Speaking in Tongues

It took me a while to read the story "Speaking in Tongues". At first it took me some time to actually get into the story. However, once I got into the story, I really started to enjoy it. I liked it because it was interesting and it kept my attention throughout the rest of the story. Although, it was confusing at times.

I first was confused because I wasn't quite sure what was meant when the author said speaking in tongues. I still am not quite sure what the author meant. (If you know, feel free to comment and clue me in.) The story said things like, "You could only speak in tongues when all worldly matters were off your mind." I am just not sure what is meant by this or what the author is trying to get across to us.

One thing I thought was strange, was Tia's church. In the middle of the church service, everyone would get up and dance. They just did things that I have never heard of any other church doing. I know that in my church no one gets up and dances in the aisles. Another thing that I thought was strange, was how when Tia laughed in church class it was a crime. She later got put into a closet and practically choked by her church class teacher. This is the strangest chruch I have ever heard of.

However, this story became really interesting when Tia ran away. This is when I really got into the story. I new that something terrible was going to happen to her right when she met Dezi. I could tell that he was a creeper. Especially when he insisted that she go to his apartment and that she stay with him. I know that she really didn't know much better but still she should have used some common sense. I had a feeling when I was reading this that she was going to get d and then before I knew it she practically did. The one thing that I thought was really neat was how Marie just helped Tia out of the goodness of her heart. She knew that Tia would never be able to give her the money back or help her out later in life, but Marie helped her anyway.

All in all, I thought this was one of the best stories we have read so far. I really got into the characters and I really felt bad for the bad stituation that Tia was in. She honestly had no place to go. She had trouble living with her grandma and she really had no mom or dad. Poor .

War Letters

At first, I had a lot of trouble finding war letters. I could not find a single one that I liked or that seemed to be real. Then I looked up the Gulf War. I found a lot of interesting stuff. I really got into finding more letters and reading about what the soldiers had to say.

I did three letters from three different wars: the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, and World War I. I really enjoyed all of the letters, but my favorite one was the letter from the Gulf War. This was a letter sent by Major General Paul E. Funk to his soldiers. I liked this letter a lot because he was just telling his soldiers how proud he was of them and their courage in the war. One of my favorite lines he wrote was, "Spearhead soldiers fought with heart, tenacity and fearlessness of a Montana grizzly bear, the guts of an Army mule and the compassion of Bambi's mother." Then he goes into further detail about how compassionate his soldier really were to the Iraqi prisoners of war. He was saying that his soldiers were capturing prisoners who were very hungry and thirsty. However, his own soldiers gave the prisoners their own rations and water which would mean that his soldiers would have to be short on food and water themselves. This was extremely surprising to me. I just couldn't believe how our soldiers were so giving to the enemy. I thought this was an amazing thing that these soldiers did. It also states that the soldiers did all of this knowing that the Republican Guard would never have treated them so well. They would have most likely been killed on the spot. Then the general continues to go on about other things he is proud of his soldiers for and so on.

While this was my favorite letter, I still did like the other two letters I read too. I think that I liked reading these letters so much because when my cousin went to the war in Iraq, my entire family would write him letters and send him care packages. So this just reminded me of doing that and now being so grateful that he is home safe.

My Thoughts on Slaughter-House Five Thus Far

Slaughter-House Five is quite different than I originally thought it would be like. I figured it would be just another one of those strange, boring books that we are forced to read. However, I was wrong. I really liked how in chapter one Vonnegut kind of set the scene in his life. He gave us a little background information on him and a little look inside of his personality. In my point of view, Vonnegut seems like a pretty cool guy. He is quite random at times and yet it makes the book more interesting. I also like when he talks about how he is a drunk dialer. He says that when he gets drunk, he tends to grab the phone and call people, like his old friends, while his wife is upstairs. Strange man. Then when he called his friend, O'Hare, I thought it was sweet of O'Hare to invite Vonnegut over to talk about war. It was funny that O'Hare's wife, Mary, was upset at Vonnegut right from the start. Although, I did think that it was very cute that Vonnegut told Mary that he would dedicate his book to her and that he would make war sounds awful for the young ones.

I liked the second paragraph just as much as the first. However, before I started to read the second paragraph, I had to go and look in the back of the book to see if the last line was exactly what Vonnegut said it would be. And it was. Then I went back and read the second paragraph. After reading it, I felt really bad for Billy Pilgrim. He had so many unfortunate events happen in his life. For one, he survived a plane crash, but while he was recovering in the hospital, his wife dies of carbon monoxide poisoning. What are the chances? Secondly, he has to go to war. Not only is it unfortunate for him to go to war, but while he is there it is winter and he has thin-ripped clothing, broken shoes, and no hat or gloves. Then while he is there, he gets beat up by his own kind while the Germans watch. How sad. One thing that is pretty cool in this chapter is the idea of being unstuck in time. Like when you are , you aren't really it is just a bad moment in time for you. Whenever you want, you can go and visit other moments in time. I thought that this was pretty neat.

After reading both chapter one and two, I decided that I like the direction this book is going. It sounds like it is going to be pretty interesting and make a good story, with some parts true and some parts false. We don't know which is which. That's the fun part!