The Ragamuffin Gospel

Well it took me awhile but I finally finished the ragamuffin gospel by brennan manning. It was really good and really convicting and it helped me a lot. It focused on the fact that humans are worthless and even our good works are pathetic in light of Gods power. This is good though, because it shows the magnitude of His mercy and grace. It lifts an impossible weight off my shoulders and gives me hope and salvation. Because I couldn't do it alone, and when I tried I broke down and thought that I was a lost cause because I couldn't do everything Jesus asked for. I thought for a long time that I was going to Hell because I couldn't be perfect. But He loves me just the same and accepts me with open arms, full of a love so amazing I cannot even comprehend. I can not boast about my invitation to Heaven because I haven't been saved by works but through grace by faith in Jesus Christ.
What a beautiful God!!!

What Just Happened?

I finished life of pi but the ending confused me because I don't know really which story happened? I think his message was that it doesn't matter the story, (journey) it was that he got to the island, which was for his theme that it doesnt matter what religion you are, as long as you believe in a God. Which I don't identify with so that wasn't a great ending for me but the book was really good.

Finally

I was a big reader before this class and that's why I wanted to take it. Naturally, though, my speed in reading a book depended on how much I liked it, but Mr. Hill's idea that "reading boring books are like excercise" really motivated me to keep reading even when it was boring. I didn't have much trouble meeting the weekly quota, although on weekends I did feel a little stressed to get a lot of reading in because I don't have much time for it during the week, because of homework and school. School really does get in the way of education sometimes. I didn't have trouble finding things that I wanted to read but I did notice that I have taken on an extreme bias toward library books. I buy all my books at goodwill and so I dont have a good selection but I like to be able to annote in them so thats why I like to own the books. I like to read in my bed with music on, and if I'm really into the book, I will have no idea what song is playing. I've always had a big desire to talk about the books im reading but my friends don't like to read so i couldnt really talk to them about it so blogging has really helped me let my ideas out. I'm going to continue to blog because of that reason.
Upcoming books I'd like to read:
Finish: life of pi and Angelas ashes, then start sense and sensibility and pride and prejudice
This is not a farewell after all.

Richard Parker. If you wouldnt eat me, I would love to cuddle.

Life of Pi

I took a break from Angela's Ashes (break; I'll come back to it) and started Life of Pi and it is quite amazing. I learned a lot about animals in the first part of the book, because this guy had a double major in zoology and theology. He grew up living on a zoo kind of, and his dad traumatized him when he was eight, into being afraid of tigers. His parents aren't really religious but he practices Hinduism. Then he steps into a church and becomes a Christian. Then he steps into a mosque and becomes a Muslim. Except he retains each belief he has had before when he adapts another one. Its puzzling because he's not just one of those people who say "yeah i'm (insert a religion here)" but don't do anything about it, because then it would be easy to say you believe in three different paradoxal things, but he puts them into practice. I don't identify with this, but I thought it was interesting how his doubts of Christianity made me realize what an amazing God my God is. He thought Jesus couldn't be as powerful as Allah, because he let himself be tortured by humans, but that just shows me how loving and unproud(secure) He is. And I liked that. But religion plays a big role in this book because the boy is on a ship with all his zoo animals and the ship sinks, along with his family, and he is trapped on a boat with dangerous animals. The religion part serves, and this is a prediction, to save the boy. God miraculously keeps the animals from eating the boy, even though they are starving. When I used to look at this book cover and I would see the bengal tiger in a boat with a small indian boy, I thought that it was just metaphorical and could never happen, but the more pages I read, the more possible it becomes.
Great book.

Angela's Ashes

The gargantuan amount of homework I have been consistently getting is really wearing on me. I have like 4-6 hours every night and i really just need a breath. It makes me so depressed because I'm always working and then when i'm not working, I feel miserable because I feel so guilty and worried about the homework piling up in my break. The worst part is that even though I try really hard, sometimes it doesn't show.(I feel like a phony). In AP lit I just got a bad grade back on an essay and it sucks because I don't know how to write better. I spent a lot of time on it and my work just sounds awkward and i dont know how to fix it.
**Okay sorry I just had to vent because I wanted to pout all this melancholy out. I started this book called Angela's Ashes. It's really good and it has this humor that makes all these awful things happening seem less awful. On page 25 it quotes a song that we just talked about in U.S. History, Bill Crosby's "Brother, can you spare a dime?" So you know that the family is going to stuggle with deep poverty because it's during the great depression. Add that to the fact that Frank McCourt's dad is a drunk who spends their money at the speakeasies. Imagine that, you and your wife are so excited because you just got a job so you can feed your starving family and then by the second payday you don't go home to your hungry kids. You spend it on beer. You get drunk for your kid's misery. And the thing that I don't get is that I dont even think the guys addicted- addicted, because he's gone through 4 weeks with no alcohol. So it's not like he's having great physical pains that push him towards that bar, not that that would make it right. It's amazing how many awful people there are in this world, undetected, and labeled as average.

Currently

This week I read The Secret Life of Bees (200), and The Hunger Games (108).
Total pages this week: 308
Sentences of the week:
1."Have you noticed the more you try not to think, the more elaborate your thinking episodes get?"
2."It is the peculiar nature of the word to go on spinning no matter what sort of heartbreak is happening."
3."[...]but it's something everybody wants-for someone to see the hurt done to them and set it down like it matters."
( these sentences were all from the secret life of bees)
I like number 3 the best because I can see it in society and myself how, not nescceraliy trying to be vulnerable, but we want to not go through pain alone, and let it not be in vain, let this pain not eat at you without anyone's aknowledgement.

Germany

I Hate Teen Books

I started the Hunger Games because just about everyone in the world is obsessed with it and my friends kept begging me to read it. I didn't want to, though, because of a few reasons...
A. I hate if the protagonist is an action hero and shes a girl. It just doesn't work, unless you're Angelina Jolie.
B. I don't like Sci-fi, at all. I hate vampires and all that crap. (except Harry Potter)
C. I hate teen books. There's either too much teen angst, or stupid action that doesn't work.
The hunger game is everything that I hate in a book. The characters live in a dystopian society where everyone lives in poverty and there are fights like the gladiator fights that people enter in in order to get food from the government. So it's your typical, guy falls in love with the main girl character but she "just doesn't notice it" so she thinks he's being rude and she is rude back. OH, and then there's the 'Twilight' twist where two guys are in love with her, but she still feels like her life is so terrible. That's got Bella Swan written all over it, and why wouldn't it? Teen books never venture out to new ideas. They just keep the same ideas and wrap them up in different action wrapping paper. So the protagonist whose name is Katniss (I can't stop saying catnip in my head whenever I read it) got picked for the duel with an attractive boy from her "district". The one thing I don't get, though, is the overwhelming emphasis on the fashion. Maybe it's just to take up pages in the book, but it's kinda eerie. I don't get why the author chose to make a whole chapter about the fiery costume she wears. Maybe she'll burn to death in end (I wish- then that'd be a story worth reading) but I'll never know because I'm not finishing the book.
I'm gonna start Angela's Ashes instead.