Remember Me

  Well I'm kinda soaked (not because of the rain but because I just recently came out of the shower). I sit down on my soft yet painfully comfortable chair... and I breathe. I just take in everything that has happened to me from waking up late to jostling to get to my next class before my teacher stabs me with a pencil for being late...  no, no I'm just kidding. From the end of yet another school day to my dance company rehersals (yes, I'm in dance company, isn't that like completely ah-mazin?! Yeah, I think so too). I then at the moment remember that I'm sitting down at home, on the computer, typing this sentence right now. I try to brainstorm what I should write about for today's blog post.
  Remember Me by Christopher Pike really makes me feel like I'm as dead as Shari (except I didn't fall off a balcony and crack my head open... yay?) which pretty much means that no human being- living, that is, knows that I'm still here. The fact that Christopher Pike adds such elaborate detail makes me wonder if he's dead... which hopefully he isn't. I'm searching thorugh the pages of the book at an attempt to finda purposeful idea or theme.
  Obviously, death is a theme that came up since I flipped open the book and let myself get lost in the story. But what is it about death that can make the world feel so safe but at the same time so vulnerable, so wrong, so... unjust?
  Well there are over a billion reasons why death can be so unfair but one that stood out in the book was that well... we don't know how much time we have left to enjoy the fact that just being alive offers. We don't know when our time has run out, when our life has ended... when we're just another life that has passed on to the unkown. In the book, Shari Cooper, a girl with green eyes, blond hair, bangs, a brother named Jimmy, and most importantly, a girl that didn't know how wonderful it was to be alive until it was a bit too late hadn't planned on dying and no, she did not commit suicide like many think. But that's the thing, she was murdered. She was murdered without notice so she couldn't take the time to recall everything great that living offers.
  There's one line that I feel is really important in the book. It's a thought that Shari had when she saw how not many people had gone to her funeral:
  "We lost a few people on the short trip out to the lawns, about half, actually. I couldn't blame them. They had things to do. And what the hell, Shari had been a nice girl, but she hadn't been that nice. Oh, it was awful. It was true. I had done nothing in my life that was worth remembering. Why should they remember me?"
  This paragraph was really important because well it made me realize that life itself can be cruel because we go around complaining about our lives when we should accept the fact that we actually have a life left to do really inspirational stuff.
  So I couldn't really say much more because sadly, the inspiration has left my mind so I guess I'll stop writing. But before you leave this page just think... are you making your life worth living?

Remember Me by Christopher Pike

  Well, just sitting here at my computer desk, writing yet another blog. I think that it's really interesting how the book starts with Shari explaining how she's dead and all; she starts by telling the readers the events that led up to her death.
  One part that I found particularly interesting was the one in which her brother, Jimmy, talks to her about a dream he had. Here's the passage:
                                                           ******Spoiler Alert!!******
"'We were in a strange place. It was like a world inside a flower. I know that sounds weird, but I don't know how else to describe it. Everything was glowing. We were in a wide-open space, like a field. and you were dressed exactly as you are now, in those jeans and that shirt. You had a balloon in your hand that you were trying to blow up. No, you had blown it up partway, and you wanted me to blow it up the rest of the way. You tried to give it to me. You had tied a string to it. But I didn't catch the string right or something, and it got away. We watched it float way up in the sky. Then you began to cry.' ... The breeze through the open window was getting chilly now. ' Why was I crying?' I asked. 'Because the balloon got away.'"

  I really do feel that this dream is going to play a significant role throughout the book because it's about more than just the balloon drifting away; that balloon is a symbol, as well as the dream in general, that I have to unlock as I read continue to read the book.
  Since, obviously, Shari dies in the book, I was thinking that the balloon could represent her life, both physically and emotionally, because she was trying to had her brother the balloon in his dream but he couldn't grasp it in time and it drifted up into the sky... into eternity.
  The balloon getting away from her and her brother could possibly represent how her life was taken away and Jimmy & Shari just weren't able to save it. Jimmy also mentioned Shari having the balloon tied to a string almost as if she has her life, not neccissarily tied down but, well... in a way living life just to let each day pass.
  You know what... scratch off that last bit I wrote. Shari is telling us her story through her perspective being dead. She wants to know who killed her an the motives to do so. That balloon couldv'e been caught if either one of them had a tight grip on it. By that I mean that maybe her life couldv'e been spared, couldv'e been saved, therefore, she couldv'e been alive at this point if she did something to avoid it. I mean I don't know how she died, since I'm not up to that part, but I could say that there has to be a reason why the balloon got away. We just have to look closer, think deeper, read this book through her eyes... through Shari's dead eyes. 

Interesting ideas on Justin Bieber Book

  Well... what can I say? I was kinda sorta reading a book titled Remember Me by Christopher Pike but I'm only on page 15. That's when I borrowed the book Justin Bieber: The Fever! by Marc Shapiro and well I'm on page 87 (the book has pictures of him!! *gasp*).
  Many people might think, "Well what's a book about Justin Bieber going to say anyway; that he's so hard-working and that he's a really popular artist for girls? We already know that." Well in a way you're right and wrong. Well for one part my book does say that Justin is really hard-working and kind towards others but what many people that dislike him don't know is that he really wasn't all rich and striving to have a hit song that fans would love.
  Many, if not all, celebrities don't start with crowds of people just waiting to see them perform; they need to find a way to get noticed by people. Now that I think about it you're song can be #1 on the Billboard chart but that doesn't really matter if you don't have any fans screaming your name. In the end it's the fans that earn you fame. Without fans you're nothing... in a way. It's the fans that keep celebrities like Justin Bieber wanting to create music; songs that get better and better each time because the best songs are the ones that make you cry, laugh, smile. They're the ones that if you had only one song on your ipod you would never get sick of it.
  But you know, this doesn't just go with celebrities; it's a message for everyone else. You don't need to have people screaming and chasing you wherever you go in order for you to strive for success (and if you do need fans then all I can say is, good luck in life). I feel that one, specifically a student, needs comments, both positive and negative, to help them strive.
  The internet. Many people ask, "Is it good or bad?" There's no definate answer. It's a good source as long as you use it for approptiate situations but some don't think about the dangers which causes them to not think about what they put on the internet. Justin Bieber was discovered on YouTube so if you ever came across a video of his before he brought something commonly known as Bieber Fever to girls across the world (like me) then you already knew him as a kid just singing in the house. The internet is an amazing way for artists to get closer to their fans and really communicate with them.
  There can be endless debates about whether the internet is good or not but no side will really win.

Bridge to Terabithia Response

Well overall rereading my childhood favorite helped me not just refresh my mind about little details I missed when I first read this book, but it also helped me really think deeper about me book and understand what big ideas and themes came up throughout the entire book.
  One idea I was having was that Terabithia not only represents a magical world created by Jess and Leslie, but it also represents escape and freedom. In the book, when Jess and Leslie have a problem with their lives, they go to Terabithia to create new creatures of Terabithia. These creatures each represent someone or something from their lives. In Terabithia, no one tells them what's wrong or what's right. That brings me to another theme I found while rereading this book; friendship.
  Friendship is a huge theme in this book because if Jess and Leslie hadn't become friends then who knows how this story might've end up sounding like. The really strong bond between Jess and Leslie just keeps growing and growing and we witness that throughout the book. Any child might say that they feel a lot closer to their friends than to their parents due to the fact that adults would just say, "Hey, that's wrong" or they would try to solve the kid's problem. But a friend doesn't judge you by being wrong or right and if you're ever in trouble, that friend or those friends would find a way to bring you back to their world. I think that it's interesting how Leslie is the one with the bold and adventurous personality. It just makes me happy to see how Leslie doesn't believe in stereotypes like, oh, sports are just for boys. She raced in the heat (heat meaning the match not heat like heat caused by the sun) not caring that only boys were racing.
  One question I had when reading the book was that why did Katherine Paterson choose to have Leslie die, knowing that this book was being read by millions of young readers in elementary school? I guess I can kinda sorta maybe answer that question. When I read the biography about Katherine Paterson we had to print out for homework it said that writing about really sad, depressing moments made her sad as well. But she said that she wrote them because in a way writing about the not so nice side of reality helped her mature and get ready for moments like those that might jump at her at any moment. I guess she decided to include death as a theme to kind of help prepare/teach young readers that reality isn't just pretty and all full of sunshine; there are dark moments that can come up sooner or later in their lives. 
  What I love about Terabithia is that it really does exist; Terabithia is your own unique way of taking in so much freedom and escaping the world without ever leaving it. The doors of Terabithia were open since the first time I read it and I realized that they hadn't closed on me, I just wasn't looking hard enough... I think that that's the true key to unlocking Terabithia.