outside reading final

Running with Scissors

You can’t let people get you down. If Augusten Burroughs would’ve let people get him down I don’t think he would have made it through life as well as he did. Augusten wanted to tell people that sometimes life and people suck. But if you have a good outlook and don’t let things get you down it wont be that bad.
Not letting things get you down is important and Augusten shows this in this quote, “I walked off to my room, where I selected an outfit for school and carefully arranged it on hangers at the front of the closet. I would wear my favorite polyester tan pants and a blue shirt with the vest cleverly sewn on. If only I had a pair of platform shoes my outfit would be complete. Still, knowing my clothes were ready gave me a sense of calm. I could control the sharpness of the crease in my double knit slacks, even if I couldn’t stop my mother from hurling the Christmas tree off the porch like she did one winter. I could polish my 14k gold-plated signet ring with a Q-tip until the gold plating wore off even if I couldn’t stop my parents from throwing John Updike novels at each other’s heads.” (19) He says this right after his mom and dad get in a huge fight. He doesn’t let his parents fighting get him down, he just goes off and does what he loves.
Augusten is forced to live with his moms shrink for while and he uses imagery to describe how terrible this house is, “We got out of the car and I shielded my eyes from the sun as I scanned the house. The pink paint was peeling off, exposing veins and patches of bare wood. All the windows lacked shutters and were covered with thick plastic, making it impossible to see inside. And the lawn-at least what was once a lawn-was nothing more than firmly packed earth that had the look of heavy foot traffic. Parked crooked in the driveway with the nose touching the corner of the house was an old, gray Buick Skylark. It was missing all its hubcaps.” (39-40) When he describes the inside of the house it’s just as bad. But once again he just doesn’t let anything get him down and he makes it trough the week he has to live there.
One time Augusten did let his mom get to him, but he channeled his anger very well and he and his friend Natalie make a hole in the kitchen ceiling because Augusten said “I need high ceilings”. So him and Natalie took down the chandelier and started hacking at the ceiling. It was humorous and after Augusten was no longer angry and him and Natalie laughed there problems away.
In conclusion Running with Scissors was a very good book with a great message, don’t let people get u down and u should be just fine. Overall I didn’t really like this assignment but I’m glad I read this book.

week 6

natalie enrolled in a community college and augusten did the same after he passed his GED. then obviously augusten went on to write books and is now a famous writer. which his mom always wanted to be but never made it.

week 5 post 1

"an hour later hope and i were in the buick, on our way to new york." (253) wel this is pretty explanitory. they all go to new york cause they dont have a house anymore thanks to the irs. so they get an appartment in north hampton. this is pretty important because everyone moves to new york

week 4 post 2

well hope is insane. she thinks she can communicate with her cat and that it told her it was sick and wanted to be trapped under a laundry basket. so hope does that and it dies due to lack of food and water. then hope makes a stew about a week later and tells everyone that it has her special ingredient. when natalie, the first one to take a bite, tries some she said that special ingredient was the cat. because she said the cat came to her in a dream and wanted to be reincarnated as a stew. and natalie understandibly freeks out because she just had a dead cat that had been burried for a little over a week.

week 4 post 1

"i sat up and my mouth tasted horrible, like stale pot beer and cheetos. the exact combonation of ingredients that had caused me to pass into unconsciousness on natalies floor" (183) the first thing that came to mind here was that augusten and natalie are only like 14. i thought it was kinda sad how the parents didnt care or try stoping that at all. but i also picked this quote because its been a theme in the book ever since augusten started living with the finches. first he just started with ciggarettes then he went to beer now weed. it appears hes spiraling downward very fast and like hes not gonna end up in a very great place at the end of the book.

week 3 post 2

well its kinda funny because augusten spends a whole chapter talking about how he hates bill cosbys daughter. and i think its hilarious. but the rest of the section wasnt too great. till it explained about natalies old boyfreind. he was really rich and they were great then one day he beat her and broke her collar bone and they took it to court and he had to pay her a bunch of money. but her dad took it instead and gave it to the irs for there house. so that explained why shes a bitter person. i thought it was helpful. 'cause before that i thought she was just a jerk. but now i kinda have sympathy for her

week 3 post 1

"I wanted to be a cosby" (121) well augusten goes to school with one of bill cosbys kids and i thought that was kind of interesting and also i think its funny how he describes her. he says she acts like everythings perfect and she has do do everything right and all that anoying stuff. and augusten absolutely loathes her for it. i find it kinda funny because i can relate to girls like that being annoying and doing stuff like that.

week 2 post 2

ok so far in this section it started out with augusten explaining agnes the doctors wife. and he describes her more like a maid or a cleaning lady. i kinda feel bad for her. then u find out augusten is gay. he finally tells someone about it and they tell him ther is another gay finch kid that doesnt live at the house anymore. his name is bookman. him and bookman meet. and they become very close. so close it describes them doing sexual things and i had to be honest i skipped the second half of the chapter 'cause it was gross. oh and u also find out that the finch girls are quite violent and natalie almost kills hope.

week 2 post 1

"but as free and accepting as the finches were, i worried about there reaction to my deep, dark secret. the fact that i was gay had never been a big deal to me - id known all my life." (69) um well this stuck out to me because im pretty far into the book and i had some suspicions but i didnt actually think he was gay. so that did stick out to me because hes the main character and u learn something pretty important about him there.

week one post 2

Running with scissors started out boring because it was just explaining the mom and Augusten. but then the parents start to fight and they go see a shrink. then they find out the shrink has a masturbatorium and its really weird. and the mom and the shrink decide thats its best for augusten to stay at the shrinks house so he lives there and meets all of the shrinks kids. oh and the shrinks name is dr. finch.

outside reading week 1 post 1

Running with Scissors. "seeing that my father was still alive, i was now worried about my mother" (18) this quote kinda stuck out to me because i can tell that the parents fighting will either be a major theme for the rest of the book or it will lead to something that will be the theme of the book.

diving bell and the butterfly.

I didn’t like this book one bit as I did not see the educational value of reading the diving bell and the butterfly. The reason I did not like this book is because it bored me. I like books that I can relate to and I could not relate my life to anything Jean – Dominique Bauby said so I never really connected. Another reason I thought this book was boring was because nothing exciting or remotely intriguing ever happened to him so it was quite repetitive when he was speaking of his daily life. I like the idea of reading memoirs, but I just do not know why we couldn’t have been assigned a better, more interesting book with a storyline and a climax. This book didn’t really introduced his character so I never developed any feelings or interest in him or his situation, so even though it is unfortunate this happened to him, I didn’t really have any specific feelings or care about his situation. In conclusion I am glad we are done reading the diving bell and the butterfly as it gave me massive ADD attacks much like an attack someone with asthma would experience after running.