Blog three

I thought the author of this book was kind of self-centered. In every one of his books so far he has been writing about one of his child hood memories and tells about how hard it was for him. We all go through some tuff experiences in each of our lives but we don’t need to tell the world about it. I mean high school for instance many hurt full things happen in high school weather it’s a nasty rumor going around or drugs whatever your situation is its not easy. I have to say I didn’t like the book though because its not something I would of read in the first place. I think this book would be better for guys because it talks about working out and all the stuff it takes to train for a triathlon and is something a guy would be way more interested in. Girls these days like love story’s so they can hope and have there relationships be just like the ones in the book. Where it’s a little country girl and a very hot guy who meet up while they were working and they fall in love at first sight. This is the type of story all girls I know love. We don’t like something about guys working out and how hard the training is. The one thing I did like was how it brought up issues our world has today. The issue in our book was anger management. I think this is an issue in our world because all of the people these days put so much pressure on things that don’t need to be talked about. It has been known that people are dying so much earlier because they are putting to much pressure on them selves to ether get to a dead line or what ever it is. But we aren’t treating our body like we should. For example people are cutting out sleep to finish everything they need to get done. I personally think that if people stopped procrastinating and did what they needed to get done then maybe they wouldn’t have to do such bad things to there body. I think this book is good though because it addresses this problem on many accounts because it talks about how health he has to be in order for him to train for what he wanted to do which was the Iron man triathlon.

Blog two

A triathlon takes up just a s much time as a marathon. In the end they end up equaling the same distance. Marathons only include running for long times on end and triathlons include biking, running and swimming. It takes a lot for me to stay focused but i like the challenge.I training for marathons with my mom. Its the one thing that we do have in common which is nice, because when we go running we just talk. With my mom working 7 days a week its nice to just catch up sometimes cuz usually during the week we will fight a lot cuz she is stressed out about work and I'm about what ever high school brings to me as all of us know. But back on subject they are very different when it comes to training for them. For instance when you are training for a marathon you do a couple short runs then one long one then you do a couple short ones then a longer one so on and so forth. In triathlons you have to train almost every muscle in you body which can be very intense. Then again it could be nice because instead of overworking one part of your body you are giving one pint a break while you target another one. In training for a Marathon you can take a couple breaks and just rest but in a triathlon you are targeting all the parts so if you rest them for too long then you start to lose what you have built up which isnt good because you have to work out again and it is going to make your training longer. I think that triathlons people have alot more endurance then alot of people because its pushing your body to its limit. For me if i zone into something other then what im doing, it makes it alot easier if im listening to music because i can run to the beat. But we all know those songs that give us that little extra boost haha and dont lie so i ten to get tired alot faster at random times. When you are runnign that long distance you are suppose to pase yourself otherwise you will stop way before you want to. I have a tendince to run faster at certuan moments and then i need to stop but if i stop i wont go again so i have to push my self for a long period of time after that. My aunt does triathlons and they are beestly people. Not to be mean or anything but they are very toned which can look good on some people but on others it looks a little sick. Another huge part of a triathlon is your diet. They have to eat very balanced diets and because they work more they have to intake alot more as well. So instead of a 2000 calorie diet its like a 6000 calorie diet.

Blog one

I liked this book for many reasons. First of all i like it because i can really connect with it. He is a normal teen age boy with problems just like i am a normal teen age girl with problems. Even thought we are on completely different pages when it comes to what we think about and how we act towards things we both have feelings. I also can connect a lot with this book because him and his dad fight a lot and he takes all of his anger out into his training. I my self fight with my mom a lot because we are both very stubborn so when it comes to a lot of things there is usually an argument involved. I play for the Chaska volleyball team so i have practice almost every day which is when i take my problems or my school work and my anger that just kinda builds up and just lets it all out. I have noticed that when i do that i play so much better because I'm not thinking about how tired i am or any thing I'm thinking about how i want to just keep pushing my self as far as i can go so i can get that feeling of accomplishment. I really like this book to because it shows what is really in our society. Examples of that would be poor people and how we should help them out and not be so greety about what we have i mean some people out there would kill for it. I think this book also has alot of lessons in it to. One of those would be to care about what you have because if you dont have use for it why bother to have it. Then again dont through it out because one persons trash is another persons treasure. I also liked this book becasue it had an easy plot to follow. Even though it had some hidden thoughts that is what makes a book good because it makes you think and get into what you are reading. It also had alot of honesty in it. We do have to start to value the dollar because our community is in a lot of debt. We might not know it now but we have to start thinking about the genarations down from us. Do we really want to leave them in a world that is unmanigiable? no because once we become a parent we dont want to let them get hurt in any way shape or form so why would we want to put them through the pain we have. If we dont learn it early its just a roadway to downfall for us in the future. So when parents get all up in our faces just know there doing it because they dont want you to make the same mistake that they did when they were our age. I always go by the saying everything happens for a reason...... we might not know what it is yet or ever but it was suppose to happen because usually something better comes out of it.

Work cited

Anderson, George. “AAAMP Home Page.” Online. Internet. 2006. Available: http://www.aaamp.org/

Chrutcher, Chris. Ironman. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1995.

"Aggression." Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 15 Jan. 2008. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/aggression>.

"Collectivism." The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. 16 Jan. 2008. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/collectivism>.

Crutcher, Chris. Ironman. New York City: HarperTempest, 1995.

Anger manigement

The issues that was demonstated in the book were really interesting and sometimes hard to read about. Abuse and Anger are hard to read about and because that is a main aspect in the book, sometimes I had a hard time reading parts but at the same time I thought that Chris Crutcher got in depth with what we would want to read. At first I thought that it was really stupid that Bo had to go to the Anger Management Class because what he did wasn’t his fault. Calling a teacher a name after he wouldn’t shut up about an assignment that Bo missed is more like detention material in my mind. Even though at first I thought it was stupid that he was sent to the class, after finishing the book it seems like him going to the class was a very good. Bo can get angry easily and I believe that it is all his dads fault that he is like that. His dad has and will probably always be very strict and mean to him. Seriously, what kind of Dad would make a nine year old be grounded for seven months and miss a Christmas all because Bo said something to him that wasn’t respectful. While in Bo’s mind going to the class was kind of suckish, it seemed like a good thing for him to do. Bo got to understanding that his family, well his dad mostly, caused his anger. I think that Bo didn’t want to believe that at all because he loves his family and didn’t think that they could cause that. His dad thinks he’s a quitter and that’s all just because he quit football one year because he didn’t really like it. It seems like Bo’s dad is a little…ok a lot of a pain in the butt and way to strict on Bo. While in the class Bo met many kids that became part of his life in the future. He told everyone one that the police found Hudgie in his house holding his dead dog on the porch in freezing weather. Hudgie’s dad shot the dog after Hudgie forgot to feed him twice and Hudgie kept on telling the dog that he was sorry and that it was his fault. The worst part was that when the police were taking his dad away Hudgie yelled on him to leave him alone and he really thought that it was his entire fault that he was dead. Hudgie’s dad was only charged with discharging a firearm inside city limits. That’s so sad and I think that made Bo realize that people have worse situations at home than him. Bo also met Shelly who later on became his girlfriend. Hearing her story about her being kicked out of her house and how her adopted parents thinking she would become just like her real mother was really sad. Her parents are so mean to her just because her mother wasn’t a good person when she had Shelly. It seemed like to me that they didn’t care for Shelly at all and they didn’t want her at all. They cared more about their other children than her. Bo learned about how Mr. S was actually gay. When Bo’s dad told him he had heard that, I didn’t believe him and I thought that Bo’s dad was just trying scare Bo. I was shocked at the same time because you would never think that by how the author describes him in the book. I thought it was good that Bo finally got over the fact that he is a nice person and like every other person in the world. Bo also met Elvis and Mr. Nak who became very nice in the end. Elvis never liked Bo but they got over their hard times and helped each other through the bad. In the book I thought that Elvis was going to hurt Bo because of what he would say to him. I’m glad that he didn’t though. Mr.Nak scared Bo at first and same with me. I thought it was funny that Bo said that it was a little Asian man that had a southern accent.

Evaluation of Ironman

Iron man showed many traits of the six traits of writing. In Ironman it showed organization, individual voice, word choice, and sentence fluency. First it showed organization because first of all it went in order. First he started training for the triathlon and as the book went on he trained deeper and harder until he got to his final goal which was winning the triathlon. Second i choose individual voice. My reason for choosing that would have to be because throught the entire book he had his thoughts like he was thinking out loud. This is help full because you are able to get a different side of the character that you had never seen before. You can connect with them on a different level because you can connect what you are reading with your real life. An example of this would be "I lost the time and I lost the sleep and I lost the money. Even the way you think, that ought to be enought of a punishment"(crutcher 82). In this quote you can see that he is trying to talk himself out of a punishment that he doesnt think he deserves because it was all his so he thinks he should be able to do anything he wants with his stuff and doesnt want to be told differently. Now everybody that i know can connect with this because nobody is perfect and we all do things differently, that means doing things differently then our parents too. So what we think is right is wrong to them and we get introuble for something we thought was right. Last but not least i choose sentence fluiency. Some examples of this would be "Had a great workout last night Lar. got home form pizza with Mr. S about seven-thirty, hitched up the dogs one at a time, and ran ' em five miles apiece. Then i went over to CFU and swam the last forty-five minutes of open lap swimand worked out on the Stairmaster for thirty minutes. Then i lifted weights"(crutcher 152). This paragraph really flows and it doesnt change the subject at all. It is all describing the one workout he had within that night before. The correct grammer was also used in the paragraph even though he shortened some of the words he showed individual voice in what he wa saying.

Ironman Chris Crutcher

Bo is a boy who has many problems. He has grown up in a house hold of fighting with his dad about many things. One of his main ways of taking his anger out is by exercising ,so he trains for a triathlons. Even pointing all of his anger at training he still reacts in ways he shouldn't. One example of this is he called his teacher an asshole which sent him straight to anger management. This doesn't help much because he doesn't learn from his mistakes, he thinks that every thing that he does is right. An example of this would be he had earned 100 dollars working so he decided to go put it in the bank. On his way there he ended up finding a hobo with no shoes without holes and his socks had also warn down. He decided that the hobo needed it more then he did so he gave it to him. When he got home he was astonished to figure out that his dad was mad at him for doing so. To him that sounded like it would have been the right thing to do until his dad told him he had to earn it back. Bo was now mad because it was his money he gave away so why did he have to pay him self back.
Bo has another problem. Bo had been swimming for many years before he goes and swims with the college kids and he ends up being amazing. Wyrack has a problem with this though. He is kinda the hot shot of the group and has a very big ego for himself. One day while they were training Bo beat him. This made Wyrack snap. Later that day after practice Wyrack beat him up for winning in the practice challenge thing.
Bo has one thing to look forward to though and that would be his girlfriend Shelly. He met her in his anger management class and they just kinda clicked. He shares everything with her things that nobody else knows. Life thought the book gets better for him though. He ends up loving dogs so he races them to make himself go faster when he gets to the triathlon and racing Wyrack in swimming also helps. In the end he wins the triathlon and getting the girl as well.
I think this book is very well written because it shows power. To me it shows that people all have there own meditation for some people its sleeping for others is exercising. When you set your mind into something like this you get a lot accomplished because you are pushing yourself more then most people who are just going out to get it done. You on the other hand are waiting to do it you plan your day around it. Bo takes his anger issues out by pushing himself farther then most people would go while he is training. He isn't finished until his body gives up because he is letting all of that anger and hatred out by pushing and thinking and just going.