Steve Jobs The Man Who Thought Different post#2

        The book Steve Jobs The Man Who Thought Different is a biography by Karen Blumenthal. This biography is about how Steve Jobs started off and how he ended up in his career with the very successful company Apple.

        In this book, Blumenthal discusses how Steve Jobs had friends who shared a mutual interest in technology. His friends were Steve Wozniak and Bill Fernandez. They were also described as deeply interested in electronics just like Steve Jobs. Wozniak was about four years older than Steve and Bill. He knew much more about electronics so Steve thought of him as a mentor figure. Blumenthal said that they all had a great bond over electronics.

        I have not gotten far enough into the book to know exactly how the relationship between these three friends end up, but I think I have an idea. Even though Blumenthal says that they have this great bond in the beginning, I don't think that it is going to last much longer. Wozniak and Fernandez are described as very smart, but for some reason I think that Jobs is going to grow them out. I could be completely wrong, and they could actually have credit for all of the Apple companies success. I could also be right though. It was mentioned that Steve Jobs is a very difficult man to work with.If he doesn't get his way then he throws a fit. Eventually if Fernandez and Wozniak are continuously working with him then they are bound to run into some disagreements. I am just guessing that Jobs working behavior might push away Wozniak and Fernandez at some point. After all it was Steve Jobs who ended up with the billionaire company.

Steve Jobs- Pros and Cons

      The book Steve Jobs The Man Who Thought Different is a biography about Steve Jobs, the inventor of Apple. This book tells the readers the ups and downs of Steve Jobs' life. I have just recently started reading this book, but so far I'm really enjoying it. It's interesting for me to learn about the guy who invented the amazing products that I use on a daily basis. In the beginning of the book the author Karen Blumenthal talks about the way Steve Jobs works well in the business world of electronics and how he does not.

      Steve Jobs is a pretty stubborn man. When his ideas are not considered and he doesn't get the way he wants he will start to cry. I'm no business women, but I have to say that is a pretty immature move. In the book Blumenthal discusses Steve's early years in school. He was no angel then either. Steve would be the trouble maker who never followed any given instructions. I wonder why Steve never wanted to follow directions. I guess that the title of this book really works, he didn't only think different but he did everything differently as well.He rebelled against the societal rules of school and of the business world. I think that the author included these bad details about Steve Jobs to tell the readers that even the most successful of people have their flaws.

      Blumenthal doesn't only discuss Steve Jobs' flaws, but she also discusses the positive things about Steve Jobs. First of all, he is an amazing inventor. Since he was a young boy he has always been ahead intellectually. In fact, he skipped a grade during elementary school. When Steve was younger he developed an interest in building. His father (who he was adopted by) always showed him how to take things apart and put them back together. Many of these thing were car parts, but as Steve grew older he became more interested in electronic building. Since Steve was so intellectually advanced he was very good at the difficult work of developing electronics. I think that the author talked a lot about Steve Jobs success to really emphasize on the fact that he made this really great effect on our society.

      So, after reading a small amount of this book, I already know that Steve Jobs, a very successful man, has his own pros and cons. He is not good at following instructions, but his outcome of doing things his way has brought us many devices that make daily life just a little bit easier. If I had to choose the way that the whole world looks at Steve Jobs, I would make them look up to him as an amazing visionary of our times. Even if he is a little bit misbehaved, I mean who isn't.

Non-fiction: Ashlyn Blocker, The Girl Who Feels No Pain

This article is about how this girl Ashlyn Blocker feels no pain. In the article the author, Justin Heckert, Explains Ashlyn's home life. He tells us that Ashlyn is a normal girl, who goes to a normal school, and lives in a normal house but there is something different about her, she literally can not feel pain.

The author wants me to know that Ashlyn has a very rare disease. He also wants me to know that a disease that sounds like your some kind of super hero, can actually be very harmful. He does this by saying how rare her disease is and how she can't feel a punch in the face, and how she can't feel boiling water, and how she could walk on hot rocks like it is grass. To show how harmful this disease can actually be, he gave examples about how even though she cannot feel the pain it is still damaging her body. Heckert told us about how when Ashlyn was little her parents had to keep an eye out just in case Ashlyn touched something hot or sharp. If Ashlyn got a burn she wouldn't feel it, but she would still be exposed to infection. Ashlyn parents also had to watch her when she was sleeping because she could grind her teeth or bite her tongue off and not even realize it.

I think that the author wants me to feel empathetic towards Ashlyn. I think he wants me to feel this way because Ashlyn's situation is so interesting that if I really put myself in her position it would make the story more intriguing. I also think that the author wants me to feel like her situation is really foreign. I mean I know that it is a rare disease, but I think Heckert is trying to make it sound even more out of this world to make his readers want to know more.

I found Ashlyn's story really intriguing. I think that I mainly found it intriguing because I personally like to hear about crazy diseases like this. I also think that the way the author wrote this article made me even more interested in it. I think that more authors should use the same kind of tactics Heckert used to write his article in an interesting way, but maybe those tactics could be used on an article where someone is raising awareness about an issue because it will intrigue the readers more so that they can do something to help solve the issue.

With Their Eyes- Whose perspective is missing?

This book "With Their Eyes" is about the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The book is made up of many memoirs about the 9/11 attack in the view of Stuyvesant students and faculty. The perspective missing in this book are the perspectives of all the people who helped "put out the fire". When I say the people who helped put out the fire I mean all the people who helped with the recovery after the attack.

I think it's great to have the perspective of the faculty and students at Stuyvesant since they were so close and really experienced the attack, but I think this book should have also tapped into the experience of the people helping "put out the fire" after the attacks. This would have been a good perspective to show in the book because it would educate the readers more about what really happened to the community after, instead of just hearing the actual events of the attack and how high schoolers felt about it.

I think that the author, Annie Thoms didn't include the perspective of the people cleaning up after the attack because she wanted to really focus on how the community was effected during the attack and how it changed them. Personally, I think that it would have been good to include the other perspective because it would really dig deeper into how the community had a hard time rebuilding after the 9/11 attacks.

With Their Eyes-What really difficult or complex things are happening in the text?

The book With Their Eyes by Annie Thoms is about the 9/11 attack in the view of Stuyvesant High School students. One societal issue mentioned is terrorism. Terrorism is an obvious social issue in the book because 9/11 was a terrorist attack. I feel like terrorism is absolutely horrible. I think its good that after the 9/11 attacks national security mad advancements in airport security, and are closely tracking everything near important tourist cites. I think the author wants us to know that terrorism has such a big effect on a community. She does this by having people tell many different stories about how it effected them in bad ways.

An underlying societal issue in this book is racism. After the 9/11 attacks ended and we found out that the terrorist were Muslims, every "joke" was about how Muslims are going to terrorize us. It became such a stereotype in our society that people would see a muslim man and assume that he was some kind of terrorist. I think it's bad but interesting how one event made our society completely change the way they looked at a certain race.

Tina Fey Bossypants

     I recently started reading the book Bossypants by Tina Fey. IT IS HILARIOUS. It's probably the only book I've ever read that actually made me laugh out loud. The whole book is Tina Fey telling stories about Tina Fey. Some of them are just funny stories, and some of them aren't so funny but she makes them funny with her commentary anyway.

     I really like how Tina Fey is the author, and it's not someone writing a biography about her. I like this because she can add in what she was thinking, or what she thinks about her own experiences. This allows the book to be more comical. I think that even if someone else was narrating this book and saying the same things as Tina does, it still would not be as funny. It wouldn't be as funny because it would be someone else making fun of Tina rather than Tina making fun of herself.

     I most enjoy the childhood stories in this book. One was about her getting slashed across the face in an alley when she was in kindergarten. This was pretty interesting for me to learn because I always wondered what those scars on her face were from. I also liked the whole section she does on all the things that she learned could be wrong with a body. In the book she says "I thought there was just fat or skinny." Then she lists all the things that she learned could be wrong with a woman's body, stuff like big pores and lunch lady arms. I though this was interesting because that whole thing about  thinking there is only fat or skinny was in a part of Mean Girls.

     I recommend that anyone who can read this book, should. I am almost certain you'll get a kick out of it. 

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

     The book the Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian is about this boy Junior who lives on an Indian reservation. Junior says that he was born with "water on the brain." He explains it as a medical condition where your "brain grease" get all backed up and slows everything down. Junior explains how he gets bullied by a lot of kids, and even some adults on the reservation, because of his condition, but he does have one friend, Rowdy. Rowdy is about the toughest kid on the reservation according to Junior, so he is not only his friend but also his protection. In the story, everybody on the reservation is poor, including Junior and his family. Junior says that his mom and dad could have been successful, but no one ever listened to their dreams.

     I think that one of Junior's external conflicts is that he gets bullied by the kids on his reservation. Junior says that he gets called a retard about twice a day. I  don't think that Junior should have to put up with that. If I were to be in his situation I would tell someone, I wouldn't just do nothing. I wonder why Junior isn't really doing anything? He doesn't seem like he is uncomfortable talking to authority figures, so why doesn't he just tell? I'm guessing that he is just afraid to be beat up after he tells, for telling. I think that the people who bully him probably don't have the best life, so they "survive" off of hating on a kid who probably has it worse than them.

     I think that one of Junior's internal conflicts is that he doesn't know where he belongs. I guess in my world  at school, kids are always asking themselves, "what group do I fit in?". Junior's situation is completely different. He doesn't know what community he fits into. He lives on this poor Indian reservation, with a crappy school, and crappy people, but he wants to go to a school outside of his reservation. He feels like if he stays on the reservation, he will never be heard. He feels like if he doesn't leave soon he will be there forever. The only problem Junior has with leaving is that everyone on the rez will frown upon him for going to a "white school". If I were Junior I would go with what I want to do, I wouldn't hold back, but I guess that being bullied for having "water on the brain" is already enough for Junior.