I've Read a Lot

I've read a lot in the past few days, and a lot has happened. Heres a very brief list of the main things:

• Shortly after my last post, a new character, Kyra, was introduced in the book. Kyra aka Goth-girl is an outrageous, cynical girl who shares his love of comics as well as his hatred for jocks and bullies. For some reason he finds himself comfortable telling her things that he hasn't told anybody. Ever. He tells her about his comic book that not even his best [and only] friend Cal knows about.
• Cal and Fanboy have a spat, and Fanboy loses Cal. They don't talk in the halls, and they ignore each other in class.
• Kyra and Fanboy get in a fight, and Kyra gets very angry at Fanboy. She ignores him in the hall, and even tells Cal that Fanboy is gay and has a thing for him
• Fanboy's mom tells him that she can no longer drive him to the comic book convention that he has been waiting to go to for months. Fanboy's favorite graphic novel writer will be there, and he hopes to show Bendis his graphic novel that is his ticket out of his present life. The step-fascist hears the bad news and offers to take Fanboy to the convention. From that point on, the step-fascist is referred to as 'step dad', or 'Tony'.
• At the convention, Fanboy meets Bendis and tries to show him the comic book. Bendis tells Fanboy that he doesn't have time to go over it. Fanboy is crushed. He feels that he has blown his last chance at hope for a better life. Kyra showed up unexpectedly, she was still mad at Fanboy, but she came for his graphic novel. She really liked it, and wanted to know what Bendis thought of it. Fanboy told her that he dismissed it, and she rages. She goes up to Bendis and causes a scene in front of the whole convention.

This portion of the book dealt with a lot of issues. Relationships, love, suicide, hope, and many others. For such an obscure title, this book brings up some very intricate topics, and I'm excited to read more.

All About Whats-His-Name

I figured that I should start talking about my new book, and so far there isn't much to discuss except for the main character. The book is written in first person, and his name hasn't really been mentioned yet, so I don't exactly know the protagonist's name. I'll just refer to him as 'Fanboy', since that is in the title of the book.

As I mentioned earlier, Fanboy is a comic book nerd who is constantly harassed in school by pretty much everyone. He only has one true friend, Cal, who is on the football team, but shares the same love for comics. Fanboy has accepted the fact that Cal cannot be seen with him in public, and he doesn't really mind it. He lives with his mother - parents are divorced - and the "step-fascist", the beer guzzling brute that his mother remarried.

In order to escape all of these daily frustrations, Fanboy has a secret project. He stays up late and works on his own comic book, that he hopes one day will be his ticket out of the little hick town. Fanboy's dream is to become a famous comic book writer.

I enjoy the narration by Fanboy, mainly because of his witty and sarcastic side comments...they add a comic element to the novel. It also provides a window to the lives of those outside of our little Edinian bubble.

Almost there...

Only four more blogs left until I meet the necessary 14! Not that I don't like it, but I always get behind on my blogs, and then I worry about it until they're done, but by the time I have the ones I was behind on completed, I have two more to post. Its not that bad, really...it could be something worse.

So I started my new book that I got for Christmas, and surprisingly I'm not completely bored or weirded out. So far, its about this total nerd who really likes comic books and hes bullied by kids in high school, etc. Pretty typical so far, but its not that bad. I'll keep you posted on whats to come...

Happy Holidays..

I am happy to report that I received a book for Christmas from my great-aunt and uncle, and even though the title is a bit odd, I think that I will try it out for my new outside reading book. The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl is not the name of a book I would normally pick up, so we'll if its something that is enjoyable...I'll let you know..



Thank goodness its only Tuesday, there is much more break to be had :] enjoy it.

I think I'm Going to be an Excellent Sadies Date.

Sadies is finally here. I'm not in much of a party mood, so we'll see how this goes....

Anyways, today in class, we read through most of Act II in Much Ado, and I starred as Claudio. I am still at a loss for what my outside reading book should be. I started reading Inkheart, but then realized that everyone had read that in fourth grade, so I decided to choose another book. Then I saw Love in the Time of Cholera lying around, and picked it up. That was not the book for me right now. So here I am again, right back where I started, with no book.

Nothing else to say as of now.

Argumentative blog

Another blog about...nothing. Since I finished outside reading, and I've talked about last class, there really isn't anything else to discuss. I don't want to ramble on about my day, because this isn't that type of blog, plus my day was boring as heck so nobody would want to hear about it. So I guess this blog can be an argumentative one. Here is my thesis:

I think that blogging in the educational sense is pointless if one doesn't have an outside reading book to discuss, and after one has finished their outside reading book, blogs should be discontinued until another book is found.

I can write the rest of the paper later. Obviously, my argument is weak, and there are many ways to counter my 'thesis', but that is my [humble] opinion. And although short, my argumentative blog has served its purpose: to take up space and fulfill the blogging requirement. For those out there who have nothing to blog about, make a thesis and then rip on it.

Research paper

Uh oh. I'm sort of worried about my research paper, which we turned in on Friday. My topic was treatment of prisoners, more specifically 'In regards to Guantanamo and other terrorist prisons, is it acceptable to torture and deny rights to prisoners in order to gain information about terrorism?'

It was an interesting topic to research, and since the research portion, it seems to be popping out in the news even more. My dad mentioned an article that he had read about torture, and I've seen multiple stories in the news about the treatment of prisoners. I know that it has always been there, but I thought it funny that it took a huge paper to make me realize it.

I'm a bit worried about it though. I think that I conveyed all sides to the argument well, and my ideas were [hopefully] coherent, but as I was reading over it one last time in class, I found a typo, and there were some other formatting issues that were discovered that day. Also, something was wrong with my double spacing, so it was like, triple spacing -- HUGE. Great, so I got points off for things that really don't matter in the big picture. How frustrating.

Really late....

Soooo this post is a week overdue, meaning after this, I'll only have to post two more times in order to get the necessary number of blogs.

I finished my book a week or two ago, and it was verrry good. I highly recommend it. One 'perk' I liked about the novel was that before almost every chapter, there was a historic picture of the circus. For example:

The pictures usually had something to do with what had just occurred in the last chapter, and it was a great visualization tool, for me at least. Overall, the story, characters, and settings were all wonderfully described in this novel, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. For me, it was a pleasant surprise.

There is nothing much left to say, except for that I need a recommendation for a new OR book. I'm really bad at picking books up and enjoying them, so if anybody has a book they could suggest that would be niice. Shanks.