"A Pair of Tickets" Jing- Mei Woo's Entry

Hello friends! Welcome to my blog!
I have brough my laptop along with me so that I can post in my free time.
I am now sitting in my sisters' room, typing to you guys! I have just finished eating dinner and my two sisters have convinced me that they were both capable enough to clear the table by themselves and that I should write to my friends. Aren't they nice?
For some reason... my laptop won't upload my camera's pictures. I could've showed you the house that my sisters have and the many amazing sites in China. Oh well... you can always see them when I get back of course!
My sisters and I have been catching up on a lot of things. So many things that we missed! So many years! So many tears that we've shed while we were talking over tea time. Even though we don't really understand each other because of our language barrier, it doesn't really matter to us. As if a language barrier can separate us now of all times!
My sisters and I have been teaching each other our different language. It's so fascinating to learn another language... it's like a whole new world has been introduced to me. My broken chinese have steadily begun to sound like real chinese. My sisters have also been learning to speak english. They are very fast learners. Even though they can't pronounce some of the letters and words correctly, they understand very simple english which is good enough for me. I feel proud of them even though they are both my older sisters, my Jie- Jies. I'm pretty sure that they are proud of me too even though I don't pick up Chinese as fast as my sisteres do with English.
That's about it for now... I'll be back soon so don't worry about me!
Jing- Mei Woo was here~

Echo

I have just finished the book, Echo by Francesca Lia Block. It is a very interesting book. However, it's a little weird at the same time because every single time it starts a new chapter, the narration will change from I to someone else. For example, the first chapter in the narration "I" but then in the second chapter, it was talking about a girl named Eva. It was a little confusing at first but then after I reread the book again, it made sense because all the chapters are connected with each other.
The book is about a girl named Echo and how she feels insignificant compared to her "angel" mother. Her mother was like an angel because she was very beautiful, can cure with just a touch, and she can grow the most beautiful flowers around. Echo has always envied hermother. However, when Echo's father got sick from cancer, her mother said to Echo's father: "Give me the disease... I would rather die than live without you." Echo became afraid that her mother will also leave her. Even though Echo had said that she had evied her mother, she had also loved her in her own way.
Echo then went to the beach to relieve herself of such thoughts. She decided to swim even though there was no lifeguard. When she was in the waves, she realized that the waves were going to take her away from life. Later on, she woke up in a hospital. The doctor said that a boy had rescued her. Echo eventually met the boy. The boy was also like an angel because he had pasted wings on his back to escape from the hurt and pain that he was living with before. At the end of the book, Echo met the boy again. The boy had turned into a man. They realized that they had this connection with each other and realized that they fell in love. In the end, Echo got pregnant.
I liked how Echo wanted to become a mermaid to "swim away all her sorrows and pain".

character profile thing

Character profile for the book --> Marley & Me [life and love with the world's worst dog] by John Grogan
Well... the character that I decided to make a character profile about is the author John Grogan because the book is a blibiography about him and his dog, Marley, a Labrador retreiver.
John is a sarcastic man and seems to blow up at the smallest things. However, he also has a loving and caring side that shows when he is with Marley or his family and kids.
There is a picture of John Grogan in the back of the book. The picture is in black and white but somehow.... I always imagined him to have red hair or something like that. However, I will never know since the picture is in black and white. I find it funny how he lives with Grace, "a surprisingly calm Labrador retriever" when Marley [in the book] is so hyper- active and energetic.

wondering class discussion...

I've been wondering about the class discussion that we had on Monday or Tuesday. I remember that Xavier had said that The Joy Luck Club By Amy Tan was boring. I believe that he thought it was boring because he does that have a daughter/ mother relation. For example, I found that the book is very interesting because of the daughter/ mother relation and the fact that the stories are about immigrants and China.
However, because I am a girl, I would not understand a son/ mother or son/ father relationship... just like a boy would not understand a daughter/ mother or daughter/ father relationship. That is why I believe that Xavier does not understand the book.
Also, when Kevin, Daniel, and Xavier were saying how the book was only interesting when there was "action" in the book, I wonder what kind of action they were looking for. I thought that there were lots of action in the book because there are manhy scenarios and many situations/ problems that had to be solved. I also found the book fun to read because I can sort of see things from the mother's point of view because then, maybe I can understand my own mother's feelings when she's doing or telling me to do something that I dont like. Maybe I can somehow understand why she would do the things that she does.
Well... that's what I've been wondering ever since the class discussion.
I need to go to the library today and borrow a book [ and also because my other books are due ] !!!

symbolism for Spinners

The book that I am reading right now is Spinners by Donna Jo Napoli & Richard Tchen. The symbol that is in the book is a spinning wheel. I believe that because both the characters in the book sacrifaced something in order to spin for their loved ones.
For the first character, a tailor, he was very much in love with a young woman. They both thought that they were meant to be together forever. The tailor wants to marry the woman. However, the young woman's father wanted his daughter to marry a miller who was twice the age of the woman because the tailor was too poor for the father's standards. The tailor insisted that the father let the tailor and his "darling" get marry. The father finally proposes a plan. The tailor was to make a gold dress for his daughter before the next full moon. The tailor was frantic because he doesn't have enough money to buy golden threads. So he settled for spinning straw. He hoped that the straw will turn into gold. When he finally spinned a golden dress from straw, he was crippled because of sewing nonstop all the time and not sleeping. When the young woman saw what the tailor had become, she rejected him and married the miller. So the spinner sacrifaced his leg and his profession for his beloved... and lost her.
For the second character, Saskia, the tailor's daughter (because the young woman from before was pregnant with the child from the tailor when she married the miller) was living with the miller. The miller, because Saskia and her friend shaved his hair, was ashamed and would never go outside. He stopped milling grains from people and is losing money fast. Saskia and the miller became poor and Saskia decides to spin in order to live. So she learned how to spin and to sell her wares in the market. I believe that she will sacriface something in order to spin and to feed her family (the miller). Just like the tailor, I believe that she will lose her "father', the miller and will eventually meet her real father, the crippled tailor.
That is why I believe that the spinning wheel is the symbol for this book.

2nd book finished!~

I finished the book Beka Cooper: Terrier; A Tortall Legend yesterday but I got home late so I couldn't do a blog.

Terrier, Terrier
Bites and never lets go
Fishpuppy no more
Grown big and now you're a
Terrier
Sharp wits
with your baton
Attacks, Bites,
Never lets go
Beka Cooper,
Fishpuppy no more
True Dog
True Terrier

Well, that was a little poem that I thought up of in my head. It connected to the main character, Beka Cooper. She is training to be a Provost's Guard , or more commoly known as "the Provost's Dogs". You can say that Provost's Guard is like police in the real world. Anyway,Beka is a trainee so she is called a puppy. When you have completed your training, you become a guard, or a dog. On the first day of Beka's job, she crashed into a fish barrel and thus she was named Fishpuppy by the older Dogs. However, she proved to others and herself that she is not a puppy but a true Dog, a Terrier because she never gives up. When she was working on cases that other Dogs had given up on because it was too hard to handle or too dangerous, Beka kept on investigating and never gave up on the cases. So she became known as Terrier.
Oh and I'm starting on Howl's Moving Castle~

another book finished and another book started

Well, I finished the book The Royal Diaries: Catherine; The Great Journey, Russia, 1764 or something like that because I can't remember the title right now because I returned it to the library just 1 hour ago.
But I have a new book now! It's Beka Cooper: Terrier (A Tortall Legend) by Tamora Pierce. Tamora Pierce is one of my favorite authors! My other favorite author is Lurlene McDaniel but I'll tell you about her when I read one of her books.
The books is 563 pages! -shock- Then again, I've read bigger books than that so it's fine! If I spped- read like usual I'll probably finish it over the weekends or so... maybe less if the book is very good which it probably is. But if I was to read it 100 pages a week... it'll take around 1 month to finish it... or 1 and a half months... well you get my point.
Well, I'll do the actual blog on saturday or sunday... but if I have time, I'll do my blog tonight when I have time to actually read the book.
Oh and one interesting fact about Tamora Pierce is that her mother wanted to name her "Tamara: but the nurse who filled out the her birth certificate misspelled it as "Tamora".

book of my spare time

The Royal Diaries: Chaterine; The Grat Journey Russia, 1743
That's the book that I'm reading in my spare time. I got it from the library with some other books and this is the second to last book ithat I have to read until I have to go to the library again. *signs* I really need to stop speed reading library books when I borrow them.
Anyway, The book is pretty good. It's about a little known princess named Catherine who marries the heir to the Russia throne. The book is pretty amazing because it has these facts but then some of the characters are fictional... at the same time... yea...
Well, I found out that Catherine's mother is one of the most unencouraging mothers in the whole entire world. She's so selfish and greedy. She always calls Catherine ugly and poor even though the mom herself is just a princess from a small royal family. That's so mean!
That's about all. I just started but that's what I got from the few pages that I read. Think I'll be finished by tonight or tomorrow.
So here it is, the book of my spare time!

finished!!

Welll, I'm finally done with the book, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I'm glad that I finished the book because I was reading other books at the same time and then I would remember that I still had this book to finish for my english homework. I was sort of reluctant to read this book because I don't really like this book. Even though I finished reading it, I still find it confusing even though people have told me that I should just suck it up and continue reading the book.
But now, I'm finished so yay! I don't really like the book though because in the beggining, the chapters skip around (yes I already told you this but I'm complaining again just for the heck of it) but then later in the book, it evens out again as in like the chapters were choppy at first but then the chapters were even in the end.
I will now be starting a new book but I don't know what book it is yet because I need to go to the library.

Guess What?

Guess what? Many people has said that the book that I'm reading, The Hitchhiker's Guid to the Galaxy, is a very good book. On the cover of it, it said that Douglas Adams, the author of the book was New York Times bestselling author. That's pretty interesting I guess.
On the bus, when I was going home, my friends and I were talking about the books that we were reading for English. I said that the book was very confusing. Noah, however, said that it was a really good book and that I should watch the movie. When I asked him what the book was about because I was so confused... he said that aliens came and destroyed the Earth and that the aliens were dolphins. That's pretty neat I guess. But I didn't find any dolphins in the book yet. Maybe I'll find them later in the story.
At first, I thought that Noah was talking about Ford Perfect becuse he was an alien from "outer space". Ford was a good person, werid but nice.
That's all I got to say for now.

first 100 pages

Well, I read the first 100 pages of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
This books is very confusing. I don't really get the book.
For example, in the first chapter, Arthur Dent (one of the two main characters of the book) woke up and found out that his house was about to be demolished by bulldozers to make way for a bypass. Then all of a sudden Ford Perfect, the other main character of the book, comes and tells Arthur that the world which was Earth was going to end in twenty minutes. Ford takes Arthur to a bar and gets Arthur drunk,
And then all of a sudden in the second chapter, it started talking about the President of the Galaxy, Zaphod Beeblebrox, and how he was making some speech in front of cameras... which didn't really make sense to me but never mind that. The chapter ended with Zaphod throwing a bomb in front of the cameras. Does that makes sense to you?
Then the next chapter automatically changed to Arthur's and Ford's perspective and how Earth was about to be destroyed.
The werid thing about this book is that it defines words that I already know. Like for example, Ford needed a towel to get aboard a spaceship. Not only did the author define the word towel, but there was an unneeded 2 pages defining the word towel. I would think I know what a towel is but then it was talking about how you needed a towel to flag a spaceship and get on it. That didn't make sense to me.
Also, I forgot to mention this, there are footnotes in the book. The footnotes take up half the page in the book. I don't really like that. It gets confusing because I would read a passage then look down to this HUGE chunk of footnotes and after I'm finished reading with that, I would then have to look all the way up at the top to reread the sentence then continue on with the book.
All in all, I enjoyed the first 100 pages of the book.

get this clock

The Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy

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The Hitichhiker's guide to the Galaxy

I choose The Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams, to read as my English Independent Reading book. I choose to read this book because at first I wasn't really sure which book to read. However, I was discussing it with my friends and they recommended this book to me. They said that it was very interesting and that I w0uld like it. Based on what I now know about this book, I would expect something like a mind- blowing plot or something like that. If not then at least I would get to read something interesting to keep myself busy.
Douglas Adams:: This is the authos of the book. His full name is Douglas Noël Adams. He was born on March 11, 1952 and died surprisingly recent, on May 11, 2001. He was an English author, comic radio dramatist, and a musician. One surprising fact that I like about him is that :: He is a lover of fast cars.
If I was to read 100 pages of this book every week, it would take around 4 weeks before I will finish reading.
Here's my blog Ms. Faughey~