Riches of Mason

The Lone Survivor is still proving to be one of the best books I may ever read. It is engaging, funny, and inspiring. Every sentence I read from this book makes me want to get up from our spoiled lives and help our country. In this way, the book is very similar to John F. Kennedy's speech. It makes the listener, or in this case the reader, want to help their country and achieve patriotic feelings. This is done very well because of the way Luttrell describes his mission. When Luttrell is in a dire situation of thirst, he states, "I was breaking the thinnest tree branches off and sucking them for liquid. I sucked at the grass when I found some, hoping for a few drops of mountain dew. I even tried to wring out my socks to find just a taste of water" (Luttrell 260). This passage from the text is engaging because of the way Luttrell explains it. It's almost like a story. The passage is also inspiring because it makes the reader not only guilty of what we take for granted, but also what there is to do for our country. The sentences provoke the audience to simply stand up, walk to the nearest Naval Academy, say "I want to join the forces".

When I read books, I learn at least one thing. Last night, while reading my book, I realized how lucky we really are to be living in Mason--with food, water, shelter, and blankets. Luttrell's depiction of the land he fought on is simply devastating and downright scary. He is in a position where he is being hunted down, with no water, no food, and little shelter. It makes me sick about what I do everyday-- Wake up, eat, play, eat, sleep. I realized that what we take for granted, others take for undeserved riches.

This page shows where Operation Red Wings was held.

An Engaging Read

The Lone Survivor is amazing! The book is extremely engaging and fun to read. I wanted to discover why the book was so engaging so I looked further into the syntactical techniques used by Luttrell to convey the specific meaning. I found that Luttrell uses varied sentence length to make his book such a great read. When Luttrell describes the position of the enemy, he says,"Right now we were not hemmed in on our flanks; our enemy was dead ahead. That, and straight up. Overhead. And that's bad" (Luttrell 224). The quote begins with a medium-long sentence and ends with a short, 3 word sentence. This change in sentence length makes the tone of the piece a little more serious. This in turn makes the reader want to keep going and find out what will happen. The use of the varied sentence length is what makes the book great, and what makes Luttrell such a great storyteller.



Marcus Luttrell is no ordinary author. Luttrell is an exceptional storyteller. He has experienced the worst, and come out the best. He managed to get through SEAL training, go on a mission, and come back alive to tell the tale. He did this in the form of a book, and Luttrell's voice is what makes this book the great book that it is.

Meeting Someone Like Marcus Luttrell

Yesterday, I met an old friend. I always knew that he had enlisted in the army, but I hadn't been able to talk to him about it. As we were playing tennis together, I suddenly thought of my book. I asked him what army school was like. He told me it was terrible and an absolute living hell, but it made you fit. I couldn't help thinking about the way Marcus Luttrell described BUD/S training. Luttrell states, when describing the showers in the Training Camp, that "They were showers, okay, but not in the accepted, civilized sense. They were a whole lot closer to a... carwash and were known as the decontamination unit" (Luttrell 83). Luttrell's description of a training camp is quite similar to that of my friend's. I asked my friend if his training was like the SEALs' training. He told me that what the SEALs go through is much harder than what he has to go through. He told me there are very stressful days where he goes also, and this also made me think of what Luttrell describes as "Hell Week". There are many similarities within the US Armed Forces, one harder than the other.This article describes SEAL training. 

Rough and Tough SEAL's

When I read The Lone Survivor, I'm always noticing the purposeful literary devices. One writing technique that really intrigued me is the characterization displayed in the book. Luttrell uses dialogue to describe each and every character. For example, when Luttrell describes Instructor Eric Hall, Hall says, "Anyone lies, cheats, or steals, you're all done, because that's not tolerated here. Just so we're clear, gentlemen." (Luttrell 150) This quote from the text shows the personality of the Instructor, which can be described as polite yet strict. If I was Marcus at that moment, I would probably be terrified of the officer. Instructor Hall is a tough man when he describes the consequences for some actions. But in the second sentence, Instructor Hall shows that what he said was just a confirmation. Bi-polar much? Why do people's personalities change so quickly? I guess it's just part of being a Navy SEAL. Having to adapt quickly to your surroundings. But I digress. This drastic change in personality is shown by Luttrell's brilliant choice of diction. It allows the reader to understand the characters and follow the story better.

What surprises me on a more personal note is how the SEAL's are so tough! Luttrell always describes himself as persevering through anything and everything. Luttrell explains the SEAL's as needing "to be at home in rough country, able to survive, live in the jungle if necessary" (Luttrell 53). I feel like I'm pretty tough. I could handle a spider or two. Maybe even a cockroach. I could probably live out in the jungle. And being a vegetarian increases my chances of survival, right? I would consider Mason a pretty rough region. We are only the seventh best city to live in the nation. Maybe I could be a SEAL if I wanted. Maybe. NOT. What I really mean to say is that I admire the Navy SEAL's toughness. They go through BUD/S training and "Hell Week", which to me would be a real nightmare.

Here's a video that mildly explains the toughness of the SEAL's.

Blog Post #6 (3rd Trimester)

What I really love about my book, The Lone Survivor, is the use of allusion from Marcus Luttrell. He also makes connections to the world, enabling the book to be more interesting. The use of allusions allows the reader to connect to the book as well, which is an appealing feeling for most readers. For example, when Luttrell is describing the impact of 9/11 on his life, he uses an allusion: "I was there on 9/11, and little did I realize the massive impact those terrible events in New York City would have on my own life." This line from the text alludes to the incident that almost everyone in the world knows about. 9/11. It gives the reader a feeling of pride in his involvement in the Navy SEALs. It also follows on to the plot, and the reason for why Luttrell joined the SEAL team. This was part of the reason Luttrell admired the Navy SEAL team so much. He loved the way they showed patriotism and perseverance throughout all missions. He follows the same principles and can quite definitely consider himself a Navy SEAL.

Blog Post #5 (3rd Trimester)

In my current book, The Lone Survivor, I really like how the author describes each and every scene using various literary techniques. The author, Marcus Luttrell, uses connotation and denotation to display the feelings of the main character, himself. For example, when describing the difficulty of the knot in the test, "In my case, I decided to hastily that the knot in my line was impossible, gave them the signal, ditched my tanks over my shoulder, and floated up to the surface." This line from the text shows negative connotation, using the word "hastily". This gives a negative feeling because it gives the impression that he was rushing and didn't think through exactly what he was doing. Luttrell also uses the word "ditched" to emphasize how quickly he decided to leave the test. Instead of using a general word like "left", he used the word "ditched" to give the reader a feeling of how Marcus quit his test. The use of connotation gives the reader a sense of feeling in the book. This in turn adds to the reader's overall experience in reading the book. Luttrell uses this literary device because he wants to make his book more interesting, and he succeeded. The book makes you want to keep reading because it tells a fascinating story of a Navy SEAL and a difficult mission.

Blog Post #4 (3rd Trimester)

Four days ago, I began a new book called The Lone Survivor. For now, I am not completely sure about what the book will be about, other than what is written on the back of the book. But from what I have gathered in the first seventy pages of the book, I predict the book will mostly describe the way Navy SEALs are recruited and selected into the program. As for where I am now, Marcus Luttrell really describes each and every scene well, using "Navy" language such as "Hooyah!", meaning "Yes, sir!". This really adds on to the tone and overall quality of the book because it gives the reader a sense of being in the book. The setting of the book, which is a SEAL training camp, cooperates with the overall meaning of each sentence in the book. The author, Marcus Luttrell, describes each and every scene well. For example, "We had lost ten men during the nine hours that had passed since Hell Week began; nine hours since those yelling, shooting gunmen had driven Class 226 out of their classroom, nine hours since we had been dry and felt more or less human." This sentence from the book really gives a feel for where the character was at this time. Marcus Luttrell uses repetition to embellish the text. He repeats "nine hours" at the beginning of each phrase to further add focus to the short time in which many events occurred.

Blog Post #3 (3rd Trimester)

I have continued to read my book, The Eye of Minds, as I really do like it. It provides me with suspense, action, mystery, and comedy. But one of the greatest things the author, James Dashner, does really well is add imagery to the text. This helps the reader understand the novel better and connect with it in different ways. One mere example of imagery is, "Skull-pounding music thumped and bellowed from the massive speakers hung on the ceiling, and strobe lights flashed and dazzled. A red glow permeated everything else, cast over the people dancing and gyrating and jumping out onto the floor. Body heat filled the space, warm and sultry." This example of imagery must provide a great sense of where the protagonist, Michael, is at this point. Dashner uses a variety of different adjectives to further embellish the writing. Rather than saying, "Loud music...", Dashner instead uses exagerating vocabulary such as "Skull-pounding...". The author also expresses the setting using words that are not in everyday vocabulary. For example, instead of using "circulating", he uses the word, "gyrating", which really adds on to the tone of the author. Adding on to the tone furthermore makes the book more interesting for the reader.

This article gives a good idea about this book.

Blog Post #2 (3rd Trimester)

This week, I began a new book called The Eye of Minds by James Dashner. It's about a male teenager boy,  named Michael, who is extremely interested in the video game VirtNet. This book takes place in the future, so in this particular video game, it is possible to go inside it. Michael is a hacker, and usually goes into the game to relax and hang out with his friends. They can then do whatever they want there because all of them are great programmers. "Eyes closed to access the raw data, manipulate a few lines of programming, and voila-a free feast." This sentence from the book is a perfect example to show the techniques used by Michael to enjoy life in VirtNet. If you feel hungry, all you need to do is manipulate a few lines of code, and you have a full meal right in front of your eyes.

Wake up, go to school, get on VirtNet, and sleep late. This is Michael's daily routine, until one day, when he is kidnapped by the VirtNet security in real life. They give him a mission to stop an extremely powerful gamer in VirtNet. This gamer supposedly has intentions to destroy the world. Michael has no other option but to accept the offer. I predict Michael and his friends will work together to find this gamer, but along the way will encounter many challenges. When they finally capture him, I predict they will be trapped in the game for what will seem like forever.

Blog Post #1 (3rd Trimester)

My favorite book from last trimester was The Kite Runner. This is because the book incorporated lots of imagery that really contributed to the overall message behind the book. This helped me understand the book because it allowed me to feel the feelings of Amir, the main character, better. This in turn helped me imagine how I would feel if I was in his position. As an author, Khaled Hosseini uses figurative language, such as metaphors and personification, to enhance the tone and overall quality of the book. This figurative language helps the reader understand the book.

Overall, I would award this book 4.5 stars out of 5. The book has a great meaning to it: every action develops into another action.The figurative language througout the book really appealed to me. On a deeper note, the message of the story touched me and I believe it did in fact teach me a valuable lesson. Although the vocabulary of my book was spectacular, as was the theme, I would have liked to know more about Hassan's son, and how he came to adapt to the different world in America.

 

Blog Reflection

While in the action of writing a blog post, I came across one struggle. I struggled with finding specific examples from the text. For example, I would choose a topic that I found in my book. I would then write about how the topic was shown in my book, but I would not incorporate precise lines from my book. This would lower the standards of my blog post because there is no legitimacy of the topic without specific evidence. I then realized this mistake and changed the way I wrote my blogs. I would choose a topic that I wanted to blog about and look for proof inside the text. If there was no evidence to be found, I would force myself to choose another topic. This ensured that I would find evidence for every topic I blogged about. More importantly, this made my blog posts higher quality and much more believable. One of the strengths I had while I was blogging was using well developed vocabulary. This greatly embellished my blog as there was use of more precise words which helped others understand my thinking easier and more clearly. The use of challenging vocabulary also contributed to the addition of further vocabulary in my head. Through the practice of using mature vocabulary, I am now enabled to use higher level words more fluently with fluidity.

            My writing has improved in the aspect of analyzing the text. In my previous blog posts, I would not include any evidence from the text. I would merely summarize each of the scenes and hope to convey the message without any textual evidence. I began to realize this through the blogging conferences and tried to fix it. In my most recent blog post, I included an excerpt from the book that not only finds textual evidence but also correctly analyzes it. My third blog post shows how there was no textual evidence in my blog posts.

In this post (#3), I have no proof from the text. Although I am addressing the comparison between Nadal and I, there is no evidence from the text that determines this. For now, it is merely an opinion. When I state, “…I can understand what he needs to go through every point in every one of his matches,” I am showing the knowledge I gained from the book but am not proving it. Instead, I should have quoted a line from the text. This is shown from my most recent blog post about The Kite Runner.

 

In this post (#8), it is shown how I not only quoted lines from the text but also thoroughly described it. From the line, “’…Baba and I had driven through the broken terrain back in 1974. The arid, imposing mountains sat along deep gorges and soared to jagged peaks. Old fortresses, adobe-walled and crumbling, topped the crags,’” it can be seen that I did provide a concrete quote, one that justifies my thesis of great imagery in the book. I also showed analysis from, “This line from the text shows the feeling of nostalgia because he remembers the last time he had been here and remembers it vividly. The way he depicts the scene such as, "deep gorges" and "jagged peaks", shows that he really did enjoy the trip,” because I thoroughly looked through the text to discover what the author was trying to convey in the imagery from the text.

Blog Post #8

One of my favorite things about this book is the feeling described by Amir about the remembrance he feels when returning to Afghanistan. For example, when he is going back to Kabul, he feels nostalgic about the times he experienced when he departed on a trip there with his father many years previous. This feeling is shown through vivid imagery. "...Baba and I had driven through the broken terrain back in 1974. The arid, imposing mountains sat along deep gorges and soared to jagged peaks. Old fortresses, adobe-walled and crumbling, topped the crags." This line from the text shows the feeling of nostalgia because he remembers the last time he had been here and remebers it vividly. The way he depicts the scene such as, "deep gorges" and "jagged peaks", shows that he really did enjoy the trip.

Blog Post #7

One of the most important lines from this chapter is, "...that perhaps something, someone, somewhere, had decided to deny me fatherhood for the things I had done. Maybe this was my punishment, and perhaps justly so." This may just be the most important lines from the entire book as it shows the lesson of the entire book. The lesson being that something in the past does in fact change the future. I believe in this line, Amir is speaking of the instance where Hassan, Amir's best friend, was violently attacked by three Afghan bullies. In this line, Amir is referencing karma, the belief that every action has a consequence. When Amir remembers the instance of Hassan, he also recognizes that an action he commited over a decade ago impacted the way he lived his life now.

This article depicts the belief of karma.   

Blog Post (Snow Day)

In The Kite Runner, the main character, Amir, discovers that one decision he made changed his life. When Amir won the kite race, he ordered his best friend, Hassan, to go find the kite. Hassan, being a loyal friend, retrieved the kite but was violently beat up by three Afghan bullies. Amir watched the bullies beat his best friend up, as he was much to cowardly to stand up to the bullies. The relationship between Amir and his best friend changed, and they never saw each other again. Amir now realized that the one action he did caused his life to change entirely.

So far, I am enjoying Romeo and Juliet. I like how Shakespeare uses metaphors to suggest the reader to think about what exactly is happening. Shakespeare also uses vivid language to really embellish the way we interpret the text. I also like the personality of Mercutio, being the playful friend who is sarcastic and funny. Relating the book to the movie allows us to compare our imaginations to the characters presented in the movie. Reading Romeo and Juliet may be difficult, but is nonetheless a moving tale about two lovers.

Blog Post #6

The best thing about my book is the vocabulary and imagery included in the text. In The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini describes each scene in vivid detail and descriptive vocabulary, giving the story a metaphorical meaning behind it. For example, when Amir is describing the way he feels about America, Hosseini creates a metaphor in the form of Amir's thoughts. "America was different. America was a river, roaring along, unmindful of the past. I could wade into this river, let my sins drown to the bottom, let the waters carry me someplace far. Someplace with no ghosts, no memories, and no sins." In this particular thought, Amir expresses his feelings of America as a form of a sanctuary, or a place where he can be free of his past memories. Amir feels that in America, his memories are washed away. He feels that in America, his past is something insignificant. Amir believes life in America is altogether a new one for him. This is all shown in metaphorical text by Hosseini, with the river being Amir's life washed away. The vocabulary and imagery really add to the overall meaning behind the story in The Kite Runner.

This article gives more insight into The Kite Runner.
 

Blog Post #5

Just yesterday, I began the book The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini. The novel begins by taking place in the winter of 2001. It seems like the story will take place in the middle eastern country of Pakistan, although the story begins when the narrator is walking along Spreckles Lake in the Golden Gate Park. In the following excerpt from the novel, Hosseini shows his writing capabilities through imagery. "The early-afternoon sun sparkled on the water where dozens of miniature boats sailed, propelled by a crisp breeze. Then I glanced up and saw a pair of kites, red with long blue tails, soaring in the sky. They danced high above the trees on the west side of the park, over the windmills, floating side by side like a pair of eyes looking down on San Francisco, the city I now call home." This passage makes me think of a certain eutopia where the environment is perfect. I also like the way Hosseini used personification "...danced high above..." and "..like a pair of eyes looking down...". The personification allows for more description and imagery. This part of the first chapter thoroughly describes the setting of where the narrator is presently. This is shown by the vast amount of sight sensory details and figurative language.

This picture shows Golden Gate Park.