Second Qtr. Post #3

I read the next few chapters of The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. After overhearing his father talk about how he is weak Amir tries to be tough but still does not gain his father's respect. Amir often reads to Hassan in a tree because Hassan is unable to read. One day Amir makes up his own story instead of reading from the book, and to his surprise Hassan says it is his favorite story he has ever told him. Encouraged by this Amir writes a book, although his father doesn't even give his book a glance, Rahim Khan his father's friend tells Amir that his book is great and persuades Amir to keep writing. The book than skips ahead a couple of years to a local kite tournament hosted by Amir's neighborhood. Amir and Hassan have always been good kite fighters and the tournament is a big deal in Kabul. The night before the tournament Baba tells Amir that he thinks he has a chance of winning the tournament. Amir sees this is an opportunity to earn his father's respect and is determined to win. The next day after long hours of kite fighting Amir finally wins the tournament. Hassan has an uncanny way of finding opposing kites (or kite running) so he offers to chase down the last kite. Later Amir notices that Hassan still hasn't came back and frantically looks for him. My prediction is that Amir finds Hassan dead and the opposing kite gone because when Hassan goes kite running Amir says that is the last time he saw him smile. If Hassan ends up to be dead I am also curious about what will happen next because the whole book so far has been background information on Hassan and Amir and there is still a lot of the book left.

Second Quarter Outside Reading Post #2

So far I have read the first three chapters of The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. In the first three chapters of the book the reader is introduced to the main character, Amir, his father,Baba, Hassan, and Hassan's father Ali who works as a servent to Baba. Amir and Hassan are good friends and early in the book the reader learns that both Hassan and Amir don't have their mothers around because Amir's mother died giving birth to him and Hassan's mother left him when he was seven days old. In the second chapter the reader learns background information on Baba and how he financed his own orphanage, became one of the richest merchants in Kabul, married  a woman regarded as one of Kabul's most respected, beautiful, and virtuous ladies, and was a great soccer player. In the third chapter the reader learns about Amir and the tension he has with his father. Amir is awful at soccer and doesn't even like attending games, Amir also likes books and reads them often, and allows other kids to take advantage of him. Towards the end of the chapter Amir is enraged when he overhears Baba talking about him and saying that he is weak and he doesn't seem like he is his son. So far I like the book and I like how the first three chapters were written. I predict that Baba and Amir's relationship will get better because after hearing his father's complaints, Amir will try to not be weak. I also predict that many more characters will be introduced in the coming chapters  because I don't think enough characters are in the book right now.

The Rawlins Scene

I think that Cormac McCarthy puts the scene where you follow Rawlins instead of John Grady Cole because at the time John Grady Cole is really just sitting outside and what is happening with Rawlins is more exciting than what John Grady Cole is doing. I also think that because McCarthy has stayed with John Grady Cole the whole time the reader can assume that nothing significant will  happen to John Grady unless the reader is following him.

Quarter 2 Outside Reading

For quarter two outside reading, I decided to read the book The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini. I decided to read this book because I have heard from many people that it is a good book and it was on the list of books on the blog. I also think that the situation in Afghanistan is interesting and will be interesting to read about.

Post #7

"Thousands Flee Rebel Advance in Congo".  This week rebel forces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo took over the city of Rutshuru (a territory capital) and moved within 12 miles of the city of Goma. Goma, one of the largest cities in the Congo, is the home of over 600,000 people and is a city that the UN is desprately trying to protect. Goma right now however is in choas, five rockets were fired at UN armored personal carriers and citizens have been throwing rocks at the carriers. The UN says they are in control of the situation but over 1 million people are now living in displaced UN camps and 150,000 of those people have came in the past two months. This is just two days after the rebels took over Virguna National Park, a park that is home to 200 of the remaining 700 mountain gorillas in the world. This is all part of a long war that supposably ended in 2003 and has killed 5.4 million people since it began in 1998.  I thought that this was an interesting article and I am suprised how little attention people pay to this war because it is a big deal and millions of people have died and yet many people around the world aren't even aware of this war and just continue on with their daily lives. If this war were happening in the US or Europe it would be all over the news and virtually everyone in the world would know about it.

Post #6

"Gigantic River Cave Revealed in Laos". One of the largest and most spectacular river caves in the world; the Xe Bang Fai river cave was finally explored and mapped out this year on an expedition sponsered by national geographic and led by veteran caver John Pollack. The Xe Bang Fai river cave was little known before Pollack's crew spend ten day in the dark cave taking pictures and looking at the spectacular formations throughout the cave. The cave was first discovered by the western world in 1905  by a French explorer on a bamboo raft. Ever since then explorers have been wanting to study the cave but Laos constant war and political unrest kept them out. After their expedition one of the men of Pollack's expedition, Bob Osburn is making a detailed map of the cave, while the rest of the group is planning to go back to the cave to explore more in 2010. I found this article interesting and I was glad that there are still big natural wonders around the world that have never really been explored and mapped out. I was also suprised by this because there are so many maps of small towns and really unimportant places all over the world but nobody has been able make a map of an important natural place like the Xe Bang Fei river cave until now.  I also was suprised to find out that nine mile river caves exist around the world and it makes me wonder if there are any big river caves in the US that I could go to.

Blog 5

"Early Voting Suggests 2008 may see record turnout, expert says". Officals in the twenty nine early voting states are reporting record turnouts this year and have counted 2.2 million votes already. Many battleground states like Florida and North Carolina had record turnouts. Turnout in Charlotte, North Carolina was so big that fifteen new voting stations had to be opened up because voters were standing in three hour long lines. The counties of Martin, St. Lucie, and Indian River have had more than six times the amount of early voters than they had at this time in 2004. These are records in early voting, but experts don't expect the record turnout to stop before election day. "This will be the election in which the most people have ever voted in an American election in the history of our country" says Michael McDonald a professer at George Mason University. McDonald also said that there is a very good chance that more than 64% of the registered voters will vote which would be the highest percent since the nineteenth century. I thought that this was an interesting article and I before I read it I hadn't heard of voting before election day and I was suprised that to hear that it could be done. I also wonder what makes someone eligible to vote before election day and if the only criteria is that you are traveling over election day, than I am suprised at how many people travel over November 4th. I also was suprised to hear that states like Georgia and Texas are having record number turnouts because those states are usually huge conservative states and I thought that people wouldn't be as motivated to vote if their state leans so much to one way.