Blog Post 2- Thirteen Reasons Why (Book Club)

Steven Sinchi
9/30/14
ELA

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

     Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher depicts the struggles of Hannah and the impact of her issues and her suicide on Clay. Hannah Baker was a freshman in a new high school, in which she had difficulty fitting in with. Through many back stabs, hardships, and love problems, she finally decided that taking her life was the solution. Hearing Hannah Baker's words shook Clay, and so he couldn't stop listening to the 13 tapes from beginning to end. Hannah was excited in life at one point, but as time passed on, she found herself more isolated every day, resulting in a suicide. 

     In the beginning of the book, Hannah was thrilled to be able to make new friends (Jessica and Alex) and was exhilarated at being able to achieve her first kiss. She didn't expect anything bad to come out of what she was doing. "I couldn't believe it. Justin, you lied to my mom. So why did that make me so happy? Because our lies matched. It was a sign." This shows Hannah's enthusiasm for little things such as matching lies with someone she likes. After she had her first kiss, everything seemed fine until rumors started spreading about Hannah being a "slut" because of her first kiss. She began to realize that everyone started seeing her differently, and her good image as a person deteriorated from there.

     After that, Hannah's rumors started getting worse and worse. One of her supposed friends, Courtney, back stabbed her by telling lots of people about Tyler, a guy from the school who was supposedly peeping in on Hannah and Courtney in her room, which created a lot of suspicion on Hannah. In addition, this bullying went on in a form of a list. Hannah was named in a list of "who's hot/ who's not" as "hot" which stirred up sexual issues. Following up to the past rumors, Hannah was touched by another one of her peers in a bar. "You know I'm not even going to interpret this. I'm just going to tell you why it pissed me off. I've had my butt grabbed before -no big deal- but this time it was grabbed because someone else wrote my name on a list. And when this guy saw me upset, did he apologize? No. Instead, he got aggressive. Then, in the most condescending way, he told me to relax. Then he put his hand on my shoulder, as if by touching me he'd somehow comfort me." Here, we can see the negativity it has influenced on Hannah, almost as if traumatizing her. Adding on to this sexual abuse, Tyler Down was a creeper in Hannah's room, taking pictures of her. This made Hannah feel insecure and in danger in her room, a private place that was supposed to be her only safe space. Again, another incident occurred in which Marcus Cooley was Hannah's Valentine. He promised a date in a diner, and in the end, he appeared extremely late. When he did arrive, he brought Hannah to the back in private so that he could take advantage of the time and place with her. She felt desperate for someone to calm her down and understand how she is doing. As you can see, Hannah is having trouble event after event having people realize who and how Hannah actually is as opposed to fake rumors.

     Towards the end, Hannah has trouble beginning to connect to people at all, and as a result, becomes isolated from everyone else. The one moment she did have a chance to connect with someone is with Clay, but after the scene in which they have a conversation and kiss, she throws a tantrum so that Clay would leave. This was the only chance Clay had to maybe turn around her ideas of killing herself, which failed. After this final connection with a person she might have had her life saved by, she continues to force down her mind into this depression against her will. She explains that around the end of her life, she gave signs about her suicide. She asked a boy if she could give him her bike, which is one of the signs. She also asked for a handheld recorder to record the tapes. "The haircut. Averting your eyes in the halls. You were careful, but still, there were signs. Little signs. But they were there. " In the end, Hannah could not have taken any more, so she willingly gave up and suffered the suicide.

     All in all, Hannah suffered a slow pattern of people taking her spirit as a person a little by a little which ultimately resulted in a big part of Hannah that was gone. She felt empty by the end, something that wouldn't have been inevitable if someone could have acted properly. In the end, this comes to show how little or big actions can have equal impact on a person going through deep depression/reflection of life, and if we could in one way or another, help that person.

Blog Post 1- A Long Way Gone (Summer Reading)

Steven Sinchi                                                                                                                9/13/14
811                                                                                                                                 English

A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah

      Ishmael Beah sees the world in a different perspective than most people have seen. In the book, "A Long Way Gone", Ishmael is trapped into a society in which kids are trained and forced into a bloody war. This maltreatment is what the soldiers are obligated to, and one of these teens being Ishmael, he grows up with a sense that all is savage and brutal. Growing up in the bloodshed that is Sierra Leone, Ishmael learns that life is bleak and full of danger that may end with him even losing his own life, which leads me to believe that Ishmael is a fighter and tenacious.

     Ishmael learned to sharpen his instincts as a child, since the war had traumatized him to a feeling that death is right around the corner. You normally wouldn't have to look every corner, not sleep nights, double check behind yourself, and wait until a loud noise stops, because safety is everywhere for us. Ishmael does all those things, because as a twelve year old in a battlefield at Sierra Leone, he isn't safe. At one point in the book, young Ishmael's area is attacked and ransacked by enemies, and he is stunned when he finds out that he has to leave his family in order to stay alive. "It was during that attack in the village of Kamator that my friends and I separated. It was the last time I saw Junior." Junior was Ishmael's older brother, and he was separated from Ishmael. At this point, Ishmael only relied on the trust of his friends and no one else. The community that he was in when he got separated from his family was also perishing from the rebellion, "Mothers lost their children, whose confused, sad cries coincided with the the gunshots. Families were separated and left behind everything they had worked for their whole lives." Ishmael was too young to comprehend the seriousness that this was, and like a sponge, he absorbed all of it in. The lesson that Ishmael learned at this point of his life was to expect the unexpected.

    As a teenager, the war was the pinnacle of his life, since it was that at this age he would begin to understand what was happening around him and to him, and Beah begins to accept the tragedies knowing that the moment of freedom and peace may be a long way gone. For example, the moment he was finally going to reach to his family, a place he was desiring to reach ever since he lost contact, was taken away because another attack consumed the district into piles of bodies. This is life-changing for Beah because at this point he realizes how grim this entire experience may be, "I didn't care. I wanted to see my family, even if it meant dying with them." Stuck in this mindset, Beah was getting used to the violence, and in the next few years, he decides to confront the challenge of rehabilitation. In other words, Beah will attempt to forget about the life he has been living for the past decade or so and relearn how to live in a society. This is extremely difficult, as having been discommoded with the struggle of surviving every minute of his life and flash-backing to the children that he might of killed, Beah strives to be in the now, "But we were still traumatized, and now that we had time to think, the fastened mantle of our war memories slowly began to open." This part of the memoir emphasized the fact that it will be extremely difficult to forget the bloody kills and deaths that a young man had to experience. At these moments, though, Ishmael works to his fullest to stay strong, and will do whatever it takes to succeed.

    As a pre-adult going through a unstable rehabilitation, Beah decides to take the route in which he will learn from others of how to live in a stable society. In this case, Ishmael is placed in his uncle's home that's fairly far away from the attacks. Living with his uncle, Beah values company from someone who is willing to give it to you. Unfortunately, Beah's uncle was only able to live for so long,  "I was always losing everything that meant something to me" "Why did this happen to us in these difficult times?" Beah knows he loses what is dearest to him, but he is an indefatigable person who won't stop until he knows what's right, what he should value the most and find the most important things in life and prioritize.

    In retrospect, Ishmael has illustrated to us that growing up in his conditions is transformational because he had to live in the bloodshed of losing friends and family through killing others. By seeing the world of violence through Ishmael Beah's eyes, we can see how difficult it can be to expect the unexpected, stay strong, and be determined to never give up.