The List Goes On

Outside Reading Blog #8

Before I Die

By:Jenny Downham

As Tessa goes on with her list, she begins to face many problems, such as the fact that many things on the list are going to be very hard to accomplish. While her dad picks up the apple and holds it up to the morning. There are swirls of cream and brown in there that look like the core of a real apple; an impression on pips, blown in by the glassmaker. He spins it slowly in his hand. I've looked at the world through that green glass many times- it looks small and calm. I don't think he should be touching my things though. I think he should be dealing with Cal, who's upstairs yelling up about the aerial coming out of the back of the TV. I also think he should go down and tell Mum that the only reason he's asked her round is because he wants her back. Getting involved in matters of discipline goes against all her principals, so he's hardly looking for advice in that area. He puts down the apple and goes to the bookshelf, runs a finger around the spine of my books, like they're piano keys and he's expecting a tune. He twists his head to look up at the CD rack, picks one out, reads the cover, then puts it back. I really evaluate the way Tessa's dad is invading her space as something that she can't help and something that she has put on her list- to finally stand up for herself. 

Before I Die

Outside Reading Blog #7

Before I Die

By: Jenny Downham

(p.1-55)

Now that I have finished my old book, I have started a new one called Before I Die, which is about a girl named Tessa who has just been diagnosed with cancer. She knows that she is going to die, and she knows there is nothing she can do about it, so she makes a list of 10 things that she wants to do before she dies. So far, Tessa has only accomplished the first thing on her list, which is sex. After that she kind of gave up, but her sister

The Time to Live Life

Outside Reading Blog #6

It's Kind Of a Funny Story

By:Ned Vizzini

(p. 382-444)

As the end part of the book approaches, Craig has the biggest shift. He is discharged from Six North and into the real world. He has decided to switch from Executive Pre Professional because he decided that ever since he had started there, he had been faced with so much stress that he was depressed. He is now going to go to an arts school so that he can thrive to become a professional artist and show the whole world his Brain Maps. His parents and his sister, Sarah, come to take him out of the mental ward and he says goodbye to everyone, makes them their own personal Brain Map, and even gets some of their numbers. Most of them are going off to an adult housing center when they get out and Craig believes that he will eventually run into them out in Manhattan. His roommate, Muqtata finally leaves the room and that is when Craig decides that some day he wants to come back and visit everyone, even try and help them like the guitarist. There is a quote that is the last sentence in the book that states; "So now live for real, Craig. Live. Live. Live. Live. Live". The quote really sums up that to live for real, you have to have a real shift in your life, Craig had been though so many fake shifts in his life until when he left Six North, he experienced the real shift. This book was overall a wonderful book and can teach a lot about the way you can express yourself in diversity and truly live your live, no matter what you have been though. 

Help Through Expression

Outside Reading Blog #5

It's Kind of a Funny Story

By: Ned Vizzini

(p. 304-381)

In Six North, Craig spends his last few days with a routine of participating in activities. At first, Craig has no idea what to participate in, but then the ward gets a visitor. The visitor is a guitarist who allows everyone in Six North to pick an instrument and participate in a song that he is going to sing. During the song, the guitarist points out that Craig is really on beat and that he really seems like a musical and artsy person. This really triggers something for him. Craig decides to draw in his free time. As a young child, Craig always drew maps of Manhattan and then drew pictures of his own cities, places where everything was according to him, this is another Anchor for Craig. When he beings to draw, Ebony walks over and asks him if he's drawing a brain, when really it is a map. He decides to put a head around it and call his new drawing a "Brain Map". He really finds him becoming really expressive through this artistic activity. Overtime, the Brain Maps being to look really professional and Craig finds that this is really a way he can help with his depression by holding himself together with these drawings. This part of the book is really important because it explains the cover of the book. The cover is a bald outline of a head with a map inside of it. This head is Johnny's head, one of the adults in Six North. He draws the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where Johnny spent his time screwing up his life to end up in the ward. He draws Central Park and marks an X on the spot where Johnny would live, in a apartment that would cost probably around $20 million, Bobby's Pad. 

A Big Book of Psych Disorders

Outside Reading Blog #4

It's Kind of a Funny Story

By: Ned Vizzini

(p.228-303)

As Craig begins to warm up more to Six North, he finds that many people here are in for so many different reasons. The diversity really surprises him, but there is one person who sticks out to him. Noelle is a girl who is really attractive but became so sick of people liking her for that reason only that she got rid of her attractiveness by cutting her face repeatedly with scissors. Her and Craig become really close and he learns to see past her looks and actually really likes who she truly is. They have a really awkward communication at first, Noelle would leave him notes to meet her in certain places. Eventually, the meet in "the lower left of the H" every night at 6:55. Noelle had been in Six North for 21 days while Craig for only 4. They are both released on the same day, Thursday and they plan to get to know each other very well up until then. This situation is really east to relate to, because through all the diversity, a person always picks someone out who they see in a different way that everyone else sees them in. I believe that Craig and Noelle really have something going for them. Though most the people in Six North don't see each other after they are discharged, Noelle and Craig click so quickly and create a bond that will be seen even after the mental ward. They become each others Anchors and I look forward to continuing the book and seeing the bond between them flourish even more. 

Phone Calls

Outside Reading Blog #3

It's Kind of a Funny Story

By: Ned Vizzini

(p.155-227)

Now Craig gets into Six North, the mental ward. This is a psychatric ward for both adolescents and adults because the other ward is having construction. The first thing Craig does at the phone is call his voicemail since he doesn't have his cell phone, he has messages from his science teacher, one from Nia and one from Aaron. He decides to only call Nia back, but Aaron is with her anyways. After Craig tells Nia where he is, she tells Aaron and he makes fun of him, which makes Craig extremely mad and he hangs up the phone. As he does, the whole ward is looking at him. Though this was bad for Craig, it triggered many conversations with other people. Ebony, an older woman, introduces herself to Craig and tells her that she's in because she's a teacher who is deemed with the most stress ever. In Six North, Craig makes a lot of friends. A girl who has scarred her face with a pair of scissors, Noelle. Self-elected President Armelio. Bobby and Jimmy who were huge druggies back in the day. And Muqtata, his roommate who still has not introduced himself or gotten out of bed for the 2 days Craig has been there. I think the phone calls that Craig make are really important to being in Six North because he then realizes that no matter what he is still going to face the outside world at some point. As Craig begins to dig himself into the world of Six North, the book gets better and better and harder to put down. 

Checking In

Outside Reading Blog #2

It's Kind of a Funny Story

By: Ned Vizzini

(p.75-151)

During this part of the book, Craig goes through the toughest time so far. After drinking and smoking at one of Aaron's party him and Aaron walk over to the Brooklyn Bridge which is the midway point between their houses. There Craig really plans to come back that night and commit suicide by jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge, he finds himself worthless. As he gets home he sleeps with his mom in her bed and says goodnight to his whole family, thinking that it will be the last goodbye, but as Craig is walking out the door he sees one of his moms therapy books. He opens it up and flips to the anxiety management section and calls the suicide hotline. Instead of going to the Brooklyn Bridge he finds himself checking himself into Argenon Hospital, only a few blocks away. He arrives and is relived to be alive, calls his mom and then finds out that the hospital is checking him into a mental ward. Craig's therapist comes to see him and Craig assures her that this is the decision he wants to make, he wants to get better. The part when Craig is standing at the Brooklyn Bridge portrays the life of a lot of depressed teens. Craig didn't tell Aaron that he was depressed, neither his plan, so there was nothing that Aaron could to do help him. The fact that many young adults keep this to themselves is really universal now. Craig is now being submitted into the world of a mental ward, for 5 days. I am really excited to read this part of the book and see how this shift is going to help him.