My First Encounters With Fandoms

     So, today I decided to write a post more personal. I pretty sure when people think of something personal, they might think of like family, something important, or something that happened to them that affected them greatly. In my case, something personal are my fandoms. Fandoms to me are like a second family. They are full of people who like the same things as you and just understand the way you are. I don't think I would be the same person I am today without my beloved fandoms. Now let's move on to the rest of the blog post. Okay that was little weird but we're going to roll with it.
     I recall the first time I figured out what fandoms where was when I was like 8, I'm not completely sure but all I know when One Direction was a thing but not a huge thing yet. Yes, just like millions of girls(and boys) around the world who would kill to just meet one of them. I'm going to be honest, I was a huge Directioner, like gigantic. Now I'm not going to bore you with the reasons of why I was a big Directioner but the point is that basically my first fandom, if you exclude Barney from when I was like 5.
     My top faves or the ones I associate more with are Doctor Who, Supernatural, Sherlock, and everything Marvel. Now that I think about it, Power Rangers might have been the first fandom I was in but I didn't know what fandoms were. Growing up I loved the Power Rangers, like I was obsessed. I watched the original Power Rangers, Jungle Fury, Samurai, all of them. I liked them so much that I told my friends that I was secretly a Power Ranger. I still say I am, but they were my thing. I never liked Disney Princesses until I was older but I still watched all the movies.
     Now that you know how I first encountered fandoms, I am going to tell you all the fandoms that I am a part of now. Here we go: Doctor Who, Supernatural, Sherlock, Marvel Comics, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Marvel Cinematic Universe Television Series, Merlin, Star Trek, Fall Out Boy, Hamilton, Wicked, Legally Blonde:The Musical, Heathers, Spring Awakening, Little Mix, Gilmore Girls, Power Rangers, and Shameless. Those are all of the ones that I could think of but I think there are more, but I don't know how many there are to be honest. I like watching a lot of different youtubers but I don't think you can consider those fandoms. I wish I could say more but I don't want to make this blog extremely long. I am still going to make more blog posts on my fandoms and the celebrities I consider my children.

My Spring Break & Fourth Quarter Expectations

     Last week, we had spring break. To be honest, I didn't really do anything besides sleeping and watching Netflix. To summarize everything I watched on, it's basically all the shows that are from Marvel. I only left my house like twice, one was to go to one of friend's house and the other was an outing with my family. Even though I didn't leave my house, I had fun being lazy all day. Overall, I think I had fun on my spring break.
     Now that you know what happened over spring break, now to the more exciting part, graduation. When ever someone says graduation, I automatically think of summer break and no school. Now that spring break is over we are in fourth quarter. In my mind, in fourth quarter we just relax and don't really do much. It could be different but over the years it has been the same. I'm excited for fourth quarter because we have Six Flags, dinner dance, and the main event graduation. For fourth quarter, I want to have no fouls, pass all my focus areas with an 8 or higher, and end the school year with good grades. I also expect the rest of the school year to be fun because we won't be coming to this school next year or ever again.

Life Is Beautiful

     A movie that we watched during class, about the Holocaust, was Life Is Beautiful. It was about this man named Guido, who happened to be Jewish, who falls in love with a woman named Dora, who wasn't Jewish. I am going to try to summarize everything, so that you know the basics of what happend in the movie. Guido and Dora have a son named Giosue, who loved dearly by both of his parents. Since this movie is set when the Holocaust was happening and Guido was Jewish, the Nazis came for him. When they took him away to a camp, he was with his son and he kept on asking where they were going. In order to make his son not feel worried or scared, he started telling him jokes and saying that it was all game that they had to win. Even though Dora isn't Jewish, she wanted to be with her family so she also got on the train to go to the camp. This movie is basically about how Guido and Dora fall in love and start a family, but also about how all three of them do the impossible to continue to be together but as well as for all of them to survive.
     Since this movie has something to do with the Holocaust, it does have some aspects that are similar to the real thing. The events that happened in the movie that also happened in the real Holocaust was how they would the Jewish inside the trains in big amounts. Another thing was similar was when they got off the train and they separated the women from the men and categorized everyone from age. Those that were dubbed to young to work or too old were told that they were going to go take showers, but were actually sent to their deaths in gas chambers. Another thing that happened in both was when those who were old but young enough to work were analyzed, to see if they could work by Nazi doctors. One major thing that I found different or thought that couldn't really happen was the freedom they had in the camp. In some scenes you could see Guido and Giosue walking around the camp after hours and no guard catching them. I found it odd because based off what we read and learned about the Holocaust, it seemed as if you couldn't just walk wherever you wanted whenever you wanted. Another thing that I think was different was the help Guido got from a Nazi doctor, who before the Holocaust Guido actually worked for. I knew that in ghettos some people would pay Nazis to let them escape, but in the movie Guido didn't pay anyone and yet the doctor helped because he knew him. It may have been possible but I haven't read anything saying something like what happened in the movie actually happened in real life. Those were just some of the similarities and differences the movie had with the Holocaust, there are some more but I just stated those as few examples.
     In this movie, there are different characters that gave the movie a different tone from others. Guido gave the movie a humorous tone. Even when they got sent to the camp, he would use humor to comfort his son. Dora in the first half of the movie had a humorous tone because there wasn't anything happening that would make her mood turn to suspenseful. The second half of the movie, she has a more suspenseful mood because you didn't see a whole lot of what was happening with her. Another character that gave the second half a humorous mood was Giosue. Since his father made him think that the reason they were in the camp was because of a game, he didn't know what was happening so it lightened the mood. Sometimes his presence in some scenes would give the movie a suspenseful tone because you weren't sure if he was going to get caught or not.
     Life is shown as beautiful throughout the film because it shows how everything was so simple, and as the Holocaust continued to happen families continued to try to be together and survive. This shows that they cared more about their families than anything else. An example of that was when Dora told the Nazi soldier to stop the train because she was going to get in it. Even though she wasn't Jewish, she risked her life just to maybe see her family one more time. An example of how everything was so simple in the film was before the Holocaust. When Guido and Dora were falling in love it seemed as if the only thing that was important was their love and them being together. Everything they did when they met were very simple and humorous. It didn't seem as complicated as most things seem now today.

Shooting the Moon- Frances O'Roark Dowell

     The book I recently finished was called Shooting Moon by Frances O'Roark Dowell. This book is about a 12 year old girl named Jamie Dexter and her brother TJ, who joins the Army and was sent off to war in Vietnam. Before leaving off to Vietnam, TJ was very into photography. In Vietnam he would take pictures of everything he saw and send them back to Jamie. Back then you had to develop the film, Jamie had to learn how to do that. As time went by, TJ would send more gruesome pictures. The one thing he would always send her at least one picture was of the moon. Jamie learned how to develop film in her local rec center, where she volunteered over the summer because her two best friends had to move away. At the red center she meets this guy, who soon becomes her best friend. In the end, this book is just about her journey coping without her brother and best friends, and the new experiences she makes with new friends.
     I really liked this book because it was easy, fast, and straight the point. It didn't have so much detail that made the book long and boring. It was detailed just enough so you could visualize what was happening in the book. I also liked how the character develops throughout the book. I would suggest this book to someone who wants a quick read and is interested in learning how the lives of army children were back when the Vietnam war was happening.

Weapons: Designing the Tools of War by Jason Richie

     This quarter a non-fiction book I read was Weapons: Designing the Tools of War by Jason Richie. This book is talks about seven weapons that have a made a huge impact in the way weapons are made today. Those seven are the Submarine, the Revolver, the Battleship, the Torpedo, the Automatic Machine Gun, the Tank, and the Ballistic Missile. It explains the background stories of how these weapons came to be and the inventors of them. Not only does it talk about those seven weapons but they also briefly discuss some popular weapons from 3000 B.C. to the 1400s. Some of those are javelins, crossbows, catapults, swords, lances, and the first handgun. The book also concisely discusses some of the newer weapons used in war. Some stated are smart bombs, new missiles, torpedoes, depth charges, machine guns, Tomahawk cruise missiles, F-117A Nighthawk (Stealth) fighter jet, laser-guided bombs, satellite-guided bombs, and many more weapons. This book was very informative on the different weapons of time.
     I really enjoyed reading this book. I didn't think that I was going to enjoy it but I did. This book was very informing and fast. There was a lot of information about different things and people but it was a quick read. I really like how you learned about major weapons used today and how they came to be. I would recommend this book to someone who is interested in learning about the history of popular weapons and who wants a quick read. My favorite part of this book was when you learned about the Battleship. It was very interesting to see how before in was made out of wood and now it's this big metal ship armed with large caliber guns. Overall this book was really good, in my opinion.

Forgotten

Forgotten  by Anonymous

You wanton, quiet memory that haunts me all the while
In order to remind me of her whom love I send.
Perhaps when you caress me sweetly, I will smile,
You are my confidante today, my very dearest friend.

You sweet remembrance, tell a fairy tale
About my girl who's lost and gone, you see.
Tell, tell the one about the golden grail
And call the swallow, bring her back to me.

Fly somewhere back to her and ask her, soft and low,
If she thinks of me sometimes with love,
If she is well and ask her, too, before you go
If I am still her dearest, precious dove.

And hurry back, don't lose your way,
So if I can think of other things,
But you were too lovely, perhaps, to stay.
I loved you once. Good-bye, my love!

Regret

     In this life, we do many actions. Sometimes we love the consequences and sometimes we hate them. When we hate them, we usually hate the action itself. We wish we can go back in time and do things differently, but unfortunately that's not what happens. The one thing I regret is not obtaining more time to bond with my brotherNot getting to know him on a brotherly level.
     My brother is in the Navy, so he isn't around all the time. It is very different for all of us because it has always been the two of us. My brother is five years older than me but I see other siblings who are more years apart and talk as if they are the same age. My brother and I know each other but not really, I know a little bit more than the rest of my family. If I could go back in time and change something it would be the relationship I have with my brother.