photo by: Johan Linder

Good morning peeps!

As I woke up I realized that the time was way to much to start reading a book, I just have to skip it this morning and do it whenever I have time today.

Things I really have to do today!:

• Go to the village to buy toilet paper
• Read at least 250 pages in a book named ‘Det tredje tecknet’ by Yrsa Sigurdardóttir
• Attend yoga (truly have to do that because I haven’t been working out the last three weeks due to my illness)
• Start writing the review on the book that I haven’t finished reading yet.

Things I want to do today that I don’t think I will have time to do:

• Go to Gothenburg City to buy clothes
• Drink tea with my friends at my room, chill and listen to music
• Do my laundry (believe it or not, but I only want to do it because I don’t have my favorite clothes to wear right now)

Later folks, J

Photo by: Johan Linder

Good night peeps.

Published in 2000

About the author: Jerry Spinelli (born February 1, 1941 is an author of children’s novels on adolescence and early adulthood. He is best known for the novels Maniac Magee and Wringer.

Spinelli was born in Montgomery County of Norristown, Pennsylvania and currently resides in Wayne, PA. At the age of sixteen, his love of sports inspired him to compose a poem about a recent football victory; later, unbeknownst to him, his father had published it in to the local newspaper. It was at this time; he rationalized that he would not become a Major League Baseball player, and decided to become a writer instead.

Spinelli graduated from Gettysburg College in 1963, and acquired his MA from Johns Hopkins University in 1964. He married Eileen Mesi in 1977, and they have six children along with sixteen grandchildren.

Other books by this author: Blue Ribbon Blues, A Tooter Tale, Knots in My Yo-Yo String, Loser, Milkweed: A Novel, My Daddy and Me, Eggs, Love, Stargirl, Smiles to Go.

About the book: This book is easy to read and understand which is great. This is a book for people over 10 years old, but also for young adults. It is very realistic, except for the supernatural Stargirl, with the high school drama and all the other elements such as the description of the school, the students and the whole environment.

There are a few parents who would say that this book isn’t good for middle school children due to the character Stargirl, but there will only be a few. Stargirl is verbally attack when she is attending the show Hot Seat and there is a romantic relationship developed between the two main characters, but that is completely innocent.

In a celebration of nonconformity, Jerry Spinelli weaves a tense, emotional tale about the fleeting, cruel nature of popularity–and the thrill and inspiration of first love.

Review: As Spinelli introduces Stargirl, everyone, including Leo, is struck mute by her existence. Who is this girl? At quick glance she is a 10th grader, who has no sense of human conformity, follows no set of unsaid social rules, and dances to the beat of her own ukulele. Leo – drawn to her whimsical nature, admires her continuous strings of selfless good deeds and passionate energy, finds himself torn between his growing love for Stargirl and his own need to just fit in.

Stargirl is a tale about innocence, young love, and the fight to belong in a world that isn’t completely accepting of non-conformity. Is it possible to be just like everyone else without completely losing yourself? Leo, a typical teenage boy just wants to be accepted by his friends but knows the cost of loving someone so different, may mean having to live without.

Plot: Leo Borlock follows the unspoken rule at Mica Area High School: don’t stand out–under any circumstances! Then Stargirl arrives at Mica High and everything changes–for Leo and for the entire school. After 15 years of home schooling, Stargirl bursts into tenth grade in an explosion of color and a clatter of ukulele music, enchanting the Mica student body.

But the delicate scales of popularity suddenly shift, and Stargirl is shunned for everything that makes her different. Somewhere in the midst of Stargirl’s arrival and rise and fall, normal Leo Borlock has tumbled into love with her.

Excerpt: And the shunning – it was clear now – had come to me. It was less absolute for me than for her, but it was there. I saw it in the eyes that shifted away from mine, the shoulders that turned, the chatter that seemed less loud around me now than before. I fought it. I tested the limits. In the courtyard between classes, in the lunchroom I called out to others just to see if they would respond. When someone turned and nodded, I felt grateful. If someone spoke to me, especially if I had not spoken first, I wanted to cry. I had never realized how much I needed the attention of others to confirm my own presence.

The story takes place in Mica, Arizona mostly on Mica Area High School. It is somewhere between 2000-2010, it starts of when Leo was 12 years old and at the very end, the last chapter, they move forward 15 years from when Leo is around the age of 15.

Main characters:

Leo Borlock

Gender: Male
Profession/status: student
Age: a teen
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events? Yes
Ethnicity/Nationality: White (American)
How sensitive is this character? Sensitive to others’ feelings
Sense of humor: Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence: Average intelligence, Smarter than most other characters
Physique: average physique

Susan ‘Stargirl’ Caraway

Identity: Female - society
Age: a teen
Profession/status: student
Eccentric/Smart/Dumb: Yes
Eccentric: eccentric
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in: – an average amount - throughout most of the book.
How sensitive is this character? Sensitive to others’ feelings - middling sensitive to others’ feelings
Sense of humor: – Strong but gentle sense of humor - Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence:  Average intelligence - Very much smarter than other characters
Physique: average physique

Setting and style:
How much descriptions of surroundings: Some
Desert? Yes
City? Yes
Small town? Yes
Person: mostly 1st
Accounts of torture and death: no torture/death
Unusual Style: a lot of stream of consciousness
Amount of dialog: roughly even amounts of descript and dialog

I got some of the modelling pictures that I did with Johan Linder a few weeks ago. Love love love! I’ll show you one each day for a couple of days, how about that? So you’ll have something to look forward to every morning at 7.

Here’s the first one!

I am going to Gothenburg Opera today to see the theater ‘Guys and Dolls’. My friend L saw it this Saturday and thought it was great! So I am really looking forward to it. But before that I really have to finish reading my english book, Stargirl. Which is about a girl who calls herself Stargirl and about how she lives her life and what goes around, so much fun!

This scarf is my new favorite one. It’s all the way from Russia and I got it from Elisabeth and Paul, Thank you guys sooooo much! Love it.

Good morning peeps. My friend is picking my up at my room 20 minutes from now to go to breakfast but I haven’t put on any make up yet so I’ll have to hurry up a bit. But I wouldn’t forget to post something here for you guys out there first!

Hope you enjoyed the few pictures that I posted last night? My Internet was so slow on the train that it only uploaded those four pictures, but I’ll post the other ones when I’m using the other computer (the pics are not on this one).

Really have to go now, love you all. J

.Chug life.

Usually I would say, finally Monday. But I have to leave Stockholm and my family to go to Gothenburg and hand in a few delayed essays and other homework, so not this time.

Many pictures from Winter Jam 2009 will be up today, I’ll upload them while I’m on the train which is 3 hours from now.

Much love, J