The Diamond Age

I have to admit that through most of the first part of this book I did not like it. Most of the characters I did not like and Nell the one I did like I felt wasn’t written about enough. I would always get really excited when they flashed back to Nell and once I started getting into the back again they would flash back to my other characters and loss my interest. I feel like the reason I liked Nell character so much is because she had a lot of hands on experience with the primmer and I really enjoyed the fair tails that were told along with it. I also loved how as the story progressed the stories became more and more like Nell’s own life. I also feel like I enjoyed reading about her because I always pictured her as this adorable little girl. In my mind she looked something like this….

She’s just so cute how could you not fall in love with this character!? The only time that I started really getting involved in it without the author discussing Nell was at the very end of part one of the book. My interest pecked when Hackworth sees a woman covered with shimmering bits of lights. He gets off the mechanical horse and start following the woman. She disappears under the waves and Hackworth is sucked underwater and into a cave. The woman reappears and he follows her through some tunnels which end in a dome-like room partially covered by a huge screen. I hope this means that part two of the book is going to have a lot more action and peak my interest with the other characters in the book.

Aliens

I have to say that one of my favorite parts of this movie was a very small scene that I felt didn’t have much importance to it but it did make me laugh. It was when Ripley was sitting on Newts bed and newt was scared to go to sleep because she didn’t want to have bad dreams. So Ripley takes newts doll and looks inside the head and says “see there aren’t any bad dreams in there” and then newt turns to Ripley and says “yeah that’s because she’s just plastic” It made me laugh so hard in class. It just reminds me of how honest kids can be! Another one of my favorite things about the movie even though it grossed me out like crazy were the aliens. I love how they portrayed the aliens with slim it made them seem even creepier and more alien like.  While watching the movie I couldn’t help but think of the story bloodline that we read in class. When I looked at the aliens it made me think of a smaller version of T-Gatoi in bloodline. Even though in the story they did not describe T-Gatoi as slimy I couldn’t help myself from picturing her as a slimy creature. While I wasn’t thrilled to watch Aliens because normally these types of movies gross me out I actually really enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. It made me expand my horizon and want to try out other alien movies that I thought would gross me out!

"My Emotions Give me power" Article like The Secret Circle!

        When I first started reading this article I was actually shocked how unobservant I have been while watching television shows. After getting through the first two pages of the article I thought back to all the shows I watch on a weekly bases….and that’s a lot! And all of these shows I watch follow the same guide lines this article was giving. All the “good characters” in my shows were very good at controlling their anger while the “bad or not as well behaved characters” opening shows their anger. I don’t know if anyone watches this show but this immediately reminded me of some of the characters from The Secret Circle. One of the main characters is Diana and she is portrayed as the good girl. Like the author states in this article she hardly ever gets mad and when she does she is very good at control her anger in a proper way. Unlike another main character on the show Fay who is portrayed as the bad witch she is open with her anger and never really handles it in the “socially” appropriate way.

     
Faye                                                              Diana

Like the author stated in her article that the “bad characters” that could not control their angry wore dark makeup, while the “good characters” that could control their anger were more natural and acceptable looking. That’s exactly how it is for the show I’m referring to! I was shocked to realize how identical this show was compared to the article! Fay tended to wear darker makeup with sexier cloths while Diana was more natural and wore more conservative clothing. I think it’s crazy that I watch a number of different shows each week and never noticed that the way a person handled anger had such an impact on how I viewed them. Even though it’s not very normal to be so calm about things like Diana is in the show I still leaned towards liking her better. This is because it is more socially acceptable for a female to not reveal her anger………While this doesn’t really talk about the show Buffy The Vampire Slayer I couldn’t help think about how much this article related to one of the shows I watch every week and had to share my observation!

Scenery/ intercourse between Gethenian double-sexed and Hainishnorm one-sexed human beings

One of my favorite lines from chapter eighteen was

          “under certain conditions our exhalations freezing instantly made a tiny cracking noise, like distant firecrackers, and a shower of crystals: each breath a snowstorm. “

 It makes you realize how cold it actually is out. While throughout the whole book they tell you that it’s in the negative 40s I didn’t realize how cold it actually was until I read that sentence. One question I did have about this sentence is if that could actually happen when it’s forty bellow or if the author just put it in there to make the reader realize how cold it was out? It’s a silly questions but I was very curious about it. Another one of my favorite sentences that stood out to me was

         “I had imagined the Gobrin Ice Plateau to be all one sheet like a frozen pond, but there were hundreds of miles of it that were rather like an abruptly frozen , storm raised sea.”

 The whole time while I was reading this section I had been picturing the ice they were traveling through to be very endless and flat. This sentence put the image in my head of two small figures traveling through a giant frozen ocean.  I actually really enjoyed the image because it made me remember how far the two men were traveling and how weak they were compared to the land they were traveling through.  When I read the sentence

                     “I expect it will turn out that sexual intercourse is possible between Gethenian double-sexed and Hainishnorm one-sexed human beings, though such intercourse will inevitably be sterile,”

I was very confused at first if they had actually had sex. I had to read the sentence a few times to finally understand that they did. I had kind of wished that she had put a little more detail in about it. I felt like she built it up so much and then only used a few sentences to talk about it. Not that I wanted graphic details or anything haha but it would have been nice to know if it was awkward, or how it happened. I guess i’m just a sucker for romance books that’s probably why I was so disappointed with this part.

Genry's cold and long ride in the truck

                One of my favorite parts of chapter thirteen was the line

 “We were all naked, but thereafter I wore his blood for clothing, on my legs and thighs and hands: a dry, stiff, brown garment with no warmth in it.”

When I read that sentence it made me cringe because the picture was so vivid in my head. I could just picture him sitting in the truck shivering and every time he gained enough courage to move the dry blood would crack and pieces would fall to the floor. When I got that image in my head it kind of reminded me of him getting colder and colder every time some of the dry blood would crack off.   I love how the author compared the blood that covered him to clothing with no warmth in it. That phrase produced an even clearer picture in my head making me actually shiver and wrap myself in a blanket. What I really love about this sentence is that with just a few choice words the author was able to make me feel what Genry was going through. While this one of the most devastating parts of this chapter it was one of my favorites because of how well the author described it.  That one sentence mad me very thankful to be sitting in my nice warm house.