5 Books

The Road - The profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, "each the other's world entire," are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.

We were liars - 

A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.
 
We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from New York Times bestselling author, National Book Award finalist, and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart. 
Read it.
And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.

Divergent - One choice can transform you. Beatrice Prior's society is divided into five factions—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). Beatrice must choose between staying with her Abnegation family and transferring factions. Her choice will shock her community and herself. But the newly christened Tris also has a secret, one she's determined to keep hidden, because in this world, what makes you different makes you dangerous.

All the lights we cannot see - Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.

If I stay - In the blink of an eye everything changes. Seventeen year-old Mia has no memory of the accident; she can only recall what happened afterwards, watching her own damaged body being taken from the wreck.

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee Research!

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is a comedy musical written by Rebecca Feldman and music by William Finn. This show is based on the American academic competition "Spelling Bee". It  is a competition in which contestants are asked to spell a broad selection of words, usually with the varying degree of difficulty. In this show, the words that the spellers have to spell are extremely hard, even harder than the SAT words, which makes this show really funny. Spellers may ask a definition of the word or use in a sentence or the origin of the word. 
The main characters are Olive, Marcy, Leaf, William, Logainne, Chip as the spellers. And for the announcers and adult characters, there are Rona, Panch, Mitch (Mitch is played as Mitchell in Cheshire Academy production, as our school has a lot of women players). Every character has distinct characteristic; such as, Olive is very shy and doesn't speak out loud her voice, Marcy is smart and looks like "all business", Leaf is very loud, funny and active, William has Mucous membrane disorder and allergic to peanut so he can't go near the peanuts, Logainne has really passionate fathers and has a tongue problem(?) that makes him cannot speak "s" pronunciation, and Chip is very confident and active boy who was the winner of the last year. Each of them makes the audiences laugh in different ways. 
The big part of this show is the interaction with the audiences. They nominate several audiences to the stage and make them spell the word. Announcers in the show observe that audiences and make a joke or improvise a hilarious line. 
This show was on the Broadway which is the center of the musical place. Also, it won a lot of awards and is nominated to remarkable musical awards in this world. 

Haiku Quiz

1. Total of 3 lines and 5,7,5 syllables in each line

2. Japan

3.            Sweet scented ______blossom________

Confetti __sent___________ from heaven

With a ____gentle_______ breeze

               Spring ____turns____ winter’s tide

Nature comes ___quickly_______ alive

Bees ____buzz______, hope for brides

4. Bright sunshine comes down

    Tulip blossoms with pleasant

    Season has arrived

    No more cloudy fields

    Let there be only cool feels

    Lighthearted fellows

    

    

5. Rhyme

If you want to get some pearls...

Have you ever been challenging yourself? Put yourself in a tough environment, and try to deal with everything by yourself? Here is the story about a girl who did exactly same things to herself. Gathering of Pearls, written by Korean author Sook Nyul Choi, is the last part of the trilogy novel that is about a girl who came to America to study in America college. Her name is Sookan which is quite similar with author’s name, and it provides evidence that this book is probably based on its author’s experience, as both of them have similar background: both of them are girl, Korean, came to US to study.

On the cover of this book, a girl who is sitting on the ground seeming like a little bit uncomfortably is picking up some pearls. As soon as you start reading this book, you would easily figure out the girl was Sookan, so the only inquiry that is not yet solved is what are those pearls meaning. And the answer of that inquiry would be in your mind if you read through the whole book. Pearls, the valuable and admirable gem that Sookan tries to gather and not lose on the cover, represent her valuable achievements in America and her relationships with her family and friends after having some tough times just like a reward of a difficult mission. Also, the blossomed flower around the main picture of her means indirectly that Sookan would blossom like a flower.

In this book, Sookan struggles between being a follower of her sister which is going back to Korea as soon as possible and becoming nun to help her sister, and being Sookan herself which is to keep staying in America and studying. The main reason of her struggling is because she is the only international student as well as the only little sister. She can’t say "yes" because she has sort of responsibility of being the only Korean in her school, and she, as the only little sister of her older sister, she shouldn't disappoint her sister by not doing elder's favor, for in that time period, it was considered as disrespectful and impolite to do so, just like her line in the book “How could I be a good person when I had disappointed my own sister?” (Choi, 53). She eventually chooses to follow her own mind, yet the process is full of pain and hard times. Sometimes she is worried about it all by herself, and sometimes she relies on her friends with receiving some advice. Finally her effort to try not to lose a good relationship with her sister works and she gathers “pearls” as she handles it by herself.

After Sookan comes to US, she experiences a lot of new things which she seldom or never did in Korea. She goes to the party, drinks alcohol, faints, cooks Korean food all by herself, etc… However most of all, in perspective of scholar, she learns a lot such as knowledge, and  about “herself”. She finds her identity. She likes to take a picture and draw, she also finds it is fun to teach children. According to Sookan's mother's line, "Tough times are the times when one gathers one’s pearls” (Choi, 163). Her school life is really challenging because not only she challengs herself by choosing intense courses but also it is her first time in America, so she has been struggling to adjust herself to the unfamiliar circumstances. However, she doesn’t give up and tolerates all the things. When she is tired, she finds someone else to help her, and when she gets stuck, she tries to find breakthrough. After she overcomes all the obstacles and hardships, she is changed completely; she becomes a new person. She is not conforming to others opinion anymore and being subjective to her life.

As Sookan got more pearls, the more she grew up in this book. She found her identity by experiencing and trying a lot. In addtion, she developed relationships between her and people around her after she came to America. All of those experiences made Sookan blossom like a flower in spring. Therefore, if you haven't been challenging yourself, or you think you are living in such boring life that is full of comfort, why don't you try gathering some pearls? That will motivate you to go forward. Don’t worry about the risk you will take and disadvantage you will get. Whatever the result is, and whatever you think, you will get much more valuable things.

Citation:

Choi, Sook Nyul., and Sook Nyul. Choi. Gathering of Pearls. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994. Print.

My Poem

The girl walks around
Then she meets a handsome man
They both fall in love

I have a large head

I will keep going ahead 

I'm all-state singer

I hate to study 

I would like to be steady 

With my bae, Julie 

Examples of Haiku Poems

The sky is so blue. 
The sun is so warm up high.
I love the summer.

I really like toast.
It is yummy when it's hot.
I like it best cold.

Beans are kind to hearts.
I like to eat them daily. 

And then do big farts!

Draft

Gathering of Pearls, written by Korean author Sook Nyul Choi, is the last part of the trilogy novel that is about a girl who came to America to study in college. Her name is Sookan which is quite similar with author’s name, and it provides evidence that this book is probably based on its author’s experience, as both of them have similar background.

On the cover of this book, a girl who is sitting on ground kinda uncomfortably is picking up some pearls. As soon as you start reading this book, you would easily figure out the girl was Sookan, so the only inquiry that is not yet solved is what are those pearls meaning. And the answer of that inquiry would be in your mind if you read through the whole book. Pearl, the valuable gem that Sookan tries to gather and not lose on the cover, represents her valuable experiences in America, her relationship with family and friends.

In this book, Sookan has struggling between being follower of her sister which is going back to Korea as soon as possible and becoming nun, and being Sookan herself which keeps staying in America and studying. The main reason of her struggling is because she is the only international student as well as the only little sister. She couldn’t quit her

In this book, Sister Reed gave Sookan the pearl necklace which was very precious and valuable to her. I don’t know how much value a pearl has now; however, I think it has really high value at the time period in this book. Anyway pearl is really valuable thing, and Sookan is gathering it. What I thought is pearl is representing Sookan’s valuable experiences and people. From the time when she came first to America to the end of her freshman year (in this book), she gathered knowledge (learning), gathered friends, teachers, and people (meeting) and became a new person. And according to Sookan’s mother’s words, “Tough times are the times when one gathers one’s pearls”, the pearls are not only just an experience but it is the achievement after putting a lot of effort and struggling. All the pain and sorrow she had taken turned into a great motivation and encouragement to her. 

Epilogue: 5 years after she was gathering her pearls

     Five years later, she is eventually dating with Tom. At first, Sookan was kinda feeling awkward that she is dating with western person, but Tom, who understands Sookan as not only a woman but also Korean, led her well not to be feeling in that way. Furthermore, because Princeton University acknowledged Sookan's academic potential and hard working personality, they accepted her as a honorable full tuition scholarship student. So she decided to go to the graduate school with Tom who also decided to study in Princeton University graduate school. As her mother's expectation, she accepted a new culture and her sister as a person. Her sister let her keep working on her academic achievements and supported life in United States. And her major is art education which is fully based on her interest and passion not the challenging thing that she had hard time to deal with when she was in undergraduate school. She is studying hard to be an elementary school teacher and work at Mr. Bennett's children's school. 
     She is working as a part time job in Princeton University Art Center and earning some pocket money. Well, actually it is much larger amount than pocket money, maybe basket money. Also because she gets a full tuition as a scholarship, she could afford the plane ticket to Korea and visit there at least twice in a year. She meets her longing old friends from high school and college. She does volunteer activity for her sister too. She comforts people who need help because of mental illness or disorder, and she teaches English for children too. Her sister is very happy that she is coming back for a break and does her favor while she is staying. 
      Ellen got married to Kyle and got one year old baby. He is a boy and looks more like Ellen. Although she became a mother relatively young age, which could be bothering and restricting her behavior, but she loves herself as a mother and is proud of it. They and Sookan's couple usually hang out together and have a meal with talking about lots of memories. They can meet up easily, for they are living near to each other; Ellen and Kyle live in Trenton, and Ellen and Tom live in Princeton. 
       Marci had a really big argument with her parents a year ago right after she graduated the college; she graduated with chemistry scholar degree very unwillingly because of her parents strict forcing. However she convinced her parents that she wanted to major literature. After a long and long process, she is working on her master's degree as a English literature in Amherst University. Marci and Sookan apart far away from each other they send a letter to keep in touch, and they promised to travel together to Greece during the spring break. 
       Sookan and people around her live very well. All of them are doing what they want and working best as they can. Her life in America seems to last forever I guess.