Currently

Book(s):
Turnabout by Margaret Maddix

Pages this week: 223
Pages total: 473

Sentences of the Week:

1.  "She wished she'd been able to see her funeral. Then she could have understood what she meant to people." -Turnabout 
I like this quote because I agree with this statement. I would like to be able to watch my funeral to understand what I meant to people and how people viewed me. I like the psychology about how people think and perceive others. 

2. "If you worried about your kids fighting over who got Aunt Mary's good china, and who got Uncle George's gun collection, think about what this battle'd be like! Who's with me on this?" - Anny Beth Flick from Turnabout.
This quote is cool in context with the story and by itself. This shows the character's personality and how she is a good motivator. Plus it's just amusing.

3. "Why is it that for the first half of my life I couldn't find a single honest person to hang around with? My relatives, my husbands, my friends, my kids--all of them would tell a lie as easily as they breathed, and not think a thing of it. A promise was like . . . like spit, something you made and got rid of and didn't worry about it. And now-- now when I really need to lie and break promises-- I'm stuck with the only moral person in this whole dang century." - Anny Beth Flick from Turnabout
This quote amuses me because Anny Beth is going off on a tantrum, and for some reason I find some tantrums to be hilarious. Also, the comparison involving spit amused me.

 

Turnabout

So I finished Turnabout today because it was so interesting that I just had to finish it.

One of the things that sticks out in my mind is about how society in 2085 has no privacy. The reporter, A. J. Hazelwood, turns out to be a decedent of Melly and Anny Beth. The reporter is even named after the main characters. Her name is Annabeth J'amelia Hazelwood. A. J. was able to track down our characters because the computer reveals everything about the person. It's like when we search for a person on Google and a website pops up with their address, phone number, approximate age and direct family members. The difference in the year 2085 is that "Google" tells you occupation, hobbies, devout causes, bell button size, chest size, and more. These people have no privacy whatsoever. Also, when Anny Beth and Melly entered the Reserved land (forest), the police had them under video surveillance. If there was not a storm in some irrelevant country, then the police would have arrested our protagonists within the hour.

Another unexpected turn of the plot occurs when Anny Beth, Melly, and A. J. return to the Agency expecting to find the other Turnabout Project participants as children. They did not find anybody in the building expect for the receptionist and some scientists. What they learn is that all the people who stayed in the Agency died. They never made it to age 0. The scientists that are now in charge are not even trying to find the Cure that would stop the aging process, they are only trying to keep other scientists from discovering how to reverse the aging process. The new scientists did not feel responsible to find the Cure for the Turnabout participants. It is very possible that once the girls reach age 0, they could start over and live life in the normal direction. Nobody knows what to expect because the correlation between the test animals and humans is not very similar.

Life in Reverse

So I found a different book to read but I plan on picking up Master & Commander at a later date. This book was actually found on a bookshelf in my house when I was taking a picture of the bookcase for photography class! The book is called Turnabout by Margaret Peterson Haddix. 

The book has two main characters, Amelia Hazelwood and Anny Beth Flix. In 2001, they are 101 and 103 years old and live in the nursing home. They then are selected to become part of the secret Turnabout Project which includes 50 men and women from the nursing home. Basically, this project reverses the aging process. In the year 2085, they are 16 and 18 years old, again. Obviously, the experiment succeeded with unaging the people. The side-effects that are discovered include for every year de-aged, they lose the memory of when they were that age the first time around (like previously 100, then 99 and so forth), possible death if the unaging process is stopped resulting in continuous unaging, no contact with families and friends, who believed they were dead, and the usual issues with age such as you must attend school when young or not being old enough to drive.

This book reminds me of the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.  In the movie, Benjamin Button is born as a really old person in the shape of a baby and then grows younger through middle age and dies as an infant. The difference is that Anny Beth and Amelia lived a normal life before Project Turnabout and then lives a "normal" life in reverse.

The challenge with this book is that it is written in a timeline of dates, switching between 2001 and 2085. It does not matter too greatly if you do not pay attention to the dates because the word choice is a little different between the years. For example, Anny Beth is referred to as Mrs. Flix in 2001 and Amelia is referred to as Melly in 2085. 

This book definitely makes me wonder what life would be like in reverse. Is it like a redo button? Could people really control the aging process? I doubt these questions will be answered during my lifetime, but it's still interesting to think about.

Week 2 Blog Tour

I visited most of the blogs so I don't remember exactly which ones I clicked.
Specifically I remember:

• Outspoken Silence
• Less Than Three
• Running In Circles
• Amanda
• That Peruvian Chick
• I need a Nap?

Friday

Today is my friend Jericha's 17th birthday!! And there is a heat advisory until 8PM and yet I still have to go outside in the HEAT and march on the TURF that ADDS 10-20 degrees to the temperature. It's already about 90 F and on the turf it will feel like death. Plus I have a cold so that makes everything more fun. . .

Currently

Book(s):
Master & Commander by Patrick O'Brian
Pages this week: 100
Pages total: 250

Sentences of the Week:

1. "'Oh, oh, oh,' cried Jack, leaping on to a chair. 'A snake!'
'Will these do? asked Stephen. 'They have a hole in them.'
'Is it poisonous?'
'Extremely so. I dare say it will attack you, directly. I have very little doubt of it. Was I to put the silk stockings over my worst stockings, sure the hole would not show: but then, I should stifle with heat. Do not you find it uncommonly hot?'
'Oh, it must be two fathoms long. Tell me, is it really poisonous? On your oath now?'
'If you thrust your hand down its throat as far as its back teeth you may meet a little venom; but not otherwise. Malpolon monspessulanus is a very innocent serpent.'"
Pranks are amusing; especially when the captain is scared for his life and acting like a kitchen-maid who saw a mouse!

2. "I am crazier than shirttails / In the wind, when you’re near, a wind that blows from / The big blue sea, so shiny so deep and so unlike us" - "To You" by Kenneth Koch

Amused

So this blog is dedicated to some of the things I found amusing or interesting in my adventures in reading Master & Commander by Patrick O'Brian.

In Chapter Five, Stephen Maturin has to help a woman in labor on another ship. The child was born, but I'm not sure if the mother died. This was interesting to me because there was a woman on board a ship and I've heard of the superstition about women being bad luck. It was also interesting because there was a pregnant woman on board.

Still in Chapter Five, James Dillon is talking with Stephen about Jack Aubrey. According to my inferences, James is jealous of Jack because Jack is captain of the Sophie. "I should say 'What's wrong with Jack Aubrey?'" -Stephen Maturin "And perhaps I should reply 'Everything,  since he has a command and I have not,'" -James Dillon. Later in the chapter, James apologizes to Stephen for "speak[ing] so rancorously." This is probably the first apology I have found in the book.

I am also amused at all the Latin words that are exchanged when there are people around that should not hear certain things. I have also found French and many medical terms in this book.

In Chapter Six, Jack Aubrey finds a snake on the ship. Stephen plays a prank on him by telling him that the snake is very poisonous. Jack freaks out and then Stephen tells him that the snake is pretty harmless. Ha.