Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod - Post #2

Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod
Gary Paulsen
88/256 Pages Read



                    The main character in the novel is Gary Paulsen. This book is an autobiography of Paulsen's life at the time. Although he is the main character and the story is from his point of view, the dog team he runs is composed of some main characters in the book. Paulsen's personality is very eager to run the dogs for a longer time, and he is also very trustworthy in his dogs and he believes they can make a great team when running the Iditarod trail in Alaska. An example to show Paulsen eagerness is from page 79:


                    "Finally, I saw a picture of a dog team training for the Iditarod in Canada in the early fall. there were fifteen dogs, all about the size of my dogs, hooked into a conventional gangline.
                    They were pulling a car.
                    A whole car. Motor, windshield, doors, the works. It even had a back seat. A couple was sitting in the car, leaning out the windows, out of the weather      most decidedly not dragging on their faces    and smiling at the camera.
                    A whole car.
                    I was by this time running fifteen dogs, seven of which were already strong, on a rig that weighed, at most, 120 pounds. The couple in the picture were pulling something that weighed over a ton with the same amount of dogs. Perhaps more to the point, they were smiling and I had done little but grimace in terror for the last thirty or forty runs.
                    I took Ruth and left the house that night headed for ton in the old Ford.
                    'Where are we going?' she asked.
                    'To the junkyard. We're going to pull a clunker home and make a rig. It's time to get serious about this training business.'" (Paulsen 79)

*Yes, I know that may be a really long quote

Non-fiction post #2 Edith's story

Guus (standing)(Edith's oldest brother)
Hidle (siting in the center) (Edith's mum)
Jules (crouching in the left corner)(Edith's
other older brother, younger by 3 from
Guus but older by 2 years from Edith)
Edith (infront of the lamp)
Fifi (dog)

Edith's story is written by Edith Velmans and I have read 180/238.


Edith is...

• Energetic

She skates during the winter. During the summer she rows, sails, swims. The whole year round she cycles.

• Selfish (she calls herself) 

"Guilty, I thought it was probably my fault, because I was so selfishly preoccupied with my own life" (Velmans 30)

• Positive

"'The war's going to be over soon, you'll see." (Velmans 100)

• Courages

"Carefully I started removing the yellow stars from all the articles of clothing we were taking with us" (Velmans 99). You were not supposed to take the star of your clothes, if you did you would be punished.

"'Courage. I know you have lots of it. Always look for the sunshine.'" (Velmans 148)

My Steve

By: Terri Irwin
i read 40 pgs
The main characters in my book are Terri and Steve. Steve is a risk taker, caring, knowledgeable about animals, funny and crazy. Terri is caring, nice, and as well very knowledgeable about animals. Terri and Steve just got married and they are out at a camp for there mini honeymoon. The first time Steve came to visit America with Terri it was thanksgiving and they were still not married or engaged. Terri took Steve to her animal hospital. "We returned to Eugene, and i showed him where i worked part time at an emergency veterinarian hospital. He was particularly impressed with an injured porcupine that had come in shedding some quills. Instead of just looking at them, Steve, with his usual enthusiasm, jabbed one into his arm.  

Steve Jobs #2

For my non-fiction book report, I am reading "Steve Jobs", by Walter Isaacson. At this current moment of time I have read 165/598 pages. As of this moment there have been two main characters who have been mentioned consistently. These two people are naturally Steve Jobs, (as this entire book is written about him)  and Wozniak. Most likely you will know who Steve Jobs is but you may not know who Wozniak is. Wozniak was Steve Jobs best friend and was the inventor of the Apple 1, and Apple 2. He was also responsible for the programming of the first few apple machines, before Apple became a large company. Very often in the book there is a reference to Wozniak used to contrast a Character like jobs. This is because in fact despite them being best friends they were very different. Steve Jobs was more of a spokes person, and an enthusiast. Many of his colleagues said he had a "Reality Distortion Field" this meant that he would make everything to positive, like a positively distorted life. For example, the Macintosh was released 4 months after Steve jobs had said it would be in his distortion field. While Wozniak was much more realistic, and very shy. If Wozniak was in charge of Apple, it would be a very small company today, and would be open source, meaning that everything that they made could be taken and edited without copyright or patents. In these pages that I read there was I word which confused me. This word was bureaucratic. It was used in the phrase, "Computing went from being dismissed as a tool of bureaucratic control to being embraced as a symbol of individual expression" (57). After research I learnt that this word meant the characteristic of a multiple bureau office. 

"127 hours Between a Rock and a Hard Place" #2

"127 hours Between a Rock and a Hard Place" #2

I am reading a non-fiction book called “127 hours Between a Rock and a Hard Place” by Aron Ralston and so far I read 53/342 pages.

In this part of the book the author explains how he started liking to hike, about his passion for nature, and his greatest dangers while hiking. It all started when Aron Ralston was 12 years old and his parents decided to move to Colorado. Aron was frightened to move because he saw terrifying images about the new place. As summer arrived in Colorado, Aron was sent on a trip in the forest which involved hiking. He loved the experience and as he got older he started climbing ever bigger mountains, even up to 3500 meters. When Aron was hiking by himself at Bradley Lake, in the state of Wyoming, in the United States, he crossed a bear that tried to eat his food! Aron managed to save his meal, as well as his life and successfully finished the trip.

A word that I didn’t know was “Maul”.

Sentence:

“They also told me that if you were to shout at a bear, wave your arms, stomp aggressively towards it, and then hit it with rocks, nine times out of ten you could count on being mauled”.  (Ralston 53pg)

“Mauled” means, in this case, that a living thing savagely kills you.

Maus

Maus by Art Spiegelman
This week I have read 40/ 159 pages.

The setting takes place in Rego Park 1958. I have read two chapters of my book which is a cartoon about mauses. In the second chapter a girl maus called Anya   and a boy maus called Vladek  go on a honeymoon together because another  women maus gets arrested by doing something wrong. While they are on their honey moon they talk to each other dance and have a very good time and Anya loves the boy maus called Vladek.  I think the book is really good because it is easy to understand the story what is happening. 

I hope you like the book too!

My Everest Story

I am reading My Everest Story by mark pfetzer I read 49/214 pages.

Right now I am reading about mark climbing one of the most dangerous peaks in South America called the Pisco. His guide tells him he was the youngest ever to climb it. Mark feels kind of happy about that but when he hears seven man died today on the Pisco he gats scared and thinks about him being one of them.