Last Blog, better get full credit... Please.

Well, the blog is over. This is the last one. I must have a television advertisement, so here we go:

Do you like to read? Do you like adventures? Do you hate to read? Do you enjoy travelling? Do you like anything? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then A Thousand Splendid Suns is right for you. This is the second novel written by Khaled Housseini, the best selling Afghan American author. The first novel was an immediate New York Times best seller, and this novel is on the charts as well. The story tells the tale of a young woman in Afghanistan during the Russian takeover whom is a bastard child. She receives plenty of prejudice and discrimination from everyone around her, even he own biological father. She escapes Afghanistan to be I America and she continues to face hardship.

This novel is an easy read of around 300 pages and you will not want to put it down. Just like Housseini’s The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns is action packed from start to finish. This novel is truly a roller coaster ride that doesn’t stop. You will find yourself sweating, crying, laughing, and hurting with the characters of the novel. It is heart wrenching as well as comical at parts, but remains very serious throughout.

This book is sold everywhere, and if you tell the cashier you know the author personally, you can pick up the book for free! But this can only be done if you have a registered place of birth on the same street as Housseini or have a family tree that stems to at least a fourth cousin of Housseini. Nothing in life is free, which is what my mother has always said.

(This commercial will open with people reading, getting involved in adventures, and travelling, and then an √ going across the screen. Then some random guy in a sport coat and tie is going to come on screen and read from the script. He is going to look a little awkward, but he will also be confident. He will be a paradox in that way and he will look good. During the part about the layout of the book, he will be sitting in a comfy chair, satin, wearing a robe now by a fireplace, holding the book and shaking it around as he talks and sips tea and eats cheese cubes. But then when they go to the part about where it is sold, he will be back in his sporty, classy attire and he will be I front of a Barnes and Noble, Half Price Books, Borders, target, etc. Literally everywhere. There will be a store rolodex showing everyplace to go. Then, when he gets to the disclaimer, the man will talk so fast that no one can Actually hear what he has to say, so they all assume they can get it for free and then go get one, pay for it… Hug Profit. Then a shot will show a bunch of children reading the novel in a beautiful garden as the title of the book flashes across the screen….)

Fin.

Drew Harris is forever my hero. Forever and ever.

-B

The LAST PROJECT

What Have I learned in High School?

There are so many things, but I mean, let’s be real… I will learn more in college. But considering I still have a few days left, we might as well focus on high school for now. One of the first things I learned is to write everything down.

I used a pen (blue or black, rarely green) and a pad of paper that could easily fit in my back pocket of my jeans.

I bought a 12-pack of 100-sheet pads of this size that I could use. I used 1 pad a day, only on weekdays, and never when there wasn’t school. Occasionally I use an extra page here and there, but for the most part I stick to this system. On these pads of paper, I write homework, schedules, girl’s phone numbers (this actually happened in school one time), and really anything I cannot forget. Once I did it, or talked to whomever, or put the number into my phone, I would cross out the item. If I do not have the time to deal with one of the items, it gets transferred to the next day. I throw away the pages each night. Since I bought a 12-pack, I figured I can use them all the way through college without having to replace them. If I wrote it down, it got accomplished, but If I never wrote it down, it would probably go forgotten.

At Mariemont High school, it is easy to accomplish a lot. All you need to do is talk. Being shy gets you nowhere in this life. You have to go out and get what you want and you must start with talking. Once you talk, then you walk. Say then Do. Be yourself and talk.

Show up. “Seventy percent of Success is just showing up”- Woody Allen. You cannot do anything without showing up and can’t do a lot without showing up on time. So don’t be late either.

Try hard. I mean, c’mon, that’s an easy one…

The Most Important Thing I learned…

Friendship. This may sound silly, but friends get you through the worst of times and enjoy the best of times with you. Without a group of friends or one friend, everything can be quite lonely. Everyone needs to feel love, and when we go out into the world, Mom and Dad are too far to love us when we need it. This is where friends come in. We crave the love of others.

What should I have gotten? (Really: Where did the teachers strike out?)

I kind of wish I learned more of video editing and all that with Mr. Goetz. I have been in videos of all sorts, including the hit documentary Kick Drum Hearts, and several classroom productions, but I know nothing of video editing. I lovemaking videos, I have good ideas for videos like skits and things of that sort, but I just don’t know what to do when given the task of cutting film to match it up in the way I want. This is I guess where friends come in. Glad I learned that! But I mean, look at this picture, Luke is simultaneously cutting different parts of the movie to make it into a sequence, and If you look closely, I am in both frames.

Usually someone wishes they learned things that are all philosophical, but I took philosophy, and there is nothing philosophical about the trade of video editing. It’s just one of those things I never got.

As a whole, I feel I played the game of high school just right. I made some friends (let’s be honest, some lifelong, some not, but still good to have around), learned a lot in the academic sense, learned more about myself and social trends and tendencies. I mean, the one thing I cannot wait to do is friend all of my FORMAL teachers once I have that diploma. HA. But yea, I am pumped for the next step. I am not nervous at all. Mariemont has prepared me well. And I couldn't have gone through it all with my hero, especially English...

Drew Harris is my hero.

-B

Reason, Mother/Daughter, More

I consider the purpose of the novel written by Khaled Housseini is to inform. This is very similar to the reason of his first best seller, The Kite Runner. In both novels, the author tells a story of someone in Afghanistan in the 70’s and 80’s that wants to get away and be free from the USSR and the Taliban. In A Thousand Splendid Suns, Mariam shows the female perspective on what was going on in Afghanistan at the time. The Kite Runner showed the story through the eyes of a father and a son, and Mariam shows the other side of the story through the prejudice she is subject to for being considered a bastard. What Housseini is trying to explain to the world is the path and hardship of those in Afghanistan. His first novel came out in 2003 and this novel came out shortly after. At that time, America was opposed to anything labeled Afghanistan. Housseini wanted to show the world that not all Afghans are evil. They are people, just like you and me, and they can make mistakes (sometimes major ones) and they have their own flaws just like everyone else. Mariam just wanted to get to know her father, like any bastard child separated from a parent would want. Mariam’s mother wanted Mariam to appreciate her and stop thinking foolish things, but Mariam was not going to let the men in power and society keep her from getting to know her father, being a successful woman in Afghanistan, and being free.

A relationship I did not like throughout the course of the novel was the almost artificial relationship between Mariam and her mother Nana. Nana was there to care for her daughter and try to teach her how to survive in life. But Mariam didn’t want to listen. She was more interested in her father. She didn’t listen to her mother, and when she was most rebellious, she came home to see her mother had killed herself. Mariam had so many unanswered questions about life and her father, and she took her mother for granted. So when she needed her most, Nana wasn’t there. His made me dislike their relationship. Mariam was not respecting Nana enough, or realizing her importance until she was gone.

If I were to add a chapter to this novel, it would be early in the novel and it would be more in depth about Nana before she had Mariam. This novel would help explain her upbringings and help the reader see why Nana does what she does.
She wakes up early each morning to help prepare breakfast for her master. Her mom was a servant to a relatively wealthy man that worked for an oil company in the area. She and her two sisters worked for around seventeen hours a day to all of the needs of their master and his family. These three young servants were demanded to care for two adults and their three kids. Their duties included washing dishes, washing clothes, cleaning the house, serving guests, and sometimes even helping bathe their master. They were often abused and never felt safe at while serving. They felt that at any moment one of the masters would snap and kill them. They worked for this man and his family for a long time, and were sold when they were in their teens to another family. There new master would father the child of Nana in the future. Both of Nana’s sibling died due to starvation at the last house, so Nana was in it alone now. She was always worried even still of possible attacks from her master, but this new master turned out to be nice and kind to her. He never raised his voice and rarely was angry. These qualities ended up being reasons for her attraction to her master, which inevitably led to a baby that Nana would name Mariam.

Society

There is an obvious connection to society in this novel. The novel shows and depicts women and their role in Afghan life. Nana tells Mariam that the only thing she must learn in life is to "endure," instead of learning a formal education. Women are discouraged from learning in Afghanistan and are discouraged from forming any form of relationships since they are nothing but property, it seems. This is interesting as the novel points out several female bonds that occur during the novel, such as Nana and Mariam, Mariam and Laila, and Mariam and an admirer in prison. All of these bonds are shown to prove that women can overcome the power struggle in the worst of times by sticking together.

Another theme that represents society today, especially in the Middle East, is honor of one's family. This is considered the most important in certain cultures to be successful in life. Since Nana had a bastard child, Mariam, she was to live a life in shame for having a child out of wedlock. This shame Mariam has to live with her entire life and ends up killing Nana. This novel is not the first story where this kind of shame ends a family in murder or suicide or a form of exclusion from society.

Who?What?When?Where?Why?....

If I were to go on a date, or a luncheon if you will, with a character from my novel, it would be with Drew Harris,.... no wait, Jalil, who is Mariam's biological father. He is a rich man, who slept with a servant, Nana, and had a baby. Mariam must live with being considered a bastard, which is highly frowned upon in this society.

I would enjoy a meal at Bombay City, right next to Magic Wok in Mariemont because it is close to the type of food that Jalil would enjoy in his native Afghanistan and that it is geographically close, making it easy for the both of us. I bet it's cheap too.

We would eat Lunch on a saturday. Nice and Chill

I would eat with him because of how he feels about his life. Whether or not he was a failure, considering it was because of his mysterious personality in the eyes of Mariam. Because she wanted to be with him, Nana ended up killing herself. He tried to stay away, but Mariam wanted to know her father. What was his thinking when he slept with Nana, a servant? How did he deal with having a completely different second family?

This would be an interesting conversation, and Drew can come too.

Drew harris is my hero

-B

Main Character and all about that

The main character in this novel is Mariam. She is considered a 'bastard child' because her wealthy father impregnated his servant, Nana. She is told about her place in society from the second she could comprehend words. She was told to always know that she was a bastard.

This reminds me of Cinderella. Cinderella has a very different story, but she is told from the beginning that she is less that her stepsisters. But she still has hope and overcomes adversity in the end. I am hoping that Mariam will do the same.

Mariam deserves to have her story told because of the hardship she has to endure as a woman and a bastard in Afghanistan during the 1970's, where the country is taken over by the Russians and is very corrupt. She faces prejudice every day and is at a time where she will no longer take the prejudice or discrimination from men in her life.

I bet drew is reading his book much faster than i am....

Drew Harris is my hero

-B

Actors

Who could be the actors for these main characters in the movie?

Mariam- Frieda Pinto. Was the adult Latika in Slumdog Millionaire. She is pretty and could play this part well.

Jalil- Javier Bardem. He loves acting in foreign films and he is a tall and handsome man.

Nana- Nana could be played by

Hakim- Kal Penn. He is from the Middle East and he is an intelligent actor capable of a serious roll.

Laila- Natalie Portman. The character is beautiful, and so is Portman, plus her career is thriving right now.

Drew Harris could be one of the extras because he is my hero.

-B