Quote 8

"Things were different now. I wasn't just going to forgive him for not taking care of me during the past year. Instead of saving me, he had rejected me." (O'Neill 247).

When Baby was one year younger, twelve, she brushed off her father's neglect like it was nothing. Now, when she is thirteen, she realizes that things aren't okay and that she needs to do something about the issue. She is maturing and taking initiative.

Quote 7

"The curtain between acts in my life was always a dense forest." (O'Neill 188).

Whenever Baby moves to a new phase in her life, she moves. She moves apartments or foster homes. While driving to the correctional facility, Baby drives through a forest, signifying a new part of her life.
She is going here, starting a new life, only because her father kicked her out of the house. This quote explains the symbolism in the book, even though it is a light read. Baby is just spiraling down and she is going to end up pregnant and addicted to heavy drugs...not good

Quote 6

"Suddenly I realized that i wanted everything to be as it was when i was younger. when you're young enough, you don't know that you live in a cheap lousy apartment. A cracked chair is nothing more than a cracked chair." (O'Neill 184).

At this point, Baby is only thirteen. She just turned thirteen also. Baby is realizing that her life is not all about puppies and bunnies. She sees that she is not well off and that she is not living an okay life.
After this point, she knows that she needs to take matters into her own hands. she cant depend on the "adults" in her life because she is more responsible than them.

Quote 5

"Being judged by society makes you disregard it altogether after a while. Jean-Michel didn't know that he shouldn't get a twelve year old drugs. He didn't even know what a twelve year old was." (O'Neill 182).

Baby decides, because of her dad and her friends, to try mushrooms. she shares them with Felix and sees snow falling inside their house. she looks closer and they are really paper cranes. They do shrooms while Mary is on a date with her boyfriend.

This shows what children, even twelve year olds, will do when they are bored or curious. drugs are dangerous and i dont this it was a good idea for them to do drugs.

i think this quote shows that Baby is growing up, ironic because of her name. She is looking at the bigger picture, even if she doesnt see her future as clearly.

Quote 4

"Felix liked to take the eggs out of the fridge and draw faces on them. He wanted to put one of the eggs in an empty Kleenex box, directly under a lightbulb, so that a chick would hatch," (O'Neill 62).

While Jules is in rehab, Baby goes to stay with her neighbor Mary and her sons Johnny and Felix. Baby becomes good friends with Felix. I think this quote shows that because Mary is always out with her new boyfriend, she neglects Baby and Felix. They need to find ways to amuse themselves and to occupy each other because they dont have a loving parent.

Quote 3

"I don't think its a very good idea at all. How doyou know that they clean their needles? You could get AIDS!" (O'Neill 55).

Jules, Baby's dad, wants to get a tattoo. On the way to the tattoo parlor Baby is trying to talk her father out of it but he knows what he wants. there is no way out of it for him.
This shows that Baby is aware of the threats of life (AIDS) and the consequences. I feel like the roles of parent and child are reversed in this story. Baby is the parents and Jules is the kid, doing drugs, rebelling, and going into rehab.

Quote 2

"Our toes were black from wearing boots that weren't waterproof. We had infected earlobes and green rings around our fingers from cheap jewelry. No one ever had a chocolate bar. We'd steal containers of cottage cheese and eat them together in the park," (O'Neill 16).

All of the orphans and unsupervised children with whom Baby is friends live unfortuneate lives. They dont have enough money to wear the clothes that they need, or to buy treats that they deserve. They are children. This shows the extent of their poverty and neglect. Sad.

Quote 1

"Jules and his friends have been calling heroin chocolate milk for years...He had red marks like mosquito bites on his arms even in the winter," (O'Neill 10).

Baby is very naive and her father Jules isn't much better. A recurring theme in this novel is innocence and how it is corrupted. Baby is only twelve and her father is twenty-five. Her father think she is stupid enough to think Jules is getting "chocolate milk" from a shady old business building with guards outside who look like murderers.
Baby relates everything bad to something familiar in her live. She related the needle marks to mosquito bites. Baby is so innocent in the beginning of the book and later her friend screw her up, and the poor influence of her father doesn't help...

Criminals...

My book remains the same. Baby is continuing on her adventure. she has now become an orphan because her father has Tuberculosis and is in the hospital for three to six months. while at the orphanage, she meets friends who accept her after she teaches them a game. later, there is a new, older boy who enters the orphanage. his name is Lucas and he is fourteen. he has a walkman and listens to it all the time. his uncle gave it to him and it is very special to him. Lucas was the leader of all this children, he was "the big cheese". while the children were at the park, Lucas was beaten up by a group of other boys. his walkman was stolen and Lucas was hurt pretty bad. after that event, the kids realized that Lucas was just a normal person just like the rest of them...

class

so last week we finished O Brother, Where Art Thou? i didnt see very many parrallels with the Odyssey in the film, but it was entertaining nonetheless. the singing was good, even though i do not like country at all. the cyclops was similar, at the KKK meeting, Eulyses threw a flag pole at the cyclops and it would have hit his eye if he didnt catch it.
i felt like the plot was not clear. obviously the men escaped from the chain gang for doing something bad, probably stealing. they were fleeing from the police but it was never clear where they were going or why. there was no money or anything so they had no destination. i just didnt understand the movie. i think it would have been more effective to watch the odyssey movie than to watch O Brother, Where Art Thou?

Class!

This week we finished our ridiculously long quiz. I thought it was easy but it just took a long time to find the quotes. We did our presentations and finished the odyssey...finally. It was an epic book and interesting to study greek myths but i already read the book so it was not as exciting the second time around. I wish we didnt have to write papers for every book we read... I wish we did more creative writing and imaginative things in class... :(

Lullabies For Little Criminals

This week i started my new book called Lullabies for little criminals. It is about a girl and how she deals with her heroin-addicted father. He impregnated his girlfriend with they were 15 and then his girlfriend died when she was 16 after having the baby. He named his daughter Baby. They are good friends but sometimes his heroin addiction gets in the way. He is not a very good father, more of a friend. they move around because they either can't afford to live where they do or he made one of his friends angry and had to move to escape him. Baby is very independent and i think she will get into trouble later in the story because her father is such a bad role model.

A Million Little Pieces!

A million little pieces was an interesting book. it had its lulls and places where i didnt really want to continue reading, but i stuck with it. it turns out james gets out of rehab and has not relapsed since he left. That must feel like an amazing accomplishment. Going from ruining your life, falling apart, to a strong man who can make decisions not to drink and who can control himself...for the most part. James' parents had to leave early because his dad had to tend to some business. James was upset and i would be too if my dad always put business before his family and child in rehab. James and his parents grew much closer and now they feel like a real family. They actually know each other now and all of them like that. James is recovering nicely and will be ok.

=D

Class!

So we finished Much Ado yesterday and we began to watch the movie. We finished the movie and started the project. I like the project...maybe because i like our topic. It is love and it is pretty easy to find love in this play. I am excited to see the presentations and read their handouts. With these types of projects when people divide topics and teach them to the class, i feel like i understand my topic really well but i dont understand everyone elses. I feel like dividing and conquering is less effective because i am spending just as much time, if not more, going through and trying to understand everyone else's topic. it is frustrating but the project itself seems fun and interesting.

A Million Little Pieces

James is doing very well in the Family Program. He is having fewer urges but is still having dreams, fantasies, of unlimited drugs and alcohol. When i first read about his dreams, and the sickness that followed, i thought that he must be in deep. While asleep the addiction is still very much alive inside of him. It is scary to think that a person can deal with stress like that. He has been through detox and withdrawls, but he will always be addicted. I never thought about that before this book. Addiction lives until the person dies. It is always there, living inside. That is scary to think about. This book has made me realize the hell that drugs bring and made me REALLY not want to do them...

Juno!

I saw Juno when I returned from France. The plot was interesting. A boy caused his best friend to become pregnant. She couldn't get an abortion so she had the baby and put him up for adoption. I feel like the theme of the movie was not learn from your mistakes, and it would seem like that would be the prominent theme in a teen pregnancy movie. But the theme was don't lose sight of who you are in the mix of everything. Juno was not the typical high schooler but she didn't care. She didn't care about what other people thought or what people said about her, she just lived her live. The movie had very clever and witty lines. They made me laugh.