Reading Response

       Throughout my reading this week, a major event happened in Looking After Lily and it was definatley the most interesting part of the book so far, causing me to think a lot.  Haywood Beatty, the main character goes to a horse race with a couple of friends and he makes a bet.  Well, like usually in books, Haywood looses the bet and he's not around to pay up, so his friends give the man his horse instead of money.  When he finds out that his beloved horse, Mollie is gone, he is heartbroken.  He says, "All I wanted was Mollie back.  I needed her back.  A man without a horse ain't no kind of man at all."  Haywood gets in a fight with the people that are trying to take Mollie away from him and wakes up in prison the next day. 

       The next chapter is Haywood vividly describing his time in jail.  It is quite disturbing to be told what jail is like.  I feel really bad for him because all he did was get in a fight and now he's in jail and the guard taunts him all the time.  Haywood spends a lot of time thinking about what he has done to get himself into prison and trying to plan his life once he gets out.  I guess that really is the point of jail, but it seems like there's only so much thinking you can do.  Haywood is only in there for 2 months and he seems like he's going crazy, so I can't imagine what it would be like to be sentenced for life.  The prisoners must get really bored, but they say that people do bad things when they're bored. 

       Luckily, if some prisoners are good, they get to interact with people outside of jail doing community service and things like that.  I saw on tv during the hurricane that they had good prisoners helping pass out sandbags to people in need.  I think that is a much more effective way to get people to change their ways than sticking them in a cell and telling them to think about their actions for 30 years.  I think it would be an interesting experience to go visit a jail and talk to some of the prisoners about serving their time.  It would also be rewarding to go do ministry work at a jail, and maybe I can do that one day.  I think that if you give people many ways to change, they will eventually find one that works for them and milk it for all it's worth.  I think that these ways are much more effective than sitting there thinking.

Reading from 2 weeks ago,  Looking after Lily: Dr. D, you said I could do this because I forgot!

8/20- 20 minutes
8/21- 20 minutes
8/26- 110 minutes
150 minutes, 106 pages

Reading from last week, Looking after Lily:

8/27- 10 minutes
8/29- 35 minutes
8/30- 30 minutes
9/1- 30 minutes
9/2- 30 minutes
9/3- 15 minutes

150 minutes, 81 pages