The book I just read and the book I'm reading now are both similar and different at the same time. I'll start off with the differences.

THE QUEEN'S SOPRANO by Carol Dines
- A girl named Angelica Voglia living in Rome. She has a wonderful singing voice.
- She wants to be able to sing freely, but the pope has forbidden women to sing in public. She has fallen in love with a French artist named Theodon. But her mother dreams of riches and a luxurious life, so she tries to marry her daughter off to a noble.
- In order to escape her fate, she pretends to be going along with her mother's plan but then moves to the palace of Queen Christina, who rules one of the two quarters not dominated by the Pope. She becomes a singer for the Queen.
- The man who was going to marry Angelica was very upset, thinking that Angelica's mother had lied to him. He punished the Voglia family by slicing the cheeks of Angelica's father and cutting off the ear of Angelica's brother. After the incident Angelica's mother wanted nothing to do with Angelica. Eventually she descended into madness.

SISTERS IN SANITY by Gayle Forman
- Brit Hemphill, who lives with her father, stepmother, and baby brother, is sent to a center that is supposed to provide therapy to girls with problems (drug abuse, depression, even being overweight). At the place there is terrible food, cameras to spy on you, and you can't complain to your parents about the camp (in fact, you have to reach a certain "level" before you're even allowed to write letters to anyone).
- Brit starts to suspect that the reason why she was sent away (she doesn't really have any major problems; despite being a musician, she is not into drugs) is that she is similar to her mother and her father fears the same thing that happened to her mother will happen to her. They used to live together as one happy family, but then her mother developed mental problems. She refused treatment. Eventually she ran off and they haven't seen her since.

It's kind of spooky that I unintentionally selected two books on the same day at the library that both have mothers who go insane. Is it some weird talent or is it just a coincidence?

Labels: abuse, books, carol dines, coincidence, family, fate, gayle forman, history, insane, italy, mental, rome, singing, sisters in sanity, the queen's soprano, therapy

Yup, a backscratcher. Very useful things, they are. You could use them as pointers (like during a presentation; I would've liked to do that, but I don't know if I can bring a backscratcher to school since it might look like a weapon, we aren't even allowed to bring scissors according to the planner, so I'm already breaking rules) or you can use them as canes (if you have a very long one?) or you can use them to save someone's life. Like if someone is hanging onto a cliff and you can't reach them with just your hand, you could use your backscratcher as an extension to your arm. ...Or, of course, you could simply scratch your back with it.

I do realize that starting off a post with backscratchers is really something kind of weird. But I had trouble getting my creative juices flowing. Now it's coming easier to write since I'm managed to start off.

I have not talked about what anime I was watching for a pretty long time, so I will now. I have been watching Aria the Natural. It is the second season of the Aria anime series (the first season is Aria the Animation and the third season is Aria the Origination). What interested me about this anime is that it's set in a world called Aqua. People had actually filled the world with water. And a famous city in Aqua is Neo-Venezia, a city that was made to be like Venice, Italy. I have wanted to go to Venice someday and I find the idea of navigating a city by water charming. Maybe I'll even try to dress up as a gondolier for Halloween. (Ha! For me, that would just be wearing a red and white shirt, and black pants, and a hat, like the "gondoliers" in the Venetian Las Vegas hotel)

Recently my history teacher was talking about Push and Pull factors. These are reasons that make someone want to leave their country. Push factors are things that the person doesn't like about the place they live. (It could be the government, or having religious persecution, or maybe not enough food like the potato famines in Ireland) Pull factors are things that draw a person to a country. (It could be job opportunities, or family already living there...Or something else. Take for example a family living in Iran. They aren't being persecuted for their religion but they didn't really have a choice what religion to have either. So they moved to the USA so their children could make the decision for themselves)

That makes me want to ask you (just as I was asked to do for homework, to talk about this with my parents), why did you, or your family, or even ancestors a long time ago, move to where you live? Was it because of push factors? Or pull factors? Or both?

Labels: anime, aria, backscratcher, choice, costume, halloween, immigration, italy, pointer, pull factors, push factors, savior, useful, venice, weapons

There is a book that goes by that title, and the author is Margaret Peterson Haddix, but I'm not talking about that. I mean that there is always someone similar to yourself. Sometimes people say they know someone who looks like me. And in an anime (Sister Princess if you wanted to know), one of the people often sayings things like, "You know there is such-and-such-number of people in the world who look exactly like you." I was reminded of it when my mom talked about how she was in line at a store once and the person in front of her looked like me, but taller and older. The person was wearing a UCSF Medical School Class of 2010 sweater or shirt or something like that. I was a bit disturbed since I don't want to be a doctor. (No offense if you do. I think it is a fine career. Just not one I have particular interest in.) So I hope it's just a coincidence if someone looks like me. After all, a lot of times I might be walking somewhere and see someone who looked familiar from the back but when they turn around I realize it's not the same person.

Nowadays I've been writing something for history class. Our assignment is to write a letter and pretend we are in Florence touring the places. You can write to your mother or your pet goldfish or whatever. (But don't put your real address! I don't know about you, but the town where I live was only founded in the 1900's, so it couldn't have existed centuries ago) We have to explain what the Renaissance is, what humanism/individualism/realism is, how the Greeks and Romans influenced it, and so on. Then you have to describe the five senses (olfactory, visual, audio, tactile, and taste). Just make up a bunch of stuff, for example, you bit into a watermelon and thought it was juicy and sweet. (Note that I don't like watermelons. Especially the seeds. And I remember when I was young my class went to the nearby park, and we had a watermelon, and one of the teachers pretended it was a dinosaur egg)

As I keep on rambling I am reminded of the book I was reading just the other day. It's called Pillage and the author is Obert Skye. (According to the book cover, he is the author of Leven Thumps, some fantasy series or something of that sort. I saw a poster of it at the school library.) It's not really one of my favorites, but it's okay as books go. Kind of an adventure/fantasy/sarcastic book. Later on in the book you'll hear something about dragon eggs. So, not that far off from dinosaur eggs.

My dad is continuously watching the Masters Cup in golf. (The Cup stands for the weird glass goblet you get for winning golf tournaments.) A lot of males wearing polo shirts and either visors or caps are walking around, swinging golf clubs. I think golf is too slow-paced and boring because sometimes the game is so lacking that the cameramen film ducks flying overhead instead of the golfers. I saw Tiger Woods so apparently he's back to playing golf. He had an unhappy expression. My dad says it's because he's not playing well.

I think my science teacher is getting married sometime around now. He is going to marry one of the school counselors, apparently. My mom doesn't know how old his wife-to-be is, so she thinks my teacher is way older (I doubt that, he just has prematurely grey hair and a rather "weathered" look, like a sea captain, I think his fiancée isn't a spring chicken herself. No offense intended). One of my classmates was offended that we weren't invited to the wedding (after all, sometimes you do get to go to your teachers' weddings, one of my friends did just a year or two ago). The classmate insisted that we were more important than his nieces and deserved to go. (That's too hard, I think. There is at least a hundred kids in our "village", and besides that it would be unfair to the teacher's previous classes since they wouldn't get to go just because they were born in the wrong year.)

Labels: age, books, egg, florence, golf, identity, invitation, italy, letter, marriage, masters cup, people, pillage, renaissance, teacher

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