Anthological Animoto

http://animoto.com/play/fwSFOGdkxl01y5I5jn2Vjg

Thalia Chaltas, Perfect for acrostics.

Thalia Chaltas

The

Holiest

Adult

Living

In

America

Capturing

How

All

Little

Titans

Amass

Survival

An acrostic is a favorite type of poem of mine, just as Thalia Chaltas, author of the fine "Because I Am Furniture" is a favorite author of mine. I glanced at Thalia's website recently, and saw more of her books, that are also similarly geared towards tales of empowering the youth. Also, multitudes of her releases are actually collections of poetry, so it makes quite a bit of since to attribute such poetry to her essence. She has confessed to reporters that many of the writings she posts are based on actual events from her own personal life. She changes names as to avoid embarrassing anyone involved with the stories. The fact that she is willing to throw out details of her own life to the public, really shows how strong of a woman she is, and is setting a model for all women everywhere, to stand up and turn their lives, no matter how bleak or dreary they may be, and turn it into a literary empire worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Don't Hit Me No More Daddy

Following is an original poetic piece of mine, the original concept ran into my mind after reading "Because I Am Furniture" by Thalia Chaltas. This is purely reflectional of the book, in my own personal life no beating occurs of anyone within my household to my knowledge. Don't beat your kids, bloggers.

Don't Hit Me No More Daddy
The fire in his eyes
The fury in his swings.
What did I do,
To deserve this?

Nothing is as strong
as the crack
of an oaken chair
across my bare back

Mother hides in the shadows,
unwilling to draw his sight.
As I take the pain,
so she may sleep at night.

Solace is found away from home,
in a quiet corner, so peaceful.
I could never believe that my life
could become such a statistic.

Just one time
I yearn to tell him,
That I am through with this torture,
Daddy, Please, Don't hit me no more.

April and the Importance of stopping child abuse.

Child abuse is a growing problem in America, with more and more children being senselessly beaten by their parents for no apparent reason. This reminds me quite so of the novel we just recently finished reading in class, "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". It shows the readers that child abuse is a problem older than time itself, or even that really old janitor that works at schools and prison, and he's really old. Huck Finn is beaten by his father, as is Anke in "Because I Am Furniture". 

 This is a handy dandy chart that shows the average deaths due to child abuse per DAY per DAY folks, you heard it here, so really the moral of the post is that April is/was national child abuse awareness month. And that beating kids is really not good. Now I do realize that there are plenty of you out there who may want to just have a kid for the sake of beating the snot out of them, and I, being but a simple blogger, would recommend that you don't beat them. If you want to beat something up, become a professional boxer or something, that is all. 

Because I Am Wordchef

This handy dandy image is courtesy of the fine folks over at imagechef.com, all of the words within the mosaic are directly related to the story, "Because I Am Furniture". Many of the words are specific articles of furniture, I.e. chair, table, to represent the lifelessness that is directly attributed to Anke and her life in her dastardly home. Abuse is incorporated more than any other word in the mosaic, because it is the most prevalent theme throughout the entire novel. If I could describe this book in three words, it would be: Abuse,  destruction, and pillaging.

Abuse and Animoto, Like Ice Cream and Hot Fudge

http://animoto.com/play/ipkcLMbVJ04KiH2FUnLDFQ

     This is an animoto that is geared entirely towards furniture, and feelings. The music was chosen at random, so it may or may not correlate with the images and text that are flying towards the viewer. Many of the furnitures are showing emotions of a regular person's life, be it happiness, sadness, or feelings of abandonment. I realize that typically I have the decency to download the animoto and then import it straight into the blog post, however, today, loyal viewers, you must go to the source of all animotos, and for that I apologize.

Because I Am Furniture, An Introduction.

     This quarter I have the pleasure of reading over "Because I Am Furniture" by Thalia Chaltas. The book is told from the perspective of Anke, who is a member of a family with an abusive father. All throughout the book Anke watches her brother and sister get beaten and molested by her father. Anke feels as if she is a lesser member of the family because she is the only one who is not assaulted by her father. She finds her solace in her Volleyball playing, and sleeping in her neighbor Jed's basement whilst watching movies. The story is told through an intricate weaving of prose poetry, the fact that the layout of the book is different than that of a regular book makes it much easier to read than any other book I have read this year.
     This book is one of the two that least applied to my daily life as far as the read for a lifetime list, right up there with the novel about the border hopping Latino gentleman falling in love with the most popular girl in the high school, simply due to his massive connections within the cocaine trade. Besides that, this book has received rave reviews from critics everywhere for the powerful emotions it causes within it's readers, those who read it with an open mind or that of a beaten child. Not too terribly much more could be said about the novel without totally spoiling it for anyone out there who was planning on reading it, which I would recommend.

LINKING L'AFRICA

http://www.waterforsouthsudan.org/salvas-story/
Salva's Charity website, go and donate!
http://www.lindasuepark.com/
This is the author of the story!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion
Lions, a major player in the role of life in Africa.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giraffe
Another African animal, that is most delightful.
http://water.org/
Water is essential for human life, here's a website all about providing water.
http://freerice.com
This is a glorious educational game, that donates rice to needy folks worldwide with each correct answer.
http://www.southafrica.net/sat/content/en/us/us-home
Here you can sign up yourself and your family for a most exciting trip to south Africa!
http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/
This is a nifty tool that you can use to make sure you don't live near a dangerous drought zone, like Salva did in the story!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alligator
Salva encountered many-a alligator in his travels throughout the story, here you can learn all about the spiny little demons.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/pyramids/pyramids.html
Not only did Africa contain Salva at the time of his journey, it also contained the beautiful pyramids, here you can view numerous pictures and whatnot of the pyramids in all of their glory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sudanese_Civil_War
This is a link to all things that are Sudanese Civil war, the very war that Salva escapes from in the novel.
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5424.htm
The government of the United States loves nothing more than to educate us on African countries, as such, here is the U.S. background view of Sudan.
http://www.wydasudan.org/dinka-tribe/
Here is a short blurb about Salva's very own tribe, the Dinka People! They are mostly nomadic nowadays, take a gander her on this website, and maybe even donate some dinero to their well being.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuer_people
This is a link to the Nuer Tribe, the tribe that the African girl Nya belongs to in the story. They largely disliked Salva's tribe back in the day, and were constantly warring with them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdXwgoZvUZE
To top off the list of links, here is a short YouTube video, of roughly 5 minutes, that details a typical trip to build a well in a Sudanese village in modern day with Salva and his charity organization.

THESE BE PICTURES, PICTURES OF AFRICA

Book Cover

SALVA DUT

Linda Sue Park (The Author)

Salva's Charity Logo

Child Affected by the Drought.

Lions, An African native

AK-47, A favorite of the Rebels

Giraffes, More African Natives

Cracked Earth, Courtesy of the Drought

Typical African Village

All of these pictures perfectly represent the theme and happenings of the story in A Long Walk To Water. Study them deeply, learn from their pixels, and become one with the earth mother.

Modern Art, Modern Africa

This picture is an artist's representation of the tragic journey that Salva and his band of Lost Boys went on, in order to reach the refuge camps in Kenya. The terrors are apparent within the canvas, through the likeness of the blazing hot sun, the cloudless sky, and the fearsome alligator nearby the route of travel. The alligator is extremely important, because at one point in the story Salva is forced to either swim across a river of alligators, or be shot in the face by evil soldiers. This post is here to remind us all, when we all travel through Africa at some point within our lives, that alligators are a-plenty, and alligators are unforgiving.

ANIMOTO ALL ACROSS AFRICA

http://animoto.com/play/jwJMZl44xgJx1q00vygreg

This animoto is all about Salva Dut and his magnificent journey to bring water to all of Sudan. Look into the deeper messages portrayed by the crude representation of cinema. Go donate 10 bucks or something, that'll serve a village in sudan for months. Yay Charity!!!!

http://www.waterforsouthsudan.org/

YO DAWG I HEARD YOU LIKE MOSAICS

This is a word mosaic, which has been created for your viewing pleasure through a glorious website known as  wordchef.com. Every single word within the mosaic is relative to the tragic events that take place within A Long Walk To Water. Notice the presence of words such as: Uncle, Dinka, Tribe, Need, Drought, etc. Very beautiful, no?

A Long Walk to Water, It's excersise, essentially.

 Hello my friends, and welcome, welcome to blogging it up round 3. The greatest thing about round 3 is that it comes after rounds 1 and 2, respectively. The other great factor is that it comes right before number 4, which is the end. This semester has been started off rather well, with a reading of the first 48 pages or so of "A Long Walk to Water" by Linda Sue Park. The story is a time-traveler, as it alternates between two different stories of africans in alternative time periods.
     The first, is Nya, who lives in the oh-so-prosperous time period of 2008. the other is the life of a young sudanese boy named Salva, Salva Dut. Throughout the tale I could not help but notice the similarities between the life and actions of Salva, and those of a holocaust victim. The long walk to water is an African genocide, really. The group Salva joins up with after his school is shot up by extremists goes for days without food, and walks almost 19 hours a day. This is an eerie similarity to the death marches that took place in the holocaust.
     Within the first 48 pages Salva loses his one friend that he has actually met on the journey, to, you guessed it, a lion attack. In the dead of night, Marial had been swept away by a mysterious cat of the desert. Much like Roy being drug off the stage by his beloved tiger back in the day. The book carries a lot of realism with it, seeing how it is based off of a true story. It's not actually a bad read, much better than that pirate ninja business I've been reading about on the ning.
I've been asked to describe this book in one word: Thebestbookyouwilleverreadthattakesplaceapproximatelywherethelionkinghappenswhichmakesitawesome.

Salva Dut, In all his glory, Drinking Water, at long last