The Pearl Wars: Skyship Academy Blog 4

In the final part of the book, Jesse and Avery make their way to a Fringe town to seek help and food. They meet a teenager around their age, and he tells them that there is a person that lives in the Fringe town that makes periodic trips to Seattle to collect junk nobody else wanted. While they were trying to get into the truck that would take them to Seattle, an army of both Shippers and government land dwellers tried to stop Jesse. The land dwellers tried to attack Jesse but the shippers stopped them and let Jesse get away. When they reached Seattle, they met Cassius again, only this time he was driving a car and tried to run over Jesse. Shortly after Cassius stopped the car, Madame showed up. She explained that Cassius and Jesse are brothers and she needed both of their abilities to rule the land and sky. Jesse refused and so did Cassius after listening to Madame a little more. Madame captured Avery and told Jesse that unless he joined her, he would never see Avery again. Cassius dragged his brother away from Madame once she produced a gun and threatened them at gun point. They both got away. Cassius went back to the military point to destroy the Pearl Tracking Room, while Jesse is recieving help from the other Shippers to find pearls. At the end of the book it explains that the pearls are not actually pearls, but transportation units sent to Earth to get away from their planet which is in the middle of a war.


Well, I'm no longer confused about what was happening in the story, except for they never explain why they say 'mass'. I would probably understand if only the Shippers said it, but everyone in the book says it. Even the Fringers say it, and they're supposed to be isolated from everyone else. I suppose that it's just another one of those things that the world may never know about. I also kind of figured that Cassius and Jesse would turn out to be brothers at the end. It seemed like one of the stories that would make the main characters both enemies and relatives. I don't particularly like the sappy endings where people are related at the end and they are no longer enemies. I'd actually like to read a book where the bad guy wins. So far I've found no books like that and am a bit disappointed by that fact. Because in reality, bad wins just as much as good and there are no stories that even out the good vs. bad scenario. In every book, except non-fiction, good always wins.

The Pearl Wars: Skyship Academy Blog 3

After Avery rescues Jesse from Cassius at the Academy, they steal a solar- powered hover car. They fly down to the surface in search of Seattle. Seattle in this time period was abandoned,  many people questioned his motives as to why he wanted to get there on his journey. (Avery knows why he needs to get to Seattle, he's been having dreams about being in an abandoned city, also they heard the headmaster of the school and Jesse's teachers speaking of him in a meeting through the air vents. They had mentioned Seattle in their meeting and Jesse was curious if the city and his dreams were connected.) However, their hovercar flew through a chosen city, a city that isn't part of the Fringes, and due to solar control around the city, the hovercar crashed into a building. Jesse and Avery were taken to jail, where Avery told Jesse she was Madame's spy, and as luck would have it, Cassius found them. They were able to over power Cassius and get out of jail. A pearl started to fall toward their location while they were trying to escape, Jesse found out that he is able to catch falling pearls and break them open. They get away from the jail and find a train to ride to a different city. Cassius boards the train too after he gets out of the cell he was put in. Cassius explodes on the train again after he drops his last two pills, that will help him not explode, down the drain.

In this part of the book the author starts to explain more, and go into detail about what he was talking about before. I'm not as confused as I was before, but there is still some confusion about some of the topics the characters talk about. I still don't understand why they say 'mass' instead of 'very'. One line in the book says 'this is a mass nice place you have here'. I'm sure it's part of the authors style of writing that makes him say 'mass'.

The Pearl Wars: Skyship Academy Blog 1

The book is set many years in the future, it never says the date or talk about our time by saying 'many years ago'. We are supposed to assume it's in the future because people use hover jets instead of cars, and people live in space motels and go to space schools. In the biginning of the story we are introduced to two of the main characters, we hear them arguing with eachother. The characters are Jesse Fisher and Cassius Stevenson. Jesse is a 'Skyshipper', while Cassius is a surface operative. They meet on a roof top while Jesse and his team are on the surface trying to retrieve a 'pearl' as a mission that his school sent him on to prove his worth. Cassius tries to push Jesse off of the ten story building they were on, however. When Cassius tried to get close enough to push him off, something close to an explosion happened between Jesse and Cassius, Cassius was thrown back further on to the roof while Jesse fell to the ground, unscathed. Jesse is then attacked by 'Fringers', they are people who don't live on a skyship or in a chosen city.



The beginning of the book is confusing, to say the least. It's written in such a format that you belive that the author expects you to know what he's talking about. That isn't the case, the author wants yo to be confused at first so that he can explain everything later. However, the most you are probably going to understand in the beginning is the Skyship vs. Government land dwellers/ Pearl Hounds vs. Fringer war.

The Pearl Wars: Skyship Academy Blog 2

This part of the book is mainly about Cassius and what he's going through, there are a few parts where it flicks back to Jesse, but it's mainly about Cassius. Cassius returns to his military point to meet with his adoptive mother, 'Madame'. She scolds Cassius for leaving the 'Lodge', as thet call it, but Cassius leaves her office because he isn't feeling well. He then returns to his room to lay down, but, suddenly and unexpectedly Cassius explodes into a ball of fire that burnes his room completely. Much like Jesse falling off the roof, he was unscathed. He wakes up in an infirmary with Madame sitting next to his bed, she states that she has medicine that will help him to not explode, she also says that if he can find Jesse Fisher his problem will go away, she gives him a mission to go to Skyship Academy to hunt Jesse. The next day he and Madame go to one of the Skyships, he sneaks away, puts on his Skyship uniform, and stays in a Skyship motel so that he can be transported to Skyship Academy the next morning along with the other transfers. Soon after he reaches the academy, he's already found Jesse and is chasing him, Jesse gets away with help from his friend Avery.


I was still a little confused about the minor topics explained in the beginning, but it's are starting to clear up a bit. I was confused as to why Madame was so dead set on finding Jesse, they haven't even met at this point, and shows no signs of impressive abilities, in fact the only discription that they even give about him at this point is that he's a slacker and is no good at being a Skyship captain.

Satire

Marriage laws. I despise the marriage laws. Marriage is a basic human right, there should be no exceptions. Marriage is marriage, love is love. NO EXCEPTIONS! People act like it's the end of the world if two people of the same gender fall in love. Yeah, right, end of the world. If it's the end of the world then shouldn't they already be able to get married? Because the world is ending in, like, a month and a half. Right? Well, let me tell you a secret. It's not the end of the world. I can't say if the world is ending in a month, but, people getting married isn't bad. Why do people act like homosexuals are bad? Sure... They're bad, they fell in love. Geez people. Will someone please explain that logic to me, I must be blind because I don't see it. I mean, take a look at Ellen Degeneres, she's known by most of the United States, everyone loves to watch her show, and she makes people laugh. That sure sounds like a bad person.

I know most of the people who are against them are probably very religious. However, in the bible, never once does it state that loving the same gender is bad. If it does I want a page number. Plus, how do you know God, or Allah, or Hades and Zeus didn't change their minds? Did they send you a memo? Also if it's against God's will, let them stand before their god or goddess. It's not anyone else's life or will, so don't worry about it. Let them love whoever they want to love, let them marry whoever they want to marry.

Many marriages end in divorce, I'm not going to sugar coat it. But, if anyone is going to appreciate marriage, it's them. They are fighting through crowds of angry protesters to be with the person they love. That screams many things, one: they won't back down to fight for what they stand for, two: maybe there are storybook endings, this one might just be a little different, and three: what happened many years ago with the African Americans is happening again with homosexuals and bisexuals instead of a different race. I thought this was the Land of the Free, it's not free when people get their basic human rights taken from them because the constitution says marriage is between a male and female. That was hundreds of years ago people, this is the twenty- first century. Times have changed, people have changed, the world around us has changed, and with that change we need to be better people and make the world better as well.

But, what do I know I'm just a thirteen year-old girl in an academically gifted class who has just started living and is still young. What could I know, I'm still a kid, and people don't tend to listen to what kids have to say, even if they are insightful and smart. In an adults eyes, kids opinions probably don't matter. Anyway, it doesn't matter if someone is homosexual or bisexual, most people don't care what happens in their state or area anyway, they just conform into the group. A single person is smart but people together are stupid or they do stupid things, like hating a certain type of person but liking one person in that group.

Sides

Each side has one objective in this game. ”Win for my kingdom.” I am a knight. I glance to my right, I see our bishops, The King and Queen, my brother who is also a knight, and the rook. To my left is another rook. Most of the player’s names in this game are self-explanatory, the rooks are not. They are actually thieves, we use thieves because they’re quick and light-footed. We call them “rooks” instead of “crooks” because of how the King mispronounced “crook”. It stuck. I glance down at the startled villagers on the front line. This is sick. The King orders “ volunteers” to fight in battle. I don’t approve of them being used as pawns in this game. I urge my horse to leap over one of the “pawns” to protect a young one. I see the enemy push a pawn forward. I focus my attention on protecting this pawn. I forgot what was happening around me. Because of that my horse was slain. The beast fell over and kept me pinned to the ground. I don’t know what’s worse, being pinned by a large horse corpse or seeing the other corpses lying around the field. I notice my Queen rushing toward the knight that killed my steed, I try to warn her that they were setting up a trap , but my voice failed me. The enemy Queen rushed to slay my Queen. I watched in horror as she fell. The death still in my mind, I failed to notice the enemy advances toward the King. He knelt to the enemy. We lost the battle. The enemy searched for survivors, they found me along with the pawn I was trying to save. We were taken prisoner. We’ve lost the battle, at least until our swords clash again.

The Phantom of the Opera: Post 4

Christeine has been kidnapped for the second time. This time however Raoul and The Persian, are going after the Phantom, the Phantom's real name is Erik and the Persian is someone who watches after Erik's secrets, one of them being that he isn't a ghost, or Phantom or angel. He is just a man who lives under the opera, in the cellar on the third story below, in a house across the lake. The Persian tells Raoul that they can't go across the lake to get to Erik, because he himself tried and almost drowned trying to get across. So they take hidden passages and get to the dungeon of Eriks house.



The Persian can be found around the opera in different places trying to cover up any traces that Erik has been there. I'm not sure if the Persian is a trustworthy character or not because he saved Erik and now he's helping Raoul save Christeine. I feel conflicted about him because of him helping both Raoul and Erik, although he brought guns with him in search of Christeine so I'm not sure.

The Phantom of the Opera: Post 3

Christeine has met Raoul after she passed out on stage from being too happy from her first triumph. He reminds her of who he is and she laughs at him because of his explanation. Raoul was hurt that she laughed at him and left. Christeine has a flash back of when she was younger and she was traveling with her father who was a famous fiddler. She would sing while her father played his violin, her mother died while she was still very young. So she and her father traveled until they met Raoul and his mother, they stayed there for good until Christeine's father died. He claimed he would send The Angel Of Music to Christeine after he was gone. Soon after his death Christeine left and found the opera house.


If Christeine's room is secluded from everyone else's then is there just a lot of empty space for the Phatom to roam around in?

The Phantom of the Opera: Post 2

In the story someone has been found dead in the cellars, he was hanged. Everyone again suspected the ghost, but no one knew the motive exept for the managers, the reader, and the Phantom. The reason was that they refused to pay the ghost his monthy allowence os 20,000 francs, and they also sold the Phantom's box. Those were his only rules. Later worse thins started to happen to them for not following the Phantom's rules, one of these thins includes the star of the opera, Carlotta having a frog-like sound emmit from her mouth, Christeine was the understudy.



Incase you were wondering, a box in an opera is one of the high up seats so that you don't have to look at the back of someone else's head while you are watching the play, they can be bought and rented. One thing that has been bothering the back of my mind is how big the opera is, the book decribes it to be huge. The cellars alone are five stories deep. Later in the story, Christeine (one of the main characters) shows Raoul (another main character) around the opera and is is described as being stories and stories tall, so I guess to actually understand how big it is you would have to go there and see it in real life.

The Phantom of the Opera: Post 1

The book that I am reading is called The Phantom of the Opera. The book is set in a Paris opera house in 1870. The book begins by telling the reader that the Phantom was real. The author claims to have done research on the opera house and the Phantom. The story however starts off with the managers of the opera house getting ready for a production, the young girls who sing and dance in the production run into the room screaming "IT'S THE GHOST". While the managers are trying to calm down the girls they ask them what happened. The girls claimed to have seen the Opera Ghost, this night was the managers last night of being the managers, because they had previously sold the opera to two new men. Suffice to say that they were not happy to hear talk of the Phantom on their last night (the phantom had first been heard of by these managers early when they started running the opera).



When I started reading this book I first thought that I wouldn't like it as much as the musical but as fate would have it, I honestly like the book more. Althought the names confuse me slightly, most likely because the book is set in Paris.

Triangulation Essay

        Triangulation Essay

In a dystopian society the government is unfair, people are often treated as forced ‘equals’, and there is always some sort of ‘hero’. Also intelligence is monitored, thoughts are controlled, and the government is feared. Technology helps with monitoring thoughts and reinforcing fear into individuals. In these dystopias, making people equal by force can make them submissive to the government. This form of obsessive control makes people do what they are told without the people questioning what the government is doing. This is portrayed in the book Anthem by Ayn Rand, the short story “Harrison Bergeron”, and the movie ANTZ.

The book Anthem by Ayn Rand is the story of a young man who is called ‘Equality 7-2521’, his name is later changed. The leaders in his town claimed that everyone will be forcefully equal, they do this by arresting someone doing something alone and deciding the lives of everyone else. The government wants people to conform, so is told to be like everyone else, anyone who wants to be different is put to death. Everyone in Anthem feels unimportant alone.

The government is similar in the short story of “Harrison Bergeron”, although the government goes to more extreme ways to make people ‘equal’. People that are above ‘average’ have to wear handicaps. The handicaps. The handicaps include but are not limited to, radios in people’s ears so that the person will not use their higher intellect against someone else, masks if they are exceptionally beautiful (clown noses and wigs are included), weights so they won’t be stronger or faster than anyone else, ect.

ps include but are not limited to, radios in people’s ears so that the person will not use their higher intellect against someone else, masks if they are exceptionally beautiful (clown noses and wigs are included),weights so that they won’t be stronger or faster than anyone else.

In the movie ANTZ by Pixar and Disney, the government again went to even more extreme ways to control the citizens. The government sent the ants loyal to the queen to war against the termites to have them killed, the worker ants were told to build a tunnel through the ground up to a lake, to drown both the workers and the queen. Every ant was told that everything they did was for the colony as well. They went to work every day, not for money but for the colony . Every ant was told where they could eat and if they could eat that day.

In each of these dystopias there has been some element to obsessive control. The government has killed citizens in each of these stories, and has made the surviving ones feel like they were dead if they weren’t with other citizens. Or handicapped them until they were nearly dead, even then they were only mostly dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive.

Sold: Summary part 4

In this part of the book Lakshmi is starting to wonder how city girls work in the clothes and make-up she was wearing. She was also sold once more by her "uncle husband" to her "auntie" Mumtaz. Two girls who were also living in the house put make-up on her face and nails and brushed her hair. She soon finds out that she was not sent to the city to be a maid, she was sent to work at the Happiness House, with other girls who were sold. After being shown her job she refused to work and ran away from the old man she was with. Once Lakshmi was away from the old man, she changed back into her village clothes.

Sold: Soundtrack Designer

There are multiple genres of music that could go with the book, classical Indian music would make the most sense though. Most original Indian music would work well with the book although personally I would choose to find songs that work with the story, and are songs that I would listen to myself. Page sixty-four would be a place to have music, it is where Lakshmi gets to the city and is confused and scared. “Paralyzed” by Rock Kills Kid is an appropriate song due to Lakshmi being frightened by the city and wanting her home.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwrYcvuRej0

 

Sold: Soundtrack Designer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwrYcvuRej0

There are multiple genres of music that could go with the book, classical Indian music would make the most sense though. Most original Indian music would work well with the book although personally I would choose to find songs that work with the story, and are songs that I would listen to myself. Page sixty-four would be a place to have music, it is where Lakshmi gets to the city and is confused and scared. “Paralyzed” by Rock Kills Kid is an appropriate song due to Lakshmi being frightened by the city and wanting her home.

Sold: Director - Segment 3

1. Why do you think the author had the stepfather gamble away all of the money so far away that he sold Lakshmi?

2. How is Lakshmi's new "auntie" alike/ different from Ama?

3. How did you feel about the stepfather selling Lakshmi without her even understanding what was happening?

4. How would the story have changed if the author had not let the stepfather have a gambling problem?

5. Predict some things you think will happen in the next section of reading. What events do you believe will lead to this conclusion.

6. Do you think Lakshmi's "auntie" splitting her payment happening will be important later on? Why do you think so?

7. What do you think caused Lakshmi's "auntie" to choose her out of all of the girls at the festival?