monthly book review: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

In the fictional novel, Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone, by J.K. Rowling a baby named Harry Potter was the only wizard to escape from a very evil wizard name Voldemort. Harry had to grow up with his aunt and uncle until he is old enough to go to Hogwarts, which is a magic school. But mean while Harry his aunt, uncle, and his cousin that treat him like Harry is worth nothing and makes Harry‘s live a living hell before until Harry can go to Hogwarts. Once Harry is old enough he goes to Hogwarts and Harry makes two good friends Hermione and Ron. Harry faces a life and death situation with Voldemort, this would have to be the second time that Harry has to face Voldemort in his life and the first time Voldemort killed Harry’s parents and left a scare on Harry’s forehead. Harry has to stop Voldemort from getting the sorcerer’s stone. Voldemort tries to tricks Harry to tell him where the stone is but Harry finds a way to stop Voldemort and save the stone.

Ron Weasley is one of Harry’s friend that he meet on the train to Hogwarts and is also his room mate. Ron is a very important person in the story because he helps Harry find the sorcerer’s stone and keep it safe. Ron is one of many children and does not have much money at all. But when it come to be Christmas time Ron’s family is able to send Ron and Harry Christmas presents. When Harry sees that he actually has Christmas presents he could not believe it. But one of the presents that Harry gets is not from Ron’s family its from Harry’s father that died when Harry was just a little boy. The present is a Cloak that turns invisible. Harry and Ron go down to the forbidden part of the library to learn about Voldemort. Ron also helps Harry at the end of the book by playing a game of wizards chess, which is like real chess but the pieces are actual size and if a puzzle piece gets captured the get smashed to pieces. In the game Ron sacrifices himself so Harry can go on and save the stone. For sure Harry could not have done what he did with out Ron. Ron is like a side kick to Harry threw out the series; he is always there for Harry and because of this Ron is in most of the action that goes on in the book.

J.K. Rowling uses a lot of symbols and in a way have complicated themes. I think this really makes reading more interesting and more fun to read. Symbols really makes you think about the book and because of that you really go into depth with the story and makes it more easier to understand what is going on. Some of the symbols that she uses are very easy to pick out but they do represent a lot. One symbol is the scare on Harry’s forehead. This was one of the first symbols that I saw and it connects the Harry’s past about his parents dying and Harry living. Another symbol that is very important in the book is the Mirror of Erised. In the mirror of Erised Harry sees he reflection and parents behind him. Later in the book the mirror tells him how to defeat Voldemort. J.K. also is very descriptive explaining things. She is able to paint this picture of wizards, witches, goblins, and all these mystical creatures in our minds. She comes up with this plot that could go on forever which I really like. Anything could some up at anytime which I pretty exciting. Even though her writing is very popular it is fun to read. J.K. uses a lot of themes in her writing. The themes that she uses are necessarily lessons but they are more like deeper examples of dealing with what needs to be done. Harry really goes out of his was to do something that he believes in. the things that he did could have got him in to very big trouble and he knew that but he still went out and did it. Which is one of the themes of the book. I think one of the reason’s why J.K. Rowling’s writing gets so much attention is because of ways of describing what is happening and because Harry Potter and his whole story is nothing like any other type of its kind.

I have also read Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix while ago and I would have to say that one was better then the first book. I think that mainly because the fifth (the order of phoenix) book had more of a fantasy feeling then the first book. Since J.K. Rowling is very good and making a picture in you head of what is happening I like to read all of the action that happens through out the book and the fifth book as at least twice the action and mystery of the first book. Reading the first book felt weird because you heard so much talk about book and the movie then when you read it like 5 or 6 years later you already know what happens and almost everything about the book, or at least me and my group members did. Reading a book from the middle of the series with out reading any other book was at time a little confusing but this book was connected to the other books in the series but not in a way that you did not know that was going on. And that’s what I like about the series because you can read any book, I doesn’t have to be in order. I think for the future books that im going to read I want to see if I can get my other group members to read the other books in this series because they also enjoyed read this book.

schindlers list

a few weeks ago as a whole sophomore class we watched Schindler's List. the movie was very good. it all seemed so really, as if we were actually there. The actors really captured the emotions in the scenes. But some sence really stood more them others. One of them that stood out was when the German soldiers did the cleaning out of one of the ghettos. The German's would go into the ghetto take all the Jew's away from there home and make them keep all there stuff at home. Usually the Jews were taken to a concentration or killed, and the Jews knew that. in the scene the Jews were hiding in crazy places so they wouldn't be captured. One guy was hiding inside a piano, women and children were under the floor boards, another guy was under his bed, but like under the mattress. this scene really stood out to me because i could feel like that could still happen and does still happen in places today. The people that were taking the Jews were really cruel and to a point they have to be desensitized to kill all those Jews and then live there life normally. i cant even imagine doing that at all. Another scene that really stood out to me was the scene where the all the kids in the concentration we taken away in trucks. the kids had no idea what was gonna happen to them. all of them were excited and waving good bye to there parents. the sad part was the fact that all the parents knew what was gonna happen to them and they could not do anything about it. to know that was the last time you were gonna see you child must have been beyond heart breaking.

To me and probably a lot of other people think that Oskar Schindler is the most important person in the movie and in real life because he saved so many peoples lives but i think that Schindler could not have done what he did with out his assistance help. he's assistant organized everything that Schindler did to save the Jews lives .

At one point of the movie the guy that was running the concentration camp was just sitting at his balcony shooting random jews that were sitting around. to be able to do that without any remorse towards the poeople that your killing, you must really hate them. in someways that is not even human. That guy was really desensitized against violence and there was alot of those people controlling the jews.

There are many questions that the movie left me with. One question is what happened to Schindler after he left the factory at the end of the movie? Another question is, towards the middle of the movie there was a girl with a red sweater and she was the only girl throught the movie besides the end scene that was in color. why was that? and the last question i had was, when the germans were cleaning out the concentration camp they took away the children. i think they probably got taken away and killed but i really dont know what happened to them.

Reno

Over spring break my family and i went to Reno. I really like to take car rides and when i heard that we were going to Reno i got really excited. Towards the end of the car ride my dad pulled over to a rest stop and we played in the snow which was real fun. The scenery in the car ride was amazing to see. There was snow everywhere and fresh green trees. I have gone to Reno when i was younger with my grandparents but i don't remember that to much. When we arrived at Reno we went to Circus Circus. When i go on vacations my parents let me have a lot of freedom so i don't get to bored. At circus circus they have a huge midway, which is like a big arcade with games and you can win prizes. But this place had a huge area in the centre for circus performers to do there routine. The Circus Circus is connected to 2 other hotels, the silver legacy, and the Elderado. All of them have a lot of shops and restaurants. And every morning my parents and i went to a nice restaurant and had a nice breakfast, it was really nice to be with them.


One day my parents took me to see the bowling coliseum. which is this huge bowling alley that has two floors and like 80 lanes. there was this store there that had heck of bowling balls to buy, i never seen that many bowling balls in my life. it was insane. A lot of the time i was by myself on this trip. i was a real peaceful vacation. i walked around the hotel a lot mainly because there were a lot of beautiful lady's. when i was not looking at girls i was either eating at restaurants or jumping on the beds in our room. i think I'm a professional bed jumper now. sometimes i got extremely bored and was about to go crazy. i brought my Ipod which usually saves my life but i couldn't get Internet in the hotel. My dad brought the computer with us but i did not figure out how to connect to the Internet till the last few days. i also liked to sit at a bench and watch people walk by. usually people would walk by with giant stuffed animals that they won from the midway. one stuffed animal was so big that she kid couldn't even carry it. it was an enormous blue clown fish that was about 6 feel tall.

On the way home we stopped at this place called Boomtown. its sort of like this old western looking place with casinos and restaurants. We ate at Dennys, i love Dennys breakfasts. eating there made me happy. Then we headed home with a 4 hour drive to go. My dad is a very aggressive driver and drives like 20 or 30 mile per hour faster so we got home in like 3 hours. this vacation was pretty fun considering i was alone most of the time.

new goals and plans

In the past my goal were to be able to expand on my writing with more details and I think I have been able to get more ideas out. I am thinking more about the subject in dept more easily then usual. Now one of my problems is organizing the order I out down the ideas on my blog. Usually I go back and forth between ideas and it makes my writing sound messy. I think one way I can help fix this problem it maybe to make a small outline. I could jot down all the ideas the come to my mind then put then in order and groups before I start writing.

Last school quarter was I had a lot of problems with writers block. I went out of my comfort zone trying to write about things I usually don’t write about. In the first semester I wrote about all my vacations and trips I have been on. But I only have gone on so many vacations. Since I don’t really know what to write about I can start doing my blogs on the quick writes that we do in class. I have done a few of them in the past for my blog but I don’t really think it is as fun as writing about things I have done in the past. I have a lot of ideas that I would like to write about but I don’t think I can write a 500 word blog about it just yet. I have been writing down a few ideas but one of these days in going to sit down and really think about it and get some more ideas down.

My main goals for this next quarter is to be more consistent about writing my blogs. I have had such a problem with writers block I didn’t even write them. Along with actually doing my blog I have to find more subjects to write about. This will probably be the hardest part of my goals. Once I finally know I’m going to write about I have to learn to organize my thoughts. I figure if I can accomplish these goals I would have grown as a writer tremendously.

As of my goals for next school year, I really want to try and do better in school. I know I can do good in school because I always do good in the beginning of the school year then I lose motivation as the year goes on. Next year my classes will fit better to what I want to do and what I see more interesting. One class I am excited to take is psychology. I have always been interested in the way people act and why. When I first heard about there was going to be a psychology class I had no doubt that I wanted to take it. I have heard there was a lot of work in that class but I don’t really mind because it sounds really interested in this subject. Along with psychology I’m taking physics. I have taken a physics class that COA before and I loved it. Plus I really understand the materials so it will probably be an easy class for me.