The really final post

Hey!!

This is now the very final post for our teacher so he can see which posts we'd liked the most.

I'll list the post and I'll start with the post I'd liked the most:


1. My favorite character, 6th of June 2016

2. Slam - chapter 3 & 4, 3rd of May 2016

3. This is the end ..., 28th of June 2016


Hopefully you understand why I've chosen this posts and you like them as much as I do.

Best regards, Elena!!

This is the end ...

Hey guys ...

Well, you may have noticed by reading the heading of this blog post that now this blog is at its end.

The last weeks we dealed with the novel 'Slam' by the author Nick Hornby and we've witnessed the ups and downs by Sam and his story. We've witnessed how Sam and Alicia, the mother of his child, get to know each other, how the get closer and closer but also how they seperate.

Now it's time to summerize of what we've learned, what we've improved and many other things.

I have to be honest: I was very sceptic at the beginning if writing a blog was a good idea and I suppose many of my classmates thought the same way as I did. But now, about eight weeks later, I have to say that it was a great experience. Although it is so much work, it was definitely worth it.
I improved my writing skills on the computer, I can write longer textes in shorter time and it definitely will help me in the future.

I'd love to say that my grammar and spelling have also improved but sadly I have no idea about this and I have no idea wether they have improved or not.

Otherwise I can read and understand English now better than before. Because of reading a whole novel in English and dealing with the storyline, the characters and the feelings, it's easier for me now to understand other English textes too.

We learned how to learn more about the characters and their characteristics and analyze their behaviour. Another point is that we know now how to get the really important information out of a text and how to prove our statement with quotes from the text.

I really think that I've improved my vocabulary by reading 'Slam' although this wasn't my first book I've read in English. We learned more vocabs about the topic 'teenage pregnancy' but also about the normal life as a teenager.

It was an awesome experience and I can't think of anything that would improve the analysis. Maybe we could have talked about a real experience of teenage parents and how they handle their situation but that wouldn't be that necessary.

All in all I can be grateful to get the chance to do something like this and I wouldn't want to miss this new amazing experience.

Thanks for reading this blog!

Best regards, Elena

P.S. When I think of 'Slam' I think of many things but I would like to reduce it up to four adjectives.
Excited that we got to the chance to do something like this.
New because we haven't done this before and it was an awesome experience.
Caring for the characters and how they manage their situation.
Sceptical because that was my first feeling when I had heared this idea of my English teacher.

How would your describe 'Slam' in four or five adjectives? ;)

Teenage pregnancies and the NYC campaign

Look at these pictures ... you can see four babies that seem more than unhappy. You may ask yourself what had happened to them. Now read the quotes that belong to the pictures.

"Got a job? I cost thousands of dollars each year."

"Dad, you'll be paying to support me for the next 20 years."

"Honestly Mom ... chances are he won't stay with you. What happens to me?"

"I'm twice as likely not to graduate high school because you had me as a teen."

Now, what do you think?

These pictures are made by a company called "NYC Human Resources Administration" and it's a teenage pregnancy prevention. It says that teenage pregnancies make many diffculties and should be avoided. Apparently will the kids suffer from having young parents, the chances are higher that the kid won't graduate form high school and the kid will kost thousands of dollars.

When the NYC Human Resources Administration unveiled its teen pregnancy prevention campain many activists demanded that they cancel their campaig and issue a public apology but neither had happened.

That's why I'd like to write a letter to them and write down my opinion about this. Here we go:

Ladies and Gentlemen,

we read in English class the book 'Slam'. Maybe you've heard of it but if you didn't, it's about the topic teenage pregnancy. Attending to this we saw your campain about teenage pregnancy prevention. 

It shocked me.

I think it's cruel to claim something like that.

At some points you're right. Kids are expensive. You have to make sure that they have something to eat and drink, that they have a safe place to sleep and live, that they get a good school education and many other things. You need lots of time for your kid and give him the love he needs. Especially for teenage parents it's hard to take care of their kids.

On the other hand your campain forgets many things about teenage pregnacies. It's right that kids are expensive but most of the parents would support their teenage kids with their kids, they would give them money and take care of their grandchild while the teenagers go to school. 

There are many problems and maybe it should be better not having a kid when you're so young but you can solve most of the problems somehow. 

You could improve your ads by making it less cruel. It's one thing when you say that teenage pregnancy should be avoided but it's another thing when you say only the negative. Please notice that it's a wonderful thing seeing a kid grow up and being able to play with your kids.

Teenage pregnancy isn't the world thing in the world and maybe you should concentrate on more important things than the fault of teenagers.

Your sincerely

Elena

my favorite chapter

Hello guys!!

In my post today I'd like to share my favorite chapter with you, what questions I'd like to ask the author of the novel Nick Hornby and if there's anything I truly enjoy or that I even feel annoyed of.

Let's start with my favorite chapter:

I've decided to choose chapter n°18 as my favorite chapter. The chapter starts with Sam reading a little book full of facts written by the british Prime Minister.

"And I learned that after fifteen years or so, eighty per cent of teenager fathers lose touch with their kids completely. Eighty per cent! (...) That meant that in fifteen years' time, the chances were that I wouldn't have anything to do with Roof. I wasn't having that." (p.233, ll.8-13)

Sam gets angry and he directly goes to Alicia's. He wants to see his kid in the future too, he doesn't want to lose touch with his son Roof. After a missunderstanding he confronts Alicia with his opinion and Alicia's mom helps them to interact.
This chapter is pretty short but that's my favorite because in this chapter you can see that Sam really takes care of his son. He could lose touch like the statistics say but he decides that he wants to be responsible for Roof.

And this isn't only my favorite part of the novel, it's also the part I truly enjoy. I'd thought in the beginning that Sam isn't responsible and he only thinks of himself but after reading this chapter you see that he can be really a caring person.

"We'd have no problem getting through the fifteen years if we could  just say here, saying nothing, watching a kid grow up." (p.235, ll.25-28)

This last sentence in the chapter is very emotional and it's a great ending of chapter n°18.

What questions I'd like to ask Nick Hornby, the author of SLAM?

There are many questions you could ask an author about his book like why did he had chosen this location etc. Here I'd like to ask more specific questions and maybe Nick Hornby reads someday a blog post from a german girl about his novel SLAM. So if you're Nick Hornby, feel free to answer my questions in the comments ;)

First I'd like to ask him why he decided to write about this topic. I can imagine that that's a pretty difficult topic and it's hard to write all of the emotions on paper. Did he experienced this topic by himself?
Many authors say of their characters that some of their characteristics they've got from the author. So if the author is very emotional, he makes his character very emotional too. Is it here the same? Does Sam or Alicia or any other character has the same characteristics like Nick Hornby?
 Is Nick Hornby such a big fan of Tony Hawk, the famous skateboarder, that TH has so a big role in his novel?
Where does the idea of whizzing Sam into the future come from? That's a pretty interesting part and I really would like to know why Nick Hornby wrote that parts.

The end of the novel gets closer and closer and soon it's over ...

Greetings!

Elena

my favorite character

After reading chapter 12, I sadly have to say that we're almost at the end of SLAM. By now Sam had two really strange dreams of his future that seem very realistic. Alicia is pregnant and Sam seems to get along with him being a Dad. A lot of things happened from the beginning until now and we met many different characters: we've met Sam's and Alicia's parents, we've met Sam's friend Rabbit and maybe we've met also Sam's and Alicia's future child. Last but not least we've met Alicia and Sam, the main characters who is the whole story about.

Now you may ask which one of the characters is my favorite. I'd asked myself the same because I couldn't indetify with any of the characters at the beginning. 
Normally you'd like the main character, in this case it's Sam. But that's totally not the case here. I don't know how to describe it nicely ao I just say it as it is.

I don't like Sam. I think he's unresponsible and only thinks of himself. He doesn't take care of Alicia who's going to have HIS baby...

But this blog post isn't about how I like the main character. It's about my favorite character.

As you may noticed, I don't like Sam that much and neither I don't like Alicia that much but I like Sam's mother the most so you can say that Annie's my favorite character.
Her total name is Annie Jones and she's Sam's 32-year-old mother. She likes to compare her age to the ages of prominent people who look good.

" 'I'm four years younger than Jennifer Aniston and I'm going to be a grandmother. I'm the same age as Cameron Diaz and I'm going to be a grandmother.' " (p. 144, ll.16-19)

She has a hostile relationship with her ex-husband who is also Sam's father. Although she really loves Sam, she misses the time where she didn't have a son and no duties.

"I know she loves me, but every now and agai, in exactly this sort of situation, she conveniently forgets to mention that she's got a fifteen-year-old son." (p. 29, ll.17-20)

Annie did the same fault as Sam and became pregnant when she was a teenager and that's why she couldn't really have the time as a normal teenager. She becomes involved with Mark, a man she knows through work, and if the second dream becomes reality, Annie and Mark will have a baby together.

In total I think she's a really loving and caring person. She really loves her son but sometimes she thinks what would have happened if she wouldn't have been pregnant so early. Her realtionship to her son is friendly and they act more than friends than like mother and son. Although she was married with Sam's dad, they don't get along that well now. Their relationship is very freezing and they only talk to each other when Sam's around. 
Because of all these characteristics I think she's the most likeable character in the novel. She's maybe not the best mother to Sam but who's perfect? She has her mistakes but Sam loves her and that is all that counts, isn't it?

There are also some very interesting scenes of Annie in the novel I would like to describe you more detailed.
In the first scene Annie talks with Sam about Alicia before Sam meets her the first time. He's very sceptic but Annie convinces him to give her a chance. She say things to him like a close friend would tell him.

"She'd just said that Alicia was hot, and it is different, isn't it?" (p. 21, ll.28-29)

Another interesting scene is the part when Sam tells his mom that Alicia's is pregnant with his child. First she doesn't say anything because she's totally shocked. I mean, didn't learn her son anything of her faults from having a child in this age? Her expressions change in the next few moments a lot. After being shocked she cries and thinks that Sam wanted to punish her. Then she thinks of Sam's destroyed future again and asks many questions. The scene ends with Annie asking if she could talk to her son in private.
I hope you can understand now why Annie's my favorite character. She's a lovely person and she mostely does the right thing in the end. After the first shock she gives Sam and Alicia her support and because she already experiented how it feels having a baby in that age , she can help them better than many other people.


Greetings!!

Slam - chapter 6

"And then TH played a strange trick  on me, so he probably is a god after all." (p.80, ll.21-22)

This quote is the last sentence of the 5th chapter and you knew directly that something big will happen in the next chapter. This is what I would like to talk about: what happens in the 6th chapter.

After I've read this chapter I was  pretty confused, I mean everyone would be confused after reading this chapter. But let's start by tellling you what happens in that chapter.

Chapter 6 starts with Sam telling us that he isn't sure that what will happen next whether is real or isn't.

"I'm pretty sure I didn't dream them up, but I couldn't swear that on Tony Hawk's book, which is my bible." (p.81, ll.5-6)"

That describes Sam's situation when he wakes up and has no idea what's going on. There is someone in the bed with him and there is a baby crying. After a few minutes he knows that this someone besides him is Alicia and it seems that they're a couple again. That baby crying seems to be his child and Alicia tells him to calm the baby down. Sam's confused and he don't know what to do.

" 'I don't know,' I said. And I really didn't know. I didn't have a clue." (p. 83, ll.29-30) 

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_Parenting

After doing his job somehow he goes back to sleep in his and Alicia's bed. He asks himself tons of questions and maybe he's even projected into the future. 

When he wakes up he isn't in his old room, he's still in Alicia's room and that mean that it's barely only a dream. He finds out that his son is called 'Roof' and he's even more confused, why would someone would call a baby 'Roof'?!
During a strange conversation with Alicia and her parents, Sam works out that he goes to college but he has no idea what he's studying or where the college is. Instead going to college he goes strait home. On the way home he sees his old friend Rabbit and he starts a conversation with him to find out more about his current life, where does he live, is his baby really called 'Roof', things like that. Right after Rabbit he meets a strange girl who seems to know Sam. Sam sees another opportunity to know more about his life so he keeps asking her question. He even learns how to do a nappy for his kid.

After meeting this strange girl he goes home, Alicia's home. It seems to be his new home now.There he meets his mother who takes care of Roof. In the one second he's glad his mother is with him and in the next second he's totally shocked.

"That wasn't a football. My mum wouldn't have put a football up her jumper. My mum was pregnant." (p.94, ll.32-34)

His own mother is pregnant again and again, Sam doesn't know what to do. The rest of the day he's shocked, not only because his mother is pregnant. He's overburden and manages somehow to survive the day. In the end of the day Alicia asks him if he still loves her. He pretends to be asleep because he has no idea whether he loves her or not.
Chapter 6 ends with some very dramatic sentences that I would like to tell you:

"And if it was my life that I'd seen, well, I didn't want to live it. I wanted  my old life back, I wanted someone else's life. But I didn't want that one." (p.99, ll.23-25) 

Now the question if this is a realistic dream, a nice dream or even a nightmare.

In my opinion it's definitely not a nice dream. You can see and feel Sam's thoughts and he's totally desperated. He feels homesick and as you can see in the quote above, he doesn't want to be his life being like this. He wants his old life. He wants to keep skating and having no fears about his future. So the future described like this seems similar to a nightmare of Sam.
But even it's more similar to a nightmare, it could be realistic. Sam knows that something had changed. He has the feeling that Alicia's pregnant so the main part of his future dream - having a baby - could be real. But having a baby called 'Roof' ... I absolutly don't think that's real but maybe it's just a nickname and the baby's name is other.

All in all chapter 6 is a really exciting chapter and I wonder what will happen next. How does Sam react if Alicia is pregnant and how will he explain this to his parents?

You see that things are getting very interesting now and I can't wait to continue reading SLAM by Nick Hornby.

Summary - what have we done so far?

Hello and welcome to our little story session!

Three weeks ago our whole story started. We knew that our last exam would be about a novel but we didn't know the name of it or how we would do it.
Our teacher told us that we would create a blog that would count as our last exam and the whole class was really sceptic. Writing a blog means lot of work and not everyone is that creative.

Three weeks later I have to say that this blog is really fun but you also need to invest a lot of time in it. A blog post isn't written in a few minutes. You have to write the first draft and correct it afterwards, maybe you need to include some pictures so which one is the best?
Although of the hard work it's a great experience and I don't want to miss it.

What did we so far in class and at home?

In those three weeks we talked about the first few chapters of SLAM. Now we know where the story takes place and in which perspective the novel is written. We analyzed the main character Sam, his relationship to his mother and to Alicia which is very different. In class we got some exercises we had to do and finish at home. Once a week we get an exercise on our main blog www.10breadsslam.blogspot.de we have to do in one week.

What did I like and what did I dislike?

I have to say again that having a blog means a lot of work but on the other hand I can be so creative with my blog, I can write my own opinion and support it with matching pictures. It's also a new experience we never went through.
There is also one thing I dislike: in class we always work in the same way. We get an exercise we have to do during the class. I'd like to have a change in class and maybe we can work on our blog design in one lesson. Exept for that I really like it so far!

What do I want to do?

As I mentioned before I'd like to learn more about how we can change and improve our blog design. Maybe we could also learn how to improve our writing techniques so our blogs get even better.

To conclude I have to say that I really like that kind of exam so far and hopefully it'll be so great in the following weeks.

See you in my next blog post!!

Slam - chapter 3 & 4

Hello :)

"I wouldn't be so scared of her, [Alicia] then." (p. 56, ll.22)

This one sentence is from Sam's mother Annie but why would she say something like that? She's scared of her son's girlfriend? That sounds a bit strange, doesn't it? 

But let's look at the story from the third and fourth chapter and maybe after reading it we'll know the reasons of Annie's fear.

Chapter 3:

Sam and Alicia are now a couple and it couldn't be better between them. They're always together, watching TV together or going outside for a walk, "I dreamed my way through school for the next few weeks. I dreamed my way through life, really." (p. 47, ll.1-2). They even say that they love each other what is a huge step in a relationship. Sam's mother isn't that happy about their relationship because "It's not healthy." (p.49, ll.33). She asks Sam about him and Alicia having sex. He doesn't know what to answer because they slept together and he feels uncomfortable to tell that to his mother, who wouldn't?

Chapter 4:

The relationship between Alicia and Sam stops being so nice. Sam gets a bit annoyed of his girlfriend and he starts living his life like before he knew Alicia, "It's not that things started to go wrong between me and Alicia. It just stopped being so nice." (p.60, ll.1-2). That's why he thinks about breaking up with her. On the other hand it seems like that Alicia still loves him and believes in their relationship.

Now there's still the question why Sam's mum is scared of her son's girlfriend. 

• Sam has a theory why his mum is scared of his girlfriend, "My mum was worried about things changing, her being left on her own, me becoming a part of someone else's life and someone else's family, me growing up and not being  her little boy any more, me becoming someone else..." (p.56, ll.24-28). After raising him up from a little baby to a teenager she's scared now to let him go and live his own life.

• Another theory is that she's scared that Sam would gamble his future because of Alicia, "It gets in the way of things. (...) Friends. Schoolwork. Family. Skating ... Everything. Life." (p. 50, ll.5-7). He seems to forget his life when he's with Alicia and he even doesn't skate so much than before. Maybe she's scared of that so Sam can't live his life.

• Another theory of me is that Sam's mother is scared of Alicia because she doesn't know Alicia's family that well. She doesn't know if they're good people or bad people who only seems nice in public. They could have a bad influence to her 'little' boy.

• Maybe she has also the fear that when Sam now has a girlfriends he really loves, he could do something stupid without thinking about it. He could run away with the strange girl and never come back. Another idea would be that the couple does the same mistake like Sam's parents and they'd get a baby together.

These are a few theories for you and maybe you have some on your own. Maybe you'd like to share your thoughts so just comment what you think about Annie's sentence.
I'm so curious to see what's going to happen next and maybe we'll know in the next few chapters why Annie's so scared of Alicia.

See you in my next blog post ^^

Slam - chapter 2

Sam and his mother

After reading the second chapter of 'Slam' I can characterise the relationship between Sam and his mother. There are many different opinions of their relationship in my English class. Some students think it's just a normal relationship between a mother and her son and others think that it's a special relationship between Sam and his mother Annie.

Here I want to present you my own opinion about their relationship so let's go!

First of all I have to mention my first impression of their relationship after the first chapter. I thought that Sam's mother wasn't a very caring person and that's why they wouldn't have a good relationship. She bought Sam a poster of Tony Hawk and it seemed like that Sam prefered to talk to that poster and not with his mother,e.g. "I'm not dissing my mum, but she hasn't got a clue, really." (p. 12). I also had the feeling that Sam's mother wasn't interested in her son's hobbies and she wouldn't even try to understand what he meant, e.g. "So when I told her about things like that, she'd try to look all enthusiastic, but there was nothing really going on in her eyes (...) Maybe that was why my mum bought  me the posters, so that I'd have somebody else to talk to."(p. 12).

During the first chapter it seemed like Sam really cares for his mother. Since his parents were divorced, his mother had this one boyfriend called Steve. Sam doesn't like him and he's glad when his mother broke up with him, "Maybe I was the happy one, because she was watching a DVD with Paula and not with Steve the rubbish boyfriend." (p. 14).

After I read the second chapter, my opinion about their relationship changed a lot. It's clear now that Sam's mother is really young and Sam's friend think that she's OK, e.g. "The point is that I've got a thirty-two year-old mother that people - people my age - fancy." (p. 18). It seems like that Sam isn't that OK with it, it seems weird for him and maybe he wishes sometimes that his life would be more normal with an older mother, "For a while, it didn't really register that she wasn't old enough to be  the mother of a fifteen year-old boy, but this last year especially, it's started to seem a bit weird." (p. 16).

Sometimes Annie and Sam discuss about their ages and then Sam feels guilty. He thinks because of him his mother didn't have enough time as a teenager and she couldn't spend the time doing whatever she wanted to do, "I didn't like it when she said things like that. It always felt like it was my fault , somehow." (p. 23).

In front of strangers and attractive men Sam's mother feels a bit ashamed about the 'mistake' she made when she was younger, e.g. "I know she loves me, but every now and again, (...), she conveniently forgets to mention that she's got a fifteen-year-old son. (...) But I could tell she'd rather have described me as her brother. Or her dad." (p. 29). Sam feels sad every time he hears something like that but he can't change anything.

All in all I have an impression that they don't have a relationship like a normal teenager with his mum. Although their relationship isn't that good sometimes they still love each other and that's the most important point for me. I think it would be the best if they have a serious talk soon so that they can get clear about their relationship and their fears.

We'll see how the story goes on ...

Greetings!!

Slam - opening chapter

Hello and welcome to my second post!

Bevor we talk more in detail about SLAM, it could be helpful to learn more about the background of the novel. Where and when does it take place, what's the perspective in the book and many other intersting things.

Let's get started!

Slam - what is the novel about?

Sam is sixteen and Tony Hawk, the famous skateboarder, is his hero. When he meets Alicia everything seems perfect. Life seems to be ticking on nicely, when suddenly one moment changes their lives forever and presents him with new responsibilities he can't run away from even though he tries to.

The novel is written from the perspective of the main character Sam as you can see that the author Nick Hornby uses the first person, e.g. "I talk Tony Hawk, and Tony Hawk talks back." (p. 11)

Where does the novel take place? When does the novel take place?

After reading the first chapter of the novel it's given that the story doesn't take place in the US. We suppose that it happens in Great Britain after we know that the main character is an English native speaker.
Sam tells his story and explains us that the story took place a few years ago, so we know that Sam isn't a teenager anymore.

"This was a couple of years ago - this time when things were ticking along OK - so I was fifteen, nearly six." (p.10)

Sam - the main character of the novel

Sam is the main character of the novel and he talks about his life, and with him as the narrator. He's nearly sixteen years old and he lives with his mother Annie.
His hobby and passion skating occupies a large part of his life. His hero and idol Tony Hawk is very important for him,
"But he was who I wanted to be (...)" (p. 9).
I suppose that Tony Hawk is kind of a father symbol for Sam especially since we know that Sam's parents are divorced.
Besides skating, Sam's very artistic, "Mrs Gillett, my art and design teacher, took me to one side after a lesson and asked wether I'd thought of doing art at college." (p. 9).
For Sam, skating is a kind of art and he spends hours at learning new tricks.
Sam is a very caring person and take responsibilities for those he loves,
"And you don't need to be Sherlock Holmes or whatever to work out that Alicia was a girl who meant something to me." (p. 10)

To sum it up we can say that Sam is a very intersting protagonist who loves his mother and his hobby.  He's very artistic and he sees his passion skating as a kind of art.

I can't wait to see what's going to happen next.

See you in my next post!

Elena

Opening of the blog

Hello and Welcome!

When our teacher first told us that we would create a blog about a novel we'll read in school, I was very sceptical. I thought, really? Is that necessary? Creating a blog means lots of hard work and I know it's also very complicated.

But here we are:

This is the very beginning of my own personal blog about the novel 'Slam' written by Nick Hornby. The main protagonist Sam loves his skateboard but suddenly something changes in his life. Sam has to deal with a new situation. Can he handle this? We'll see...

I'm not the only one who writes a journal about this novel, my whole class are having a blog online. Check them out and see what the others are thinking about 'Slam'.

We'll write about our experiences with the novel and share with you every single step we make. So let's get started!

Greetings from Germany!

Elena