The Visibles

I am reading The Visibles by Sara Shepard. Summer Davis is a friendless girl who's mother left her and her family. Ever since then, Summer has had many problems. The cause of Summer's problems were because her mom left Summer and her family when she needed her the most. Summer was 11. She was just about to hit her teen years.

One problem is that Summer's father went into depression. The hospital had a nurse to take care of her dad. But since Summer's dad distrusted the nurse, so it was up to Summer to take care of her father by herself. But Summer has enough things on her mind. She's 18, she needs to worry about college and concentrate on her school work. Summer was offered a fellowship in Ireland for her junior-level genetics at school. But Summer decided not to take it because she knew she was needed at home to take care of her dad. I sort of hate Summer for giving up this really good opportunity for her career to take care of her father. But I know that I would have done the same thing for my dad.

Another problem is loneliness. Summer has no friends! Even the blurb describes her as a loner. When I read that, I felt bad for her. Summer is so shy and too independent. But I can relate to her because I am also shy and I don't make friends very easily unless people approach me first. Summer doesn't even try though, which frustrates me. I wish she would just try harder. Summer really needs a friend that she can trust and rely on. She needs someone who she can bounce ideas off and share advice with. She is under so much stress because of her dad's depression. Summer did have one friend though. Her name was Claire. But after Claire moved to France and came back, they became very distant. Claire is a popular girl and she hangs out with her own crowd.

Research shows that many kids go through many stages of emotions when their parents divorce or separate. Which Summer does go through. Though I'm not one of them, there are many people that go through these issues everyday. But I can still relate to Summer in different ways like friendships and family issues.

Prompt 5

Your middle school/teen years are when you are still trying to figure out who you are, who you want to be. For my 5th grade year book, my teachers had the 5th grade writ what we wanted to be when we grow up. I wrote, 'olympian or teacher.' That was elementary school. Last year, I think I wanted to be a pastry chef or a dancer. Right now, I don't really know what I want to be. I don't really bake anymore, only occasionally. Dance is something I love doing. I've been dancing my whole life. But I don't know if I want to make an occupation out of it when I'm older. Now I'm going onto high school and when I turn fourteen, I can get my job papers. This is getting me thinking about what I want to do with my future life.

Author's Note for Poetry Project

  I don’t really know why I decided to write about dance. I guess it was because I’ve been dancing for so long that it became this huge thing in my life. Like something that I’m really passionate about. Like Alice Abrams said, “Dancing with the feet is one thing, but dancing with the heart is another.” And because it was the first thing that popped into my head when I heard “something you care about”. Dance is something that I can pour out my feelings into. It’s like writing for me. I can just express myself through dance. I wanted to tell everyone how I felt as a dancer and what I felt when I danced.

  I also had a lot of feelings about dance and what I thought of it after one of my dance teachers talked to my class about why we come to dance and why we take the classes. I realized that I’ve been taking dance lessons practically my whole life and I never stopped to think why I did it. I understood more as my teacher spoke that I’ve always been dancing because it comes natural to me, and because I feel very strongly about it. I’ve come such a long way to get to where I am today. Now I can even express my feeling into a dance, in a small phrase.

  I admit trying to find the right words to describe how I felt was hard. Because I’ve never done anything like this before. But soon as I thought hard and imagined dancing in my head, words started to come to me and before you know it, I had four poems done. And like Martha Graham said, “dance is the hidden language of the soul.” So please, try to see it my way.

Coming of Age

    This year, a 9.0 earthquake hit Japan. I am Japanese so obviously my family was very worried. I knew that we couldn’t fly out to Japan to help the people that were affected, but I wanted to do something. So I decided to do something at school.

    The next day at school, I asked Ms. Vissa if I could start a bake sale. When Ms. Vissa asked me for what cause, I told her that I wanted to raise money for Japan. So that the money raised can be used for food, clothing and other needed necessities. Ms. Vissa agreed and told me to go see Ms. Speth so that I could reserve the hallway for the bake sales I was planning to hold.

    The bake sales went well. I remember feeling really good and excited every time someone bought something. As I looked at the money, I couldn’t help but think how much the money I had raised could help the people in Japan.

    I held bakes sales for the whole month of April with the help of some of my classmates. I don’t know how much we made all together, but I know that we made a lot. Before I had heard that Lady Gaga was selling ‘Pray For Japan’ bracelets. So I bought one. I wear the bracelet everyday, and it reminds me that I did my part to help Japan recover.

The Pact

I am reading the book The Pact by Jodi Picoult. Most of her books I have read have to do with serious problems, so when I picked up this book I was expecting the worst. At the very beginning of the book, Picoult started with a murder/suicide scene. It goes on at the hospital and this scene becomes a murder investigation. Chris is charged for the murder of the love of his life, Emily. I think that Chris didn't murder Emily. I think Emily actually committed suicide. She's dead so there's no way of finding out the reason why she did what she did.

One million people kill themselves every year just in the United States. 16,000 people are murdered a year in the United States. There is more of a chance that Emily killed herself than Chris murdering her. There were a lot of signs showing that Em was suicidal. Her art work changed drastically. Some of her drawings had to do with death. She even drew a self portrait of herself as a floating skull in class. She also talked about committing suicide ALL the time. Chris had a hard time with that and he always tried to talk her out of it. But she was determined or her mind was set on doing it.

Also, even though most of the evidence that Chris murdered Emily pointed to him, I still believe Emily wanted to die. I think Chris was telling the truth in the very end. When he first told his story to the detective  and his therapist, he was afraid. Chris was afraid of telling everyone the truth because he loved Emily and he didn't know what else to do. When up at the witness stand, Chris said that Emily told him, she didn't have the guts to pull the trigger on herself. So Chris held the gun to Emily's head as Em helped him pull the trigger. Apparently, that still counts as first degree murder because Chris was holding the gun. And because his finger prints were the only ones on the gun. But I think that Em was the one that pulled the trigger. I know that she was afraid to do it, but I think that because Chris was her boyfriend, the love of her life, she was more comfortable and felt safer with him holding her.

Chris wasn't convicted in the very end. He was dropped of all charges and Em's case was solved as a suicide. I was happy to hear that but I still wonder why Em killed herself. It's scary to even think that people would have these kind of thoughts going through their minds everyday. Chris tried everything to stop Em from killing herself. He tried everything to try and change her mind. But it's just like in the TV shows, when someone wants to kill themselves, something is pushing them to do it. Nothing can change their minds. They become afraid and they feel that they have no escape. I bet that's how Em felt.

My Papa's Waltz: revised entry

My Papa's Waltz
by: Theodore Roethke


The whiskey on your breath
could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans
slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist
was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
my right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head
with a palm caked hard by dirt,
then waltzed me off to bed
still clinging to your shirt. 


When first reading this poem, half of my class thought that the father in this poem was abusing the son. The other half thought that the father and son were just dancing. I thought that the father and son were just dancing. The author does use some violent language to describe the dancing. This particular use of language might give off the impression that the father is abusive to the son, but I think the violent language symbolizes how hard it was to dance the waltz. 


I can understand why my class thought the father was abusive. Just look at the lines. "...hung on like death", "At every stepped you missed, my right ear scraped a buckle", and "You beat time on my head" gives you an image that shows the father hitting the son. First off, death well sort of hangs on to you...metaphorically. Like you don't stay dead for a few hours and come back alive. Death keep you, well...dead. So I think when the author says "...hung on like death", he meant to say that the son was hanging on to his father tightly so he can keep up with the steps they were dancing together. Also, in the beginning of the poem, it says that the narrator/son is a small boy. So I think that "At every step you missed, my right ear scraped a buckle." means that the son is just small in size and only comes up to his father's waist which is why his ear scraps his father's belt when he misses a step. Lastly, sometimes when I listen to music or when I dance, I make the beat of the music on my leg or on a hard surface. I think that's what the father is doing when the poem says "You beat time on my head". The father could be keeping the beat of the waltz on the son's head. Beat sounds sort of harsh but it could just be a soft tapping also.


To sum things up, I think that the father isn't abusive and it is just the language that indicates that image for some people. 

My Papa's Waltz

The whiskey on your breath
could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
such waltzing was not easy.


We romped until the pans
slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
could not unfrown itself.


The hand that held my wrist
was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
my right ear scraped a buckle.


You beat time on my head
with a palm caked hard by dirt,
then waltzed me off to bed
still clinging to your shirt. 

In class, we had a huge discussion about this poem. There was a side that thought the father was abusing the child, there was a side that thought the father was just dancing with his son, and then there was a "jury side". I was on the jury side. My group had an argument on weather or not the father was abusive or not, drunk or not. But it all depends on each person's perspective.

    It all started with the first line. We all said that whiskey is strong. But then some said that the father was drunk because it's enough to make a small boy dizzy. Others argued that because the boy is small, even a small amount of alcohol can make him dizzy. Also, some people thought "But I hung on like death" was a scary line. They thought it meant like holding on because the boy was afraid. We also looked up romped. Which means lively play. I thought that because its a lively PLAY, it meant they were playing. And the kitchen could be small which is why the pans were falling of the shelves.
    At first, when I read "battered on one knuckle", I thought it was because the father was repeatedly hitting his son. But it could also be that the father had come home from work and he had injured his hand. "At every step you missed my right ear scraped a buckle" also made it seem as if the father was beating the son with his belt if he missed a move. But people argued that a waltz is danced with 2 people. And the father and the son are dancing. And in the beginning, it says "a small boy". The boy may only come up to his father's waist height wise. Also in the beginning, it says "The whiskey on your breath could make a small boy dizzy". The father could be a little tipsy and miss a few steps and scrape his son's ear by accident.
    So I think that the father and son were ACTUALLY dancing. There isn't enough evidence showing that the father is drunk enough to show that the father is drunk.