Finally

My reading has transformed into a dedicated hobby. Some of the books I have read this semester have been challenging, difficult to get through, and interesting. Some of the books have made me tap out, submitting me with their dragging sentences, and boringly eloquent words, to the undesirable fate of setting the book down. On the contrary, others have captivated me, motivating me with a magnetic force to keep picking that same book up. I put it down and its like a flame flickers out, the only way to satisfy the cold left in it's wake is to pick up the book, every page turn fuel to the fire. The flame of reading has grown bigger for me. Now when I go to Jefferson Point I find myself wasting away hours, not looking for anything specific, but just reading. I go to the cooking section and look up a random, tasty recipe that I will never make, then I put myself in the middle of a mystery, hopping from that into the middle of a raging battle in the biography of a great war general. The books that I read at the bookstore, I never finish, or even see again. The interest that is there, the fire, is what is most important to me. I still stay to a couple of genres of books, or to a few authors, but that is just when I want to read a book all the way through. I have found myself expanding the reaches of my knowledge through reading this semester, and that is a trend I hope to continue. I have read interesting facts in magazines, skimmed articles about celebrities and drug busts, things that I never thought to read, I have begun to pick up. I want to continue to feed the reading fire. I want to be able to, as I have done this semester, to pick up a book and enjoy it for what it is, not that I have to finish it, or understand it, but to lose myself within the confines of the dark ink of the white pages. Reading has become a way to focus my mind, to give me different views of the world that I can compare and relate to. What was once a laborious task of schoolwork has now become a passion of pleasure that has helped me grow, focus, and expand. Its amazing what can happen in books, and through books. I especially want to thank Mr. Hill for being a hipster, English teacher, and whose revolutionary class has allowed me to glimpse the mysteries of reading for pleasure and fun, thanks again.

Walkers with the Dawn
 By Langston Hughes

Being walkers with the dawn and morning,
Walkers with the sun and morning,
We are not afraid of night,
Nor days of gloom,
Nor darkness--
Being walkers with the sun and morning.

Currently, bout to be the weekend

lAST wEEK:
pAGES: 278
bOOKS: 1 (cITIES OF THE pLAIN)

ThIs WeEk:
PaGeS: 562
bOoKs: 2 (The ROAD & Tick Tock)

Close-reading Bingo

B-I-N-G-O and Bingo was his name O'

Chillin in the Nyle- Rule #6
Salinger uses common words and even slang some slang like dough to try and communicate his story.http://letsgetawesome5.blogspot.com/

Apples to Apples- Rule #4
It holds an uncensored array of words that give you the perception that nothing matters and the main character doesn’t feel a necessity in explaining any factual minutiae about his parent’s past.http://wowfaktor.blogspot.com/

As Told By Ginger- Rule #3  
he also uses figurative language when he mentions the escalator “as the handrails slid on their tracks, like the radians of black luster.” 
 http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6298112448369333548

The lost message of words- Rule#2
Mezzanine, Baker’s business like figurative language characterizes the refined workplace which he describes. Baker describes the escalators themselves that rise to his office, “They were the free-standing kind: a pair of integral sins swooping upward between the two floors they served without struts or piers to bear any intermediate weight.” 
http://thelostmessageofwords.blogspot.com/

Close Reading: Transcendatalist focus in the Work Place: Nature in the office of Nicholson Baker

The lofty adjectives of Nicholson Baker’s precise and seamlessly flowing language conveys an enjoyable office where nature and man collide in a harmonious medley. The narrator relates common, inanimate objects around him, such as his “small white CVS bag” and the escalators that are rising “toward the mezzanine,” to set an everyday type, routine mood. He brings nature into the picture with a general description, “sunny days like this one,” but then delves into the results it has on the workplace. The sunlight dances through the windows, its omnipresence shining “against the brushed-steel side panels” emphasizing the handrails with “long glossy highlights.” Baker weaves the environment and workplace together into an atmosphere of peaceful focus.

Style Mapping

The tres books that I'm going to put on the style map are, Stardust by Neil Gaiman, The Mud Below by Annie Proulx, and Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy.

I would place Stardust at an elegant high, with precise denotation, and a middle sound that is neither hamonious and sweet nor discordant and bitter.
The Mud Below is poetic yet basic, it impliments common language with a simple country twang, and it has a sweet and musical sound.
In Cities of the Plain McCarthy uses a middle of the road language to both conotate and denotate during different parts of the novel, although the language implies messages, it is coarse and blunt, this low language always has a harsh, dull sound to it.

Currently

pages this week: 164 :(
I finished 1 book this week.

I read About a Boy which was pretty good. It was all about Will who basically has no depth and its his interactions with a boy, MArcus, that forces him into the reality that he is not a complex person and that what you see on the outside is all there is. He has no dimension. This realization is very sad but he tries to change it. solid.

Quarterly

I have been reading way more than I usually do. I find myself wanting to read more, expanding my genres and book selections to types that I wouldn't have read before. I've been trying to read more, sometimes late at night, or right after school, even, to my teachers' dismay, during lectures and in class. I have taken to ask people their recommendations for books and have liked some of those. My goals for the rest of this semester are, basically, to read like a champ. I want to finish some more books, read at least 200 pages a week. I want to have the elusive 1000 page week. I really want to finish first in the class in pages and top seven overall.