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Blog 10

Blog 10

Uncharted Books

Animal Farm Paperback Book (1170L), English: Teacher's Discovery
Animal Farm by George Orwell

A farm is taken over by its overworked, mistreated animals. With flaming idealism and stirring slogans, they set out to create a paradise of progress, justice, and equality. Thus the stage is set for one of the most telling satiric fables ever penned –a razor-edged fairy tale for grown-ups that records the evolution from revolution against tyranny to a totalitarianism just as terrible.

Animal Farm is a popular book that is read in schools normally, my mom read it when she was in high school. For some reason though I was never assigned to read Animal Farm while in high school, so I decided to pick it up and give it a go. I ended up finishing the book in less than a day, I liked it that much. I think reading it now with a bit of an understanding of life, society and government the main themes shown through a bit more than they would have when I was younger.

The author beautifully portrays the way a revolution is started to stop what is happening and going full circle comes to the same point it started from. Just the face of power is changed. This book tells how the ruling class makes fool of the working class, uses their energies and resources for their own pleasure. What happens behind the closed doors of power. How the working class is being brain washed that they are happy and satisfied and free despite of the obvious slavery they have been undergoing.

As it is already a very popular book read in schools, I would continue on with the trend because it is an impactful story. Although the characters are animals, the hold so much humanity that is easily stripped away by their peers and don’t even understand what is happening to them. I think if I were to do a bit more research into communist ideology and even Orwell that I would learn a lot more about the book.

Code Academy

Code Academy

I learned a lot doing Code Academy over the past couple weeks that we have done it. I have never done coding before and never knew much at all about coding before this course. It was surprisingly easy to do and was not nearly as hard as I thought coding was. I know that it can be a lot harder and go a lot more in depth but for the things that we had to do it wasn’t too difficult. It took me a little while to try and get everything down but once I got into the flow of it, it became a lot easier. I liked the CSS a bit more because the editing of the webpage visuals and all the little details was very fun to me and not as difficult to do. I will definitely need to remember this site for in the future when I want to make a website and work on my coding skills.

Blog 5

Blog 5

Uncharted Books

The junkie in literature: a review of William S. Burrough's “Junkie” | Freshlyworded
Junky by William Burroughs

This is a book that I have read before while in high school but it was kinda on my own. My junior year english teacher mentioned Burroughs in class in a discussion one day and I ended up staying after to ask about him. He told me a bunch of things about Burroughs and the other Beat writers of the time. I asked if he had any books by him and he ended up giving me Junky, which is really got me back into reading at the time.

William S. Burroughs Quotes - Home | Facebook
William Burroughs

Burroughs does not pull any punches in this, his first novel. It is a plain account of the life of a junkie based on his own life. Burroughs describes his experience in a very matter of fact way; the many lows and very few highs. The descriptions of coming off heroin are horrific. It is still difficult to read, but describes a way of life and a downward spiral. Burroughs illustrates how much junk dominates your life when you are an addict and the effect it can have on your personality and relationships with others. There is one shocking description of cruelty to an animal which comes out of the blue and you realize the irrationality of the whole thing. Junk think is different. Most of the characters flit in and out very briefly and they are a pretty hopeless bunch. It is the description of the lifestyle and the drivers in the personality of a junkie which are the real strength of the book.

The book at times could be difficult to follow because of the premise of drugs. The protagonist is on drugs almost the entirety of the book, the inconsistencies, laps in judgement, irregular timelines and characters all make you feel apart of that world. I have never done heroin, never plan on it, but by Burroughs descriptions and structure I felt like I was with him throughout all of his trips.

The Weeknd - Can't Feel My Face Lyrics | LiriksLaguKu
The Weekend

This is the first book that I have read that deals with drugs, whether the author is on them or the character is using them. I have, however, listened to music, watch movies, tv shows, about drugs and the portrayal is quite different. In a lot of media drugs are sometimes glorified with whimsical depictions like the cosmic types who think they’re in pursuit of some Buddhist ideal. A lot of popular songs like Can’t Feel My Face by The Weekend, which I feel like was on the radio forever, is about cocaine. Burroughs is honest. There’s nothing romantic, in his depiction of drugs, his reaction to drugs is purely physical.

Drug Abuse Resistance Education - Wikipedia
D.A.R.E

Junky will make you feel dirty, gross, and like a junk addict by the time you finish it. I felt ways and thought more differently than I ever had, I thought I was apart of the story engaging in a lot of the acts and I felt terrible just reading about it. Burroughs’ virtual junky diary is a trip through the author’s own self-inflicted and self-injected personal hell. If public schools really wanted kids to abstain from injecting needles in their arms they should get rid of D.A.R.E. and force students to read Junky by William Burroughs, a book based on real-life personal experience drug addiction.

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