The Glass Castle

         
                    Ever had that one time where your family is moving everywhere? Never in the same school for long, and oh how you wish your family would just settle in ONE place? That is certainly like the childhood Jeanette Walls had, but I shall hazard you didn't have to face the horrors she did. Born in 1960, to Rex and Rosemary Walls, Jeanette has had a rough life. Beginning in a trailer park, she was badly burned cooking hot dogs just at the age of 3, which also happens to be the first time her family had to move with her around. While in the hospital, still recovering from her injury, her father suddenly came in and took her away, the reason being was to not let her be sent to a foster home considering everything she had told the doctors and nurses. In the early years, the family would continuously alternate between moving from California and Arizona every few months, in which her father has been shown to have a serious drinking and gambling problem. In the midst of this, her father has often talked of building a "glass castle", which should be pretty self-explanatory.

                  Despite the urges from her mother to just move in with Grandma Smith(Rosemary's side of the family), or receive financial support, her father always flatly refuses, having the tendency to have a giant argument. On many occasions, the Walls had been forced to give up various possessions, ranging from their mother's wedding ring, to even their own cat. Jeanette accidentally fell out of the car at one point, and was very worried that her own family was going to abandon her. When she was 7, her family moved to Battle Mountain, in Nevada, which was also where they finally managed to settle down for the first time. Her father got a stable job, and made a decent amount of money every so often. But, after a conflict with one of the kids Billy Deal that ends with the eldest child Lori pulling out a real gun on him, the family is forced to move once again in order to avoid trial and the possibility of losing their children.


             If you thought that their life would just become another vicious cycle of moving, you are wrong. Not long after leaving Nevada, Rosemary gets news that Grandma Smith has died, and they get her house, and later, it's also revealed Rosemary inherited a ton of land somewhere in Texas. But of course, it never lasts. Rex later comes back into contact with his parents and brother in Welch, West Virginia. While they are going to move, they still technically live in Grandma Smith's house, so, it make it seem like someone still lived there, Rosemary put dishes in the dishwasher, hung laundry, basically anything that would ward off intruders, and so the family went to Welch.

           The instant they get out the driveway, trouble has already popped up. Their car went kaput and it took around a month to get into West Virginia. And, Irma was revealed to be a rather unusual and strict person, her idea of punishment locking people into the basement, such as when Jeanette talked back to her for saying very racist things about African-Americans(well what did I expect? I'm sure Irma has been alive since the civil war, and certainly wasn't happy about the South losing). She also did enjoy drinking as much as Rex. What seemed to have been the final insult was when she tried to fix Brian(Jeanette's younger brother)'s pants, Irma was caught in the act of doing something weird to Brian, and a huge fight between Lori and Irma erupted, later causing the Walls to get kicked out of her house and having to move into a really crappy house down Little Hobart street.
Everything wrong with living in that house:
1. They had practically no electricity
2. There was the occasional rat infestation
3. Pieces of the house fell off every so often
4. The abuse Jeanette and her family often experienced focused mostly on their lifestyle
5. There wasn't an actual trash can
6. They didn't have indoor plumbing
7. Jeanette did once try to recolor the house, but by that time, everyone practically gave up on maintaining it and not even when she was half finished, the paint could no longer be used
8. Even when the family had a decent amount of money, it was spent stupidly on cars, booze, or gambling
9. It also gave their newborn child Maureen a bad experience, given how she spent much of her time over at friends' houses, and it would soon influence her to move far, far away
10. It ended any hope of the glass castle

                   Enough of that, I assume you already get the point. Anyways, the likes of a black girl named Denitia, and the local prick Ernie Goad would be the ringleaders of the pain and suffering, Denitia at least wasn't so mean, she did stop her bullying after Jeanette got her neighbor home safely, and, where Ernie tried to keep her away from the pool, Denitia did allow her to join her in the early mornings, which was just about the only time colored people were allowed in (this is 1960). This of course, would mainly focus on the children. Rosemary on the other hand, when she got the job as a teacher, she just had to be lucky enough to be driven to the school by another teacher who simply hated her guts. Every time Rosemary got off the car, that teacher would spray the seat, in fear of her ruining it. This also was in fact, something Jeanette faced when she took up writing for the school newspaper, which is something I shall get to later. You may be wondering? What kind of crap was Rex taking? In my opinion however, I am pretty sure Rex was abusing himself, being the guy who drank and smoked tons, Jeanette, who had faith in him since day 1 of his money-making schemes also considered leaving him behind.

              It might be a miracle how the Walls survived through this hell. Things turned out better when Jeanette was offered a spot in the school newspaper, and writing proved to be one of her talents. Well, that and mountain-climbing. As I had mentioned earlier, Rosemary did get a job as a teacher and came home with a decent amount of money every day, and Lori was offered to go to New York. Every time Rex sabotaged her, he always claimed it was to protect her from the "rapists, thieves, etc." This sounds coincidentally like Chicago to me. But, after much perseverance, sabotaged opportunities, and a long bus ride, Lori successfully made it to New York. Not long after Lori had gotten a decent job and place to live, Jeanette followed her. Thought she'd work for the newspaper? No. During the early days in New York, Jeanette worked at a restaurant and made around 80 dollars a week, which was an ok salary, but later, Jeanette would quit her job and work for the newspaper. In terms of living conditions, Jeanette moved into her husband Eric's apartment. Continuing on the New York cycle, Brian later moved in after living conditions back in Welch became crappier. He would marry, have a daughter, and become his dream job; a police officer. Maureen then came after Brian, and would often live with Lori, or later, the parents. The parents perhaps made the biggest scene arriving in New York via car.
1. Furniture fell out the trunk
2. While stopping to pick up the couch, one of the dogs ran out.
Rex and Rosemary lived with Brian and Lori initially, but Rex's heavy drinking issue and Rosemary's reluctance got them in the streets, searching the dumpsters for food. Funnily enough, Rosemary actually preferred this lifestyle, though the parents later moved into a run-down apartment.

        Rex's heavy drinking, smoking, gambling, and picking fights later caught up to him. While picking a fight, Rex caught a rare, incurable disease and claimed he was dying, but one of the more ridiculous aspects was that he had smoked at least 4 packs a day since HE WAS 12, and that didn't kill him. Soon enough, Rex Walls died at the age of 59, but not from the disease or his drug and alcohol abuse. He died from a simple heart attack, which was stupidly the least expected way to die. Soon after his death, Jeanette's family(minus Maureen, who was convicted of attempted murder, put in a mental institution, and moved to California) would meet on Thanksgiving and have a toast about Rex.

       You might be wondering, where does Jeanette Walls live now? She lives with her 2nd husband, John Taylor, on a farm in a countryside unlike what you've seen in New York.

My review of kyle

Nothing but a pest who wants to destroy my life.

Why I smashed the wall in on Friday

Why did I smash in that wall on Friday? That I still question.

I was going through a pretty normal day, the bike ride was absolute murder, my legs were aching, I was still dazed from sleeping. But, along the way, I did overhear some people talking about Trump, and it kinda got mixed in with some other thoughts, like the possibility of a world war 3. That was when I started considering more about how terrible the world is becoming. If this were to be compared to some movie called "They Live", I would be that drifter with the glasses, and the government might as well be the aliens. The rest of the day I'd call somewhat normal. We didn't exactly have any actual things to be learning, just digital zombies, bullying, stuff like that. I recall at one point we did have a code red drill, but it was the same stuff. By the time I went home, that was when I finally lost it. I got mad at the fact the world would be turning to hell, the fact everyone in the world is an inferior entity compared to me when it comes to gullibility, or how I might as well be a god. AND HOW IDIOTIC AND USELESS BELIEVING IN NON VIOLENCE IS!  In my anger, I had slammed a door really hard and broke a huge hole in the wall. I suddenly went out of my "angry state" and tried to find whatever I could to patch up that hole in the wall. Suddenly, I came across a poster I had on the wall covering up a different hole I put in. I tried to spend the rest of the day reflecting on my outburst and didn't feel like telling my parents because they'd find out soon enough. When my tutor came over, I started ranting about all that stuff I was mad about and didn't get much done with him. When my parents came over, they asked about the hole I had caused, and I admitted all the rational things, such as how I believed non violence was idiotic. My parents started to come to a better understanding and told me how I could manage my anger next time. I have however, been ever more focused on discussing my struggles with my therapist.

Pacifism

Pacifism is weak pacifism is deceptive pacifism is a road to drugs pacifism is for weaklings pacifism is a religion of the weak. Pacifism is for vegetarians. What has pacifism ever done that has benefitted this world?

Japan 2

Also in japan I went to a place with bowing deer. It was supposed to be a temple that deer were sacred to. The deer would bow if you had food and bowed to them. Those deer were very mean too. One of them bit me in the butt. The inside of the temple was also pretty cool. There was a giant statue of Buddah and other statues of other gods. On the last day I went to the aquarium and saw a lot of fish. They had a whale shark there. They also had a lot of puffer fish and a giant salamander that was probably 10 feet long! They also had a sea otter that was taking a bath and everything else you would find at an aquarium.

























































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































 longer than this! If you read this you are pretty weird.

My trip to Japan

It has been a while since I've gone to the other side of the world, so you can imagine how difficult it was for me to adjust to Japan time. Yes, I have been to Japan recently. To summarize, it's really HOT, there are lots of ancient structures(been rebuilt), and we did tons and tons of walking. Just joking! Those were just the majority of things we did in 10 days.

Starting Monday, me, Kyle, Ron and mom went aboard air canada and spent 2 hours on the plane, not doing much other than eat, or watch movies. Think that wasn't too much of a drag? Well, after we got off the air canada plane, we had to apparently board another one, which was when I learned how it was essentially impossible to directly go from the US, to countries like Japan. Now, the flight to Japan was perhaps one of the most tiring parts of the entire trip. For 15 hours straight, I either slept, watched movies, or read books on my tablet. Despite the jet lag, we made it without many issues...... or so we thought. It was already bad enough we had to rearrange our vacation plan, but then, we had to wait for a looooong time for a taxi or bus to take us to the hotel. By the time we got there, we were all tired and not in the mood for talking. AND, IF THAT WASN'T BAD ENOUGH, we would have to leave the next day. Yep, our first day was really rough.

The next day, we left from Tokyo (too bad, I didn't see as much cool stuff as expected) to Kyoto, where staying there would be a little more "permanent". In Kyoto, we did do and see more interesting things, such as going to temples and at one point, eating a lot of barbecued meat(once). That is essentially what we have done in those 3 days, though I do recall at one point, we did go to a street market and check out a cat, owl, and hedgehog cafe. Those, if you are wondering, are where you pay money to look at and pet a certain animal. I think those cafes is what I remember most about Kyoto.

When our 3 days were up, we finally would be staying somewhere other than a hotel in Osaka. Apparently, mom and Ron found someone named Iku, who was kind as to offer us an Air b n b (I dont know how to spell it) room. Courtesy to Iku, she also introduced us to fugu(pufferfish). Something special about fugu is that they are only actually eaten in Japan, and whenever they are, usually the fish is cut up by a professional, so poison is out of the question. Funnily enough, I used to worry about getting poisoned, and the fact the effects are subtle. But, turns out it doesn't taste as bad as I thought it would.

Well, our final day rests at Nagoya, where we were initially going to spend our first day at, but well, I suppose you save the best stuff(not exactly) for last. We did go to two places where instead of chairs, they had cushions for seating. Still, they offered great food.

In conclusion, while Japan was very hot, humid, and involved tons of walking, I did have tons of fun, and had a lot of once-in-a-lifetime experiences, like eating pufferfish, visiting cat cafes, or sleeping on Tatami.

Chomp

For all of you people who like animals, zoos, survival shows, and the (occasional) behind the scenes of TV, I would recommend Chomp. Chomp is a book by Carl Hiaasen(same author of flush, I am beginning to notice a pattern here) is one of the ten books that I decided to read throughout the summer months.

Just what is the story about? Well before I begin, I would like to point out something cool about Carl Hiaasen's books, which is that his books tend to provide a useful clue on certain topics without even requiring you to go to the back. Chomp in particular involves alligators. But enough about the title. Wahoo Cray, a kid who is missing a thumb thanks to his pet alligator Alice chomping it off, lives in a literal zoo, full of animals of all shapes and sizes, all started by his father. Unfortunately however, it is on the verge of ending due to them being unable to pay off many things such as mortgage.

But one day, out of nowhere, famed "TV star" Derrick Badger offers them jobs in his TV show, which involves him being out in the wild braving vicious animals, though much of his content is fake. Mickey and Wahoo, though rather reluctant to the job offer at first, realize it could be very helpful to pay off debts, given how the crew gives $200...... A DAY! In addition, Derrick thinks that their little zoo could help with his show. Though soon after the first day, he quits considering he has no actual talent in even wrangling Alice, who is usually very gentle except for when she bit off Wahoo's thumb. Afterwards, Derrick, who is now inspired, chooses to do real animal wrangling. Derrick and Wahoo also bring some girl from school (named Tuna, who is quite the taxedermist) along to help her escape her psychotic father's wrath. Later, in the actual wild, Derrick acts like a complete idiot and tries to approach a bat, which ends up with a bite on Derrick's tongue and him disappearing the next morning. If that's not bad enough, a stranger suddenly appears out of nowhere with a gun, looking for Tuna. Who is this stranger? Is Derrick Badger out there, and still alive? Well, I am not going to spoil the book for you, read it yourself.

What I wish for can be an issue.

I get angry super easily. Especially when I don't get what I want.

Science Friday 2

http://miami.cbslocal.com/2017/02/22/nasa-to-reveal-new-findings-about-exoplanets/

NASA has recently discovered 7 new Earth-sized planets located outside of our solar system, in the "habitable zone" (a region with planets that could potentially sustain life). These planets were discovered by means of the Spitzer Space Telescope, an infrared space telescope floating around in space since it was launched in 2003. This recent discovery is a new record for number of planets in the "habitable zone". Furthermore, all 7 planets are likely to have liquid water, an important condition to sustain life as we know it. These planets are located around 40 lightyears from Earth, in the constellation Aquarius. Following up on the Spitzer discovery, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has initiated the screening of 4/7 planets, including the 3 within the habitable zone. Questions I have are:

1. "If the planets are 40 lightyears away, how did the Spitzer Telescope manage to detect that system from said 40 lightyears?"
2. Could there be any form of life on any of the 7 planets?

Wax Museum

Hi, my name is John F. Kennedy and I was the 35th president of the United States. I was born on May 29th, 1927. I had 5 sisters and 3 brothers. My oldest brother, Joe, was better than me at everything so I decided to be his opposite, when he did something good, I did something bad. I made a club called the Mucker's club. They played pranks and jokes on people.

After I graduated high school I decided not to be like my brother and go to Harvard. So instead, I went to Princeton. Princeton didn't feel right, so I went to Harvard. In Harvard, I tried playing a sport. I tried football, but I hurt my back after I got tackled. I was in the school hospital until I was fine again. I did swimming and I liked it, I liked it so much I did it even when I was sick, little did I know that my swimming would one day save a man's life.

In 1939, the Japanese bombed Pear Harbor and war broke out. Joe and I were determined to help fight back. Joe immediately got in, but due to my poor health, I failed. But! I was determined and finally got in. In 1943, I was given command of a Pt-109 boat. It is used to find Japanese destroyers. I was patrolling 5 months later when suddenly my boat was torn in half, by a Japanese destroyer! I told my crew to abandon ship and swim to the nearest island. One man was so badly burnt that he couldn't swim! So I carried him on my back and swam away. After I was rescued I found out Joe had died in a plane crash. His father always wanted Joe to be president, but with him gone I was next. I said yes and started on the campaign trail. At fist, no one thought I could win the election, because I stuttered and paused in my speeches. But gradually I won support.

Many years passed. I went from 23 years old to 42 years old. The first debate in history was held on TV and I won with 49.7% of the vote. I was president for only 3 years. One of my mistakes was called the bay of pigs invasion. Cuba had missiles that could reach America and I sent in an elite squad of soldiers. They were captured. Then, I talked it out with Russia and stopped what is now called the Cuban missile crisis.

Then one day, years later, I was in Texas showing the Texans that I was a good man since most of the Texans voted for Nixon. Then the first shot rang out, followed by another and another. I was the youngest president and will always be remembered by Americans everywhere.

Feelings

There are those times when I can be quite angry and not realize what I could cause in that state, such as when I had broken a wall. So I thought I'd write it down. 

Top 3 things that make me angry: 

1. People who don't listen to me when I ask them something reasonable. 

2. People who blame me for something that I didn't intend to do. 

3. Having a lot of things to do. 

Usually, I get very desperate, my body starts shaking, and then I hit my head on the table, or with my hand. The consequences of my actions are that people start trying to avoid me, my tantrum didn't help at all, and my head hurts. 

Some solutions I have are to write down whatever is making me angry, then verify it and try to come up with some solutions to the situation. Though some things I have done in the past to relieve my anger include drawing a picture or perhaps playing with legos. 

Born A Crime

                   Born A Crime is a book by Trevor Noah, that guy in the daily show on Comedy Central (I recommend you check it out.) So anyways, Born A Crime takes place in South Africa, where it revolves around his mother. She was black but then married a white man from Switzerland. His mother eventually gave birth to a 1/2 white, 1/2 black boy who happens to be Trevor. During those times in the 1980s, it was thought very weird for people of different races to have married, so Trevor's parents weren't allowed to be together. Not that they couldn't be seen in the same place at the same time, but more next to each other. Trevor, at those times was very oblivious to what was being done and kept saying "Daddy!" in public, almost blowing their cover. Furthermore, they had to live in different houses, seeing each other in secret.

          I'm not going to explain the whole book, just some of the funniest, important, or most interesting parts.


               So it was just Trevor and his mother for the next few years, every Sunday, they would attend church for the whole day. It was extremely exhausting, and their car would break down every so often. One day, they were running late, and their car just would not go. Trevor, seeking an opportunity to get out of church, suggested they just stay home, but his mother claimed it was Satan's influence. Therefore, they walked. On the way, they ran into someone who offered them a ride in his car, but was approached by furious minibus drivers who demanded they ride with them. Wanting them to spare the car driver, Trevor's mother agreed. However, the minibus driver had intended to kidnap them and they had to jump out, Trevor, his mother, and Andrew (his baby brother, who is born later).

     

          Another part that was something I really enjoyed was the advantages being colored was. At one point, Trevor ran into another colored kid named Teddy, who turned out to be his only friend in the neighborhood. Their house was an extremely long walk away, but without any affordable or reliable form of transport at the time, walking was the only option. Prior to his encounter with Teddy, Trevor often took walks around his neighborhood, discovering secret shortcuts, or other ways to get around. After befriending Teddy, both boys tended to steal alcohol-filled candies from the mall when it started closing, however one night, a guard caught them and the chase was on! Trevor managed to escape, however, Teddy was arrested and expelled. Later on, Trevor was called to the principal's office to be asked some questions, but when they reviewed the security camera's footage, he looked like a white kid! Given how he was mixed race, and the camera being unable to mix black and white at the same time, he was let off.

          And finally, being the most ridiculous part of them all, was when Trevor started playing Dj music for parties and had a group of dancers following him. Though one of the guys was named Hitler (quite ****ing literally) and things went well until they performed at a school. Once Hitler started dancing, the other guys started shouting stuff like "Go Hitler!" until the teacher pulled Trevor aside and started grilling him about doing such stuff. Trevor regarded her disgust as an insult towards Hitler's dance moves (which makes him look like he's having sex), when in reality she thought they were worshipping Hitler. Turns out, it was a Jewish school!

                        Overall, I thought this book was quite funny, yet unbelievable, did Trevor Noah, the host of the Daily show really have this kind of a childhood?