Hangman

This is pretty late for me getting in on the bandwagon, but I just really wanted to mention how interesting it was reading a coming-of-age novel, not just from the point of view of a 13 year old going through puberty, but one going through puberty with a stammer.

This is the exact age that teens are going through crazy body changes, combatting the effects of the sudden hormone level spikes, and trying to figure out who they are as a person seperate from their peers and parents, while also trying to keep up with society telling them that they have to do all this and be a "normal" human being. It's already hard enough to do this regularly. But imagine having to do that in an ignorant town, with a stammer.

I mean I would tear into anyone that gave a person with vocal issues trouble, a lot of people just don't get it. They make people feel insecure and they lose self-esteem, which makes it even harder to get the words out. Sometiems I just wonder if the world really is making a turn for the better or for the worst.

How do we feel about Holden? (Bear with me, this was written on the 10th of February, but is just now getting posted sorry guys)

He's getting hella desperate. No one wants to give him the time of day it seems, and when he does get to meet up with someone, it doesn't take long for the conversation to turn south. I wish he had more people he could reliably talk to. He seems like a friend at this point, and I just want him to feel like he's got somewhere he's going. Not exactly to college, not exactly to another high school, not exactly to a job, though it might be where he ends up, but at least having some definite goal in the future, or at least know what he's doing. Some people can pull off wandering aimlessly, but Holden Caulfield is not one of these people. It's hurting him and I wish there was a way to tell him that.

3/5

...All I have to say is, I hope someone's telling him this.

Esther's Growth

I think that Esther's definitely grown since the beginning of the book, considering she used to always have her favorite bathtime purification ritual, that allowed her to detox from the evils of the world, and then being able to completely forget about them. It's never healthy at all to just pretend like things never happened, because then you can never learn from them. It's because of this that I see some real growth in Esther towards the end of the book when she kind of totally rejects her mom's thinking about her finally being allowed a chance at leaving the asylum. Her mom tells her that they can finally just put it behind them and never think about it again. But Esther needs those experiences for later on in her life, when the Bell Jar looms over her head again, should that happen. She needs to know that she's felt that way before, and how she felt, and what she did to finally raise it back up again. Because if she forgets about it, or just tries shut it out completely, that will make things so much harder if she starts getting those thoughts again. It'll be the same experience except like starting all over again, instead of having an upper hand, because she won't be thinking about the last time. That's why I'm so glad that she acknowledges those memories as a part of her, because even though she's worried about the Bell Jar enclosing around her again, she has those past memories to rely on.

Buddy's "Pureness" and Esther's grip on (current) reality

I think that the moment when Buddy reveals to her that he's had sex with the waitress, is the moment when she realized the sexual double standard. She then takes it out on buddy specifically, instead of society as a whole. She needs to figure things out for herself, before she can go blaming individuals for hypocrisy, considering it's just the society-they-live-in's fault.

That being said, I really don't think that Buddy's purposefully being a hypocrite (then again, most people that are hypocrites aren't purposefully hypocrites). It's just society saying that it's okay. Like it's okay to give women drugs that make them forget the pain that they have during childbirth, letting them go through it again and again because it "wasn't that bad," under the guise of them "not really being able to feel anything." I thought that that was the most appalling thing I'd ever read. It just really gets to me how bad it used to be in america (all over the world) (and it's still bad now but sooo much better than before). Men and women just cannot be seen as equals for some reason, and it's just sickening, and I really could go on forever about this. I'll just choose to end it with, we've come a long way, and it's still a long way coming.

Darrian's Coming-of-Age story

...still working on it.

I definitely have one major event in my life that could be "considered" a coming-of-age moment, and that would be my Japan trip over the summer.

I got to go to Japan with 31 other high school students across the nation, who all loved the country as much as I do, and talk with other students in Japanese. Whie, this sounds like me just hanging out with a bunch of other high school kids, it was more about me figuring out what I want to do after high school.

I've known for a while now that I want to major in Japanese, become an expert in the language, and then go off to have a job using my major, hopefully while living in Japan as well. But I'm also kind of a mama's girl, as in, my mom's probably one of my best friends, and I've NEVER coped well with being away from her for long periods of time. This trip was actually the longest I've ever been away from her. I was by myself for the plane ride to Los Angeles, and while in Japan we ended up with quite a big amount of free time to go explore on our own, without supervision. It was a huge first for me, considering every single trip I've had, I've been with an adult for the majority of it, and when I wasn't, I had to let them know exactly where I was going, and I had to have my phone on me just in case they needed to reach me, which made me feel like I was still being watched over by them. I mean, I wasn't complaining, I was having a good time regardless, but this was the first time I truly felt like I was able to watch out for myself, not another adult.

I think I am more ready to go off to college and be on my own because of this. I had to practice money management (okay, it's a stretch, but I had to make sure that I bought food along with all my gifts to bring back home), I had responsibilities, and I made sure all my assignments got done. I also realized that graduation isn't that far away. I'm about to be thrust into the real world, whether I like it or not, and I need to be as close to prepared as possible. I'm just really glad that I had this trip, because it feels like it brought me 10 steps closer.