Art of War

I am time deprived right now due to college applications. I do not have much time to play video games, my main source of entertainment, which is stressing me out. Enough with the wining, now to my main topic of this blog.
The other day I was surfing the internet and came across a book that caught my attention. I heard many good things about this book but never got around to reading it. Reading the book review on Amazon, I was wanting to read the book (this happens maybe once in 20 books) and immediately bought it. It has arrived about a week ago, but I do not have the time to read it right now. You guys might be wondering, what is this amazing book that has caught attention of a book loather like Hayato? The book is Art of War written by the ancient Chinese military tactician Sun Tzu.

The translation that I bought, regarded as the best one out there

There are multiple aspects of the book that caught my attention. I have been interested in military tactics since when I was a boy and this literature is considered a classic in the field. Another reason is that my favorite general, Takeda Shingen, has been inspired by this book and adapted a slogan from it which represents his army and himself as a whole. This slogan has inspired me and has shaped who I am. This slogan served militaristic purposes but in the modern era it has a different connotation: Act accordingly to the given situation.

            Fast like the wind,

Silent like a forest,

Intrusive like the fire,

Immobile like a mountain.

Update on outside reading

For my outside reading I am currently reading "For whom the bell tolls" by Ernest Hemingway. This reading is my first book out of three on my author study of Hemingway. I am currently around page 80 of the book, where things are starting to get interesting.
Aside from popular beliefs, the book is not that hard of a read than people think it is. Even though the book was written more than 70 years ago the language is mostly the same, and it is far better than reading Shakespeare where you can't understand half of what he is saying.
The book has a slow start, but apart from that I like everything else about it. The plot is interesting since it based on Hemingway's experience during the Spanish Civil War as a news reporter. The protagonist is a dynamiter named Robert Jordan who's mission is blow up bridges behind enemy lines.
Now to the caviar of the blog (As Mr.Mullins would say) on why this book is an AP-Caliber work. As I said previously I'm only 80 pages into the book so don't bash me if I leave out something later into the book. I believe the element that makes this book AP-Caliber is its unique language. It uses specific English words to make it sound like a Spanish word with the same meaning. For example instead of saying "you" Hemingway writes "thou" which is similar to tú, the Spanish word for you. This unique form of writing, called archaism is what makes this work AP-Caliber.
To summarize, I would recommend this book to anyone, especially to people who are interested by war theme. I will probably write a blog in the future to further talk about this amazing piece of literature by Hemingway.

Expansion on today's bellringer

In our AP Senior english class today we had a interesting bellringer, "If you were to make everyone in the world read one book, what would it be?" I came up with several books while writing my journal so I thought I would share it here.

1. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Jonathan Safran Foer
This is the book that I wrote about today in my journal. I believe the theme for this book is universal and can benefit everyone, teaching the reader multiple lessons. This book teaches that everyone needs to go on a conquest to find himself and also the effect that terroism has on a society. Along with its appliable theme the book is a good read in general. The plot is well developed, and the printing of this book is appleaing. There are Oscar's photobook and his drawings, giving the reader a visualization of Oscar's works.

2. The Thief Lord - Cornelia Funke
This book is considered commercial fiction but I believe this book should be read by everyone in the world. Multiple themes are present in this book which can be applied to many people. The one theme that I want to focus on is the theme with Scipio and his identitiy. He hides that he is from a loyal background to the gang, being afraid that the gang might not respect him if he tells the truth. The theme presented here is ones fear of presenting his real identity to others. This can be seen in multiple situations in society today, affecting many people. This book also has a appealing plot along with the multiple themes, making the book an enjoyable read.

There were some other books I wanted to share about, but I didn't want this blog to be too long so I will write about the other books in some other blog.

A little late post on American Gods

Since I have nothing else to write about at the moment, I decided to write about a book that I read over summer for AP Senior English - American Gods. This book is a novel by Neil Gaiman and won both the Hugo book award and the Nebula award. From this point on I will be including details of the book so if you have not read the book, I advise you to not read any further.
Overall, the book was extremely enjoyable. In the case of summer reading, I usually tend to rush the book and not pay attention to the content. I was planning the same course of action for American Gods but once I started reading it I found out how great of a book it was. The novel is action-filled with enjoyable characters, along with some prostitution scenes. In addition to those aspects the plot evolves at a decent pace, which keeps the reader going.
My favorite part of the book was probably the interactions between Shadow and Wednesday throughout the book, especially on their car trips. Their conversations are intelligent at times and blunt at others, educating and entertaining the readers at the same time. By the middle of the book the reader starts to think that Shadow and Wednesday are real father and son.
Again, this book is a well-written piece of art, having a well-developed plot along with characters that one can relate to. I would recommend this book to anyone who is craving a good read filled with adventure and suspense.

Hemingway

I think that the time that I am writing this blog, only a small portion of class will have an idea of what they are going to read for their independent reading. People might wonder that since I am writing about independent reading that if I have a book already decided for it. In fact, I already do. Instead of reading three books by three different authors, I decided to concentrate on one single author. The author I chose is Ernest Hemingway, one of the most influencial writers of the 20th century.

Photograph of Hemingway



People might ask, why Hemingway? There are various reasons why I chose Hemingway. It was in 7th grade that I read my first novel by him, The Old man and the sea. I enjoyed the book alot, and I tried reading his other major works but back then my reading skills were not high enough for Hemingway's writing. So given an author to study for our independent reading, Hemingway was definitely the first author that came up in my mind.

Out of Hemingway's works, the three novels I chose to conduct his author studies are For whom the bell tolls, The Sun also rises, and A Farewell to Arms. These three books are all considered his major work and his masterpieces. For my first reading I chose For whom the bell tolls since it is the longest out of the three, and I am least chained by my college apps right now compared to the following months.

Some thoughts about the last year of high school

This year I am finally a senior after 3 long years of high school. One more year of high school and then onward to college, where everything is new. I am extremely excited for high school to end and for college to begin with everything being new: friends, location, and education. If i get into my first choice college (which i hope i do), a year from now I will be walking the streets of the quiet city of Pasadena.

The college that I am interested in is the California Institute of technology, otherwise known as caltech. It is one of the top tier colleges in America, ranking fifth overall. Everything about this school is great, and by everything I mean everything. The food is great, the campus is great, the weather is great, everything is great!

Since caltech is a top tier college, the application is extremely competitive. To increase slightly my chances of getting in I am having a miserable high school life which will last through first semester. Go to school, go to research, get home and do homework, write essays, look at scholarships, work on the application, rinse and repeat.

It is miserable but I am hoping all this work pays off. I want first semester to be done and over with, like now.