Week Twelve

There still is not a lot going on in The Shining yet, but Jack, Wendy, and Danny have arrived at the hotel and were taken on a tour through the hotel. In the kitchen they meet the chef, Dick Halloran, who shows them around the kitchen. After the tour of the kitchen Mr. Halloran gets ready to leave for the winter. Before he leaves he has a talk with Danny because he can tell that Danny has what he calls "Shining." He can tell because he has it too, but he realizes that this "shining" is very strong within Danny.
There was also a more in depth description of what really happened between George Hatfield and Jack Torrence before Jack lost his teaching job.

I think that this was a fun project because I like to read but I don't always like to read the books that we have to read for school. It was nice to be able to read what I wanted to read and get graded for it.
I read a total of 10 full books plus the three I am currently still reading: Tempted by P.C and Kristen Cast, The Tale of Beelde the Bard by J.K. Rowling, The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks, Dear John by Nicholas Sparks, Burned by P.C. and Kristen Cast, A Crack in the Line by Michael Lawrence, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins, The Shining by Stephen King (still reading), Does the Noise in my Head Bother You? by Steven Tyler (still reading (its actually very interesting)), and The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (still reading). I read over 3100 pages and for a total of about 62 hours over the past twelve weeks (I read for 4 hours this week).

Week Eleven

Hmm... a theme for The Shining.... Isolation isn't good for the human psyche; it drives you crazy. I feel like this is a good theme because Jack Torrence and his family gets snowed in for an entire winter and he ends up trying to kill his wife and son (even though I haven't gotten that far yet).

I don't have anything to summarize because I didn't really read much this week, but I did read the beginning of The Scarlet Letter which I'm sure you already know....

I read for 1 hour this week.

Total Time: 58 hours

Week Ten

I am currently reading The Shining by Stephen King. Jack Torrence lost his job so his friend, Al Shockley, got him an interview to be the winter caretaker of the Overlook hotel. He gets the job and now Jack, his wife Wendy, and their fie year old son Danny will be moving there. In the past Jack used to drink a lot and Wendy had thought about divorcing him many times but she decided to stay for Danny. Jack eventually gave up the drinking but one time in a drunken rage he grabbed Danny by the arm and Danny's arm broke. Oops. Also Danny has an imaginary friend named Tony who has shown him "visions" of the hotel....

The passage I chose to apply to what I've read so far is found in Galatians. "The acts of the sinful nature are obvious:...fits of rage,...drunkeness.... I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God." Galatians 5:19-21
I picked this because there has been a pretty big emphasis on Jack's past with the drinking and breaking Danny's arm.

I read for 2 hours this week.
Total Time: 57 hours

Week Nine

I finally finished Mockingjay this week. It was really good but I didn't really like the ending....

Katniss and the rebels finally defeat President Snow and the Capitol. The war is over; but not before more lives were lost. President Coin, the president of District 13 had a bomb dropped that killed many innocent Capitol people along with some of the rebels and District 13 people, including Prim, Katniss's little sister. Katniss was granted the privilege to be the one to kill Snow' so one last time she puts on her Mockingjay suit and grabs her bow and arrow. She is standing in front of a crowd of people aiming at Snow, but at the last second she changes her mind and shoots Coin instead. Snow ended up dying anyway. Katniss, Haymitch, and Peeta go back to District 12 where it takes months for Katniss to somewhat recover and come out of her house. Gale gets a job in another district and her mother is starting a hospital in District 4.

I think I didn't like the ending because I was expecting a happy ending and it really wasn't....

I also started reading The Shining by Stephen King. I haven't gotten very far so there really isn't anything to summarize yet.

These first four pictures describe the end of Mockingjay.



President Snow has a strange obsession
with white roses which affects Katniss
throughout the end of the book.



I picked this picture because during the
war when the rebels were making
their way to the Capitol there were a
few explosions.

On the way to the Capitol there were
a lot of death traps (called 'pods') set
up and they reminded me of what Jigsaw
does in the Saw movies.

Katniss's weapon of choice.



The next picture pertains to "The Shining."

The Overlook Hotel in Colorado. (I think this is from the movie.)

I read for 2 hours and 45 minutes this week.

Total time: 55 hours



Week Eight

This week I'm still reading Mockingjay. I tried really hard to finish it but I ran out of time.... :(

The war is in full force now. Katniss, Gale, Peeta, and some of the other warriors are in the Capitol fighting their way through a bunch of traps the Caprtol people, mostly Presidnet Snow, have set up in the streets. Boggs, their troop leader has been killed along with a couple of others leaving Katniss in charge of the troop.

Hopefully I will be able to finish this book next week....

Now to review the goals I set at the beginning of this project.... I don't think I will quite reach those goals. I should be able to get about 75-80ish hours and maybe about 15ish books.

I read for 3 hours this week.

Total time: 52 hours and 15 minutes.

Week Seven

Ok so I just visited the Amazon's Teen Books website and I decided that it is a good place to look for books. It has different categories of books so if you are looking for a specific kind of book, it is easy to find a good book to read. I think when I finish the book I am currently reading I will go back and find a good book.

So this week I finished up Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins. Katniss and Peeta have learned that, for the third "Quarter Quell," they will both have to return to the arena to face other past victors. What Katniss and Peeta don't know is that Haymitch, their mentor, and a few others have a plan to escape from the arena and form a rebel group to try and take on the Capitol. The group loses a few members on the way but Katniss and three other tributes she teamed up with were rescued when the arena was destroyed. They are now being taken to District 13, a place thought to have been destroyed the last time the country was at war. Katniss learns that District 12 has been destroyed. War is most definitely jsut around the corner.

I also started Mockingjay, the third book in the Hunger Games series, this week. Katniss finds out Peeta was captured by the Capitol when the arena was destroyed. District 13 was her to be their "Mockingjay" and lead the rebels in their fight against the Capitol. Katniss accepts and they begin filming propaganda that will air throughout the country to try to get as many people on their side as possible. This is as far as I've gotten so far....

I read for 6 hours this week.

Total Time: 49 hours and 15 minutes

Week Six

This has been another some what busy week for me so I didn't read very much this week... :(

But I did start Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins (the sequel to The Hunger Games) and so far it is very good. It picks up right where The Hunger games left off and it has been very hard for me to put it down. It usually comes to sleep or keep reading... unfortunately sleep usually wins.

So... Katniss and Peeta are back from the Hunger Games and are about to go on a Tour through the districts and to the Capitol. What Katniss is starting to discover is that, because of her "trick" with the poison berries during the games, the Capitol is not happy with her. Also she has started somewhat of an uprising in the other districts and things are starting to take a turn for the worse. Panem is no longer a safe place for anybody and people are starting to flee from their homes.

That's as far as i got so far. A better summary will come next week.

I read for 3 hours and 15 minutes this week.

Total Time: 43 hours and 15 minutes

Week Five

This week I read Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. The song I picked to be the theme song for this book is Strange by Tokio Hotel & Kerli. I think this song is fitting because if everything that happens to Alice in this book happened to you, well I think you would think that it was pretty strange.

Alright well I don't really think this book needs much summarizing because I'm sure we all know the story so I will keep it brief. Alice sees a rabbit with a watch so she follows it and ends up falling down a rabbit hole. She falls and falls and falls until she finally reaches the bottom where she finds a small key for a very small door and a bottle labeled "Drink Me." She continues on a ride of growing and shrinking to become the size she sees fit for whatever new thing comes her way. She meets a somewhat unfriendly caterpillar, a group of assorted animals who sing and teach her a dance, a door mouse, a hare, and the mad hatter of course. She also plays croquet with the Queen ("Off with her head!"). After all of her fun adventures she finally finds her way home.

I read for 1 1/2 hours this week. (I know that's really depressing :( )

Total Time: 40 hours

Week Four

The amount of time I spend reading as opposed to doing other things (watching TV, playing games on the Wii, attempting to have a social life, ect.) depends on the time of the year. During the summer I usually tend to read a lot more because I have a lot more free time. During the school year, sometimes its hard to do a lot of reading because doing school work and things like that are more important than just reading for fun. (Plus in the spring I have track practice, too.) It also depends on if I a book that I want to read. I've pretty much always liked reading so its not very hard for me to sit down and read for a couple hours at a time but I am sometimes very picky about the books I like to read.

Alright now to what I have read this week. I finished up A Crack in the Line this week and decided that I didn't really like it so I probably won't be blindly picking out random books at the library anymore. :/

But on a more positive note I also read The Hunger Games, which I thought was fantastic. It is set in the future in a country called Panem. In this country there were thirteen districts, but then there was a war and one of the districts was eliminated. Panem is a pretty poor country unless you live in the Capitol. The main character in the story, Katniss Everdean, lives in district twelve where many of the people die of starvation. Every year to remind the citizens of Panem of the power of the Capitol, of the war that eliminated the thirteenth district, they host the Hunger Games. In every district two people between the ages of twelve and eighteen, a boy and a girl, are chosen to compete in the games. Now the Hunger Games isn't just some sporting event, it's a fight to the death. There can only be one winner. Katniss and Peeta are the two from district twelve who end up going to the games. For these two their only connection to the outside world is their mentor, Haymitch, who won the games almost thirty years ago. The only problem is he is hardly ever sober. After a week of training and such the twenty-four competitors are put in a very large arena, with a lake and woods and things like that, to fight it out. Some of the competitors are killed right away, some last for a week or so, and only three make it to the final battle, Katniss, Peeta, and a boy from district one. But who will win?

I thought this book was really good and I can't wait to read Catching Fire (I have it on hold at the library :) ).

I read for 9 1/2 hours this week.

Total Time: 38 1/2 hours.

Week Three

So last week I went to the library and I brought my mom along because we had some other things to do afterwards. I didn't really have a book in mind that I was looking for, I was just looking because I needed a book to read. So here I am looking at a bunch of books to see what they were about and my mom is standing next to me repeatedly telling me to hurry up. (My mom is pretty anti-library, probably because she isn't much of a reader.) So, trying to hurry to make her happy, I managed to find the next book in the series I have been reading, Burned, and also two other books that looked kind of interesting (hopefully they will be).

This week I read Burned, by P.C. and Kristin Cast (mentioned above). In this installment of the House of Night series Kalona, the evil vampyre, kills Zoey's human boyfriend, Heath. Zoey sees it happening and she trys to stop him but she was too late and her soul shattered. This basically means that she isn't dead but her soul has moved on to another realm and if it doesn't come back to her body soon, she will die. So throughout the rest of the book Zoey's friends, Aphrodite, Stevie Rae, and her Warrior Stark, are trying to find a way to bring her soul back to her body, something that has never been done before. Eventually Stark finds a way to get his spirit to this other realm without killing himself, and he succeeds in bringing Zoey's soul back to her body. Now Zoey and her friends must find a way to defeat Kalona and his lover Neferet.

I also got about half way through a book called A Crack in the Line by Michael Lawrence. So far there are two people, a boy called Alaric and a girl called Naia, who are practically twins, except they live in alternate universes. In fact, they are basically the same people. Everything about their lives is exactly the same except for the fact that Alaric's mom died in a train accident and Naia's mom, who is the same person as Alaric's mom in and alternate world, survived the accident. To me it seems that the book is just trying to make the reader realize how big of a difference one simple thing can cause. You get to see what life is like for both of them.

I read for 9 1/2 hours this week.

Total Time: 29 hours

Week Two

This week I read for 9 1/2 hours.

I finished The Notebook this week. At the end of the book you find out that the beginning of the book was just Noah reading the story of how they met and the time they spent together to Allie because she has Alzheimer's and she doesn't remember who he is. I can relate to how Noah is feeling because my grandpa is dealing with memory loss, too. Though it is not the same cause and he hasn't forgotten who anyone is, it is still hard to deal with at times.

This week I also read Dear John by Nicholas Sparks. This is the story of John Tyree, a soldier stationed in Germany. When he is home on leave, visiting his father, he meet Savannah, and the two definitely hit it off. When he returns to Germany Savannah promises to wait for him to return so they can get married. But then 911 happens and John is forced to stay for two more years. While he is over in Iraq Savannah falls in love with someone else and sends John a letter to let him know. John is crushed. A few months later his dad dies and he returns home for the funeral. While he is home he goes to visit Savannah, who is now married to Tim, who was diagnosised with melanoma. When John leaves to return to Germany he sells his dads coin collection and gives the money (anonymously) to Savannah and Tim so he could get the care he needed.



I also began Burned by P.C. and Kristen Cast, the seventh book in the House of Night series.

Total Time Read: 19 1/2 hours

Week One

This week I read for 10 hours. I read Tempted, the sixth installment of the House of Night series, by P.C. Cast, The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling, and part of the Notebook by Nicholas Sparks.

Tepmted: Zoey and her friends, young vampyre fledglings, find a way to travel back to the House of Night, but something is deffinitely wrong. They will have to find a way to defeat Neferet, Kalona, and his half bird half man children. But will Zoey be able to resist Kalona's power?? They will have to travel to Italy to find out.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard: This book, written by J. K. Rowling is a collection of five short stories from the wizarding world of Harry Potter designed to teach a certain lesson about life and about morals. My favorite was deffinitely The Tale of the Three Brothers, which teaches about how no one can escape Death.

The Notebook: So far Noah, an old man is reading from a Notebook. Then the book shifts back to when he was younger. Allie, the girl he was in love with when he was a teenager has come back to visit-- to tell him she is engaged.

Total Time Read: 10 hours

Goals For Independent Reading

Hmm, my first blog post...

I guess I'm supposed to tell you about my goals for this assignment. So...
Throughout the course of this assignment my goal is to read between 15 and 20 books and 100+ hours.

Well these are my goals.