dream where they're falling forever and he can't hold on to her any longer and is forced to let go. When he wakes up, he finds dirt under his finger nails and in his bed and a whole bunch of other creepy stuff. That probably didn't make any sense, but oh well. I'm really stressed right now with about 3 tests coming up tomorrow and I haven't had much time to read yet, but hopefully I will over spring break!

Only 3 more days until freedom!!! :)

~30N!k@

More Trend Reading

So this week I've found a TON of statistics! There's actually quite a few good stats on the actual facebook site before you log in. I even made a graph with the information I found, but for some reason it's not letting me put it in this post. In December 2004, facebook just reached the 1 million active users mark and in July 2010, it had over 500 million active users. Almost all the information I've found has pertained to facebook, saying as how it is the largest social networking site. Two interesting facts I found interesting were the average facebook user has 130 friends and about 70% of facebook users don't live in the United States. I also found a lot of information about how social networking sites are a big way of advertising for companies. One article I found was published on Friday, it said that social networking sites have "Reached Their Saturation Point" and users are not going to be as easy to get engaged with companies/products. I haven't been successful in finding information about social networking giving a new meaning to the word "friend" yet. Also, I'm hoping to watch that movie about Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, it sounds interesting.

I hope you've all been finding some good information about your trends! :)

~Monika :)

Social Media Trend

So I'm researching the trend of the increased use of social media and how it is giving a new meaning to the word "friend" and causing our social skills to deteriorate. I found a REALLY AWESOME website with a lot of stats about the top countries with active users on facebook and the percentage of the total population of a lot of countries that have a facebook and a pie chart showing what aged people have a facebook. I've been able to find a lot of stats about facebook and twitter, but I'm not sure how reliable they all are. I've also found a lot of articles about the subject, one in particular I like is titled 5 Ways Social Media is Changing Our Daily Lives. I haven't found any material directly related to social media giving a new meaning to the word friend, but I have found quite a lot of stats. I'm happy with my trend so far--I'm very interested in it. I'm hoping to find some more useful information! If you have any ideas for sources other than the internet, please let me know! Thanks :)

I'm off to tweet on Twitter, update my Facebook status, upload some videos on Youtube, and send some texts. ;)

Final Thoughts on Romeo and Juliet and Starless Sky

What gave me the most trouble in Romeo and Juliet was definitely the language. A lot of it I had to read multiple times to understand and some of it I still don't understand! But I liked how it said art thou soooo many times because, I don't know, I just found it funny. So if I were making this for teens, the first thing I'd change is the language. I'd change it to a more modern version and cut out some parts that don't really make sense. I probably wouldn't change anything else because then it wouldn't be the same story.
I didn't particularly like the fighting and killing and suicidial acts. Or how Romeo and Juliet got married soo fast and were not even hesitant to kill themselves after finding out the other was "dead". My favorite character was probably the nurse because she wasn't as stupid as Romeo or Juliet and she was kind of funny. Overall, I really actually enjoyed this play!

I finished Starless Sky (finally!) last week, but forgot to post about it. The ending was very good, it kind of gave me a new perspective on life. After finishing, I think I sat and just thought for about 20 minutes. Paige Agnew is an amazing author--I think I'm going to try and find her address (not to be a stalker) to write to her and tell her how much I enjoyed reading her book. She's 15 and already has 2 books published! (I already have ordered the 2nd one, which has nothing to do with Starless Sky, but I expect it to be just as amazing). Definitely one of my top 5 favorite books and I highly recommend it! :)

The End of Romeo and Juliet (Literally)

^^Haha I think my title was pretty clever :) Anyways, all this dying at the end came really fast. Paris dies, Romeo dies and then like 2 seconds later Juliet dies. Three people died in under four pages. I can't believe Paris and Romeo would kill themselves because they *thought* Juliet was dead. You think that people would be able to tell that Juliet actually wasn't dead, she was just under sleep potion. But I guess this was a looooong time ago. And Juliet killing herself came as a shock to me, I mean I knew she was going to do it, I just thought she'd think about her decision for a second. On page 111 I kind of did a double take when it says she stabs herself and falls on Romeo's body. When barely two minutes before she JUST found out Romeo was dead. Surprisingly, I don't really feel bad for Romeo and Juliet. I thought they were both kind of dumb. Loved the play as a whole though! First Shakespeare I've ever read, and man, he's pretty darn good. :)

Romeo & Juliet: Act 3 and Starless Sky

 Ehh I didn't really like this act. I hate it when people die. Why did Tybalt kill Mercuito in the first place? Also, I can't believe Juliet didn't really care that her cousin was killed by her own HUSBAND! Poor Tybalt. I know I would've cared, especially if I'd only known my husband for a couple days. I wish there would've been more about their actual marriage, it seems like it wasn't even really a marriage. Probably my least favorite act so far, I'm hoping the next one is better!

I'm really really really close to finally finishing Starless Sky! (It's about time). I'm delaying finishing it,  though, because I really really really don't want to be done reading it! But I really really really want to find out what happens! What a crisis. I think it's funny that I've been able to find quite a few grammatical mistakes, probably because the author's 15 and it was published by a small company or something, I don't know.

Happy early President's Day (a.k.a "winter break")

~30N!k@

Romeo and Juliet: Act 2.

I can't believe Romeo and Juliet want to get married already! They've only talked a couple times and they barely even know each other! I liked the part where Romeo's dad was mad at Romeo for not being home because that sort of thing still happens today, unlike the marrying after talking twice deal (I hope.)

My favorite quote from this act was on the bottom of pg. 50:

MER: "Why is not this better now that groaning for love? Now art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo; now art thou what thou art, by art as well as by nature. For this drivelling love is like a great natural that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble in a hole."

I have no idea what half the words mean, but I just thought it was funny how it says 'art thou' sooooo many times! It's kind of like 'Rosy-fingered Dawn' in the Odyssey.

Another quote I liked was on pg. 56:

JUL: "How art thou out of breath when thou hast breath to say to me that thou art out of breath?"

I literally started cracking up when I read that. :) Even though the language was still VERY confusing, I laughed at it a lot just because I can't imagine ever talking like that.

~30n!k@~

Romeo & Juliet: Act 1 & Starless Sky!

Wow, I actually like Romeo and Juliet more than I anticipated. At first the language was hard to understand, but I'm a little more used to it now. What really bugs me though, is when characters say something like "I know not." It just sounds bad to me! As for the actual story, I'm kind of confused on exactly why the Capulet's and the Montague's are enemies. Also, I found it odd that Romeo and Juliet barely knew each other and already they were kissing.

Now on to Starless Sky! I really really really really love this book! And I'm only a quarter through it! But it's so easy to relate to--for me anyways. Everything is all happy right now, but I made the mistake of reading the back cover and I'm sort of putting off continuing to read because I know whats going to happen and I really don't want it to happen! :/

Until next week,

~30N!k@~

Starless Sky & Prologue to Romeo and Juliet

This week I started reading Starless Sky by Paige Agnew--I'm only on page 53 and I love it so so so much already! It's kind of sad because the main character's best friend passed away, but it's not too sad because the book starts like a week after the friend's death, so you don't really have a connection to her. I really love the way Paige writes and it's just amazing to me that she's so good and she's my age. She's currently in the process of writing another book, which my grandparents so kindly already ordered for me! I can't wait!


The prologue to Romeo and Juliet was confusing at first, but after reading it 50 billion times, I think I've got it. I "translated" it into more modern language,  but I'm having a hard time making it into a song. I'm really excited to actually read Romeo and Juliet, I mean I basically know the story, but I've never actually read it.


Oh, and today is my Grandpa's 100th birthday!!! I was at this huge open house thing yesterday for 2 hours and today we had a family party. He was in the today show last Thursday. So yeah, it was pretty cool.


See you guys in 2 days!


~30n!k@

What To Read...What To Read...?

So I didn't really read anything this week, well I did read a couple articles in TIME. But anyways, I've got three books and I really want to read all of them right now, but I can't read more than one book at once.


The first one is Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick. My good friend gave it to me. It's about falling angels. The back cover doesn't give away much, but it sounds interesting.


The second one is Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl. It sounds similiar to Twilight, but I don't think it has anything to do with vampires.


The third one, and then one I think I'm leaning towards reading first is called Starless Sky by Paige Agnew. My grandparents gave it to me for Christmas. Paige Agnew is 15 years old and lives in Michigan.It's about a girl named Kahlen who has a hard time dealing with the loss of her best and only friend. A new boy comes to the school and Kahlen hopes he will be a good distraction from the pain. Eventually she realizes that he only adds to her problems because of his own interesting past. It sounds like a really cool book--and even cooler that somebody my age wrote it.


So I think I'll read Starless Sky first. Then probably Beautiful Creatures. And then Hush, Hush. Haha I decided while typing this post! :)

The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail.

Overall, I enjoyed this play. More than Man-In-The-Moon-Madrigolds, at least. I really liked Edward. He was so sweet and innocent, but I felt bad for him because he had such a phony for a father. At first I liked Waldo, I even chose him to research, but now he's one of my least favorites. I especially didn't like how he made his wife go tell everybody he wasn't ready to give a speech or whatever. Anyways, I'm glad Henry was a good sort of fatherly-figure for Edward, because Waldo sure wasn't. The play wasn't quite as confusing this time, but still not entirely clear. It's so hard for me to envision this happening as a play because it feels like it should be a movie or something!


Have a good rest of your weekend everybody!!! And happy early Martin Luther King Jr. Day!


~30n!k@~ :) :D

The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail--Act 1

I found this play--so far--to be a lot more confusing than the last one we read. I had a much harder time envisioning the set. All I drew was the jail cell. And I don't really understand how it started off with Thoreau in jail and then back to before and then to when he got arrested? I didn't think plays really had flashbacks I guess.


But I do like Henry's character. I wrote down a few of the things he said, but my favorites were on page 10: "Nobody is. If I ever met a man who was completely awake, how could I look him in the face?" and on page 14: "But to be liked, you must never disagree. And if you never disagree, it's like only breathing in and never breathing out. A man can suffocate on courtsey."


The story is pretty interesting, though, especially since it's true. I hope the confusion clears up in Act 2.


~30N!K@~

The End of Mockingjay! :(

I just finished reading Mockingjay. It was amazing! Suzanne Collins is an incredible writer! I honestly felt as if I was Katniss--even now, I'm still thinking kind of how Katniss would. The first half of the book was a little slow, but after that I couldn't put the book down! I'm really glad there was an epilogue--it answered a lot of questions. But I wanted to find out about Gale :/. I'm really sad the series is over :( I could always read them again, but I HATE re-reading books! Anyways, if you haven't read the series by now--do so!


Hope you all had a good break!! See you Tuesday!


~30n!k@~