Monthly Review: Dear John

2. Savannah and John meet when John is on a furlough from the military and they fall deeply in love after only a few days. Is their love believable? Do you think it is possible to have such an intense connection with someone you’ve only just met?
6. When John goes back to Germany after his furlough, he and Savannah vow to stay in touch and to marry when he returns. Do you think it’s possible to stay in love with someone without seeing them for months or years at a time? How does being apart affect Savannah and John’s relationship?
8. Do you think Savannah should have waited for John to come home or do you think it was understandable that she moved on with her life?

The novel Dear John tells the story about a rebellious soldier name John Tyree who meets the girl of his dreams, Savannah Lynn Curtis. The author, Nicholas Sparks, wrote this book in the perspective of John. Savannah waits for John to finish his task in the army so they can get married. Their only contact to each other was by mail. When the 9/11 attack happened, John stays in the army longer. Savannah couldn’t wait any longer and falls in love with someone else and wrote a heartbreaking letter to John calling it off. Years later, John came back home, getting use to the fact that Savannah is with someone else and faces the hardest decision of his life.
What most people think or do is that they get to know a person very well and go out for a bit and have loving and caring affections towards each other but, you can fall from in love to in lust.

If you keep believing in something and work towards to making it happen, it will happen. If you’re in a long distance relationship and you know in your heart that they are worth it. Time and strength is going to be your biggest test. When you pass that test, you’ll be one of the happiest and luckiest people in the world, because you know how strong your relationship is going to be. Distance really does stretch a person’s willpower just to pursue that one thing, but when you get it, how good does it feel to finally have it and know that it’s yours to keep? Even though a relationship is a relationship. Long distance relationships aren’t in their own group. It’s just like any other relationship, but the two just happen to be far away from each other. Savannah couldn’t wait anymore. Her love strength has gotten weak. Her personality practically changed after college. John and Savannah’s relationship failed the test.

Then again, from my experience, I definitely believe it is possible to have such an intense connection with someone you’ve only just met. I met my boyfriend of 9 months, Leon Ly, through my friend Christine (no it was not a hook up) and we made our long distance relationship work. How often you see each other shouldn’t determine how good you are at a relationship. Love should know no bounds, and if you wanted to get yourself into a long distance relationship or one with an age gap, then I think you should just do it. But if you don’t make it work, it obviously won’t. I don’t get see my boyfriend all that often, especially since I have to keep our relations out of my parents’ reach, (but not for long!) but we have something called a cellular phone, where we talk and text each other 24/7 and only see each other only during breaks and vacations. We excel in this relationship because we want it to work, and we’re able to make it work, despite the many miles between us.

John and Savannah‘s love was believable, and it still is; they didn’t have all that much time to actually get to know each other that well. John got to go out with Savannah for at least a month, because he has to go back to Germany. The long distance affects Savannah and John’s relationship because they were growing apart from each other. They didn’t even have a life together.

I think Savannah should’ve waited for John to come home. But I understand that Savannah has to go through all those times being lonely and not having anyone to hold or embrace her and feel loved, but she isn’t the only one who is going through a long distance relationship. It’s like as if she doesn’t understand how soldiers are being in the army. He is under so much pressure, and then writing a break up letter would make things better? Well, I guess she knows he’s not going to feel any better but John couldn’t even talk to Savannah about it and say how he feels about it because he could’ve persuaded her or have her think twice about the decision she was about to make. Sure, Tim was there to comfort her all those times when John was in the army, but that doesn’t mean she can just fall right in love with him and then write a letter dumping him. I just think she should’ve waited for John. She said so herself in her first letter to John that she was going to marry him when he came back for good.

“I love you John Tyree, and I’m going to hold you to the promise you once made me. If you come back, I’ll marry you. If you break you promise, you’ll break my heart.” P.139
Well, look who’s the heart breaker now? Savannah is lucky that John still loves her no matter what and that he doesn’t regret loving her. And Savannah still loves John of course; whenever there’s a full moon out at night, she goes outside and stare right into it, thinking about John, which shows her love for him is endless.

There are so many symbols in this novel that made the whole story board sweet and sour. You may not really notice it at first, but when you really think about it, like how I did, everything makes sense. Savannah’s cocky personality, thinking she knows everything, Tim and his little brother Alan who has autism, 9/11 attack, John’s father’s coin collection, John’s father and son bonding relationship with his father, and there are probably more symbols from the book. I mean, I think the “fall” of John and Savannah’s relationship started going down is when Nicholas Sparks added the 9/11 incident, which made John re-enlist. Which extended John and Savannah’s hope of being with each other was extended. The two lovers are separated because one of them got married and John found out what love actually means - “that love meant that you care for another person’s happiness more than your own, no matter how painful the choices you face might be.” P. 275
“Our love has three parts: a beginning, a middle, and an end. And although this is the way all stories unfold, I still can’t believe that ours didn’t go on forever.” P. 4 Well you can’t have everything. That’s all I have to say.

Dear John is easy to read. I think a nice place to read this book is at a beach. Maybe because it’s relaxing. It’s a wonderful and touching book to read, especially how Nicholas Sparks wrote it. I would recommend this book to anyone.

Interhigh: Rise

On Saturday the 17th, I went to piano lessons at 12. I stayed at my piano teacher's house until 5:00 because me and my friends were going to go to this special event called Rise. It was boring waiting for 5 hours though but I had my iPod and my book. Around 5:00, people were coming and we were getting ready to go.
Rise was at Berkeley in a middle school with a huge auditorium. Rise is this special event from Interhigh Fellowship. Interhigh Fellowship that is led by Pastor William Kang, is a place where all Christian Bay Area students from school gather together and discuss different topics that are happening in the world and relations to God. There are UC Berkely mentors trying to train them to be "committed followers of Christ."
The Rise that I went was the 2nd Rise, I didn't go to the first Rise, though I wish I did. This 2nd Rise is about Evidence for the Resurrection. Over 600 people attended Rise from all over the Bay Area.
Rise lasted from 6-9. The people made it seem so dramatic, like as if it was New Years! When we were inside the gym, it wasn't 6:00 yet, and there was a count down! Once it hit 6:00 sharp, everyone was jumping up and down screaming and the Interhigh band came out and we sang a whole bunch of Christian songs. It was so cool and people were clapping with the beat of the songs and jumping up and down, and during the soft mellow songs, everyone closed their eyes to sing and they put their right arms up (trying to connect with God?).
After we were done singing, we sat back down at our seat and we watched a skit about what really happened to Jesus Christ. Did he really rise from the dead? The skit was cute because there were middle schoolers and high schoolers who cooperated in doing the skit and they made it fun. After the skit, a guest speaker, William Lane Craig came in to talk about Jesus Christ and did he really rise from the dead. He talked for a really long time and I understood what was his point, but I didn't understand what he was saying exactly, because he used such big vocabularies! He's so smart too! When he was done talking, we sat in groups and we wrote down some questions that we want to ask him, to see can he really answer them, but we didn't go through all of them because it was almost 9.
10 minutes before 9, everyone put their chairs away and they gave us snacks like cookies and chips. I really thought they would have dinner though because during our Interhigh Fellowship that happens at Bayfarm provides dinner.
At 9 something, our group left and since we were very hungry, we drove around to see if we can find a place to eat. We went back to Oakland and ate at this ice cream shop. Ice cream for dinner... How nice. We went back to my piano teacher's house so the Alameda people can get a ride back to Alameda, because our driver was from Pleasanton... Well, I don't see why he couldn't drop us off at Alameda and made this other guy from Alameda, drive to Oakland, and pick us up, and drive back to Alameda, while the guy from Pleasanton could've drove us back to Alameda, and then go back home to Pleasanton. But whatever, it's okay.
I went back home, I took a shower, and I went to sleep. I was super exhausted! And I had a good night's sleep. :]

Lit Circle Letter Part 3: Dear John

In part 3 of Dear John, John comes back from Germany to his hometown again to watch out for his sick dad that suffered from several heart attacks. One day, he died because of it. He went to go see Savannah which was surprising because she didn’t expect him to come see her. She invited him inside the house anyways and talked for a bit. John then finds out that Savannah is married with Tim and is living with Tim and his autistic little brother, Alan. John has actually spent the whole day with Savannah and Savannah asks if he can come back the next day and see Tim.
The next day, John drove back up to Savannah’s house and Savannah told him to give her a ride to see Tim. Tim was actually in the hospital because he has cancer. Savannah took Alan to go get a drink while John and Tim were talking. Tim asks John when he passes away, John has to marry Savannah a
The next day, John went to go see Tim again by himself telling him he has to go back to Germany again for the army. Truth is that John has already known that Tim was in love with her ever since John met him. Tim then admits that he’s been in love with her ever since he was 12 years old. John left the hospital and he saw Savannah outside. He told her that he loves her a lot and he doesn’t regret ever loving Savanna and this is probably the last time they were going to see each other.
"John realizes that if a man is selfless enough to let the love of his life go to another man, than he is worth living." John made the decision of his life which is to sell his father’s coin collection to the coin dealer to find treatment for Tim’s sickness. Tim was very ill and weak and still caring for Savannah when suddenly the doctor came in and told them someone donated enough money for Tim’s treatment and it was from anonymous. The treatment for Tim worked and he was able to finally leave the hospital.
In the epilogue, John drove over to Savannah’s house one night and she was outside, staring at the full moon, which proves that her love for John is everlasting.

Spring Break

Spring break went by super fast last week. This first week back at school from spring break is going by pretty fast too. It’s already Thursday.

I had a lot of fun during spring break. On Monday I went to Castro Valley to see Leon. I took the bart there. I stayed at Castro Valley for the whole day and around 4, I had to go back home. I’ve made plans for the whole entire week that I thought I was going to be busy that whole week but I didn’t even go out that much. On Tuesday I stayed home. On Wednesday I had piano lessons, so I don’t have to go on Saturday. On Thursday I stayed home too. On Friday, I hung out with Arlene, Jenny, and Jake at San Francisco and then we went to Japan Town to take those cute sticker Pika Pika pictures. I thought that we would go and shop for clothes at stores because we actually went into a lot of stores but we didn’t see anything that we liked. Well maybe we saw a few clothes that we liked but they were way too expensive. And we spent out money on Pika Pika pictures and lunch. We went back to Oakland China town to eat lunch. Well, we went back around 3:00 so it was either a very late lunch or very early dinner. After we ate, I took the bus back home because everyone else had other stuff to do, and plus my dad wants me home early, even though it’s still super sunny. On Saturday I stayed home. It wasn’t as sunny as the rest of the week.

On Sunday, I thought I would just stay home too, but my mom, my cousin, and I went to Stoneridge Mall. It was raining really hard on our way there. I don’t like shopping with my mom though. Usually whenever I shop with my mom, my mom ends up buying the stuff for me, but if I only shop with friends then I pay for myself. So I didn’t bring any money, but I did have a gift card that works as a credit card. I have $100 on it and I used it on this one Abercrombie and Fitch shirt. My cousin bought an Abercrombie and Fitch shirt too. I wanted to get two, but then I said nah its fine. One is enough. After that, we went to Shiekh and I got a pair of new boots and they are freaking beautiful! We went inside a lot of stores and I saw so many clothes that I wanted and they were all so expensive so my mom didn’t let me get any of them. But on the other hand, my cousin, aka the shopaholic, bought so much stuff… I don’t even want to say how many clothes and perfumes and stuff she bought. We took a quick break and ate McDonald’s for lunch. After that we went upstairs and bought some Cinnabon. We walked around some more and my cousin bought some more.

When we were done, we went to a 99 ranch market at Dublin because my mom wanted to buy some groceries. They had some free samples and I got some dumplings and they were soo good! You don’t even know… It was kind of getting late and my mom didn’t feel like going back home and cook dinner for my dad and grandpa so she bought some Chinese food from the 99 ranch market. On our way back home, it was still sort of raining but until we got back to Oakland, it was super sunny! I even saw a rainbow in my backyard. It’s so beautiful!

When I went back home, I didn’t do anything else except go on my laptop and turn on the TV and hop in bed and chatted with friends on AIM. Spring break was fun. I wish it could’ve lasted longer though. Maybe we should have 2 weeks of spring break like winter break. I also planned on hanging out with more people that I haven’t seen in a while but I never did. I guess we shall wait until next time. There’re only about 2 more months of school, well, not even. I wish this school year can end peacefully and hope that I will have decent grades like 1^st semester. I need to boost up my PE and Computers grade and get a 4.0 again. Then my sophomore year and grades will be terrific! I also can’t wait until summer vacation! I’m super juiced!

Lit Circle Letter Part 1 & 2: Dear John

For this month's lit circle, my group and I have been reading Dear John written by Nicholas Sparks. There were a few parts where I had a few thoughts about and I had little notes to them.

In part 1 of the novel, John Tyree introduces himself. He was at home town, Wilmington, North Carolina, to stay with his father for a few weeks until he has to go back to the army at Germany due to the 9/11 incident. The way John described his father was he was a very boring guy who likes to collect coins. Well, he isn't really that boring, but it just seems that way, like when John says that his father does the same things every single day as a routine. One day, John went down to the beach and he saw this girl with brunette colored hair and a blond one and 2 guys on the pier. John and the brunette, Savannah, looked at each other and said Hi to each other. John just experienced love at first sight! One of Savannah's friends, Randy, knocked down her bag full of important stuff, like her wallet and money and a picture of her and her friends into the water and didn't want to pick it up. He did apologize to her and all, but it didn't seem like he meant it. Savannah was about to jump in to the water to get her bag until then, John jumped in the water and got it for her. Savannah thanked him and she invited him to a party that her crew was having back in the house. The two of them hung out more day after day and got to know more about each other that they soon fell in love with each other. Savannah is a college student and she’s only on spring break and is helping build a house for Habitat for Humanity. The part that I liked about part 1 is how they met each other and they fell in love. I think that was really sweet and cute.

Part 2: After spring break, Savannah has to go back to school and John has to go back to Germany. Both John and Savannah don’t want their relationship to end, so they decided to call each other and write letters to each other, until the next time they see each other again, which is in a year. It's really tough for them to be in a long distance relationship and have to contact each other just by mail. John told Savannah when he is done with the war, he will come back and he will marry her. Due to 9/11, John wants to reenlist in the army. After several years away from each other, Savannah writes another letter to John telling him good bye.
What I didn’t like about the part 2 of the novel is when John had to leave Savannah to go back to the war. I can sort of relate to the whole long distant relationship thing like those two, but waiting until a year too see their beloved one for just a few days or a week is definitely not enough, unless their love is extremely strong. But their love isn’t strong enough. Savannah apparently had to say good bye to John and that was a very difficult thing for her to do.

Even though John is in the army and has to fight for his country in the war, the war isn’t even that relevant to the story, because this story is mainly about two lovers trying to keep their long distance relationship strong by writing letters to each other, catching up on each others lives.

4th Quarter Goals

Oh my gosh it's already the 4th quarter, which is the last quarter of the school year! I have been counting on how many more school days are left, and I'm not quite sure is it correct, but I counted, there are 45 more school days left until Summer Vacation! I am so excited. And it isSpring break right now!

Anyways, what are my current goals for this blog post during the 4th quarter? Well, on my past blog posts, the only thing I have blogged about was how was my day and all that. It isn't that interesting, but I just don't know what else to write about. Writer's block. Well for this last quarter, I'm planning on reading a whole bunch of books and then I guess write summaries about it; well not really summaries, but more like analysis' and my thoughts and all that. Can I do that? I'm not sure if I can. Because I'm not really a big fan of reading books, unless it somehow interests me.

But right now in class, we are currently doing lit circle reading groups with partners; I'm with Asmita, Michelle, and Ryan. We just finished reading Bastard out of Carolina and right now we are reading Dear John. I'm liking Dear John a lot better than Bastard out of Carolina.

Anyways, I want to improve my writing, and I don't even know if I have improved or not. I don't know why it's so hard to improve though. Why is it so hard? I remember during the 1st semester, we started doing blog posts and we have to have at least 300 words and I thought that was a lot but then I got use to it. But now, we have to write up to 500 words. I think that's even harder, but I don't know, I think I'll get the hang of it, since I'm only writing random stuff right now, so it seems kind of easy I suppose.

I'm stuck in writers block now. I don't know how many words I have right now and I don't really want to check because it's 11:50 right now and I got 10 more minutes until this blog post expire. I totally forgot that I had to do a blog post this week because well today after school, I came home and I had to wait for my mom to pick me up to take me to a doctor's appointment at Oakland. That took almost a whole hour. After that, we went home for a bit and then my mom and I went to Costco to get some stuff and fill gas for her car and then I saw Dina at Costco! I did not know she was at Alameda today. She should have visited during English! But she told me she came around 1:00. Oh well. After that, it was 8 something, and we went back to Alameda. I thought we would be going back home but instead we went to CVS to pick up lotions and creams that my doctor recommended for my dry skin. I’ve been having really dry skin lately, especially when this year’s Winter started. This never happened to me before and I don’t know why or how it happened. I guess it’s because of Winter and also it’s allergy season right now. But oh well, hopefully I’ll recover soon. We went back home around 9 and I went to shower real quick and then I watched some TV and I chatted with some friends and I read a little bit of Dear John until suddenly, I just remembered I got a blog post to do! It’s 11:54 right now and I know I typed more than 500 words so I’m in the safe zone! =)

Well, I hope that even though this school year will end soon, I will continue to do blog posts at least once a week, like what we do now, to improve my writing skills.