Irish Girl

I was given the short story “Irish Girl” for our mini book club. At first I really did not care too much for it probably because I did not understand it completely. It was not until I had a couple groups for discussion that I grew to like it. It was a story about a family that progressively fell apart while the parents were in the middle of a divorce, the Father was moving in and out of different homes, and the 16 year old boy William was going through many changes as one major change was that he found out he was adopted. William got into a huge fight and moved in with his dad. Every weekend Charlie, the younger brother would stay with his dad and William. At one part of the story Charlie tells his dad that William had snuck out of the house when he was told not to, later that night Charlie was woken up in the middle of the night by his father beating William. It was kind of sad seeing the progression of a family falling apart. The end of the story was the farthest from a happy one, when William tries to beat the train tracks to go hangout with his friends but and does not quite make it. I found it quite odd that the story was named after William’s girlfriend who barely was in the story, just because she had long red hair and bright green eyes. Overall it was a good but sad short story and I enjoyed being in charge of the conversation for the mini book club.

Shaq and LeBron

The other night I came home turned on ESPN on saw some pretty legit news. Shaq got traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers. I am a huge Lebron James fan and the only reason why they did not win the Championship this year is because he had absolutely no help around him. All year I was saying how if they had a good big guy they would be unstoppable. Now, clearly Shaq is not the player he was 8 years ago but he is not exactly a scrub, I believe that with Shaq on the team he will pull more players off of Lebron so he can get better looks instead of being double teamed every time down the court. Same goes for Shaq, When Lebron drives the lane and everyone closes down on him, he will actually have someone to dump the ball off to that can do something with it, and personally I think Shaq is a very dominant player and will be a great addition to the Cavaliers. I think that the reason Shaq wanted to be traded to the Cavs is because he knows that those two on the same team is a very scary duo. Also ever since Kobe and Shaq had there falling out in LA, Shaq has never played Kobe in the Finals, and even though Shaq says him and Kobe are fine now, you know he wants to meet up in the finals and take him and Phil Jackson down, and with the Reigning MVP on the same team, Lebron James, I think it will be close to impossible to beat the Cleveland Cavaliers in the post season next year.

Michael Vick got screwed over

Michael Vick to this day is the most exciting player to watch play the game of football. All through High School he was my favorite player and still is even though he has not played for two seasons, I even sported number seven just like him. I am going to just come out and say it, Michael Vick got completely screwed over with his punishment, are you serious? 23 months? Dudes in the league are shooting there guns off in strip clubs, shooting themselves on accident and not getting a single day in the joint. I was watching ESPN two days ago and a wide receiver in the NFL was driving drunk and ran over a person and did not even know it because he was so trashed, dragged him for 3 blocks, you want to know how many years he got? 30 days. He killed a man, a human being and got sentenced to 1/23rd of what Vick got, and the most ridiculous part is that he is going to play this up coming season. Vick never physically harmed anything, or anyone, he got nearly two years because the dog fighting was held on his property, the dogs were fighting each other, it wasn’t Vick fighting the dogs, just because he’s the man they decided to make an example out of him and blew it way out of proportion. Why don’t people go to jail when they hunt animals? That’s them personally killing an animal, and half the time they cut them up and eat them. But whatever, all I know is Mike Vick is going to be back in action this year and will dominate the league again!

A million little pieces

I am currently reading a novel titled “A million little pieces”. Usually I read books more along the line of sports and related topics. I have never read a book so disturbing. The book is about a twenty-three man who wakes up on an airplane, front four teeth are missing, a hole in his check, a bashed in nose, and a combination of spit, snot, and vomit all over him with no recollection of who he is where he is at or where he is going. After the plane landed his parents took him straight to a rehab clinic. The rest of the book is about the six weeks he spent in rehab with every last gruesome detail involving his terrible withdraws, suffering a double root canal with no anesthesia or pain medication, dreams that are so real its scary, and news he receives that includes if he leaves the clinic he will not make it to the age of twenty four. The guy in the story, James was a raging alcoholic and a drug addict, he was addicted to cocaine, crack, shrooms, PCP, acid, and occasionally meth. One of the saddest parts in the story for me personally is how every time his mom came in to the story, the way she could not look James in the eyes, the fact that she is crying in almost every scene she is in. To me there is nothing worse than making your own mom cry, you really know that you have done something really wrong if your mom is crying and if I was in James shoes I do not know if I could have made the fight to break his addiction, and that is why this is a story that has kept me in the pages since I cracked the book.

Introduction to Fiction

After reading pages 7-25 over the introduction of Fiction, I personally found it very informational. It was very straight forward with explaining what fiction is and the different types of fiction there can be. Personally I enjoyed reading the section titled “The Short Story Genre” the most. It was quite interesting when it talked about how the first half of the nineteenth century was when the growth of short stories really took off, not only in the United States but countries all over the world as well. Also I like how it brought Edgar Allan Poe into it speaking about how he was the first great theorist of the short story genre. Most of the time as the text states, short story are otherwise known as tales which are in most cases considered make believe. It was also interesting how they brought in the present day and how short stories have risen to its highest level of popularity. Besides for the short story genre section there was one key word that stood out which was foreshadowing. Foreshadowing is one of the coolest elements to come across either while reading a book, or watching a television show, or even a movie. Reason being why I like when it happens is because you do not find out the author is foreshadowing until later. Overall this section was quite informational and I thoroughly enjoyed it.