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Bear with me...
Hey Everyone!
This is the first time I've actually committed to doing this whole blog-thing, so bear with me. :-) I've created this site for us to use as a place of discussion for the texts we will read for the rest of the school year. Since this class is supposed to ready you for college, and much of education is now online, you need to be exposed to online discussions of texts, (if you haven't been already). What's great about this is it can help spark class discussions over what we are reading and just keep communication open about different texts. College professors won't just assign you reading, they will also assume you can have an intelligent conversation about what you've read. So dive in and give this a shot!!! :-)
This is the first time I've actually committed to doing this whole blog-thing, so bear with me. :-) I've created this site for us to use as a place of discussion for the texts we will read for the rest of the school year. Since this class is supposed to ready you for college, and much of education is now online, you need to be exposed to online discussions of texts, (if you haven't been already). What's great about this is it can help spark class discussions over what we are reading and just keep communication open about different texts. College professors won't just assign you reading, they will also assume you can have an intelligent conversation about what you've read. So dive in and give this a shot!!! :-)
Expectations
Choose a quote you have encountered during your reading and respond to it in at least one decent sized paragraph. You should also be continuously reading in your choice non-fiction book. In addition to the reading responses, I would also like you to comment once a week on someone else's post. Whether you agree or disagree, it doesn't matter. You also do not have to be reading the same nonfiction choice as that other person. Maybe you have a question about the novel, or maybe you have read it before and have a comment about their response. All totaled, I would like you to complete three posts a week. Two of those can be your own posts about the text you are reading, but at least one of the three posts needs to be in response to someone else's post.
This is a major part of your grade and will effect not only participation, but will go in the grade book as separate reading response grades. Feel free to email me with any questions you might have regarding this. My email is: mtinkham@msad9.org
This is a major part of your grade and will effect not only participation, but will go in the grade book as separate reading response grades. Feel free to email me with any questions you might have regarding this. My email is: mtinkham@msad9.org
I'm reading Smashed, it seems pretty good so far.
ReplyDelete-Noah
I'm reading this book
ReplyDeleteIsaiah A.
This book seems pretty true to the quiet girl gone bad kind of situation. I can make some connections because I know some people that are like the girl in the book in some ways.
ReplyDeleteSmashed seems to make a pretty clear juxtaposition between drink and romance. Most of the times when she is comparing her addiction, it is being compared to some kind of relationship. It also shows how vividly a person can remember some things. Similar to how childhood memories tend to be of bad things that happened.
ReplyDelete"To this day, I can't remember when I had my first kiss... but like most women, I remember my first drink in tender minutiae."
It's almost uncomfortable to write anything about this subject, like sex, or politics. I think very few people are comfortable talking about something that can be so devastating, and is so common. Books are written about it, songs are composed because of it. Still a lot of people ignore it completely, like it wont effect them if they don't think about it.
In response to Isaiah's comment, I agree. I think a lot of people know someone who is like the subject of the book, whether they know it or not. Everyone knows someone who drinks too much. Maybe they started out as a nice, normal girl who didn't feel like they fit in? Maybe they didn't enjoy their dance lessons when they got older? Maybe their best friend offered them a drink by the pool, not knowing what it would start?
ReplyDeleteWhat happened in her life that she started drinking? Was there a tragedy or was she dared to try it?
ReplyDeleteIn the chapter "First Taste" it describes her best friend offering her a drink when they were in middle school.
ReplyDelete"There's no rivalry when you're drinking alone; it's like playing battleship without an opponent."
ReplyDeleteShe presents drinking more like it's a competition between persons than an activity. She feels like there is no point to it unless she can feel like she's doing better than someone else. Is she trying to compensate for not feeling like she does well enough at anything else?
"Drinking brandy with Billie and the boys feels like booking a passage on the Titanic. The thought that we are all going down together consoles me."
Here she seems pretty well aware of how damaging what she is doing can be. She seems to find it comforting that she is with a group of people who feel like she does, and who want the same things. Is she trying to fit in with a group she doesn't? Or has she finally found a group she fits in with?
just started this book so far it is good . will post more tonight.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what Noah s saying. Is she drinking like it's a cmpetition. The only time she can fit in or feel comfortable is when she is drunk. I think this is pretty messed up. Its sad that some people have no social skills.
ReplyDeleteShe can't even be affectionate with her boyfriend unless she is drunk. Its like she would rather drink then do anything else. I still can connect with this because I know people that are just like the girl in the book.
ReplyDeleteI even doubt that she would have any kind of relationship without drinking. She uses it as a crutch. Instead of learning how to interact with people normally, or learning to be comfortable with herself, she drinks. This is a very destructive way to live, as I'm sure we'll see later in the book. She has already given us a vague idea that she gets her stomach pumped later. It will be interesting to see how she describes it.
ReplyDeleteWhat's sad is that so many people in this addictive situations see how badly they are damaging themselves, but feel they have nothing worth fighting for to overcome the addiction. In "The Glass Castle", Jeanette's dad is an alcoholic, and quite for a summer when Jeanette asked him to, but then took it back up. It's sad that people will waste their lives for such a controlling addiction!!
ReplyDeleteThe story of this girl is really sad she is like a drunkin empty shell all the time. she can do nothing unless she is intixicated. hang with friends, deal with life , be affectionet, fit in. she beleaves that in order to do these many things she must be drunk to do it.
ReplyDeleteLoralai
It is hard to beleve that having a drink in middle school started her whole downward. Spiral to the way she became. just one time is all it took one experiment . and she was led down such a disructive path.
ReplyDeleteloralai
This girl has a major problem. at one point in the book she is talking abou how she beleaves that alcohole is her drug it is the thing that gets her high. it is her addiction and her freedom . I beleve that this is sad because like many people addicted to drugs she is addicted to alcohole she thinks that it is good feeling. I think at that point in the book . she doesnt think that she can be happy without it.
ReplyDeleteLoralai
"The party gal is a sad and beautiful ingenue, who appears in photographs with tousled hair, smudged eyeliner, and a visible thong. And as long as she exists in real life, we will never cease to be interested in her.” (page 185)
ReplyDeleteThe quote about the party girl really discribes who she became at one point. she was the prty girl she was the beautiful, ingenuine girl with the messed up hair. she was the real life party girl. the girl who drank an got attention
Sh was the girl who everyone was interested in because she was the party girl. the girl who loved the drink.
Loralai dubord
--------------------------------------------
It is really hard to beleve that she had to go through so much like a alcohole poisoning, black out, and waking up in the strange New York appartment to make her realise that she had to stop. it is hard to beleave that she spent most of her teensge and early young adult years drunk. I am not sure how anyone can live like that. the sad thing is I know quite a few people who like drinking now and are already starting of on a bad path. it is hard to think that anyone could end up going through as much as she did
ReplyDeleteLoralai
The Grown-Up
ReplyDeleteAll this stood upon her and was the world
and stood upon her with all its fear and grace
as trees stand, growing straight up, imageless
yet wholly image, like the Ark of God,
and solemn, as if imposed upon a race.
As she endured it all: bore up under
the swift-as-flight, the fleeting, the far-gone,
the inconceivably vast, the still-to-learn,
serenely as a woman carrying water
moves with a full jug. Till in the midst of play,
transfiguring and preparing for the future,
the first white veil descended, gliding softly
over her opened face, almost opaque there,
never to be lifted off again, and somehow
giving to all her questions just one answer:
In you, who were a child once-in you.
Translated by Stephen Mitchell
Rainer Maria Rilke
I found this poem (online) that the author references. I just thought that it was interesting to compare with the book even though I just started reading.
I just started the book and am still reading the pre-face but it seems the author has good intentions with this book. She really seems to want to open peoples eyes about drinking, and to show that there really isn't a stereotypical drunk, if they're even a drunk, or just someone who gets drunk often but not enough to be called an alcoholic. Im looking forward to reading on further :)I think there is a lot to learn form this book.
ReplyDelete*Chenye
This book was a very strong book. It taught me a lot of how a little bit of something can lead to a lot of something and how distructive it can become. by the end I realised how she was totally taken over by the drink sheused it as a social tool. as her way out. as her relation ship key. it was basically her form of a crutch she used it to get through life. overall it was a very good book.
ReplyDeleteLoralai
This book so far, as I had read over vacation, seemed very realistic. I have known girls who seem to relate a lot. And being really young people dont think you would be drinking but people need to open their eyes and realize its not only older teens who are drinking, kids in middle school, and even 6th grade and getting in to it. I think this book helps people realize that.
ReplyDeleteVACATION WEEK BLOG
*Chenye
VACATION WEEK BLOG #2
ReplyDeleteI guess im reading this and realizing how dependent a person can become on something like this. What can be a social drink for some, is a nessesity for another. I really just dont understand how or why you can let yourself become that way.
*Chenye
Final Entry
ReplyDeleteSmashed is a depressing account of a downward spiral into the dregs of substance dependence. Her "friends" only seem to drag her deeper into her depression and her family fails to see her desperate state. Her surroundings only enforce that she is doing the only thing she can, that she is living a dream and not a nightmare.
In the end, she drags herself out of the hole that was dug for her to tell the world about what it is like. Supported by a plethora of facts and figures, Smashed is a very well written and influential life story.
Week of 4/13
ReplyDeleteI'm having a really hard time with this novel. It's not that I don't enjoy it, because her storytelling ability is fantastic, but I don't agree with many of her reasonings behind various circumstances and that she doesn't consider herself an alcoholic. From what she says about her drinking habits, it seems to me like she is an alcoholic.
Week of 4/13
ReplyDeleteThe opening scene of Smashed, with Koren in the hospital, frustrates me. I'm fine with why she is in the hospital, but it's her reaction to the event. She doesn't care that she's in the hospital because of alcohol poisoning. In fact, it seems as if she's almost proud of it instead of ashamed as I would have expected her to be.
Week of 4/13
ReplyDelete"It seems some women's emotional development arrests as a result of alcohol. They stall at the age they were when they had their first drinks," (xviii).
This is an interesting theory, that women stop developing emotionally once they start drinking. I've never considered something like that being true before, but it certainly seems plausible. It would be interesting to do some kind of study about what kind of effects alcohol has on the development of emotions. I wonder if it affects men the same, too.
Week of 4/20
ReplyDeleteI found it interesting that the other girls at the birthday party started to acknowledge and accept Koren once they found out she had alcohol in the bottle. It gave Koren confidence that she had never had before and helped her to interact with the other girls at the party, and even a boy she liked.
I really just pitty her so much. I understand that she has let herself go, but she is so dependent in this that her life is effected by it everyday, and that is so sad. She cannot be a friend or have any type of relationship just being herself. It like no one really knows the real her, not even herself because she has let herself get to such a point that she has lost who she is.
ReplyDeleteThat last one was me Chenye hahahah my last entry for vacation week.
ReplyDeleteWeek of 4/20
ReplyDelete"I think it's no coincidence that a shot is called a shot. You throw back that little jigger of liquor with the same urgency with which a gun fires ammunition into open space. You feel the same ringing in your ears, the same kickback in your arms and chest. The first time you drink, you don't aim to get drunk. The thrill of pulling the trigger is itself enough. If you like the crack of the rifle, you'll be back for a second go, which is when you'll pay attention to the crosshairs and fire enough shots to hit the mark," (27).
This is a really interesting comparison. Koren has an excellent command of the English language. Her writing style is engaging enough to keep me reading, even though I don't particularly care for the story itself.
Koren uses her need for alcohol as a way to rebel against all of the things her mother forces her to do. Koren says that "[s]he wants me to have everything she never had as a girl, which, on top of piano lessons and designer jeans, includes buoyancy. She wants me to rise to the top of the worst situations. She wants me to raise a modern woman: somone who is cool and collected, a vixen, a maneater, hell-on-wheels in heels," (33).
ReplyDelete"Externally, I'm not perfect, but I'm healthy. In fourteen years, I've never once fallen down stairs or caught my hand in a car door. I've never had stitches. I've never so much as twisted an ankle. It's my insides that I need to hide. Privately, I feel disfigured. I am ashamed of my gnarled soul, which is something no surgeon can correct. Were my inner workings exposed, I feel certain they would make children stare, and adults avert their eyes," (42).
ReplyDeleteThis seems to me to be one of the only reasons that Koren drinks. She drinks because she needs to feel comfortable with herself, and drinking is the only way that she can.
Well, in response to what Kim wrote, I agree. She is not comfortable with herself, so she drinks and it eases insecurities away. It's so unfortunate because that is a miserable way to live, obviously, so you can't help but pitty her but at the same time you want to help her, you want her to feel confident and comfortable and she could just be her without the drinking.
ReplyDelete*Chenye
I don't really feel pity for her. Personally, she frustrates me. I don't really know exactly what it is about her that frustrates me. Probably because I cannot relate to her at all. I would never end up in any situations like the ones she finds herself in, and I think that might be why I can't stand her and why I'm having such difficulty reading Smashed.
ReplyDeleteI really liked the way that Zailckas used the power of her writing and language to tell her story. It's not the typical way that stories like hers are told, so it makes it more intriguing and more realistic. I wasn't enthralled with her story, but how she told it was what kept me reading. I wouldn't consider it a powerful novel like The Glass Castle, but it has its strengths in Zailckas writing.
ReplyDeleteI understand what Kim is saying with how she is frustarated with her. But when you say you cannot relate to her because you would never end up in her situation, I don't understand that. I'm sure she never thought taking that first sip that she would end up like that. No one intends to be in those situations. Soemtimes when your in a downward spiral you don't realize it until its too hard to pull yourself out of it. I mean I agree, this girl needs to wake up and do something about it, but at the same time I feel as though we cannot judge because we'e never been there. It's really a very gray subject.
ReplyDelete*Chenye
week of 4/27
For the week of April 13th: The comment Kim wrote about the birthday party and the girls finding out she had booze in the bottle, I agree is very intersting. They suddenly were accepting and this made Koren feel good, and secure. It's so true and beleivable how this happened. I can totally see someone being accepted by certain people because they are drinking or whatever. Your initial judgement of someone may not be "oh yeah, they're really cool and chill. I want to hang out with that person" but when you find out they have something you want or think is cool or you don't have , you are willing to be their friend. She should see past the front and realize she isn't accepted for her, she is just being seen as someone to drink with. Your drinking buddies are never really your friends. Your friends are the peole you can just chill with. She needed to see and accept it and that point. But she does not.
ReplyDelete*Chenye
Blog Entry 3 for the week of 4/13:
ReplyDeleteChenye Miller says:
"It occurs to me that an hour has passed since my last drink, and my buzz has begun soft pedaling. I am still drunk, but I cannot be just drunk. Just drunk will not gut my head out of its worries. Just drunk will not swat away my misgivings about Milton, anxieties that are whirring around me when I'm alone with him, like so many insects. I need a bottle of something sweet and potent to perk me back up to a state of past gone."
It's crazy to me that she cannot be just buzzed or "just drunk" she has to be completely obliterated. It's like its all or nothing with her. Being drunk or buzzed does nothing for her, she needs to be, well, smashed for it to even be worth it to her. I know it's redundant for me to say, but it's just so unfortunate.
Week of 4/27 entry 2:
ReplyDeleteChenye Miller said:
"In my experience, there is a bar and a drink for every mood. Sorrow has a certain taste, and joy has a certain atmosphere." If she can make this judgement, she had too much experience, obviously. There was another quote but I couln't find it when I went back and looked, but she mentioned how the legal drinking age was pointless to her. She said its like applying for a job and who cares if you don't have a degree, you really just need the experience. And no one needs to have that much experience drinking, ever. Over 21 or not, it's so messed up and I don't understand why she allows herself to be so fooled b ut this drug. It is a drug to her. There is no social drink for her. It's sad and frustarting all at the same time.
Chenye Miller
ReplyDeleteFinal nonfiction book2 blog:
The end is really weird. She hits a point where she realizes she needs to stop heading down the path she is on or she will end up raped killed, or someplace she doesnt want to be. And its scary for her I think and she is seeing it now. Though the book doesnt end with her being sober and clean, it ends with her knowing thats where she needs to be.
Final nonfiction blog:
ReplyDeleteI liked this book I guess but it was kind of deperessing. I thought that the book would end with her sobering up and being smarter but it didnt.
This book is not about drinking. Its about a love affair with Satan, masked in symbolism and metaphor. A real "drinker" which I have been through..No metaphors, not secrecy does not act this way. Read it properly. They friends are all demons, and so is she. Watch out for this kind of writing...It will bring stupidity. These people hide behind the same long and drawn out metaphors. Its boring and she is not tricking me.
ReplyDeleteOh and one last thing...All the people who speak this way never Give Glory To Jesus Christ. I do. I proclaim His Name! Thank God He was with me when I acted stupid and drunk. He always has me. I am His. This loser can keep her booze.
ReplyDeleteOh and one last thing...All the people who speak this way never Give Glory To Jesus Christ. I do. I proclaim His Name! Thank God He was with me when I acted stupid and drunk. He always has me. I am His. This loser can keep her booze.
ReplyDelete