Blog #50: In my last blog I read the first couple chapters of "The 5 People You Meet in Heaven", by Mitch Albom. Today, I'm reading the beginning of another book by Mitch Albom, entitled "Tuesdays with Morrie". It's the story of a man and his dying college professor reuniting for the last time. Morrie is the name of the professor. Morrie has a disease called Lou Gehrig's disease. It's an illness of the neurological system; it gradually melts your nerves away so you can't move. My mom's cousin had this disease. I always remember seeing her in a special wheel chair. She passed away a couple of years ago. In the book it says that it takes no more than five years from the day you've been diagnosed to become completely trapped inside your body. This reminds me of a video we watched in class. The movie was called "The Diving Bell and Butterfly". I think it's similar because, in both cases, you're fully conscious, yet unable to move a finger. Morrie's college student comes to visit him while he's dying. During those visits Morrie and Mitch talk about life lessons, family, love, and death. Since Morrie knows he's dying he wants to make something out of it, impact someone else's life. This is a great story that teaches us to not take things for granted and to live life to the fullest.

Blog #49: Today, I'm going to blog about a book entitled, "The Five People You Meet in Heaven", by Mitch Albom. The story starts out with the main character Eddie, who is elderly. He works at an amusement park. He remembers when he was younger and rode the rides at the amusement park. Then, he sees a ride breaking down. A piece of it starts to fall and Eddie realizes that there is a young girl just below where the ride is going to hit. At the last minute Eddie lunges towards her, trying to push her out of the way. The next thing he knows, everybody is gone and there's this purplish tint to things. He realizes he's dead. To me Eddie seems to think little of himself. But, if your willing to jump under a falling chunk of metal for some stranger girl, you're one heck of a person. You could say that Eddie wasn't doing much because he was at the end of his life anyway, but I still think it takes a really caring person to do what he did. Because Eddie died he doesn't know if he saved the little girl or not. I haven't gotten that far into the book, but I'm predicting that he'll see her in heaven. That's what I read for outside reading for today.

Blog #48: Living without alcohol, cigarettes, coke, crack, glue, and gasoline is becoming hard for James. He calls his folks for the first time since he's arrived at rehab. His mom is very emotional. Every morning James gets violently sick. He throws up blood and chunks of his stomach. Then he has an emotional breakdown that he can't control. One minute he is crying hysterically and the next he's so mad that he beat a guy up and destroyed his room. I don't blame him for beating up the guy. The guy was being a jerk to him. Harassing him and telling him how he did a crappy job cleaning the toilets. The most frustrating part for me and the part I can relate to is when the guards came running when they heard the fight and automatically thought James was at fault; without James even explaining what had happened in the first place. I think a lot of people can relate to that kind of frustration. Now the rehab center is giving James a chance to talk with a psychologist to see if it will help.

Blog #47: In the book I'm reading, "A Million Little Pieces", the main character, James, seems to be getting better. The Doctor has him on a lot of drugs. Some of the drugs sort of paralyze him. To me that seems kind of creepy, but it sounds like James enjoys it cause it sooths his pain and agony. A lot of the time at rehab, James seems uncomfortable. I can try to understand this cause he's probably really uneasy about being there. When James first got to the rehab center he looked like crap. A hole on the side of his face, barely any teeth, and his nose is bent out of shape from being broken before. He takes some visits to a few Doctors to fix him up. He gets kind of nervous before his visits. I think that's relateable for a lot of people. The nose Doctor has to re-break his nose in order to move the cartilage into a straight line. You kind of cringe when you read that section of the book. Another Doctors stitches the sides of his cheek back together, which I also found a little disgusting. Over all, I think this is a really good book.

Blog #46: Today I'm going to blog about the movie "Dual" instead of the book "A Million Pieces". The movie "Dual" is an early film directed by Steven Spielberg. It' s about a salesperson who goes on a business trip and ends up almost being killed by an insane truck driver. Spielberg used many camera angles and shots to get the emotions he wanted to get across, across. For example, in the chase scenes Spielberg uses fast cuts to show the anxiety of the main character. Another example is whenever you see a shot of the truck, the camera is always at a low angle so the truck looks huge and menacing. One scene in the cafe Spielberg uses a tipped angle to the shot and it looks off. He did this on purpose to show uneasiness or uncertainty that the main character was feeling/thinking. Overall I liked the movie. I liked how it was ire and scary and had that kind of Alfred Hitchcock sense to it. I also thought it was creative of them to not show us the face of the truck driver. It leaves that sense of mystery. Now, if I ever go on a road trip and pass a big semi, I'll remember this movie.

Blog #45: The book I'm reading is called "A Million Little Pieces" by James Frey. I think this book is very interesting because it kind of relates to how some people act nowadays. The book is about the story of an alcohol and crack addict and his journey into rehab. So far it's been pretty gruesome, but life can be pretty gruesome so it's kind of a reality check. The main characters attitude is kind of strange. He needs help, but he doesn't want it. Also, whenever his mom tries to give him a hug he pulls away instinctively (Frey, 5). I find that part sad. I mean, think about how the mom must feel; being rejected by her own son! I'm only on page 13 and I'm finding the book to be really interesting and deep. 

Causes:
-natural selection: "survival of the fittest" it sparked the idea that "inferior" people should be destroyed.
-WW1: after the war, when the Germans lost, they blamed the Jewish community for "stabbing them in the back" (the Germans blamed the Jews for losing the war)
-Nationalism: the idea of nationalism is that your nation should be only made up of people from that nation. For example, Germans are the only ones who should live in Germany, so they wanted to deport anyone who wasn't German.
Effects:
-17 million people were killed: disabled, Jewish, and Germans
-Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: people left scared from the sites at the camps
-Distrust/Isolation of Germans: after the horrors had been uncovered, people were appalled about what the German Nazi troops had done