Destiny

Destiny: the predetermined, usually inevitable or irresistible, course of events. (dictionary.com) Some people feel as if destiny may or may not play an important role in the book The Lord of The Rings. I feel that every character in The Lord of The Rings faces their own destiny, by the choices that they have made along their journey. In life, destiny is an important role not only in books and movies. In The Lord of The Rings their destiny is to destroy the ring and whether or not they will destroy the ring depends on the choices they make along their journey. If they make the correct choices then they will be able to destroy the ring. Everyone can achieve their destiny it just depends on if you're strong enough to make it until the end.

Before I Fall #4

Samantha does many different things in her next few days of reliving cupid day. But there's two things that she does know she doesn't love her boyfriend and doesn't understand why her friends are so mean to everyone. The more and more she spends around Kent the more she starts to see how cute he really is. The boy that shes made fun of all through highschool, she is falling for. She decides that its her job to save Juliet. She sends her roses and a nice note hoping that it would show Juliet that someone cares for her, but it doesn't work. She tries talking to Juliet but she just pushes her away. On one of the dark cold Cupid nights Samantha finds of that her bestfriend didn't crash the car because she was drunk. It was actually Juliet who jumped infront of the girls car intending to kill herself. Samantha is trying everything she can to save Juliet, to finally make it right. She is trying to show her friends how cruel and mean they have been but they don't care. While all this is going on she is falling more and more in love with Kent, knowing that she will never be able to be with him. In the end Samantha does save Juliet from her death but in order to save her she has to take her own life. Samantha fixed her mistakes but she didn't get a second chance at life.

Before I Fall #3

When Samantha wakes up on the first day shes very confused, shouldn't she be dead? Until she realizes that its once again, Cupid Day. She thinks maybe it was all some big dream, and she relives the first day telling herself it's nothing but severe Deja Vu. Until the car crash happens for the second time and Samantha dies again. She awakens on the second morning scared to even look at the date, and once again it's Cupid Day. Samantha is scared more than ever and doesn't understand whats going on. But she decides that she can't die if she doesn't go to the party, right? So spends the night at Lindsays house only to be awaken in the middle of the night with news that Juliet had killed herself. Was it her fault? Her friends did nothing but make fun of her, maybe they went too far? Samantha goes back to sleep and wakes up the next day...Cupid Day again. Will Samantha ever wake up from this nightmare? Will she wake up and be alive one day?

Before I Fall #2

Samantha goes to a party that same night of cupid day, not knowing that it was the last party she would ever go to. The whole night is a diaster and nothing goes right. Samantha's boyfriend was drunk before she even got to the party and puking not to long after. The party was at Kent's house which was her childhood friend that she doesn't associate with any longer because he is not part of the popular clue. Not only is Samantha insulted by Kent which cuts a little deeper than she thought it would, shes insulted by the school loser Juliet. Finally Samantha and her friends leave the party with her bestfriend of all, Lindsay driving hom drunk. The girls are all fighting over which music to play in the car and not really paying attention. Until all of a sudden Lindsay yells and the car crashes into a tree. Thats when Samantha feels it, the pain full of heat and sound. Samantha died this night in the car with her four bestfriends. But she will have seven days to live it all over again and fix her mistakes.

Before I Fall #1

I choose to read the book Before I Fall, by Lauren Oliver. The book starts out on the morning of Cupid Day, which is the day that Samantha Kingston's school celebrates valentines day. The whole point of the day is to see how many roses each person gets from their friends and secret admirers. Samantha has everything she could ever ask for her three bestfriends, her perfect boyfriend, and of course she is one of the most popular girls in Thomas Jefferson High. Cupid Day starts off perfectly with her friends stealing the last parking spot in the student lot, and also a rose from her boyfriend. Not to mention the perfect prank they played on Juliet, the loser girl that they all hate. It was a day that seemed just like any other, right? Wrong. This day changed Samantha's life forever but she has chances to fix her mistakes.

Book Review

The book starts out with a kid named Christopher holding his neighbors dead dog in his arm. One would immediately think, why would someone do such a thing? But Christopher has Aspergers and he doesn’t really think that him holding the dog is wrong. Christopher is a teenage boy living with a disorder that makes the simplest things such as understanding facial expressions hard for him. But Christopher is a very smart boy who loves math, science, and mystery novels. Christopher chose to write a book about trying to find out who killed the dog, he wanted to be a detective. But things don’t go right when he gets yelled at by his dad to stop poking around in other people’s business. Eventually Christopher’s dad finds out that he is writing a mystery novel and takes the book away from him.

In the beginning of the book you just think that it’s going to be only about Christopher finding out who killed the dog. But in reality it’s about Christopher learning more about his life. Christopher’s dad told him that his mother had passed away, but in reality she was still alive. Christopher believed his dad and went on living his life, until Wellington was murdered. The dog being murdered started a long journey for Christopher to not only find out the truth about things but also for him to learn how to grow up. While Christopher is trying to find his book he snoops around his dad’s room and he finds letters. The letters were from his mom who lived in London and she wrote to him every day. Christopher doesn’t really understand the letters because his mom is supposed to be dead. Everything changes for Christopher when he finds out that his Dad had killed Wellington. That’s when Christopher starts his journey to London to find his mom. Christopher learns how to do things on his own. He found his mom, went to London all by himself, and he wrote a book. Christopher changed by the end of the book, he had grown up.

Reaction

: I thought that it was a good book, although at some times it was hard to understand Christopher. The book was over all enjoyable, and interesting. I thought that the way that the book was in his perspective was different, it wasn’t like someone was talking about what he did. The only thing I didn’t like about the books were the chapters where he rambled about things that weren’t really even in the plot of the story. I thought it was interesting to read a book that was in the perspective of a person that has Aspergers. It really gave you a look inside of Christopher’s mind and how he thinks.

Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau believed that in order to live well, we must reduce the number of material goods we have. Otherwise, these things begin to dominate us. Take a position on this and explain

I agree with Thoreau, I think that there are way too many material goods. People have based their lives on material goods. Everyone is always talking about their laptops or their new smart phones. In high school everything is based on what you have and not on what kind of person you are. If you have nice things than you are more accepted than the people that don’t have nice things. Material goods completely control how people act; it’s almost as if they dominate people’s personalities more than anything else.

To be able to say that your living well is now based on what you have and what has been bought for you. It’s not about if you’re happy or not. It’s not about your family or your friends. People let what they have decide whether or not they are going to bed happy. I think that everyone could reduce the number of material goods they have. But most people wouldn’t know what to do without their computer, cell phone, expensive shores, or expensive purses.