Three Things about Me - week four posts A & B

A-
Quote:

“He could have promised her the moon, told her not to be afraid, that he would watch over her forever” (131) this quote from the book is the beginning of Sam and Roses’ relationship. He had been following her around while she was downtown at clubs, to ensue her safety, when she ended up coming to his safety after getting in a fight. From then on, their relationship as close friends, to an engaged couple quickly gets stronger. This led to Rose moving into Sam’s house on the thought of her being pregnant.

Theme:
One emerging theme from the book is to not rush your relationship with people you’ve met, because people don’t always show their true self to you right away. Because, after knowing someone for a while, they can really turn out to be someone opposite of what you first thought.

B.
Response:

Currently in the book, Charlotte and Rob, the manager of all the trainees, have been slowly getting closer within their relationship. Starting on page 186, Rob has been assisting Charlotte with her previous job’s file of sexual harassment, the reason she moved from Salzburg to Alcombe, and why she’s now training to become a manger. I find this odd because the examples of sexual harassment filed against her old boss, Michael Miller, are the similar things going on with her current boss Rob. During work, Charlotte finds him watching her sexually. Most recently, he’s regularly called her into his office to have one-on-one meetings about how she can advance in the company improve her salary. But, the real reason Rob is calling her in is his desire to converse with her further. Rob greatly wants to become more then friends with Charlotte. Because of that, he becomes very off-task at work which causes the other trainees along with Charlotte to be behind in their training process. This change in their relationship is very hard to miss by the other trainees. But, Rose in particular notices the most. She is also not doesn’t tend to agree and work well with Charlotte. In order to mess with Charlotte, Rose begins to talk to Rob more frequently. Charlotte, whom remains almost clueless to the whole scheme, believes that Rob doesn’t see her as important as she does him. This results in Charlotte slowly losing her love relationship with Rob, even though nothing between him and Rose is present.

Three Things about me - week three posts A & B

A.

Quote

“I’ve been thinking that really I need some company in my house, and you hate living at home. What do you think about becoming my house-mate?” (pg 94). This is a significant part of the book because Hilary is asking Gary to move in with him. This would bring a closer friendship between each other, as appose to just work friends. Because Gary does move in, Hilary has second thoughts about her upcoming marriage with fiancé in New Zealand.

Vocabulary:

Abacus- a device for making arithmetic calculations, consisting of a frame set with rods on which balls or beads are moved. (pg 90)
Haughty- disdainfully proud; snobbish; scornfully arrogant; supercilious (pg 111)

B.
Response:

As the story is developing, I’m starting to see a connection between the trainees in their personal lives other then being friends with each other. The story is slowly coming along, and I’m finding myself gaining interest. Although each of the workers relationships have similarities with each other, they all have small details that are different. Gary and Hilary find themselves now living together, and both wanting more. But Hilary is already engaged to a man that lives in New Zealand. After sharing their first kiss, her fiancée shows up at her door as a surprise. This instantly causes their new found love to a halting stop. A similar work friendly relationship gone personal is also between Sam and Rose. Even though they have at least 30 years of age difference, they become involved sexually with each other which ended up with Rose becoming pregnant. Rose, forcing Sam to allow her to move in with her and getting engaged to each other, knows that the baby is not really Sam’s. But, because she’s only in her late teens or early 20’s has no way to support the baby on her own with the real father. Sam, not knowing this at the time misreads the relationship as pure love. Which he soon realizes is only a fantasy as he is informed Rose is having intimate relationships with the real father. This results in a verbal fight between the two.

Three Things About Me - week two posts A & B

A-

Vocabulary:

Disdainful (pg.45) - full of or showing disdain; scornful.
Epitome (pg.48) - a person or thing that is typical of or possesses to a high degree the features of a whole class

Theme
One emerging them from the book is to follow your instinct when you believe something is wrong, even if it seems to belong in a movie.

B-

Response:

Being only the second week of reading the book. I haven’t developed much of an interest towards Three Things about Me. So far, the plot and outcome of each entry of the characters have been very predictable. The only section that has interested me so far was Alma’s, the seemingly quiet and shy trainee among the rest.
Alma’s ex-actress life style of fame and fortune had drastically changed to trying to support herself by working a 9-5 job. This changed because of her want to live as a “normal” person. Yet, still being “normal”, she had found herself in one of the most uncommon situations. On Page 47 in the book, Alma is walking down the street, she saw an old lady up high in a retiring home with a sign against the window that read “HELP”. Alma immediately thought she had misread it, but unfortunately she hadn’t. Alma ends up “rescuing” an elderly lady from what seemed to be an un-safe and abusive nursing home. To me, this shows that she cares for other people more then herself, because she brought the elderly women to live with her, even though she had been living off every last cent she had.

Three Things About Me - week one posts A & B

A-
Vocabulary:
Grimace (pg. 19) - a facial expression, often ugly or contorted, that indicates disapproval or pain.
Placting (pg. 29) - to appease or pacify, esp. by concessions or conciliatory gestures.

Quote:
"Looking around the room at them all, Charlotte felt pang of loneliness. When the previous job had become unbearable she knew she had run out of choices, but leaving Salzburg had meant leaving everything that she loved behind. This quote is important because it explains why Charlotte is now in the new job orientation with all the others. (pg. 23)

B-
Response:

In only the first few pages from the book, there was a very strong sense of the theme "don't judge a book by it's cover." When Rob is introducing himself to the new faculty members, on page seven, he tries to guess how each of them act in the work place. He also judges them based off of their personality, and interaction with others. But, when there are different chapters from the new work members such as Charlotte, Alma, Hilary, Sam, Gary, and Amie they turn out to be almost completely opposite to what Rob had first interpreted them to be. Which tells me, the reader, that you shouldn't judge people when you first meet them, because you won't know everything about them based only on your first impression. As Rob gives Charlotte more time to talk, he slowly realizes that she isn't what he thought,a stuck-up self centered woman, but rather nice and friendly.
Along with Charlotte, Rob also made false assumptions about Alma. He first guessed that she was very shy with the work group, and wanted nothing more then a work relationship with the others, not even friendship. But, when he spent time during their lunch break she really opened up with him, and he realized she would be a good friend to have because she's an interesting person to talk to and she's very nice when you give her a chance.

Alternative Assignment - Double Bubble and Bubble maps

Full Size Map

Full Size Map

Alternative Assignment - Tree and multi flow map

Full size map

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Full size map

Week three, part two

Throughout the book A Long Way Gone, it has brought me through many different emotions. In parts where I am hardly able to read through the gruesome details and wounds of the refugees to other parts where I can't get enough of Ishmael's firsthand life with rebels against him and being forced to fight as a soldier. This book has many strengths in the sense where it is for the most part very action packed, bringing you through countless war zones and battles which could not be predicted, and are barely imaginable. But, that also creates a weakness. Most of the battles described by Ishmael are hard to picture as I read because I've never heard, or read anything like this of any kind. It is completely different from any other war story I've read. But, in ways that also is a strength. This book is hard to get tired of from its constant surprises and the inner thoughts of a young soldier boy who's practically left alone in a world that he can't change, or get away from.