Grammar Thursday is Back!

I haven't posted a Grammar Thursday in a long time, but I have one today. The topic is punctuation and quotes.

The rule is simple: Punctuation always goes inside of quotes. No matter what.

If you need to know whether punctuation goes inside or outside of quotes, just remember this. PUNCTUATION ALWAYS GOES INSIDE OF QUOTES! You will never find a situation where punctuation doesn't go inside of quotes. If you do, please let me know, but I sincerely doubt you will.

Here's an example:

"I can't believe she said that," Martha said

Either way, punctuation goes inside of quotes. Sorry for being repetitive, but an astounding number of history and english teachers seemed to not know this simple rule, which is very disappointing, considering their professions.

Also, please comment if you happen upon this blog, whether it was a fortunate accident or if you actually read this because you like it.

Looking for Alaska

John Green, John Green, John Green. Ah. John Green, I have to tell you something. I know it might sound mean, but I don't really intend it to. You need to stop having main characters die in your books. You need to be able to explore character development through a different medium than death. I think that main characters dying makes things really interesting, and I usually like it, but I feel like the only real big conflicts and character change (the two points of a book) happen when Alaska dies. I know that it is much easier to write about character change when the characters are forced to go through the grieving process, but Johnny (do you like being called Johnny? Maybe Greeny is better), Johnny, sometimes the easy road isn't the best road. Here's a Dumbledore quote for you to take with you: "We must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy.” I looked that up just for you, Greeny. Time for you to go now.

Okay. To the actual book.

This book was about a boy. He went to high school, and was forced from the sidelines onto the field, right in the middle of the main event. And the main event was Alaska Young.

Before Miles (fondly known as Pudge — for obvious reasons — by his friends at school) met Alaska, he spent his days memorizing the last words of famous people. His life was dull and without meaning. He decided to go to a boarding school in search of a Great Perhaps — his words, not mine. But instead of finding a Great Perhaps, he finds Alaska. Alaska and her maze of suffering, her beautiful but destructive life.

Immediately — and I mean in the first day — Pudge changes from a caged-in nobody to a smoking, drinking member of a high school "gang." I use gang lightly. There is a rivalry between his group of friends and the rich kids at their boarding school. They play pranks on each other. Lots and lots of pranks. That's pretty much all they do. Well, that, smoking, and almost making out with Alaska.

Though this group almost gets into trouble many times, pulls many pranks, and pretty much spends every moment of every day with each other, their group bond doesn't grow at all. Pudge's status in the group never changed from when he first met them, to when he was setting off fireworks with them.

Finally, after slugging through about half of this book, you get to the section called "After." Personally, I think calling this section "after" is kind of a misnomer, because, though it is after Alaska dies, everything else is still pretty much the same. On the back of the book, there is a long description for what happens "before," and one line to say what happens "after." Apparently, after, nothing was ever the same.

I would strongly disagree with that, as Pudge changes the most as soon as he meets Alaska, and starts drinking and smoking. After Alaska dies, almost nothing changes.

Well, not nothing. Basically, all of the characters show an amount of emotion that doesn't correlate with their character's personality. If you started reading after Alaska's death, you would assume that they weren't playing pranks on each other, but sitting around talking about feelings.

I did like the second half of the book better than the first half, though. In the second half, Pudge and co. try to discover if Alaska committed suicide, or was just in a drunken accident. That part was written fairly well. I have to admit to you, John Green, that you actually wrote a few chapters that didn't make me want to vomit.

All in all, I wouldn't suggest this book to anyone, unless they were into reading most of a book to get to the good part. This book didn't explore any character development, but used death to pretend that it did. If you want to read a book about suicidal people and philosophy, I'm sure there's something better out there than Looking for Alaska by John Green.

P.S. I know people don't really read this blog, but if you do (whether it is accidental or on purpose) please leave a comment, so I know if anyone is seeing this. Thanks.

The Fault in Our Stars

Time for another book review!

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.

(pause for effect)

Well.

Well.

We-ell.

As I'm sure you've probably noticed, TFIOS happens to be one of the most popular books right now. Though I can totally relate to being obsessed with books, I just cannot relate to being obsessed with this one. It is actually quite horrifying the images I saw when I googled "the fault in our stars." This is a cross-stitch pattern of "Okay? Okay."

Ahem. No comment.

I looked up "divergent" just to see what happened. Here are the results: pictures of the book covers, pictures of the actors in the movie, some fan art/jewelry/etc., but NOT A SINGLE CROSS-STITCH! Outrage!

I mention this just to make the point that though other books have become immensely popular (i.e. Divergent), TFIOS is still more popular than most new YA fiction.

Personally, I was disappointed by it. From what other people told me, this book would be practically life-changing: romantic and sad, a book that teaches you so many things about life and death and loss. While I was reading it, I kept waiting for some profound sentence or two that would make the whole thing worth my time. I never found anything too profound in it.

My absolute least favorite part of the book was the whole Hazel thinking her favorite author is going to be amazing and tell her everything that happens after the book ends. I think it makes her seem kind of self-centered and naive. First of all, she pretty much assumes that the author: a. knows everything that happens after the book ends, and b. is going to share that information with her. She always says how she doesn't like all the cancer perks and wishes she was treated normal, but without cancer perks, she wouldn't even be able to meet the author.

Just to be fair, here's my favorite part: Oh wait, I don't have one.

Though this wasn't my favorite book, I do recommend that sometime in your life you read it. Even just so you can watch the movie while keeping your integrity intact. (Rule of Life #1: You can't watch the movie before you read the book.) By the way, whenever I see the trailer for TFIOS movie, I fangirl a little. The movie looks really good. Maybe better than the book. (Even though Rule of Life #2: The movie is never better than the book — except for Lord of the Rings.)

Essays

I'll get back to John Green tomorrow, but today I need to talk about something that absolutely infuriates me. Essays. I am currently writing one for school and it is killing me. Even though I try to be creative and put my own spin on it, it is almost impossible to write an entertaining, fun essay that not only shows how much you've learned, but also your voice and writing style.

Essays are terrible creatures sent from Hell to destroy our creativity until we are all mindless typing drones, click-clacking day and night at meaningless questions.

No I'm not being melodramatic!

Everyone who is in the field of education: GET A CLUE! Essays do not help ANYTHING! Teachers assign essays for a few reasons, but their reasons are NOT legitimate!!!!!

First of all, to find out someone's writing style, maybe you should let them BE CREATIVE! Write poetry, or prose, or ANYTHING BUT AN ESSAY! I know when I write essays, I don't actually need to know the subject. All you do is paraphrase and regurgitate the information. It doesn't show knowledge.

ESSAYS ARE STUPID!!!!!!!!!!!!!

John Green

I haven't posted anything in a really long time. The summer just flew by. School starts on Wednesday, which means all the things like buying school supplies and summer homework that I procrastinated have to be finished in just a couple days.

I've been planning to post this for a very long time but I haven't gotten around to it. I recently read two books by John Green: The Fault in Our Stars and Looking For Alaska.

I got halfway through Looking For Alaska when I impulsively bought The Fault in Our Stars at Target. I read it, then finished reading Looking For Alaska.

Considering all of the good reviews for TFIOS, I had high hopes for the book, and pretty much thought that everything written by John Green was magic or something.

I was severely disappointed.

I'll go into more detail on the specific things I didn't like in the next few days.

Personally, I feel almost bad for not liking these books, because I think John Green seems like a nice guy. I think I could be his friend if I ever met him. I just don't think he writes exceptional books. They're really not bad, but I just don't see how everyone who reads his books love them so much.

It just made me kind of mad. I had been waiting to read TFIOS for soooo long, and it wasn't even that good! It was ten whole dollars at Target! Ten whole dollars wasted! Not acceptable!

Hanged vs. Hung

It's Grammar Thursday! Today I'll be explaining the difference between "hanged" and "hung." A lot of people know this rule, but a surprising amount don't. Including my history teacher. U.S. history. Generally that involves a lot of people being hanged. Um . . . Salem Witch Trials?

So, the rule is:

Hanged is the killing one.
Example: "Martha, did you hear? Mark was hanged yesterday for murdering his baby koala!"

Hung is used for everything else.
Example: Yesterday after work, Isabelle dejectedly hung her jacket on the hook. She had been fired.

Image from: taaroko.deviantart.com

Vacation Time!

Going to New Jersey to visit relatives! I might not be able to post anything for a few days, sorry!

Lynx kitten:

Image from: www.zooborns.com

And again:

Image from: www.treehugger.com