Final Thoughts on Blogs and English Class

So here it is, the final blog in my high school. Just like any other blog, I have nothing creative to write about so I guess I will write about how I feel about blogs and the class in general.

Surprisingly, I enjoyed writing blogs (if I had a good topic to write about). It gave me an opportunity to discuss the themes present in my favorite game Final Fantasy X, analyze the lyrics in "Virtual Insanity" by Jamiroquai, and explain why The Count of Monte Cristo is basically the best book to be ever written. While writing about these highly interesting topics were entertaining, I must admit, the other blogs were boring to write. I went on tangents and filled it with fluff just to reach the word limit. But I must say that blogging was a unique experience, and I hope to do it in the future. In fact, I am planning to do one during this summer on the food that I encounter in Japan.

So, now onto the reflection of the class. This year’s English class was truly a different experience than my previous English classes in many different ways. It definitely had the most homework by far, and the material covered in class was by far the hardest in my English career. However, the class itself was interesting and it made me think about concepts in a way that I have never thought of before. I still remember the debate that we had about existentialism that lasted the whole class. I would not mind continuing that debate after the AP exam.

This year's English class, along with senior year as a whole, has prepared me greatly for college. I can’t wait to spend the next four years at Berkeley. I might blog here and then, I don't know. But until then, see you later!

The Revenger's Tragedy Reactions

About 22 hours ago, I finished The Revenger's Tragedy, my third and final book (well, play in this case) for my outside reading project. Before I give my thoughts on this play, there is one unusual thing about this play. That is the fact that the authorship of the play is unclear, in that there are two playwrights who are credited this play. While most critics credit the work to Thomas Middleton, some critics credit the play to Cyril Tourneur. This unclear authorship is something unique of this play that I wanted to point out.

Overall, I enjoyed the play. This is a straight forward revenge story, just like the master piece The Count of Monte Cristo. It is about a man named Vindice who is trying to avenge his lovers death by killing the Duke. He does everything to accomplish task, be it selling his sister into prostitution for the Duke's son or giving himself a fake identity to go by. In the end, Vindice does get revenge on the Duke, making it a "happy ending" for the play, even though the play ends with a massacre.

The fact that this story was a play had both its merits and demerits. Being it a play makes it slightly harder to read, but it makes the reading shorter in terms of page length. I believe if this play were a book instead, it would lose its appeal since the style of the play fit in well with the work as a whole. Unlike The Count of Monte Cristo, I believe this work does not need as much detail compared to Dumas' masterpiece.

If I get the chance, I would love to see The Revengers Tragedy actually played out. While it was exciting enough to read it on the pages, I know it would be overwhelming to see all the greed and killing be acted out right in front of my eyes.

As a end of a year field trip, I say we take the class to go watch the The Revengers Tragedy!

Reflection on Poetry

Since the poetry unit is soon approaching its end, I thought that I would blog once again about how I felt about poems, and if this unit has changed any of my thoughts towards the subject.

To make a long story short, I still do not enjoy poetry. A lot of the poetry is confusing, and I usually can not fully understand the poem. Additionally, the majority of the poems topics does not interest me. I would rather read an educational article that is full of information that would be useful to me.

While my attitude toward poetry did not change during this unit, I did discover one beautiful aspect of poetry that I was not aware of before. It is the rhyme scheme of the poems, which in other words is the sound aspect of the poem. I found the different patterns of stressing the syllables very interesting, since growing up with another language as a primary language that made my intonations different from the typical American. This unit helped me learn the stressing and unstressing in the English language. It also allowed me to appreciate the beauty of these poems, in that how two lines that do not rhyme with syllables instead rhyme with the stressing of the words in the line. I thank this unit for that.

I still do not understand poetry very well. I will not be able to identify conceits in the poem and completely understand it without more practice. However, now I understand (somewhat) how the sound works in a poem.  I did not really enjoy this unit (partly because of the poetry journals and MC practice), but I did enjoy the foot lesson.

College and Stuff

There is 6 more weeks, or 30 more days of school left until the seniors graduate. I know that these next 6 weeks will go by in a blink, and then I will be advancing onto the next level of education. I don't want to talk about poetry in this blog since I already wrote about it in my poetry response, so instead I decided to write about my next four years and plans for the summer.
For those of you that are not aware, I will be attending University of California, Berkeley starting August. I am planning to major in materials science and engineering, a discipline of science that combines aspects of physics and chemistry to synthesize new materials to continue improving technology. The MSE department is rather small at Berkeley compared to the other majors, so I get to enjoy both the large university feel that Berkeley has to offer with a concentrated group for my major.
This summer, I am planning to go back to Japan and spending about 6 weeks there. Hopefully, I get to experience my culture and help out with the country as much as I could. I plan to go volunteer in the northeast for the tsunami victims, and also backpack across Japan to further enhance my knowledge on my heritage.
I am really excited for this summer and Berkeley. However, I can't let senioritis get me too much since I need to maintain a B or higher in all my classes for Berkeley to not kick me out. I hope to finish the year out strong, enjoy the remaining 30 days of senior year, and then transition into the next stage of my life.

Virtual Insanity

As I was perusing through the other blogs, I noticed a lot of people made connections of song lyrics to poems. I believe that this connection is valid, since the right song lyrics contain a meaning as deep as certain poems. So, for this blog, I want to analyze the lyrics of a song that I believe has great lyrical value - Virtual Insanity by Jamiroquai.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JkIs37a2JE

While the video is visually attracting, what I want you to focus on it the lyrics, especially the chorus of the song, which is as follows.

Futures made of virtual insanity now

Always seem to, be govern'd by this love we have

For useless, twisting, our new technology

Oh, now there is no sound - for we all live underground

I believe that this chorus has great academical potential and is worthwhile to analyze, just like a poem. Now, I would like to break down this poem, line by line.

The first line indicates that our future is totally corrupted, in that it is composed of "virtual insanities". I believe that this virtual insanity is symbolizing our new technology that we keep developing, which is mentioned in the third line. Jay Kay, the writer of the song, I think believes that the new technology is corrupting our society and also our future, which I totally agree. While technology is useful and makes life more efficient, it also has a lot of negative consequences which the general public usually does not notice.

The second line states that while our future is full of technology that corrupts us, there is love that governs us all. I think Jay Kay is trying to say here that no matter how much we become corrupted by the virtual insanities, there would still be our fundamental love towards each other that would regulate our actions to a certain degree.

The third line links with the first line in that the virtual insanity points to the "useless, twisting, new technology" that humans keep developing. This corrupts our society, along with our future.

Finally, I believe the fourth line describes the consequences of the virtual insanity. Humans will be corrupted, and society will not function. Thus, there would be no sound since society is not functioning properly. The second part of the line about where it describes how we all live underground now, I think this is showing that humans are now living differently than before and now technology is on the ground while humans are underneath it.

While I only focused on the chorus, the whole song contains lyrics that is worth analyzing and makes you think. I would recommended everyone to go listen to Virtual Insanity by Jamiroquai since their music is awesome, and their lyrics are highly worth analyzing!

My Thoughts on E-Readers

http://cdn.pocket-lint.com/images/CmPW/no-kindle-fire-touch-uk-0.jpg?20110929-092519

I am a technology person. I love the gadgets that make my life more entertaining and make tasks easier to do. Recently, I have noticed a lot of people utilizing e-readers instead of actually carrying a book in print. While I do love technology, I am not fond of the concept of e-readers.

I do understand that e-readers have their benefits. They are compact, in that you can store hundreds of books in a small device. It is also thin, making it easy to carry around and hold it in your hand. Additionally, some e-readers are capable of accessing the internet and playing games, making it seem like they are tablets.

The biggest thing that bugs about me about the kindle is that it doesn't give me the feeling that I am reading a book. The other day I tried using my dad's kindle to try to read, but I was not able to handle it. I physically need to flip through each page of the book to feel like I have actually read through the book, even if the text is the same. The action of sliding your finger across the screen is convenient and efficient, but for me it doesn't suffice.

Our society is continuing towards absolute technopoly. This would of course affect books in that basically print would be gone, and then everything would be web. While this would save resources, readers around the world would be depressed and then not be able to read since they would not be able to handle e-readers. So, I hope that in the future printing books would still be a thing, and not everything go digital.

Definitions of Poetry

And so it has begun. Poetry, the unit that I have been least looking forward to in this class. I do not find appreciation in poems, and I only like poems that rhyme (for now). I was looking forward to reading Wuthering Heights in the class, but I guess we need to save the best things for last. Looking through the vast list of definitions of poetry in class yesterday, I thought I would reflect on some that resonated in me.
The definition that resonated within me the most yesterday and thus the one that I wrote about in the warm up was #12, where it describes poetry as " a kind of ingenious nonsense". Noticing that it came from the great scientist Sir Issac Newton, I could have not agreed more with the physics genius. To me, poems are a jumble of random words that might rhyme from place to place, and might tell a story or portray a scenery  It also seems like it describes the same thing in 20 different ways. Even elementary school kids can write poems that rhyme, and that is why I agree the most with Newton's definition of a poem.
Another definition that I liked alot is #32, where it describes poetry as anything that calls itself a poem. Poems have many formats, such as haiku and free verses and rhyming poems. This definition struck me since it allowed me to realize that a piece of literature can be classified as poems for the majority of times. I have once read a book about 200 pages that the book itself was one large poem. I have also seen poems that the layout of the words illustrated the object that is describing. Recalling these examples, #32 struck me as true and a good generalized way to describe poetry.
After looking through the list one more time, a definition that stood out to me was #47 where it describes poetry as an "orphan of silence [and] the words never quite equal the experience behind them". This quote struck me as significant, since for some poems, the poet writes about his or her experience in a couple of lines. Compressing all the thoughts, observations, and senses during the experience into a couple of lines do require skill, and however good the poet is, there are still going to be information left out. Definition #47 has allowed me to realize how experienced skilled poets are, being able to describe their experience in a couple of lines.
I still hate poetry, and I am not looking forward to this unit. However, I do hope that this unit will allow me to encounter poems that I will be able to enjoy and assist me in discovering the beautiful aspects of poetry.

Thoughts on A Tale of Two Cities

I am halfway into Charles Dickens' masterpiece, A Tale of Two Cities. The story takes place in London and Paris during the revolutionary period (1775 ish) and illustrates the story of the citizens during this time period. While the story itself is only 364 pages (1/3 the length of The Count of Monte Cristo), it feels like this book is longer than the mentioned title. I believe there are several reasons to this.
To be honest, I am not liking A Tale of Two Cities very much. One of the main reason that I think is making this story not interesting to me is the story itself. Before I started this reading, I did some previous research on the internet and gained from it that this story will be interesting, since it is one of the most sold piece of fictional literature in history. I also gained from my research that it will have essences of revenge in it, a element that is important for my research inquiry. With high expectations, I started reading. I am currently half way into the book, but it has been extremely boring for me. There has been maybe 3 pages concerning the topic of revenge, so it has not helped me at all in the terms of my research paper. Along with these factors, the time period of the story makes it hard for the reader to relate to the story.
Another reason I believe that makes this story hard to read and delve into is the way that Dickens writes. He writes in classical English, and the syntax makes it hard for the modern reader to comprehend his ideas. Also, the amount of characters that he includes in this story makes it hard. While The Count of Monte Cristo had the similar amount of characters (even more), the development and length of the book gave each character a unique feel which made it easy for the reader to differentiate between the characters. However, due to the limited length of the book along with the various characters in the book (lots of sub characters), the main characters are not fully developed in A Tale of Two Cities, which makes it hard to read and understand the story. I am having to refer to sparknote after finishing each chapter to understand what happened in the section.
Overall, the reading of A Tale of Two Cities has not been a pleasure so far compared to the previous reading that I did. I hope this situation improves, and that more instances of revenge comes up so it has some merit to my research.

Beloved Reflection

It is finally over. No, I am not talking about the 6 week robotics build season that just finished with two all-nighters (stayed at school until 1:30 a.m. on a school day), but I am talking about Beloved by Toni Morrison. I saw its academic values, but, to be honest, I did not find the book to be amusing at all.
I believe the main factor that made this reading seem forced and not enjoyable is Morrison's writing style. She makes things complicated, and writes in such a unique way that it makes it hard for the reader to comprehend what she is trying to tell. I was one of these such readers who was totally confused, since it took me a good hour to read 30 pages of the novel and feel like I the majority of what was written in the section.
Another factor that contributed to this novel not amusing to me at all is the plot itself. While I do understand the subject matter of the story is important, the plot seems too slow to tell anything and events that happen are minor. If you would recall The Road by Cormac McCarthy that we read before this, that novel at least had a decent story-line, even though it seemed like it was repetitive. The events in the story made it somewhat interesting to read, and I was continuously curious what was going to happen to the man and the boy. However, in Beloved, I did not get a similar feeling toward Sethe and Denver as I did for the travelers. I could care less what happened to Sethe and everyone else, since it seemed like everyone in the story was self-centered and did not care for the people around them (Sethe leaving Paul D in the rain after flirting with him, and so on).
To summarize, I did not enjoy the book. I am glad that I do not have read this book anymore, and I hope the next book that we will read in class be more enjoyable. I have high hopes for the next book since it is going to be Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, a story about revenge that I was going to read for my research project but got shot down by Mr.Mullins since we are going to read it in class.

Thoughts on Standardized Tests

I loathe the concept of standardized tests. I do see its benefit that it allows for easy comparison of standard academic abilities between the students for universities. However, I believe it plays a far crucial role than it needs to, since these test scores basically determine which university you will be attending.

Standardized tests do not successfully reflect the student's full capacity. Just like the student mentioned in the article, some gifted students are not capable of performing well under pressure. This should not be the reason that a talented young individual be barred from further education. Just like the student in the article, I do not perform well academically under stressed situations. Things tend to escape from my brain, and I am not able to show my full skills to the colleges. For example, I have a 35 in the ACT Math section, one point below the perfect score. If this is not under testing conditions, I am confident that I will be able to get a perfect since then I will be relaxed and will not make stupid mistakes like I do on these standardized tests.

I also do not understand why these tests needs to be timed. I do see that if there is no time limit, then some students will sit there for hours and even days to finish their test. However, I believe that these time limits are unfair to students that are slow readers or others that take time to comprehend the material. Just because a student can solve a reading passage in 15 minutes compared to another students 20 minutes, does that mean that the faster student is academically superior to the slower student? I do not think so. There are multiple types of gifted students, and being a fast problem solver is just one of them. Being this gifted type of student should not be the sole reason that they get into their desired college and the other types of gifted students not.

To summarize, I believe that standardized tests are not an accurate representation of the students academic abilities and that colleges should not use this as such an emphasizing factor. Instead, I believe colleges should focus more on daily grades, which really shows the brightness of the student.

Themes in Video Games. Part 1

After a long day of Robotics, I am sitting here trying to come up with something to write for my blog. I only have 30 minutes left, and I have came up with nothing to write about. Trying to get my brain thinking, I put my iPod on shuffle. The first song that came up was part of a soundtrack for the video game Final Fantasy X. I thought back about this game, and noticing it has lots of themes worth mentioning, I decided to write about it and how its worth playing.

Final Fantasy X is a RPG game developed by Square Enix and is the 10th game in its series. This specific game has been one of the highest selling game in the series, and also regarded as the best one in the series.

I would like to describe the story, but to describe it just enough so people would understand it, it would take a couple blog lengths to make it understandable. So, I would have to skip this part and go on directly to the themes of the game. (Summary of story: http://finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Final_Fantasy_X#Story)

As I mentioned previously, while this games purpose is totally commercial, it holds literal values just like a good book. While there are many topics worthwhile to be discussed, I will focus on one theme specifically. The literal value illustrated in this game is the concept of Gnosticism.

For those that do not know what I just said, Gnosticism is a belief that human existence itself is sinful and that the spirit world should be embraced. This idea can be seen throughout the game, such as with Yuna's summons (Aeons) and the setting of the world itself (Spoiler, so will not mention).

The antagonist believes in Gnosticism  and to make an extremely complicated story simple, the protagonists are trying to stop the antagonist from eradicating physical existence. This epic struggle between the characters makes the player think deeply about our own human existence, and just like the manga that I mentioned in last blog (Kiseijuu), the purpose of human existence.

I am running low on time here, so I will need to save additional discussions for a future blog. I STRONGLY recommend EVERYONE to play this masterpiece. I am a pretty hardcore gamer with experiences in a variety of games, but this game definitely makes it into my top 3. The story line is great, the music is great, the game play is great, everything is great about the game. Again, I wish that everyone would play this game to appreciate the grandness of this masterpiece of art.

P.S. - I legitimately cried at the end of this game, it is that good.

P.S.S - If you are not a gamer, give the music a try. Nobuo Uematsu is a charisma in the field of game music, and he did it once again in FFX. His music significantly amplifies the game experience.

Some samplers: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxRd_5ERYKw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xRCjjiTR7I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C34BzC7rnos

Are Mangas a waste of time? Part 2

About 2 months ago, one my blogs was about a manga named Detective Conan (Case Closed in English) and how it was educational and benefited the readers. Today, I want to introduce another title that is not only commercial but has some other values in reading it. For this blog, I will focus on a manga called Kiseijuu (Parasyte in English).
The story is about a high school student named Shinichi. One day, worm-like aliens called Parasites invades earth and takes over the brains of human hosts through the hosts nose and ears. The parasite that tried to invade Shinichi failed due to earphones, so instead it digs into his right hand, failing to control the brain. These parasites feeds on humans, and Shinichi and the parasite that invaded his right hand decides to fight the other parasites, including the parasite that killed his mother.

Cover of Kiseijuu - Volume 9

You might be wondering, how does a manga about parasites might be beneficial to the reader? Well, this manga allows for the reader to think the purpose of human existence and the purpose of life.While these parasites kills humans, they themselves have no means of reproduction. So, their population is limited to the initial group that invaded on the night. Several intellectual parasites asks themselves: Why are we alive?

After I read this manga, it made me think deeply of why we exist. Do we exist to live in society and perform our citizen duties? To learn and reproduce? What is the purpose of life? The list of question goes on and on.

While Detective Conan provided useful tips of survival, Kiseijuu questions the reader the purpose of human existence. The series is short, with only 10 volumes, so I encourage people that are into grotesque stuff (this series is pretty grotesque) to give it a try.

The Count of Monte Cristo Review

Finally it is over. The 1243 page tale of Edmond Dantes and his life, originally written by Alexandre Dumas and translated by Robin Buss. I have been immersed in this experience everyday for the past month, and it definitely has been the most educational and entertaining piece that I have read in my life.

I do not even know where to start in describing how perfect the book is. The description of characters, historical context, pace of the story, portraying of emotions, everything is balanced out by Dumas in this masterpiece. Every page out of the 1243 pages has its significance, and contributes to the illustration of the sorrow and revengeful tale of Dantes.

What I believe to be one of the factors that makes this book as enjoyable like no other is its numerous characters, each with their unique personality and effects. The characters are strongly inter winded with each other, and the reader continuously discovers links between two characters that seemed they had no connections what so ever. The Count of Monte Cristo uses these subtle connections to torment the four men who were responsible for his imprisonment. While it seems like there are too many characters to remember at first, the length of the book provides for the reader to encounter with the character multiple times, allowing a chart to be created within the reader's mind of all the characters and their connections to the others.

The historical context also adds to the experience. Dumas includes ample amounts of cultural and historical context within the story, which takes place in the 1800s in mainly Italy and France (Paris). The references that he includes ranges from plays, artists, political situations, Napoleon government, and any other important historical detail/reference. In the edition that I read (Penguin Classics), Buss provides footnotes and explanations of these contexts, which significantly enhances the experience of the story as a whole. This story not only entertains the reader, but also educates the reader in historical philosophy, arts, and the government.

While the book is the longest book that I have ever read (1243 pages, not including the 31 page note section), I did not feel bored at any point of this book. Dumas does an excellent job of jumping prescriptive and scenarios, providing multiple context of the same situation, seen from different characters. The amount of detail that Dumas includes also allows for the reader to portray each of the characters and some specific scenes, such as Dantes in prison and later as the Count of Monte Cristo in the royal social life of Paris. He keeps the story moving, through encounters or death, and leaves questions to be answered, which compels the reader to keep reading, eager to find the answers to the mysteries.

Last but not least, the method that Dumas portrays the emotions of the various characters, especially the Count of Monte Cristo, makes the story worthwhile to read in a psychological context. Through descriptions or quote, the diction that Dumas uses creates a tone which is obvious to the reader, which is used to enhance the personalities of the characters. The reader entertains themselves by hypothesizing who is linked to who in fraud and malicious ways through how the characters react to the actions and speeches of the Count fo Monte Cristo.

Phew, I want to keep writing more about how awesome this book is, but unfortunately I have to go work on my research poster. So if you were too lazy to read the wall of text above, here is a one sentence version. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas is a masterpiece, and everyone should read it.

P.S. - Don't let the length of the book discourage you! As I mentioned, the story is interesting, and the vocabulary is not too difficult. If anyone is interested in reading it, I will gladly lend you my copy!

Is outlining really needed?

I honestly do not know what to blog about this week. I just blogged about The Road in last week's blog, so repeating a topic is not good. Also, my next week's blog will be about The Count of Monte Cristo as a whole, so I will not be able to write about it this week. So, this week, for the first time, I will actually be using one of Mr. Mullin's blog suggestions.

I have never been a fan of prewriting. It seemed to me like a waste of valuable time which could be used to work on the actual piece that will be graded. For that reason, I used a similar tactic as the one described in the posted article, which is to write the actual piece, then go back and create the outline. This guaranteed exact matching of the content, and it was also easy/efficient. I practiced this method basically from 4th grade all the way up to this year.

Just like all the rest of us, I wrote essays in such intervals that I have never written before. I had to produce quality writing while I also had to do it at a decent pace.

With my writing style, I jumped straight into writing the responses for the various prompts that the colleges give us. Even though I manged to squeeze out an essay at the end, I did not like it at all or it went on a tangent of the prompt so it was useless. So, this resulted me in scrapping the idea and actually brainstorming ideas before getting to work on the writing. I was actually OUTLINING before I started work on the essay. This allowed me to get my thoughts together, and I was able to produce essays that I thought were some of my best writings.

While outlining did help me, I want to make a disclaimer. I believe that detailed outlines restrict the writing, and prevents it from improvement. The type of outlining that I like is just a list of phrases and ideas that I will use in the paper. This will allow me to combine/formulate the ideas and phrases in whatever order and method I see best fit, allowing me to create the best writing possible.

So, in conclusion, I do believe prewriting helps, but for me, only as a list of phrases and ideas that will be used in the writing.

The Road: Reflection up to this point

In class the other day, we were discussing the parts that we enjoyed about the Road and other parts where we thought it deducted from the book. While I am not done with the book, I thought I would give my opinion on where I stand regarding how much the book is enjoyable.
For me, the book is a mixture of appealing points and loathing factors. One of the main factors that I believe adds to the appeal of the book is how much detail the author includes. He explains in detail the troubles that they come across and the terrain that they see, allowing the reader to feel like as if he was accompanying the man and the boy on their journey. While he does include alot of detail, he keeps the story bare bone and gives ample amounts for the imagination of the reader. This allows each reader to interpret the story differently, giving multiple meanings to the book.
The factor that I believe which deducts from the story the most is the pace of the story. To me, it seems like its the same plot over and over again of finding food, travelling south, and then running our of food and finding new food again. I understand that this story development is necessary due to the structure of the story and the effect of the novel, but for me this made the story feel repetitive and not as enjoyable.
Overall, while the book is enjoyable, it is not as exciting and enjoyable to read as The Count of Monte Cristo (yes, I did mention this book last blog but I felt the need to mention it again, it is A GREAT BOOK). However, I have heard promising things about the ending of The Road so I am looking forward to see what will happen to the man and the boy.

The Count of Monte Cristo: Thoughts so far

While I am enjoying reading The Road in class, my blog would be boring by writing about it just like everyone else. So, I thought of writing about another topic: The Count of Monte Cristo.

I am currently reading this masterpiece by the French author Alexandre Dumas. The story is about Edmond Dantes, a young sailor who was about to be appointed to be the ships captain at the age of 19 and marry the girl that he loved. However, jealous people around him forges a letter that gets Dantes imprisoned in prison. He learns the truth and escapes, acquires a fortune at the Island of Monte Cristo, then use that gained fortune to seek revenge for the people responsible for his time spent in prison.

This book is possibly one of the books that I have ever read in my entire life. One of the main contributing factors to this such enjoyable experience is the details included in the story. Dumas succeeds in explaining every necessary detail, allowing for the reader to fully understand the historical and cultural context of the time. It might seem like he is including stories of random characters here and there (I thought this at first), it all makes sense as you keep reading the novel.

The plot, along with the pace of the story, enhances the experience of the novel. While there are sub-stories tailored into his writing, the main story of Dantes and his revenge moves at a quick pace. His 14 years of prison is extremely thoughtful and interesting to read, to learn what he discovers by spending the time there and also interacting with the Abbe. Once he escapes prison, he is still has to overcome many challenges to reach his treasure, making the story entertaining to read.

The experience of The Count of Monte Cristo has been both an entertaining and an educating one. While the book is 1250 pages, I do not regret choosing the book.

P.S. I do actually slightly regret choosing this book, since this book is so entertaining that I did not read "the Road" in depth, resulting in me performing poorly on the quiz.