Last blog post reflection

This year has been an interesting year when it came to blogging. I think that I was able to think through my thinking more because of this blog and I was able to really think about books in my own way. 

I guess through this blog I learned a lot about myself as a reader. I realized that I really enjoyed reading the same type of books by the same type of authors. In the beginning of the year I was thinking that maybe I would try to broaden my horizons when it came to the types of books I read but I didn't really follow through on that. I really think that that's okay because I really enjoy reading realistic fiction and this year I read a ton of Jodi Picoult books. I think I will have plenty of time in the future to explore new genres so it was completely fine that I sort of stuck to what I liked to read and think about. 

I can say that I definitely benefited from having the experience of having this blog. It definitely helped me think through my own thoughts in ways that I might not have been able to just talking to people in a big book club. It allowed me to really think about my book and write about my thinking. It also enabled   
me to put my own opinions out there about the world and see how my peers might respond. This blog also benefited me because it taught me so commitment even if I didn't always want to do it. Having a blog due every week helped me think about my book in the week so when I had to write my blog I actually had interesting things to write about. 

I think writing online is very different from writing in a notebook. When you write things online you have to be aware that anyone could read it and give their input good or bad. You have to be ready for arguments and criticism. Once you put something out there online you have to be ready to here the responses from people. As soon as you write something and put it online it enables people to say whatever they want back. If you write in a notebook it’s much more private and personal. You don’t really have to censor yourself because it is your notebook and you can control who reads it.

Writing online in my opinion is both liberating and limiting. I think that when you write online it can be liberating because it allows you to create your own personality that you want to share with the world. It's fun to write online because you know that someone- even if it's just one person is probably reading your writing and thinking about it which is a great feeling. It's also liberating because creating an online personality in some ways can be easier then in real life. People will write things online that they might never say to someone in person so it becomes easier. It is also limiting for those same reasons because if you're a good person you might need to censor yourself on some things you write online. If you write in a notebook you can basically say whatever you want. I mean you can say whatever you want on the internet but it might not be the smartest thing to do.


I think that it totally varies when it comes to being yourself online. For some people blogging online allows them to be their total selves and talk through things really honestly. For others I think they can definitely create personalities that show off their best or worst qualities. Some people definitely abuse the internet and use it to be unkind to people. Like I said before people say things all the time online they would probably never say to someone's face. Creating personalities can be good and bad. It can allow people to become their real selves or it can create fake reputations of meanness.

Finally some teens abuse the internet and use it for mean things and to bully but other really just use it for fun. I think it totally varies once again. I think in some cases the fact that people might be able to express themselves online and defend themselves in ways they might not be able to do in person can be a good thing but abusing the internet for bad things is not good at all.

Over all this year has been great. Having my own blog has allowed me to experience new thinking processes. This blog has made me think about the internet and how I use or abuse it. I don't know if I will keep up my blog but I'll see.


 

The Virgin Suicides By Jeffery Eugenides

Currently I am in the middle of reading "The Virgin Suicides by Jeffery Eugenides". This book is very strange but also gives you a lot to think about. The book told from the perspective of the neighborhood boys, is about 5 sisters who commit suicide one after the other.

These girls are very mysterious and because the book isn't told from their perspective they seem even more masked, if that makes sense. They are so hidden and sheltered by their parents, especially their mother Mrs. Lisbon. After the youngest daughters death they all were sort of in a daze for a long time. All the boys in this small town are very obsessed with this group of sisters, especially the boys who are telling the story. It's very weird because throughout the entire book you don't know who these boys are at all. All you know is that they lived across the street from the Lisbon girls basically their entire lives, and have been spending a good amount of their current lives trying to piece together the mystery behind the girls' suicides. I think that the reasons the book is told from this perspective is to make everything seem more horrifying and confusing. The boys are desperately trying to find something that would tell them why everything went wrong-but they have trouble finding the right answers. They are constantly sifting through ordinary details from the girls lives trying to find something that's maybe not even there. We as readers are asking ourselves over and over what went wrong and that's exactly what the boys are trying to figure out because no one really knows.

There are many times throughout the book where you get a sense of normalcy. You as the reader get the idea that these girls are very strange and sheltered except when they are given a chance at freedom, you see that really they are just normal teenage girls. For example at the homecoming dance they go to that they have to persuade their parents to let them attend under strict rules, they drink and smoke and talk about being normal. At that same dance one of the sisters named Mary says to her date  "Cecilia was weird, but we're not." She also says "We just want to live. If anyone would let us." These kind of things lead me to believe that these girls could be normal if they were given a chance. Who says they aren't normal now. What even is normal at all? I think that the boys around the neighborhood -who aren't telling the story judged the girls from afar. The problem is that you convince yourself that maybe these girls are ordinary and then they go and kill themselves and there is no real explanation.

The boys telling the story are talking as if all this is in the past and now they are old men. This means they spent most of their adult lives conjuring up information from anyone they could about the sisters and their deaths. The thing is while they are telling the story months go by in between each suicide where nothing happens. The girls stay trapped up inside their homes and the boys go to school and continue on with their lives. It's very strange. The boys desire to know about the girls becomes an obsession filled with secrets form the sisters lives. The more the neighborhood boys got involved in the girls lives the more bad things happened. The first time they came along they were invited for a party and Cecilia kills herself. Then after the homecoming Lux kills herself. There's just something so strange about the way everything is connected.

I think that while throughout the entire book the boys are trying to find things that went wrong they aren't seeing the big picture. The whole thing is wrong. All their lives these girls have been closed off from the real world and it seems like whenever they are broken from their weird daze, by either getting invited to go somewhere, or going to a homecoming dance, something happens to ruin it and the process starts all over. They are either depressed and wont express themselves, in a trance and people can't understand why, or finally happy but it always gets ruined by their parents.

Finally the parents are in total denial about the entire situation. They either pretend what's going on in their children's lives isn't happening or they see it and refuse to believe it. Mrs. Lisbon is constantly enforcing rules on her children that prevented their freedom to live. I really don't know the exact reason as to why they continue to kill themselves. Maybe it's because of their parents. Maybe it's because they felt trapped with no way out. Maybe they felt as if they could never live so instead they decided to die.