Reading Response- Looking After Lily

       The first day that Dr. D told us to get out our books and read, I didn't have a book.  So I proceeded to go to the library to quickly find a book and make my way back to class.  I grabbed a book off the fiction shelf, read the inside cover and figured if it wasn't good, I only had to read it for 10 minutes and I would find a new book later.  When I got back to the classroom and started reading it, I ended up liking it!

       I'm not very far into this book, but I'm pretty sure that one of the major themes will be forgetting and letting go.When Haywood finally gets out of jail, his younger brother tells him to look after his pregnant wife Lily.  All Haywood wants to do once he gets out of jail is get out of Bastrop County, but now he has Lily coming with him.  They gather the little money they have and set out to San Antonio.  The two have many struggles along the way, not suprising, considering the two are 20 and 16 years old.  Haywood may be out of jail, but his younger brother is not, and he has to accept that to make a better life for himself.  When Lilly and Haywood find a place to stay, Haywood sets off to find a job and isn't back for 29 days.  He kind-of forgets to tell Lily where he is becuase he is so focussed on finding a job.  It is sad that Haywood almost has to force himself to forget about his brother and Lily so that he can find work and create a better life for himself and eventually Lily and the baby.

In Defense of Praying, A Catholic Teenager's Manifesto

       I am Catholic, as is most everyone on my mom's side of our family.  We get together as a family a lot and almost always the topic of church comes up.  My grandmother is a strict Catholic and goes to church every Sunday, and sometimes once or twice more throughout the week.  It is kind of pitiful to realize that she goes to church that much, but sometimes our family "can't make it" once a week on Sunday.  The truth is, we can make it to church, we just have to make it one of our priorities.

       With the busy life of school, sports, and homework, the goal of going to church three times a week, or even once a week seems unattainable.  Sometimes, we give in and don't go to church, and then end up not even thinking about God for the rest of the day.  The least we can do is pray for a few minutes.  However, most people have the same excuse.  "I don't have time".  But really all it takes is a few seconds.  You don't have to write a 10 page letter to God in you're mind.  It can be a simple, "Thanks God", when something pleases you.   At night, I get stressed because I am already tired from a long day of school and swimming, and then I have a pile of homework to do.  I have found that if I can surrender even five minutes of my precious time to God to pray and meditate, it keeps me so less stressed.  I have been working on praying more, and it really has helped me in more ways than I have imagined.

In Defense of Food

       At the beginning of the summer, my sister started reading In Defense of Food and it was so bad and confusing that she stopped reading it and read her other books first.  After I heard her experience, I was dreading reading it so I put it off until the end of the summer too.  As school got closer, I realized I needed to start reading it so I wouldn't run out of time.

       It took me a while to get into In Defense of Food because the beginning seemed really repetitive.  I knew that I had to read it, so I figured I might as well try to take something out of it.  As soon as I began really paying attention to what the author was saying and trying to relate it to my own life, the book was way more enjoyable!  Now, I'm actually glad that we had to read In Defense of Food, because I can relate the lessons that I learned to my life, and I know that eating healthy can help me do better in school and swimming!

1st Free Post

       Well, this is my blog! At first when I read the routines handout and it said everything about the blog, I was really confused!  I didn't really understand exactly what we had to do so the blogging assignments seemed really scary.  Now that I have my blog set up and I understand what is expected of us, I think that blogging could be really fun!! I've never blogged before but I like writing on Facebook so I think this could be kind of cool.

       I am not the kind of person who enjoys writing 10 page essays about a book, or anything of that matter, so I think that blogging will be a more exciting and interesting way of sharing my thoughts about things.  I hope that Dr. D will give us appealing blogging assignments so that this will be fun instead of just something that we have to do because the teacher told you to.  I can't wait to see what this English class is all about, and I hope our class is fun and that we have a good year!