8 Day Reading Reflection #5 “Independent Study” by Joelle Charbonneau

Justin on

As I am nearing the ending of the book: “Independent Study” by Joelle Charbonneau, I have learned many things. For starters, this is another generic dystopia story, similar to titles such as “The Hunger Games”. It includes much imagery and details making it easy to visualize when reading. It takes the perspective of a survivor of “The Testing” (prequel) without any memories of the events of the previous novel. I believe this novel to be very pointless as you see little to no character development, most of the novel is just the protagonist, Cia, trying to regain her memories of the previous novel. In the end when she finally remembers, the audience is faced with a massive cliffhanger, she does not take any action towards those suppressing her and the other students. The main character in the prequel was fairly believable yet in my opinion, this version of the protagonist is quite unbelievable, like i said before there is no character development at all meaning the readers do not feel any emotional connection towards the protagonist. I would not recommend this novel to other readers because it is very unappealing. If you do not like using your brain when you are reading, this is clearly meant for you. It may seem really descriptive and engaging but once you look at it in depth, it starts to show its major plot flaws and issues.

8 Day Reading Reflection #4 “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee

Justin on

During my holiday, I’ve spent a lot of time reading “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee. The story shows the aftermath of the Great Depression from the perspective of a 6-year-old named Jean Louise Finch. This novel continues to bring light to justice and punishment during the time and similar aspects. I have found the concept very interesting as the author is very skilled at including small, effective details to help the reader visualize the situation very clearly. I have completed 3 works of fiction so far “To Kill a Mockingbird” being the fourth installment. I still believe that the first book I have completed, “We Are Okay” is most impactful. I had the excruciatingly painful experience of reading through the mess of a book known as “Ready Player Two” by Ernest Cline and evidentially that book did not come close to being as impactful as the others. I think that the current novel I am reading would prove very useful for writing a literary essay as it consists of many literary techniques and a very important historical aspect.

8 Day Reading Reflection #3 “Lair of Dreams” By Libba Bray

Justin on

I have recently completed the book “Lair of Dreams” By Libba Bray. It has been a wonderful adventure reading through this book as it shows many characters indirectly connected with a special ability to see into other people’s lives and deeper. This development was not to be expected as it is implemented in the start of the novel and the characters were already established but how the characters develop and connect to each other was not established therefore it was fascinating to see them as such distant figures eventually become acquaintances. I would definitely recommend this novel but it may have some confusing aspects in it. Overall it is a very entertaining novel and hard to understand. This one is not my favorite amongst the novels I have read as it is way too long and sometimes hard to retain my focus. My favorite novel I have read would be “We Are Okay” by Nina LaCour which is the first book I have read because of how relatable it is.

8 day reading reflection #2 “We are Okay” by Nina LaCour and “Lair of Dreams” by Libba Bray

Justin on

I have finished “We are Okay” by Nina LaCour and have started on “Lair of Dreams” by Libba Bray, I have not gotten very far in “Lair of Dreams” (PG. 20) this is going to be mostly about “We are Okay”. After finishing “We are Okay” I have come to the conclusion that there is much character development and the plot changes a lot with unexpected plot twists. It is rather dark as it basically revolves around death and a child on her own trying to survive in school. I would definitely recommend this novel to others of my age as I have found it rather intriguing and quite entertaining to read and gives the reader just an overall good time. The author of this book, Nina LaCour, uses a lot of dialogue, as a matter of fact the story has an unusually high amount of dialogue which is not very common in these types of dark novels. The main theme I was able to take away from this is to never dwell on one’s death too long. In this story it is clearly shown in the many flashbacks the book has that the protagonist: Marin’s grandfather has been sulking about the deaths of her wife and daughter for many years, even going so far to hide evidence of their existence from Marin because it reminds him of them. Marin was about to repeat history for the death of his grandfather but her friend Mabel was able to draw her away from the history already set for her and present to her a new life different from the one in her childhood.

8 day reading reflection #1 “We are okay” by Nina LaCour

Justin on

I am reading “We are okay” by Nina LaCour. There currently aren’t any questions or anything I wish to ask the text, I think everything is pretty well explained, no easily visible plotholes. The text relates to my life because it is just so similar to my life, there are around 4 years until I head off to college and in the story, the protagonist, Marin, is currently dealing with college issues as well as coping with the loss of her grandparents and parents. This also slightly helps me get an insight of what college dorm life may be like. Where I currently am, the protagonist gets an offer from her best friend to go live at her parents’ place during holidays, Marin doesn’t have any known relatives that are currently alive so that may be somewhat beneficial otherwise she will have to stay at the student dorms during holidays. I think the protagonist will accept the offer eventually and the story will explore her interactions at school and during the holidays. I have realized that death is a difficult thing to cope with and its easy to lose motivation in living.

French revolution Journal July 14th, 1789 – August 28th 1794

Justin on

The french revolution was a horrible bloody time to be alive, many huge game changing events happened like the execution and fleeing of King Louis and the reign of terror, in the end the french revolution settled France with a somewhat decent leader and allowed France to have a better brighter future. The revolution has taught us many things, a good man cannot be a good king. This revolution was the game changer for the estates, before the revolution the first and second estates or the clergy and the nobles took control of France, they didn’t have to pay taxes and lived the life of a king. The 3rd estate or everyone else had to pay taxes, they spent most of their days working only to receive very small amounts of payment. The 3rd estate could also be arrested or captured for no legitimate reason. After the revolution, the 3rd estate was changed forever, the revolution gave the 3rd estate many rights that made the lives of the people of the 3rd estate very similar to the lives of the people of the 1st or 2nd estate.

The french revolution in plain english

Justin on

This is my video about the french revolution. In this video i talk about 4 key events during the french revolution with my partner, Benjamin. The 4 key events that we have chosen are: Storming of Bastille, Escape and execution of the King, French revolutionary wars, and the Reign of terror. The making of this video was quite difficult, we had to draw each character. Some of the characters are based off a very interesting artist that we have discovered in the process. We have learned about all the key events of the french revolution, not just these 4 and we strengthened our understanding and knowledge about these 4 specific events by making this video. In my video, we show the summary of each of the 4 events: Revolutionaries storming Bastille and suffering from an overwhelming defeat, Louis’ escape and death during war against Austria, Frances’ victory against European monarchies and Robespierre’s arrest of “revolutionary suspects”.

Photo citation: https://salemcc.instructure.com/courses/659/pages/the-french-revolution-unit-summary-and-objectives

Napoleon, Hero or villain?

Justin on

This is my infographic deciding whether Napoleon is a hero or a villain to his country. I believe he is a hero of France because of the reasons i stated above. What is the definition of a Hero or a villain? A hero is a person who thinks and acts for the benefit of the world and is very selfless and brave enough to face the problems the world was facing. A villain is the complete opposite of that. A villain is scared of death, scared of pain, a villain is a weak pathetic waste of air and space because the second he is faced with danger he would abandon the country causing it to collapse. The reasons i have chose the reasons that Napoleon is a hero is pretty much self-explanatory. For reason 1, he helped France basically conquer all of Europe! Thats a pretty big accomplishment! He was defeated by the British however but that was one loss from all the victories he won. He was a great strategist so he could potentially beat a larger army with a smaller one. Reason 2 was because he was kind to his soldiers. Some generals see their subordinates as tools or even obstacles sometimes but not Napoleon, he wanted to have a good impression on his soldiers so he treated them with extreme patience and the effort he put in to caring for his troops is pretty insane! (There is one time where he abandoned his troops because he thought there was a pretty good chance of him being the next leader of France if he went back to France but that may be to benefit France even more so we dont really talk about that) Reason 3 is because Napoleon helped reform or enhance many aspects of France that was not previously good for example the school systems, he added 4 grades of schools. Primary, Secondary, military and technical. Napoleon is a great leader, he is a great assist to his country and his troops therefore i think he deserves to have the “Hero of the country” title.

Russian Revolution Task #3 Video Journal

Justin on

My video is here

My character has 2 names but the one that appears most is Aleksei. He is a former farmer and currently a factory worker in the lower class of the Russian economy. He kind of was in the middle when the October revolution happened, he liked the idea with a promising man leading Russia however he doubted if he could keep his promises. The Civil war didn’t really affect him much, since he is a lower class, he despised the upper class, this made him admire the Bolsheviks more than ever. He felt ver unusual when Lenin died, he didn’t know how to feel. A man finally living up to his promises but at what cost?

I think the Russian Revolution was worth it, the Tsar system didn’t work out very well so then the revolution solved that. However it was replaced with another provisional government which was not very effective in leading Russia so another revolution came and solved the problem replacing the provisional government with Lenin. Lenin did many great things for Russia far better than what the Tsar and the Duma’s Provisional government could have done so i think the Russian Revolution was worth it.

To expand your knowledge on Lenin click here

To expand your knowledge on Stalin click here

 

Magic enrichment reflection

Justin on

My challenger deck that i have chosen at the start of the enrichment is called Arcane Tempo and it is a Blue/Red deck. This deck is quite good because it has tons of sorceries and instants that deal damage and other kind of special effects. Sorceries and instants go in my graveyard after being used but i have a card that takes advantage of that. My */4 creature crackling drake has the damage equal to the amount of sorceries and instant spells inside my graveyard.

My draft is pretty good because i have this legendary creature called Sephara Sky’s Blade and has a lot of health and damage. It has an ability to make all flying creatures i control gain indestructible. It also has flying and lifelink (whenever this creature deals an amount of damage i heal that amount of damage). I also have this artifact that adds +10/+10 to a creature which could make my sephara sky’s blade become a 17/17 creature which could basically defeat the opponent in 2 turns and could give me 17 extra life. during the tournament i won the first 2 rounds, nearly won against charles and lost again david. I got 3rd place which is kind of not swell.

I like magic because it has lots of creatures that are unique and lots of spells and lots of mechanics that you wont see in other card games. It is fun because you get to slowly build up and army or quickly destroy the opponent which is really fun. What is hard is to try to counter certain spells that the opponent tries to use because some of them can counter my Sky’s Blade which is kind of annoying (Luckily i have 4 cards that can revive things from my graveyard (only creatures tho)).  My goal for my next draft is to try to keep my colors down to 2. Using 3 colors is sometimes hard (I had 3 colors in my 1st draft but only used black and white) I also want to try to be more smart and get the cards that could help me get easy victories