Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Possible Side Effects (week 4 post A)

Vocab:

Pretentious (page 136)- full of pretense or pretension.
Insurmountable (page 140)- incapable of being surmounted, passed over, or overcome; insuperable: an insurmountable obstacle.

Simile:

"You look like a girl who eats a double helping of carrots".


Metaphor:

"By the time he was a year old, KittyKitty was the size of a Labrador".

Possible Side Effects (week 3 post A)

Vocab:

Mortifyingly (page 90)- to humiliate or shame, as by injury to one's pride or self-respect.
Horrifically (page 90)- causing horror.



Similes:

"You're pretty, like me".

"It's like modern art, right there in a magazine".

Possible Side Effects (week 2 post A)

Vocab:
Pathological (page 54)-of or pertaining to pathology.
Hysteria (page 54)-an uncontrollable outburst of emotion or fear, often characterized by irrationality, laughter, weeping, etc.


Similes:

"the card felt like a body I had stashed in the closet..."

"I would happily spit all my broken teeth into a steel pail and walk around the rest of my like smiling like a crazy person and gumming steamed apples".

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Possible Side Effects (week 1 post A)

Garnish (page 21)- to provide or supply with something ornamental
Debris (page 22)- the remains of anything broken down or destroyed

Examples of figurative language:

"I thought she was beautiful, like a movie star".

"The pit, that ached and tasted metallic, like blood".

both of those quotes are similes because the author uses like

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Different kinds of debates

Curfew- Established by the city. The debates occur in the city council. The point of the debate is to decide between children's safety and children's individual freedoms. This debate should lead to a better decision. This debate would be more structured then unstructured. It helps the decision making process.

Allowance- The debates occur in a home between parents and children. The point of the debate is to decide if the child should have an allowance or if the child's allowance should be raised or not. The debate would be unstructured.

Chores- The debates occur in a home between parents and children. The point of the debate is to decide how many and what chores the child needs to do. The debate would be unstructured.

Grades- The debates occur in a home between parents and children. The point of the debate is to decide if the grades of the child are good or bad. The debate would be unstructured.

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Possible Side Effects

-Possible Side Effects by: Augusten Burroughs
-2006
-Nonfiction
-291
-I read Running with Scissors and I really liked it, so I decided to read something by the same author.

Friday, October 26, 2007

The Sea Inside (post 1)

I think that no matter how hard someone wants to commit suicide, they should not be allowed to do it. Even though its their life and body, they need to get help. In the movie The Sea Inside, I think it was very wrong that Ramon's friends agreed to help him. They should have gotten him some help instead of helping him commit suicide.

Running With Scissors (week 6)

One night while Augusten is in his room, he hears a knock on the door. Its Bookman. Bookman tells Augusten that he is going to go get film. This is very strange because it is 2 in the morning. A few hours after Bookman left, Augusten went to his room looking for him. He wasn't there. That's when Augusten knew that Bookman had ran away. Augusten went and told Hope, and she told Dr. Finch. The three of them went to New York City to find Bookman. They went to bars asking if he had been there because they thought he would have gone to a bar. No one in any of the bars had seen him. After a while of looking for him, they decided to go back home. Augusten never heard from him ever again. Augusten's mother calls him and tell him that she needs tell him something in person. When they are together, she tells him that Dr. Finch raped her. She tells Augusten that he should have nothing to do with the Finch's. When Natalie heard about this, she kept trying to tell Augusten that its not true, and that his mother is crazy and he should not believe her. He still does though. Natalie and Augusten end up getting an apartment together when they are older. That does not last long though, because Augusten decides he wants to get away. Augusten goes to stay in a motel. Then he eventually finds an apartment in Massachusetts. He also gets a job as a waiter at a restaurant.



I chose to do the maps.

Running With Scissors (week 5)

I commented on Desi and Amal's blog.

Augusten and Natalie decided that they both need to get jobs. They spent an afternoon going around to stores and filling out applications. Natalie and Augusten both have a goal. Natalie would really like to attend Smith College, and Augusten wants to be a hair stylist. One night when Augusten was visiting his mother, she went crazy. She was screaming and saying things that she should not say. Augusten called Hope and she came over. Hope ended up calling 9-1-1. The police cam and they took her away. After that night, Augusten, Bookman, Hope, and Dorothy (Augusten's mother's girlfriend), the doctor and Augusten's mother stay at the Treadway Inn motorlodge in Rhode Island. Augusten's mother meets a lady Winnie while eating at a restaurant. Winnie stays with Augusten's mother for a few days and helps her get over the crazy episodes that she has.

Running With Scissors (week 4)

"That's king of how I felt. Sure, I would have liked for things to have been different. But, roll of the eyes, what can you do? Shrug." Page 302 Running with Scissors

This is the last thing that the author says in the story. I think that this quote is meaningful because Augusten is talking about his childhood and how crazy it was and how he wished it could have been different but sometimes there is nothing you can do.

Natalie (one of Dr. Finch's daughters) and Augusten become very close friends. They both really like to sing. Natalie gets an idea to sing at a nearby hospital. The two of them go to the hospital and see if they might be able to sing. The people working at the hospital are confused, but they let them sing to the patients. Hope (another one of Dr. Finch's daughters) goes through something very unusual. She thinks her cat is dying because she had a bad dream about her cat. She puts the cat in a laundry basket and sleeps next to the basket in the basement. The cat after a few days dies because of no food or water.

Running With Scissors (week 3 part 1)

Augusten decides that he does not want to go to school. His mother says that he has to go to school until he is 16 years old. After Augusten keeps complaining, his mother decides to call Dr. Finch. Dr. Finch comes up with a plan so that Augusten can get out of school for a while. He decides to tell the school that Augusten tried to commit suicide. After Hope (Dr. Finch's daughter) finds out that Augusten is gay, she wants him to meet Bookman her adopted brother who is also gay. Bookman and Augusten meet , and Bookman starts to really like Augusten. Augusten still spends most of his time at Dr. Finch's house, but he still sees his mother sometimes. When Dr. Finch finds out about Augusten and Bookman's relationship, he gets angry.

http://z.about.com/d/movies/1/0/k/o/N/scissorsprem4.jpg

http://www.augusten.com/index_flash.html

Augusten Burroughs was born in 1965 in Massachusetts. He has written a total of 5 stories. Augusten currently lives in New York City with his boyfriend and their 2 dogs.

Monday, October 8, 2007

Running With Scissors (week 2)

Loaded Words:

1) Inadvertently- page: 109
2) Quadraphonic- page: 105
3) Cacophony- page: 102
4) Crux- page: 98
5) Sanctimonious- page: 95
6) Mimeographed- page: 93
7) Ventilation- page:68
8)Formality- page: 63
9) Oppression- page: 89
10) Teeming- page: 84

All of the words that I selected are loaded because I'm not sure what they mean.

Augusten spends lots of time at Dr. Finch's house and away from his mother. You find out that Augusten is gay. You also find out that Augusten's mother is a lesbian when Agusten walks in on her with another woman.

I think this book is getting more and more interesting. The way the mother acts is very strange. I feel bad for Agusten because he had a weird life growing up.

Saturday, October 6, 2007

Running With Scissors (week 1)

The story Running With Scissors starts off with the mother of Augusten getting ready to go out for the night. The story goes into great detail of what his mother is doing to get ready and what she looks like. Not long after that, the parents of Augusten start to get into a huge fight. They are screaming at each other and calling each other names. Deirdre (the mother of Augusten) pushes Augusten's father backward onto the counter and his head hits the dishwasher and he starts to bleed. Because of this huge fight Deirdre meets with a doctor. Whenever Deirdre meets with Dr. Finch, Augusten always goes along also. One day Deirdre meets with Dr. Finch at his house. Augusten is curious to see where Dr. Finch lives. Augusten has this picture in his mind of what Dr. Finch's house looks like. He pictures it as big and nice. But when he sees it, he is surprised because it is the complete opposite. When Augusten gets into the house, he is forced to play with the daughters of Dr. Finch. Augusten does not care for his daughters one bit. After a while Augusten leaves the girls and goes to check with his mother when he gets to go home. It is then when Augusten finds out that he will have to stay with Dr. Finch and his family for a while, while Deirdre stays in a motel. Deirdre has to stay in a motel because Dr. Finch thinks that Augusten's father is after her and is going to kill her. Dr. Finch thinks it would be best if Augusten did not go with her to the motel. This really makes Agusten angry and dissapointed.


Running with Scissors is one of the most interesting stories that I have ever read. I really enjoy reading it. I also think it is really weird. I can't believe that it actually happened in real life.

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Blog 1 September 5

The thing I am most anxious about at Edina High School is meeting new people. I'm most anxious to meet new people because its always fun to meet new people and make friends.

One of my goals for this school year is to not miss a lot of school. Last year i missed a lot of school and it really hurt my grades.