I am going to be writing about my trip to Costa Rica, Tamrindo. To get to Costa Rica for the holidays we have to take 3 planes which took us 2 traveling days. When we first arrived to Tamrindo which was a city in Costa Rica it was gorgeous lots of trees and it was warm. The people in Costa Rica only speak Spanish and very little English which made it challenging for us. Most of our days were spent by the beach or by the pool and sometimes we would go out and explore the towns. We cooked our own food in our Airbnb and we ate outside together. We spent 2 weeks there and when it was time to go home my whole family was sad.
Month: January 2025
IRJE#4
My Fault by Mercedes Ron. My Fault is a book about love and change. If you really love someone are you willing to change to become a better person or are you are you going to let them go to keep your pride and ego. My favorite quotation from this book is.
“Noah, what are you scared of?” I asked. After a few seconds, she replied, her voice wavering: “Right now, Im scared of you.” I stood very still and tried not to make a sound. p. 318
I choose this quotation because Noahs was abused in her childhood by her father who is in prison so she is afraid of violence. When Nick grabbed onto Noah she thought that he was going to hurt her because of her trauma and because Nick likes to fight. By the end of the book Nick quits fighting and cuts violence out of his life so that he can be with Noah without making her feel scared.
IRJE #4 The Days of Abandonment
The Days of Abandonment is an Italian novel written by Elena Ferrante, published in 2002. The story follows Olga, an Italian woman, after her husband, Mario, comes home and calmly announces that he wants to leave her after 15 seemingly happy years of marriage. He explains that although he has nothing to reproach regarding their marriage or her, he wishes to break it off regardless. Olga does not understand and begins analyzing their relationship but cannot find any errors in their marriage. She frantically and desperately searches for answers but finds all their mutual friends, who may have any information, to be reticent regarding Mario. Olga begins spiraling as Mario leaves her abruptly, with two children, a dog, and a house to take care of. She finds her usual refined, delicate, and gracious choice in words as well as manner of tone become strident, vulgar, and coarse. She unwisely yells and lashes out her anger at everyone who happens to call. For this reason, she ends up pushing away any solicitous friends that were persistent in attempting to help her. The rest of the novel follows her as she continues her descent into a psychotic state after his departure. As Olga spirals further, becomes obsessive, and unhinged; you begin to worry for her children and begin to feel compassion for her.
Now, at thirty-eight, I was reduced to nothing, I couldn’t even act as I thought I should. No work, no husband, numbed, blunted. When the children were at school, I lay on the sofa, got up, sat down again, watched TV. But there was no program that could make me forget myself. (p.30)
I chose this quote because it captures well the emotional state that a person can feel once they are abandoned. How frail a person can really become once their system and daily routine is shattered. This quote shows how Olga’s life has been completely disrupted by her husband’s abandonment. When her routine was suddenly taken away, she was left feeling lost and without purpose. she couldn’t find anything to distract her from her despair.
PW#4 — Equilibrium
I decided to watch the movie Equilibrium (2002) because of its dystopian themes, as I wanted to delve deeper into the dystopian genre now that we have begun this unit. This movie connects with the themes explored in the book Brave New World. The film had many thematic parallels to Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Both works depict societies engineered for artificial stability, where emotional suppression and societal control reign supreme. Equilibrium portrays a world devoid of emotion, maintained through mandatory mood-altering drugs, which was similar to the artificial happiness and societal conditioning in Brave New World. Both narratives highlight the dangers of sacrificing individual freedom and emotional expression for the illusion of a perfect society.
I gave the movie four out of five stars. I do not usually enjoy dystopian media, however, I liked the way Equilibrium set the scene. Also in contrast to the book Brave New World, Equilibrium did not have any sex related aspects which I found to be much more comfortable and made it more enjoyable. The movie features one of my favourite actors, Christian Bale, which was also a factor for my high rating.
PW#4: My Winter Vacation
Going into the now passed Winter Break, I was ready to dive head first into the relaxation and quality family time I don’t usually get during normal school weeks. This Winter Break was a little different however: As you can already tell, I usually don’t do anything special for any holidays, which means that any event which is normal to others is more valuable to me; Now this is not because we’re poor or anything, however it is due to the fact that our family has very few times where everyone in the family is free to go somewhere for a day. So, I thought that I would be able to just do normal at home relaxations. I was, however, proven wrong; Unlike many people my age I was pretty active this winter holiday; I always took care of the dog and her necessities, cleaned the house on a frequent basis, got an upgrade to my computer (more than 15 times performance boost from one upgrade) and also, unexpectedly, went on a trip. Since I don’t have enough time nor the will to write about my whole winter break, lets focus on the last 2. Let’s begin with the Winter Trip; On December 30th, my mom and dad called us into a discussion at the family table – right off the bat you either know you are screwed or its a good news – and they told us about their plans of going to Cyprus Mountain on the 2rd of January of this current Year. To say I was surprised means to say nothing, as not only a trip in general was a rarity, however, I haven’t been to Cyprus in 8 years. Fast forward to January 2nd, my family and I awoke – at 4:40 mind you – and began the road trip towards the Ferry Terminal (took us around 2 ish hours to wait and get on the fairy. By now it was 7ish, and my sisters and I decided to step out and walk around (it was really cramped in the back of the car with 3 people). We wandered around for what seemed like one of the longest hours of my life until we finally heard the “you have arrived” speech from the captain. Rushing back, we buckled up and continued our journey up until downtown Vancouver: There we stopped, and got ourselves some snacks from Starbucks before continuing our journey towards the mountain. The service was terrible, so make sure you have a good service provider if you plan to go to any high elevation/distant region such as Cyprus Mountain. When we got there, however, we were pretty disappointed to find out we couldn’t even ride our sleighs there as everything required the lift pass (stacks fast when you have a family of 5). Despite our disappointment, we found another mountain around an hour away – can’t recall its name – and we went there instead. There we were greeted with nice views, less people, and most importantly, no need for a lift pass. And so we spent our day there; riding our sleds and walking around. At around 5 ish we headed back, grabbing some A&W as well as some more Starbucks before our 4 hour journey home. at 10:28, we were home.
In regards to the magical component of my pc, it is important to note that prior to this upgrade I was using a 2.5 Inch 256 GB SSD, with a max transfer rate of 250 mb/s (for write) and 230 mb/s (for read) speeds. for a long time I have wanted to not only upgrade from that to a faster disk, but also to have more storage in my PC. this is where the M.2 NVMe SSD comes in place; this is a basic 256 GB SSD, which cost me 20 bucks used from Facebook marketplace. This ssd (solid state drive) is a disk drive which plugs directly into your motherboard (NOTE: before rushing to get this technology: Make sure your motherboard has a slot for this device!! Not all motherboards support this form of data transfer, so look for a sideways port with a screw nearby – the port on the motherboard should have 2 lines (one long one short), and if it has 3, tough luck, as this means your motherboard only supports a SATA and not a nvme ssd (nvme uses the same technology as the Graphics card in your pc meaning its ultra fast and usually beats the sata ssd ) and after you determine the slot (it may also be done by googling your motherboard ports) you need to check the generation of the port (this will help you decide the right ssd for you).and since it uses the same After you figure out the generation of the port, make sure to get a ssd of that generation or lower (unless your motherboard only supports up to gen 2 speeds). After you insert it, make sure the disk shows up in disk manager before getting ready to clone it. Next, clone device (may be done through the terminal or Balena Etcher (Balena is what I used since it’s easier), and after you clone your drive, you may then wipe the old one, restart the computer, go into bios (making sure your new disk is the boot disk (or has boot “priority”). I would recommend leaving the other (old) disk as additional storage in your PC. Press F10 (or save and exit setup in bios, and boot back into windows; open Disk Management (on windows) or Disks (on Linux Mint), and format the disk into NTFS (for windows) or ext4 (for Linux). Boom! You are now set! To double check that the disk you installed is now your main drive open up Task Manager (on Windows) and after clicking on the performance tab click on your new disk and make sure its called “C” (or disk 1) and on the bottom right it should say System Disk.. You may now Copy all of your old files and put them onto your old drive. Bonus Tip: If the old drive doesn’t show up at all after format go into Device Manager (On Windows), click “ATA/ ATAPI Controllers and right click each one and disabling them. Reboot/restart and your old disk is visible and may be used now! This is how I spent my Winter holidays, where I not only got double the storage in my pc for 15x the performance boost, but also got to spend time with my family.
IRJE #4 – House of Leaves
In House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, Navidson and his wife Karen make separate, private journal entries on their stay in the house. In these private journal entries, they tend to talk about their thoughts and opinions alone in a room. Later, Navidson finds an endless, dark hallway in their house, which triggers two journal entries; Karen saying she will leave with the kids if Navidson goes into the hallway, and Navidson who says Karen is overreacting and needs to understand his curiosity. This hallways appearing causes a chain of events: The journal entries, the kids venturing into the endless hallway (which, due to their lack of fear, easily find their way out), and Navidson entering the hallway. During nighttime, Navidson enters the mysterious hallway and finds himself helplessly lost in the disturbing, infinite winds and directions.
By shouting “I’m here” and following the add-ee’s singing off the walls, Navidson slowly begins to make his way through an incredibly complex and frequently disorientating series of turns. Eventually after backtracking several times and making numerous wrong choices, occasionally descending into disturbing territories of silence, the voice begins to grow noticeably louder, until finally Navidson slips around a corner, certain he has found his way out. Instead though, he encounters only more darkness and this time greater quiet. His breathing quickens. He is uncertain which way to go. Obviously he is afraid. And then quite abruptly he steps to the right through a low passageway and discovers a corridor terminating in low yellow light, low light, with a tiny silhouette standing in the doorway, tugging her daddy home with a cry.
I like this quote because the fast, brief descriptions alone tell us how scared Navidson is. Though the quote tells us he is afraid, it doesn’t really need to. The fast pace with no room for mental descriptions give us a vibe of sheer terror without needing to outright say it. What makes it better is just the facts it’s his mind freaking out, and there is nothing in the constantly changing hallways with him. Imagine going camping, and at night you’re thinking; “What if someone is watching us? What could be out here with us, or who?” But in reality you’re just paranoid from the ‘What if’s. The same thing goes on here, except this time, there is nothing to expect. Many people go camping; not many people live in a house that creates infinite spaces out of nothing.