Last words continued
 A lot of people who responded to my last post said, "you can tell a lot about someone by there last words." What kind of things do you think are learned in last words? Or at least what should be learned? Also I have been thinking about death bed confessions. Do you think they are important? And if so, why are they important? Do you think it's more important for the person dying or the person recieving the information? These aren't retorical (like all of my questions) answer in comments!

Book Recomendation for Looking for Alaska

This book is about a boy named Miles Halters going to a boarding school in Alabama. Miles meets many interesting people including his roomate Chip (the Colonel), Takumi, and the girl of his dreams Alaska. Watch as they go through school dealing with different issues and situations in their lives. I really enjoy this story because the people seem real to me. The short stories are interesting and compelling but not out of the ordinary. Some issues are smaller like going to a basketball game for the first time at his new school and some are more pressing like tensions between characters before Miles gets there. But when I am reading I have a hard time getting into the story due to the boring exposition. That stuff is all exposition and its phenominal. I await the climax and I suggest you check it out.

In the book Looking for Alaska the main character Miles memorizes the last words of famous (and not to mention deseased) individuals. I find this very interesting. Just the thought of last words in general. Does one plan their last words or is it the heat of the moment decision? Are the last words recognized with the words they said or the person themself. Do they have to mean something? Marie Antionette, the queen of France and Austria, wanted important last words but ended up being, "I beg your pardon" when she stepped on her executors foot. None of the questions above were retorical so answer any of the questions above. And If you can, find a dead famous person, what they did/who they were, last words and state what their last words mean to you.

Grover Cleveland, the 22nd and 24th President of the United States were, "I have tried so hard to do it right"

Analysis of Looking for Alaska

In Looking for Alaska,  the format of the first half is in the form of short stories divided by day. But the two halves are divided before and after implying that this is still technically exposition or rising action. At the moment the stories (which are interesting by the way) look for the most part unrelated unless on the rare occasion one of the stories of the previous day is brought up again. I think this could result in one of two ways. 1: all of the stories could just be unrelated exposition to get a feel for the characters. As un eventful as that sounds that's apart of life. Everything might happen for a reason but not everything has to do with everything else in your life. For example, your fifth birthday will not be important to you during your midlife crisis. or 2: maybe all of the stories will tie in after the event that happens that kicks off the second half of the story. Maybe not major ways but maybe following the train of thought of our protagonist and narrator, Miles. This rises the question, "what is happening to call the second half 'after'?" I don't know. But based on the title Looking for Alaska and Alaska being one of the main characters I believe that there is a good chance Miles, the Colonel and possibly Takumi will have to go find her. When the group is just sitting together smoking cigarettes Miles asks, "'Why do you smoke so... fast'... She smiled with all the delight of a kid on Christmas case and said, 'Y'all smoke to enjoy it. I smoke to die'" (Green 44)  If this is the case, her motives for getting lost are unclear and I feel there is a good chance it will be for most of the book because going off the back cover, it descirbes Alaska as, " The gorgeous, clever, funny...self-destructed, screwed up and utterly facinating Alaska Young" (Green). And Miles even said, "' Sometimes, I don't get you' ... She just smiled towards the tv and said, 'You never get me. That's the whole point" (Green 54). But not only is Alaska unpredictable, everyone is. You never know how someone is going to react to something because you only have the concievable power to use your own mind. But no matter how it ends, I am just happy it is not a mere page story about how to find the state of Alaska in a map.

Setting of Looking For Alaska Looking for Alaska's main character Miles moves from Florida to Alabama. The primary change Miles discusses when moving from Florida to Alabama is the different type of heat "Florida was plenty hot...that did not prepare me for the unique sort of heat from Birmingham, Alabama" (Green 6). Another primary change Miles undergoes in Alabama is the people he hangs out with. In the first chapter only two people showed up to his going away party. He expected this and replied to the reader, "The only thing worse than having a party that no one attends is having a party attended by 2, vastly uninterresting, people" (Green 4).

Characters in Looking For Alaska In the novel Looking for Alaska, the characters aren't the best role models but they seem like actual people. For example: Alaska, One of the main characters, is how Miles and Chip get cigarettes. And Miles, who narrates the story and eventually ends up falling in love with Alaska, doesn't automatically fall in love with Alaska; he spends the next page talking about how pretty Alaska is. And Alaska doesn't fall for him; she kind of flirts with him but constantly reminds Miles whenever something is about to happen that she has a boyfriend. The other enjoyable things about the characters is they all have little quirks. Miles memorizes the last words of famous people, Alaska has a really large stack of books she is planning on reading when she is "old and boring", and Chip can name all the countries in world on a map. But the way that the characters act as a group seems very real to me. Most of them have nicknames like Chip is the Colonel and Miles is Pudge but their conversations are really convincing. "'Anyway' Alaska said 'I thought the way he treated you was awful. I wanted to cry. I just wanted to kiss you and make it all better' 'Shame you didn't' I deadpanned and they laughed. 'You're adorable' she said, and I felt the intensity of her eyes on me and looked away nervously. 'Too bad I love my boyfriend.' I stared at the knotted roots of the tree on the creek bank, trying hard not to look like I've just been called adorable" (Green 43).