Weekly reflective post F451-2

Ok so now I'm up to page 95. Things start getting interesting and tight as Montag meets the old man, Faber. I like how the author uses all the literary devices and figurative languages. Sometimes it takes a while to figure out what the author's trying to say, but you'll find it amazing when you finally understand the inner meanings.
I found that he largely uses continuous numbers to create a feeling of terseness. When I was reading it, I could sort of feel a voice come from the deep of my head, whispering and counting out those numbers faster and faster. I couldn't stop reading it when I reached the part that Montag's taking a train to Faber's house. The author lavishly uses different kinds of figurative languages to describe the weather, the mood, the surrounding, and even the "speed of time." Sometimes time seems going fast in the book, while at several parts, time's frozen, paused.
I like this book more and more as I read through. It's probably one of the best novels I've ever read.
Now I'm reading the part when Montag's heading home with the 'seashells' plugged in his ears. I have a feeling that the climax of the story, or an essential turning point is coming close.

Weekly reflective post : FAHRENHEIT 451 Part 1

This week is right after the exam week. We should have been relaxing; however, I could’t stop reading Fahrenheit 451 whenever I’ve got time. It’s been a busy week and I didn’t get a lot of time reading it, and the reality that I’m a slow and inefficient reader make me still on page 40. Although the writing style of this book is sometimes muddling, so I had to reread those parts for several times, it really catches readers’ attention and brings the readers into the story.

There’re intriguing moments in these 40 pages and some of them kind of conjure up my memories and personal experiences. For example, Montag was brought into a series of pondering and contemplations by Clarisse McClellan’s strangeness and her extraordinary perspective to the chats about candlelight, a clock, and a mirror. When she (Clarisse McClellan) mentioned that one wouldn’t be able to see and enjoy the beauty of flowers on the sides of highway when the person is driving on a high speed. I felt like I have always been competing and concerned about the results without realizing the core ideas and delight of doing all the works I’ve done, such as math competitions, science fairs, piano, and etc..

People, including myself, should sometimes slow down, stop rushing, and take a deep breath, enjoying our surroundings and all the beautiful things existed in the world. In short, this is a really pleasing book, and I enjoy reading it, not the test though.

trip to malacca, malaysia

We went to Malaysia and Singapore for a total of 2 weeks. Although these two countries are really close to each other, they have big difference. Singapore is famous for its high urbanization; the usage of every single building, every single plant, and every part of area are all carefully schemed, which means there’s no waste of land. Furthermore, it’s very clean in Singapore, and people obey laws and rules there. I’m impressed by its hot and humid weather there. It makes me sticky and sweating all the time.

On the last day in Malaysia, we went to Malacca, a little town in the south of Malaysia. When I was on the bus, I saw many buildings in different styles. Some looked like Chinese traditional buildings, while others looked aboriginal or British. I loved the weather there, especially when the sun creeping up in the morning. The first gleam of the day came in the first sight along the sea shore. Oh my god! I’ve got to say it’s magnificent. Regretfully, I didn’t take a picture of it. We went to a Chinatown in Malacca as well. It was hot, but we kept walking around, seeing those beautiful ancient buildings. We traversed a river through a bridge. I stopped on the bridge for a while and tried to put myself into this atmosphere. The red belfry curved with Chinese words on it rang and scared the pigeons away. The pigeons flew through the sky; I could see their shadows moving rapidly, and I could feel a sudden breeze whiffing. I don’t know why, but I enjoyed this moment as well as these views around me.

favorite author

Although I love to read, and I believe that I spend quite a lot of time reading, I haven’t read enough books written in English in order to tell which author who writes in English is my favorite. However, there’re certain authors whom I admire to, and Peter Mayle is one of them. Books such as A Year In Provence, Toujour Provence, and A Dog’s Life are all beautifully written by Peter Mayle.

A Year In Provence, Toujour Provence are basically autobiographies of his life in Provence , French, where he met unpredictable storms and fierce when he first got there. A Dog’s Life is one of my favorites book. It’s about his dog named Boy. The entire story is seeing from Boy’s view to his host as well as the world. Peter Mayle tries to thing in his dog’s way through careful observations on Boy for countless times. In the book, Boy expresses its opinion towards events and things that seem normal to us. When I was reading this book, I could actually feel Boy’s expressions and actions and imagine what Boy’s thinking vividly. Boy even makes comments on human’s food by using its “sensitive sense of smell.” This book send the message of paying respect to not only people but also different creatures such as your dog. Sometimes we just can’t be too selfish; we have to think for others. Sometimes you may think you are doing a right thing for someone without standing on his/her point of view thinking whether he/she would like you to do this. Furthermore, this story also tells me that seeing a same thing from different perspective will surprise you a lot, especially when you’re seeing from a “dog’s point of view!”

Week's refletive post

This week is our first school week after coming back from Singapore. It's terrible because we've got lots of works needed to be done. I usually spend 3 hours on Facebook every day and the rest of 4 hours studying and doing homework before 1 a.m.. However, life became miserable these days; we had to read an abbreviated version of North and South written by Elizabeth Gaskell, and we had a test based on the book on Friday. I usually got distracted in some ways when I was reading the book, and I believe one of the reason is the boredom that this book brought. The beginning part of this book is ultimately boring because it's about a person's boring life and her boring background without anything special. As the story goes, it gets a little bit better than the previous part, but it's still not so interesting. When I reached Ch. 10, my only impression was that oh this is a terrible and sad story full of death, lies, anger, hatred, and the gray and gloomy Manchester sky. The ending was not too bad, but I don't like the word choice in this book. The way it's written doesn't effectively express the feelings and atmosphere that the author is trying to tell. In addition, this story doesn't manage to catch readers' attention.