What Is Love?

Love can mean so many, very different things. I know love to be when you feel not only for someone, but with someone. You could say your hearts are synchronized.

So many people use love in underrated statements, I mean do you really love pizza?

Personally, I say I love pizza way to often, but the things I really do love are the 'things' which give me love back.

My family, pets and friends are some examples.

So for me, love is defined as when you feel with somebody who can feel emotions with you too.

Part 4 of Feed by M.T. Anderson Journal Entry...

‘It’s not you, I argued. It’s the Feed thing. You’re not like that.’	Page: 215 Chapter: 87.1%	It seems like Titus tries really hard to comfort Violet, but I think he’s trying to comfort himself. By getting the reassurance from Violet that it is because of the feed that she ‘freaked out’ and maybe if he says ‘it’s because of the Feed’ enough times, then he thinks he’ll truly believe it.
‘With a hologram, like when your teacher is one of them, if you aren’t looking right at them, they sometimes seem to be hollow.’	Page: 224 Chapter: 78.6%	It is true that holograms aren’t always crystal clear and you need the perfect lighting to clearly see them, but I thought in the future they would’ve fixed this problem by then. The hologram represents how hollow everybody is, the technology can be taking over, but the real person (teacher) is still better.
‘Unfortunately FeedTech and other investors reviewed your purchasing history, and we don’t fell that you would be a reliable investment at this time.’	Page 247 Chapter: 76.2%	Wow. Someone’s life will end without this dire need of feed repair and no body, not one corporation, want’s to repair Violet’s feed all because of her purchasing history. It is a life or death situation and Violet is about to die, but nobody will help because they won’t get anything out of it. Today in our world many things are like that, but I know/hope that none are to this extreme.
‘She looked at me and smiled, and said “My hero.” I didn’t want to be called her hero.’	Page 263 Chapter: 57.2%	After all this time Violet still thinks she developed a true relationship with Titus, one which can sustain hard moments like this, but Titus he hasn’t tried that much anymore after Violet stopped being ‘new’. When she called him her hero, of course, Titus must’ve been bombarded with guilt for being her hero, when he’s such a poor one to the least.
‘I cried, sitting by her bed, and I told her the story of us…They learn to resist the feed.’	Page: 297-298 Chapter: 4.6%	Titus does really love her. He misses all the moments they’ve had, the love story and the ‘crazy escapades’, but will he just move on or will he continue to resist the feed?

 This novel was very well written, I highly reccomend it!
Chenika

Journal Entry #4 for FEED

‘She looked at me, she didn’t say anything for a second, and then she said, ‘my feedware is damaged.’	90 Chapter: the others in mal	(R) The way that Violet had to tell Titus about her feedware being damaged and the way he reacted was similar to how people in our world would react to someone being ill, there’s moments of real silence and worry amongst them when she tells him the news. The feed seems to truly be a part of them.
‘I could feel someone was nudging my feed. They were nudging it with like their cheek or their nose.’	92 Chapter: nudging	(E) The feed cannot power one’s brain, that’s why they still need to sleep, but the feed is a computer and can stay on the whole time. So when one’s brain is weak enough to not awake people can hack into their feed and disturb the person to the point that they only realize in a dream of what’s happening; just as thieves can steal at night.

‘It has to be understood that when the President referred to the Prime Minister of the Global Alliance as a big ‘shithead,’ what he was trying to convey was, uh- this is an American idiom used to praise people, by referring to the sheer fertilizing power of their thoughts.’

119 Chapter: the dimples of delglacey

(C, Q) Isn’t this exactly like real life today? Everybody makes mistakes and instead of admitting to them they just come up with maybe a good excuse, but an excuse which is just another lie.

“Later that night I had nightmares. Someone was poking my head with a broom handle they tried to put it like in my ear. They said, ‘whispering makes a narrow place narrower.’”

151 Chapter: nudging again

(R ) Since dreams are always supposed to mean something, I think this one means something too. It is clear to me that it is the cooperation’s speaking to Titus through the feed in this dream. It must mean that gossiping or questioning the feed in any way only will get you into more trouble. The feed processes everything you say and think so even those few thoughts about the feed could alert the cooperation’s into taking precautions and ‘scaring’ Titus into not talking about the feed.

Thanks!

JoMun
Johannesburg Model United Nations
This weekend was my first Model United Nations conference and it was absolutely amazing. At first, I walked in and was nervous, my opening speech sounded like I transformed into a frog. My voice was croaking because it was shaking like crazy (well at least for me, maybe in real life it was just a bit uneven). The next day was FUNTERTAINING!!! I was learning about how exactly the conference worked, and how an amendment should look like and so on. At the end, I was really confident in walking up to the podium and explaining why this delegate of Liberia has chosen to amend this clause, support this resolution, or not support the resolution. When day 2 of JoMUN had ended we headed off to the Indaba hotel for a little dinner and some music. Everyone was dancing to the beat and probably didn't sit to eat dinner for much longer than 5 minutes. Us freshies had fun outside 'running through nature'.
When Sunday came it seemed that all were pooped, but the last day of debate was only, even better! Hilarious analogies were used by the delegate of Iraq and the delegate of Cuba became even more aggressive. Delegations were being insulted and delegates were being complimented by one another (This is for you delegate of China and Japan). At the end of the day, the closing ceremony had come and people were enjoying all the speeches, yet still sad for it to be other. I can't say I was any different.
I can't wait until next year's JoMUN! Hopefully one day I can be a chair and join the delegates debate as North Korea, but until then I will have tons of fun as a delegate, growing closer with my friends and making new friends.
So until next time,
Chenika

Dialectical Journal Entry: FEED by M.T. Anderson

Passages from the Text	Page #	Comments and Questions
‘The first thing I felt was no credit.’	44 Chapter awake	(R ) This passage captures how intertwined humans are with technology. The first thing he felt when he had a woken from an induced ‘coma’ was that his feed didn’t have money. Robots and technology don’t have feelings; so how can he feel that the technology is gone?
“What do we do” she asked. I didn’t know’	45 Chapter boring	(CL) It seems that is true. The characters have been raised during this extreme era of technology, that they don’t know what to do without it. It’s like today’s teenagers’ technology addiction problem times 10; except it’s not seen as a problem any longer in the future.
‘We were frightened and kept touching our heads, our heads felt real empty.’	46 Chapter: still boring	(Q ) Are their brains weak from just listening to the feed their whole lives? Or can they actually really feel the technology with in them, which they are missing?
‘Computers were all outside their body. They carried them around in their hands, like if you carried your lungs in a briefcase and opened them to breathe.’	47 Chapter: missing the feed	(CL) It’s clear and true now. The feed is an organ which the humans in this story think they need to survive. They don’t know independence; they don’t have individuality.
‘The other was a good sale at Whetherbee & Crotch, which by this time, I had probably missed.’	50 Chapter: cache & carry	(C ) The world of the future is actually much like today’s world news or global economy. It is ever changing and very fast paced. The only difference is that in the future stores on different planets even seems to be hard to keep up with (if it weren’t for the feed).
‘So we just sat there, together, and didn’t say anything. It wasn’t that bad.’	54 Chapter: Night. And boring	(E ) At this point I hope that Titus and the other characters are learning that sometimes peace is nice. That sometimes people just need to think, for themselves, on their own.
‘Yeah they’re busy with jobs and stuff. They couldn’t come at all.’	56 Chapter: Father	(E ) This is actually really sad. I tink Violet was enjoying herself last night alone at the bar because she’s used to being alone. Maybe Titus and his friends can bring more happiness and friends to her life
‘Maybe these are our salad days.’ ‘You know happy.’	60 Chapter: Salad days w/Sneeze guard	(Q ) These kids were just ‘attacked’ by a stranger and these are their happy days? The days that are in a hospital stripped from their feed?
‘She was staring at me and I was staring at her, and I moved toward her and we kissed.’	63 Chapter: The Garden	(CL) I knew there was going to be romance between Titus and Violet since the first page they saw each other. It’s cute, but I think they’re going to have bigger things to worry about (just because there’s an ominous feeling).

‘I looked at her funny. You write?’	65 Chapter: Dead Language	These kids have become so dependent on the Feed. They can’t even write. They’re communicating, but not in the age old way by pen and paper.
‘The salad days couldn’t last forever. Everyone wanted to get back to Earth, the moon sucked.’	68 Chapter: release	( P ) I completely agree, the moon would’ve sucked for me too if I was attacked and left in a foreign hospital during my spring break. It was the time to have fun, not live in a hospital.

The fun continuous and even if this section of the story was very straightforward, many things about Violet and Titus were still revealed.
Enjoy!!!

FEED: ENTRY 1

Dialectical Journal entry: FEED by M. T. Anderson

Passages from the text	Pg#s	Comments & Questions
“We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck.”	Pg 1 Chapter: Your Face is Not an Organ	(E) Are these characters spoiled or what? It’s the first sentence of the book and I don’t know anything about them except that this must be based in the future because there just casually saying the moon sucks!!! I don’t understand this, but anyway maybe there wasn’t anything to do on the moon.
“We ordered some fancy nutrient IV’s from room service but they gave us all headaches.”	Pg 9: Chapter: Impact	(C ) This quote gives me a real personal connection. IV’s are things that are used to save a life, people are so unhealthy now, but it seems like they don’t get any healthier in the future. If you us an IV as a fun drink then you probably aren’t drinking what you should (water).
“Quendy is just like a kind of broken, little economy model of Calista, and she knows that, and feels really bad about it. But when this girl helped her, it wasn’t like that. Quendy was the center of everyone for a long time. That was why I kept looking at the girl in gray, and I started to want, more than anything else that night, to be with her.”	Pg 25 Chapter: The Nose Grid	(E) What can I say? It was love at first sight. The girl in gray had something that charmed Titus to the point where he couldn’t stop looking at her. She was beautiful. She helped and made others even more beautiful too. That takes somebody real beautiful to do. She knows how to make others feel good and analyze things to incredible manner (“your lesion, it’s on the edge of your face, so it frames your face. The good grid. See you have this great grid.”).
“They were protesting all these things, some of them even were protesting the feed. They were like shouting, “Chip in my head, I’m better off dead.”	Pg 32 Chapter: The Moon is in the House of Boring	(P) I predict that something is going to happen. Something big, the people are going to get angry, real angry and rise against the feed, but the feed is strong and it is going to be a big conflict. (C,) This reminds me of protests and people against governments secret services. It reminds of people protesting against agencies having the ability to look at your phone records, google searches and texts. Just imagine the ability to read your thoughts like the feed.
“We enter a time of calamity. Blood on the tarmac. Fingers in the juicer. Towers of air frozen in the lunar wastes. Models dead on the runways, with their legs facing backward. Children with smiles that can’t be undone. Chicken shall rot in the aisles. See the pillars fall.”…And then they touched us and bodies fell and there was nothing else.”	Pg 39 Chapter: The Moon is in the House of Boring	(CL) It seems that something is going to happen. The old man must’ve been a rebel against the feed and did something to their feeds too. The feed seems to have total control of a person the only thing that prevailed was one Titus wanted to hold Violets hand, their love allowed them to connect. (Q) What is going to happen in jail, will the police find out it wasn’t their fault?

You have to read this story! Pretty, pretty please! The second I started it I couldn't stop reading.
(P.S. I've read way more than 40 pages)

SHORT STORIES...

I've read 5 short stories since the end of August and each are truly interesting in each of there own ways.


So let's begin,
The stories that have really stood out to me are...
'A Perfect Day for Bananafish' by JD Salinger (check out my previous blog post on this story)
and
'Initiation' by Sylvia Plath

Each have a dark twist on them!
'A Perfect Day for Bananfish' is a story written in the setting of post World War ll. A strong theme of communication and innocence define the story. The main character, Seymour Glass, leads you through his mental illness and his child-like perspective on life as an adult. The supporting characters purpose are to reveal more about Seymour.
You have to read this story, it's short and sweet, but is filled with unusual people and a twist ending!




So let's continue onto the story 'Initiation'.
'Initiation' reflects so much on high schoolers and their hunt for popularity. It is so true in the way that the main character, Millicent, searchers for popularity as many high schoolers. The theme reveals the age old story of that you should learn to be happy on your own. The whole story was about Millicent's initiation process into a high school sorority and the last line of the story is that
'My own initiation has just begun.'
Clearly this quote reflects Millicent's choice and reflection on the whole initiation process. So what if Millicent chose not to be a part of the sorority, she learnt so much throughtout the whole 'initiation' process.

These stories are amazing and please read them! They will really entertain you!
Until next time,
Chenika