Chalice

I read Chalice, a 263 page book by Robin McKinley. This story is about Mirasol. She lives in this kingdom were there is a ruler, known as the master, the Chalice, and the Circle. Together they rule the kingdom of Willowlands. The master rules Willowlands and it is the Chalice's job to magically bind him to Willowlands and keep the country together. The Circle is representatives from the people and help the Master rule, each member of the circle has certain duties to help rule. Mirasol is an ordinary beekeeper who has the magic of being able to in a sense communicate with the land. This is not that unusual, but then she is chosen in a sense by Willowlands, to be the new Chalice since the old Chalice and Master had died. The country is in turmoil and Mirasol does the best she can to help it, however she has no training to be a Chalice. Normally, the Chalice will choose an apprentice to take over after they die, however the previous Chalice did not have an apprentice. This makes it so that Mirasol has hardly any idea how or even what she is supposed. She learns most of it by reading books in the library. There is also the problem of the new Master, when a new bloodline of masters is brought in, there are usually disasterous consequences. This forced the Circle to send message to the old Master's younger brother, who has been in service of the mysterious Fire temple for several years. The Priests reply that the brother would come, but anyone who has been in Fire so long is no longer completely human. The new Master comes and everyone is apprehensive of him because he no longer look human and seems to be extremely weak. Originally Mirasol is a little scared of the new Master, but then she ends up liking him. Unfortunately, there is the need to announce an heir since nobody wants more turmoil if the new Master suddenly died. The Circle chooses a greedy man named Horuld. Mirasol knows that Horuld is the wrong man to be heir, unfortunately there is nothing she can do. However it gets worse, Horuld is greedy and challenges the new Master to a duel to decide who should be the Master. Mirasol is really worried because she knows that the Master is in no shape to duel. At the duel when it looks like the master will lose Mirasol's bees come and swarm over the combatants. In the end Horuld is dead with his body burnt and the new Master is fine and human again. Most of the Circle quits and Mirasol and the new Master decide to get married.

I have enjoyed reading other Robin McKinley books. Besides Chalice, I have enjoyed reading The Hero and the Crown and Spindle's End. I thought that it was interesting how Robin McKinley wrote this novel. She deliberately starts the book off in the middle of Mirasol trying to become a good Chalice, this makes the reader feel confused and so understand how Mirasol is feeling. Mirasol has no previous Chalice experiences and is confused and unsure of how to do a lot of things that Chalice's are supposed to do. Robin McKinley also does not explain much of the Priests of Fire or about the Circle and other magical things, this keeps the reader in the dark and so the reader is able to just know what Mirasol knows. It allows the reader to better understand Mirasol and realize how brave she is. Mirasol tries her hardest to be a good Chalice even though she does not understand what to do. Unfortunately, Mirasol's lack of knowledge does get her in trouble when she went on a walk with Horuld, thinking she was only being polite, only to find out later that that meant that she supported Horuld. It is easy to forgive Mirasol for making that mistake because she is still unsure of all of these ceremonial gestures. I would have liked a little more introduction to the story, but I did think it was clever to just start off in the middle of the story, creating some confusion in the reader.

Reserved For the Cat

I read Reserved for the Cat a 372 page book by Mercedes Lackey. This novel is about Ninette Dupond. Her mom had died and her father had disappered when Ninette was young. Ninette is a dancer at the Paris Opera Ballet, however one day the lead ballerina sprained her ankle and Ninette had to play her part, Ninette is so good that in order to make the lead dancer feel better Ninette isfired. Ninette could not find another job until a strange talking cat showed up at her apartment and told her that he could help her get another job as a ballerina. Since Ninette had no other options she decides to trust the cat. The cat has her go to England and then pretend to be this famous Russian ballerina that had gotten shipwrecked. She is rescued by these owners of a music hall. One of the owners is an elemental master, or wizard, of air. His assistant is sensitive to magic and has some telepathic powers. There is also a talking parrot that claims to be the reincarnation of Mozart. At the music hall Ninette performs well and even though she just copies dances and ballet tricks from other performers, she is still good and can appease the audience. However, the real Russian ballerina that Ninette is impersonating has been taken over by an evil spirit that ate people. This spirit is angry that Ninette is stealing her reputation and so the spirit decides to kill Ninette. However, all of the spirit's attempts are thwarted by the music hall owner and this fire master that also performs at the music hall. Eventually Ninette told them the truth about who she is and though they were upset, they forgive her. It is also discovered that Ninette has some telepathic powers that give her this charisma that makes the audience enjoy seeing Ninette perform and from that enjoyment Ninette gets energy back. The elemental masters and the cat are trying to find out who is trying to hurt Ninette. The cat gets a lead and managed to find the evil spirit's hiding place, unfortunately once he was there he was trapped. The cat used to be an earth elemental master but was sealed in cat form because he lost a duel. The cat is also Ninette's father. Anyway the cat did not have enough power to kill the spirit and Ninette could tell that the cat is in danger and so she goes after him. Before she left she gave the brownie that lived in her apartment the message that when her maid came back, to tell the elemental master where she went. Anyway she goes to the evil spirit's house where she shots it and kills it. However the spirit had evil servants that were no longer under control, but the other people arrived in time and saved them. The book ends were Ninette will continue dancing at the music hall and the cat falls in love with this other person that was stuck in cat form.

I liked reading this book. Now I want to read the other Elemental Masters novels. I think that they are about different people, but they are in the same setting. I did think that this was a good book and I liked the main character Ninette. She is a strong female character even though she didn't have much magic. She is very determined and stubborn. She works really hard to be good at dancing and she spends basically all her time practicing. I thought that it is kind of sad that all Ninette really does is dance, but she does have a lot of friends and she really does enjoy dancing. Ninette does have her flaw that she really likes attention and enjoys having a lot of men come up to admire her and she loves the audience's applause and attention.

Deception Point

I read Deception Point, a 736 page book by Dan Brown. As the title implies there were a lot of deceptions in this book. This novel is about Rachel Sexton, the daughter of a senator running for the presidency. She and her father don't get along well because her father is power hungry and mean and cheated on Rachel's mother. Rachel is a gister, she works for a secret agency known as the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). Rachel takes information from the intelligence reports from the NRO and then condenses the important information and sends it in a brief report to the presidents' office. One day she received a call from the president that he wanted to meet her. So, she met the president and he told her that NASA had made a huge discovery. NASA was under attack from Senator Sexton, Rachel's father, for spending tons of money that got wasted and that money going to NASA was money that could be spent on helping schools. Anyway after a lot of suspense of what the discovery was, because the President said that he couldn't tell her what the discovery was, she would have to see it for herself. So, she is flown to the Arctic and she finds that NASA had discovered a meteorite with fossil on it, which proved that there was extraterrestrial life. She did what the president had asked her to and via a video camera on the computer, informed the president's staff about the discovery. However, after a while the authenticity of the meteorite was put into question and so Rachel and Michael and Corky and Norah went outside on the Arctic to do this test and they found that the meteorite had been planted in the ice. However, they were attacked and Norah died. Corky, Michael, and Rachel through many very dangerous situations that they just happened to survive, while been followed by the secret service people that attacked them, managed to get on an ice shelf. They thought that they were going to die but Rachel had been hitting their piece of ice which sent out signals, that a submarine that just happened to be near by heard. The submarine rescued them and then they were going to be taken by helicopter to meet the head of the NRO to talk about the meteorite. In brief, after a long series of debates Rachel and Michael now believe that the meteorite was a fake, though Corky still believes that the meteorite is real. However, they go to Michael's ship were he has all his information for his research on the ocean. There they find the final piece of evidence that the meteorite is a fake. They get attacked again and more people die and they find out that the mastermind behind the whole operation is William Pickering, the head of the NRO. A huge thing called a megaplume was hit by a sinking helicopter and the megaplume exploded and it sunk the ship with Pickering on it, however there just happened to be another helicopter there that was looking for the previous helicopter that had taken everyone to the ship. This new helicopter saved Corky, Michael, and Rachel and they went to the President and told him everything. In the end the President wins the election over Senator Sexton because Sexton was going to show the press evidence of NASA's scam, however Rachel and Sexton's assistant Gabrielle had switched the photos so that instead they showed the photos of Sexton's sex scandal. In the end Michael and Rachel fall in love. Throughout all of this the point of view is constantly switching and telling the stories from different perspectives. Another side of the story is from Gabrielle who at first believed in Sexton but then found out his true nature and so Gabrielle turned on him.

I think that a lot of Dan Brown's books are similar, but I still think that they are fun to read. I think that Dan Brown does like suspense a little too much. In the book Rachel, Michael, Corky, and Norah think that there is something wrong because there were plankton in the meteorite excavation hole. However, it takes so long before the reader finds that out. First some scientists sees something in the water that really excites him, but the secret service people knew that it was bad that he found whatever was in the water and so they kill him. Then a few chapters later everyone else finds the hole and are shocked by what is in it and can't believe it and then finally the reader learns that it is plankton that are in the hole. Dan Brown seems to really like making things suspenseful and mysterious and I sometimes think that it is a little too much and it sounds kind of forced, like it is obviously supposed to be drawing as much suspense as it can. I also think that in this book there were a few too many life or death scenes were miraculously something saves the main characters.

Kabul Beauty School part 3

I have finished reading Kabul Beauty School. It was depressing that the ending was so sad. There were several more stories about women getting abused and Debbie encountered more problems with the Afghanistan government. Debbie also had to fire her housekeeper Shaz, because she was in love with a bad man named Farooq who gave her drugs and was calling or texting many of the women running the Beauty School salon that funded the school. If the women's husbands found out about the calls they would probably beat their wives. This made me really sad not only for the wives sake but because Shaz was so disillusioned and she herself had suffered a traumatic childhood. Another sad story is the story about Hama, the girl who hung around with the abusive family friend. Though Debbie tried to help her, Debbie tried to get Hama a visa so she could live in the US, but Hama continued to be with Ali and his friends. Though Debbie tried she could not stop Hama from being with Ali and Hama endangered the Beauty School if she hung around it, so Debbie was forced to make Hama leave to protect the school. One really sad thing was that Hama was only around 15 when Debbie first met her and Debbie is unsure of how long this abuse has been going on. Finally, Debbie was forced to leave Afghanistan and the Beauty School. She was getting threatened by someone in Afghanistan, she wasn't sure who but she was informed by a friend in the government. Because she had her son with her in that particular trip to Afghanistan, she decided that she needed to leave so she and her son left Afghanistan and Debbie was not able to return.

I think that it is really sad that someone would threaten Debbie after all she had done to help Afghanistan. I also think it is really sad all the depressing stories about women being abused in Afghanistan. I believe that Debbie was brave to go to Afghanistan and try and help the women there, when Debbie didn't even speak the language or know any of the customs, she just went there with a dream to try and help.

Kabul Beauty School part 2

I am continuing reading Kabul Beauty School by Deborah Rodriguez, I am currently on page 196. Debbie was able to make her idea about opening a school for hairdressers in Afghanistan a reality. She got several hair product donations from such companies as Paul Mitchell. Debbie than got help from the organization PARSA to help fund and run her beauty school. So with all the hair product donations and the help from PARSA the school Beauty Without Borders Kabul Beauty School got started. Debbie was a teacher there and she taught the women attending the school about various hairdresser things. Original she had trouble with that because she needed to use a translator because she wasn't fluent in Dari, however after a while she found out that if she had a student who understood the concept well teach the class instead, it was much easier. The school did have several problems including getting their land confiscated and having to move the school's location, and then having to move again because they were stuck in a place were empty rooms got rented out to men who liked to party a lot. There was also the problem of the lack of funding the school got. This prompted Debbie to make a salon to help fund the school. She had graduates from the school help run the salon which catered to western clients. I have also learned more about Deborah Rodriguez. She seems to always be sort of depressed. She always seemed to need some person to be with which causes her to quickly marry people who she doesn't really know much about. After her first divorce she married a preacher who became an abusive husband. She managed to divorce him and after that she went to Afghanistan to start her beauty school. In Afghanistan her Afghan friends believe that she needs an Afghan husband and so they find one for her. After only a few dates she and the Afghan guy, who was already married and had kids in Saudi Arabia, got married.

I think it is really sad some of the stories about women being abused in Afghanistan. There was this one girl named Hama who was molested by an older man who was a friend of her family. When Debbie found out about this she was very angry and tried to help Hama by keeping her away from the old guy. Eventually someone from the US told Debbie that she would take Hama in. So, Hama was sent to live in America. There was also a woman whose husband was very abusive and Debbie tried to help her. Debbie managed to get the women into the beauty school and after beauty school the woman managed to get her husband to divorce her. After that she started her own salon and is doing so well that she doesn't ever have to get married again.

I am really happy that Debbie has helped so many people and is trying to help even more. However, I think that Debbie is sort of a weird person and has some issues. I think it was really stupid of her to marry an Afghan man, even though he had some progressive thinking, he was still raised in a culture where women were considered inferior and were bossed around by their husbands. I also think that when Debbie went to Afghanistan she was abandoning her kids in America, when she first went to Afghanistan I think her kids were only in their teens and I think that by going to Afghanistan she abandoned them.

Kabul Beauty School

I have read the first 56 pages of the book Kabul Beauty School. This book is a memoir about Deborah Rodriguez, a hairdresser, who went to Afghanistan to try and help people. The book starts out with the wedding of Debbie's best friend, Roshanna. As a favor to Roshanna Debbie did all of Roshanna's hair and make-up. This was a lot because brides wear tons of make-up for their wedding and they have to have all of their hair, except for the hair on their head and eyebrows, waxed off. After Rodriguez talks about the wedding, she talks about why she went to Afghanistan. She went with the group CFAF (Care for All Foundation). At first Debbie didn't know what she could do to help since she was only a hairdresser and not a doctor or other medical person. At the beginning Debbie did little things to help, like doing people's laundry or praying for the group. But, when she went to a meeting that had many people from various organizations to help Afghanistan, many women there were excited to have a hairdresser. So, Debbie did many of the volunteers hair. After that Debbie was interested in seeing what a salon in Afghanistan looked like, since under the oppressive Taliban rein they had been wiped out and were only starting to come back. Once Debbie saw a salon, she realized that she could teach women how to hairdress so that they could make money and become the breadwinners of their family. This is where I stopped reading and I am really excited to continue reading.

I really like this book so far. I think that it is so cool that this woman, a simple hairdresser, is trying to help all these people in Afghanistan. I think that it is amazing that this one woman could help so many people and that she is unafraid of trying to help and is trying to do everything she can to help. I also think it is interesting learning about the culture of Afghanistan and how different it is from the US. The marriage ceremony is so different from American marriages, it was cool learning what the Afghan marriages were like. However, I do not like the sexism of the Afghan culture, like women have to wear the burqas and the women don't really go out in public much, and how the men and women are in separate spheres.

2 Annotations

How much should the government help the environment?

Susskind, Lawrence. "Strengthening the Global Environmental Treaty System." Issues in Science and Technology Vol. 25, No. 1 Fall 2008. SIRS. .

The author of this article is Lawrence Susskind. He is currently a professor of Urban and Environmental planning at MIT. He has a B.A. in English literature and sociology from Colombia University.He also has a Masters in city planning and a PhD in Urban planning from MIT. He has also won many awards including the Global Environmental Award for his work contributing to the field of environmental conflict. Lawrence Susskind is also the founder and president of the Consensus Building Institute. This institute helps mediate disputes between countries worldwide. This article by Lawrence Susskind is about the problems of international treaties that are specifically about environmental issues. These problems include there being no way for the treaties to be enforced, not all the countries are joining and there is no profit for them to join, and the fact that the countries do not know what each countries contribution should be, considering how developed the country is. Finally, the article discussed ways the treaties could be improved, including making it profitable for counties to join and having groups in the various countries try and help the countries follow the treaties.

Jayson, Sharon. "What It Means to Think 'Green'." USA Today 13 Aug 2008. SIRS. .

The author, Sharon Jayson, is currently a journalist for USA Today, specializing in articles about behavior and relationships.She has worked in the media for a long time and has had jobs in different media areas. She was a journalist for the Austin American-Statesmen before she worked for USA Today. She has also worked for radio programs and been anchors for newscasts. This article by Jayson is about the psychology of thinking green. It talks about experiments by different psychologists including experiments about the effect of propaganda on peoples’ opinions on being green. The article is also about how people do not always understand what they can do to help the environment and how they do not understand everything they are hearing about such things as global warming.