What could make this situation better? Oh, I know! The Holocaust!

The book for English I have to read before school goes back is titled "Night", by Elie Wiesel. It's the author's auto-biography cleverly wrapped in fiction, sort of - it's his survival tale of The Holocaust in novel form. Sure, it's boring and depressing. But reading it sure beats staring at metrosexuals on the train.

I'm only thirty pages in, and it hasn't gotten exciting at all. It's gonna be Generals Die In Bed all over again, the book we studied at the end of last year about life in WWI. In fact, the writing style is basically the same. So far, it's been jumping to plot points so quickly by using misguided, 5-word sentences. "Dad said we have to move. The next morning, we all got up and moved to the ghetto." What the hell is that?! Being that the book is about such a dramatic event, I was expecting something a little more thrilling. I hate reading, I really do. English class has ruined books for me.

Walk Like An Egyptian!

Sorry, I was listening to that song. Gotta love The Bangles.
and pardon my postage of two blogs in one day. It's so unlike me! But somehow, I'm in the mood, and I just felt the need to.

For my baptism (just over a month ago) Digger and Masonagall gave me this awesome book called Total Devotion, with a little devo in it for every day of the year. If I was the type of person that didn't ahve a problem with defacing books, I'd so have put little notes in it and stuff. (Oh, and I need to get a bookmark.)

Admittedly, I've only read three or four pages of it so far, although Mason gave it to me at school like 2 or 3 weeks ago. For a little while it was in my locker, then my bag, and it's been out into my house for about ten days now. Hey, whenever I realize it's there on the coffee table, I have a read!

Anyway, I read one earlier on today that seemed to stick into my mind. It was called "To Die or to Die". It was about (excuse me if this is way off, this is what I took out of it) how the choices we make affect our involvement in God's plan for us. The thing I love about this book is that it doesn't just spell things out in black and white and expects you to understand it - it gives you Bible verses, it elaborates simply, gives you examples of what teenagers do and stuff (it even givs them names!)

This one featured a kid named Tadd, whose friends were encouraging him to beat up some random "wuss" just cos he could, and for acceptance, although Tadd felt super, super bad about it. And just like a soap, the story LEFT WITH A CLIFFHANGER ABOUT WHETHER OR NOT HE PUNCHED THE GUY. How frustrating.

"Read Mark 8:31-38. What did Jesus say was the toughest thing about following him?" Here's Mark 8:34: Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." Allow me to explain what that means just like the book had.

Man, I love this book.

Now in dilemmas like Tadd's you're faced with two choices - One that will give you social acceptance but disappoint God; another that makes you a recluse but hey, God's proud of yah! I believe the point this story was making was - what's the point of picking the wrong path? Either way we die and into God's hands. Jesus had said that anyone devoted to him must imitate him. To "deny yourself and take up the cross". Swap your way, for his way, totally.

And I know, me, picking out those last couple of sentences, kinda of hypocritical, as I'm no Jesus. But hey, I'm getting there! You can't"imitate" him overnight. It's still been a month since my baptism and I feel more religious than ever.

The last sentence in this tale reads, "Daring to stick with jesus sometimes feels like you've been hung up to die. Tough stuff. But Jesus promises that his way leads to life."

Cray-zee

Have fun at New Zealand Steph, you lucky little bugger? Grar, I wanna go to NZ.

I hate it. As soon as you finally get into the spirit of it being the holidays, it destroys it with SCHOOL AGAIN. Stefo has given us a book to read, quite possibly the most boring thing on the planet, I Am David, a book about some stingy little jackass who lives in a POW camp or something and tries to break free, and blah I've read about a hundred pages and there's 2 other people in the class who haven't made it half way eather. (Btw, I'm up to chapter two. Yeah, there's only 8 chapters.) I don't get it, that's the 2nd book we've had to read this year not from that Watermelon Moon pile of crap. We ALL BOUGHT THE BOOK it has about 20 stories in it, so why not work off that instead, moron? GRR. Makes me so angry I might just hurt myself.

Oh plus Stevo has given us A SECOND THING to do, some Grammar Survival Guide crap, in which we write about parts of grammar. Okay, we've all heard it before, nobody's gonna use it anyway, so just drop it. My least favourite subject, English, has 2 things to do in a 2 week (supposed relaxing) break, and we don't have anything else. Just makes me feel like the gum on the bottom of my table, that's probably been there for a few years, that I am forced to look at as I sit under the table every lesson. Luckily teahcers don't notice I'm missing (I usually sit up the back XD)

Let's try to move to good things. Yetserday me and Ben went to the movies and saw Charlie and The Chocolate Factory. It was pretty cool, except if you've seen it, at the end when the other kids walk out, you see Augustus covered in chocolate, Violet is blue, Mike is stretched out really tall, yet the worst one of all, Veruca, only got covered in garbage. Grr, she should've died.

Anyway, besides that the movie was weird, especially the Oompa Loompas. I mean, did you see in the credits? It said 'Oompa Loompa played by:' and it had one name ><". Crazy. The songs were actually pretty weird, yet still better than the old movie. Haha in the car on the way there and the way back, me and Ben (Mostly Ben) were poiting/staring at other drivers. Most of them P platers. One guy driving behind us we were poiting at, so he overtook us and went into the lane next to us, drove past laughing, then did the good ol' one finger salute. Haha, it was fun. Yaaay it's my birthday on Sunday, and I really want Monday off school coz it'll be the day after my birthday we go back to school. Noooooo, I don't wanna be in anxiety the entire holidays, then when it finally explodes on mah birthday, I SHOULD be able to relax and enjoy. No, instead I come back to a double Geography lesson, followed by excruciating mental pain with Lancaster, then I don't freakin care what's next, but I have Engligh some time that day. And the day after. And in the next two days. Then a double on Friday WHAT THE HELL IS GOIN ON HERE. SOMEBODY STOP THE WORLD, I WANT TO GET OFF AND TAKE SOME PEOPLE WITH ME. Oh speaking of English, there's no way in hell I'm doing those English things. Nuh-uh. Already got enough stuff to deal with right now, I'm not gonna do more of this. Bye, lucky people.