The Bowl

For my last book review of the year, I wanted to read something that would be beneficial to me in more ways than to just learn new things. And this book, The Inner Game of Tennis , by W. Timothy Gallwey, did just that. To start off this book review, I just want to say that the concepts in this book can be applied to any sport, or even your daily life if you aren't interested in tennis. This book goes over how to reach peak performance in anything, but it makes examples about tennis and sports in general.  At the beginning of the book, the author narrates a few experiences he had in the past that led to him writing this book. One specific example was when he was teaching a new tennis player (Paul). But instead of telling him what to do, like people normally do, he instead demonstrated it and then asked Paul to try hitting a few shots and see what works and what doesn’t. This showed him that people learn better when given the task to finish and the tools to do it, but not telling the...

  Why Attack On Titan’s Ending Fails First off I’d like to put a disclaimer for spoilers of 3 different anime/manga (Code Geass, Attack on Titan, Death Note), though not directly spoiling anything it could be bad so you don't have to read this article. Also, many things in this will make much more sense if you have seen/read Code Geass, Attack on Titan, and Death Note. As some of you may know, Attack on Titan ended a while ago and after having some time to jump off the hype train and the chance to hear about the release of spoilers for an addition to the ending chapter, I’ve had some time to reflect and think about the ending with a clear mind. After seeing the ending, I found many similarities between the ending of this series, Code Geass, and Death Note.  Like many people, I was able to draw connections between Code Geass, Death Note, and Attack on Titan. The premises and witty and unpredictable plot are all very enjoyable. Most notably, all the main characters wanna sav...

  The Art of War, top 5 short stories The Art Of War  is a book by Sun Tzu which was originally written in chinese around 2,500 years ago.  This book is about aspects of war, from the types of environments, generals, and soldiers involved, and the faults and virtues which can determine success in a war. It has thirteen chapters. These are about mainly about laying plans, what is needed to win, foraging, choosing your battles, how to handle the army as a group of people, playing to the weaknesses of the enemy,the army and the psychology of the soldiers, being purely logical,  the movement of the army, the types of terrain, how that terrain may be interpreted, the use of fires, and the use of spies. However, the main thing which is stressed again and again throughout the book is the extreme importance of deception in warfare. In the book  Sun Tzu likes to use stories as examples for his points, this leads to a lot of sneaky stories whose genius may be only matched...

  I decided to read “Building the American Republic” by Harry L. Watson. This book is basically a narrative history all the way to 1877. Many important historical events are talked about in this book, such as the Columbian Exchange, Puritan Society, the encounter between Powhatan and Jamestown, and a brief history of exploring the new world from different countries like Spain and Portugal. Even though I have not completed the whole book, I have read enough to have a general idea of what the main book is talking about. The events talked about in the book are in chronological order which allows the reader to better understand colonization and history. I chose to read this book mainly because I was getting bored with reading fiction books. I wanted to give a non-fiction book a shot. Even though I probably won’t complete this anytime soon because of the number of pages, I still might carry on with this book. If you are looking to read a book on history that is easy to comprehend and ...

           I read Top Gun: An American Story by Dan Pederson. No, it is not the book version of Top Gun the movie, but it is kind of related. It is a very neat book that covers a very interesting chapter of American military history.  The book is a story about the founding of the Top Gun program. The Top Gun program is a special academy for advanced pilots in the Navy. This academy was founded because the US was having a lot of trouble with its pilots in the Vietnam War. They were having a lot of planes being shot down, so this book revolved around the story of how the Top Gun program was founded and how it affected the Navy. I really liked this book because it really told a true story, unlike the movie. It talked about the actual logistics of how this happened, instead of telling an exaggerated story about speed addicted pilots. Don’t get me wrong I love the movie, but it was also nice to have some actual historical information about the subject. ...

Taking a break from my normal book reviews, here are some instances where a movie accurately encapsulates (or improves) the novel it is based upon. Normally, when someone is confronted with the idea that there was a movie adaptation of their favorite book, they automatically think that the movie remake will always be worse. However, Forrest Gump would prove them wrong. If you haven't watched the movie yet, Forrest Gump is a movie about a man with an IQ of 75 with good intentions. We are taken through the life story of Gump, through his ups and downs, but he always stays optimistic about anything happening to him. However, the book was very disappointing and only remotely enjoyable if you had already watched the movie. The actors, including Tom Hanks, Elvis Presley, etc, and the director, Robert Zemeckis, brought this subpar novel to the screen in an amazing fashion. The second novel I'll be talking about in this blog post is Jaws. Again, this book was rather unremarkable, thril...

     12 years ago back in 2009, manga artist Hajime Isayama created the manga Shingeki no Kyojin also better known as Attack on Titan. As a 3-year-old, I made the worst mistake of my life. I didn’t start reading Attack on Titan until 2019. With the decade-long series having finished just a few weeks ago, I have bestowed it the title of the greatest story of all time (in my opinion..). For those of you who do not know, Attack on Titan is mainly known for its incredible success in the anime adaptation which started in 2013 and has been going strong with 4 seasons with the last one ending next year. Despite its greatness, it has yet to finish catching up with the source material, so I am here to talk about the original manga which finished on April, 9th and is better than the anime fight me, but that’s a topic for another day.      As someone who was heavily invested in it, I found it to be a hell of a journey following Eren Jaeger and his friends trying to ...

                                        We are okay book review We are okay is a book by Nina Lacour. In this book, something tragic happens to the main character, Marin, and not being ready to forgive, she tries to forget. She leaves for college, planning to never look back. Calls and voicemails sent to her phone never got an answer and the friend she leaves behind never heard a good bye. However, now in the midst of her winter break, her friend Mabel is coming to visit her college for three days and upon arrival, Mabel tells her upfront that she wants her to come home. With no longer any known immediate family left of Marin’s, Mabel tells Marin that her parents are willing to take her in. However, Marin says no. Although she wants to say yes, she can not face going back you California. Mabel, rather intent on her mission continues to stay for the next thr...

       I read Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy. The book was a story about the birth of modern-day computers and the transition to modern-day PCs. It was a very interesting read that really humbled my previous understanding of computers. One thing that was very interesting to me about the book was a thing called the Hacker Ethic. It was a term born in Tech Square in MIT, and it describes the working ethic that the computer hackers that lived there had while they worked with these huge computers. The moment they entered the room, they would forget about everything else. They would forget about doing well in school, sleeping, eating and all they did was just give 100% all the time to hacking a computer. It was very interesting. They would set up strange sleeping systems where they would stay awake and build programs on a computer for 3 days straight, then sleep like a baby for another few days straight. This kind of unconditional dedication ...

                                                                                       Dewey Decimal System I vaguely remember learning about the Dewey Decimal System in second grade. I thought it was pretty boring and useless because most of the time I would directly ask one of the librarians to find my request without even trying in the first place. However, I never knew how the books were organized within the Dewey Decimal System and how it allowed librarians to easily spot specific books and requests.  The Dewey Decimal System is a library classification system that organizes contents of a library in 10 main groups; General Knowledge, Philosophy and Psychology, Religion, Social Sciences, Languages, Science and Math, Techno...

Blood on the Tracks      Recently, I was able to catch up on the manga Blood on the Tracks . Blood on the Tracks is written and illustrated by Shūzō Oshimi and has been ongoing since February 2017. The story is very suspenseful and dives into the many psychological pressures and complex social relationships the main character has to deal with. Currently, the story is at its climax or possibly a major turning point and though slow at first, the payoff is very well worth it, so I recommend it. If anyone has read the webtoon Bastard, the premise is very similar. Seiichi Osabe’s mother is a psychopathic murderer but also a loving and overprotective mother for Seiichi. As a witness of his mother’s crimes, he is split over whether he should confess or pretend as if nothing happened. Though it may seem like a 2 sided story of justice and evil with Seiichi’s love for his mother causing most conflict, the most recent chapters take a turn in a surprising direction. Surprisingly, ...

This book, White Fragility , by Robin DiAngelo, is about how the term “white fragility” is used and what it means in society. This genre is usually out of my comfort zone for reading, but I decided to read this because of the Black Lives Matter movement and other current events going on related to racism.  To start off, white fragility is “the intense emotions, the defensive stance, and the argumentation white people experience, take and utilize when confronted with the topic of racism”. To put it short, it means that whenever the topic of racism is discussed around a caucasian person, they immediately get very defensive and flustered in comparison to a person of color.  One example of white fragility in real life could be when the Black Lives Matter movement was taken by select caucasian people and made into “All Lives Matter”. This may not seem bad at first glance, but in truth, it means that they were drawing attention away from the injustices done to the black communit...

                                                                                            Legend Review In this review, I will talk about the basic plot of Legend, the prominent features of the book, and my review and thoughts of it. This will not contain spoilers. Legend is the first book in a trilogy written by Marie Lu. This dystopian book takes place in an evil totalitarian Republic government that explores two main characters; Day and June. June is a military prodigy, and Day is the country’s most wanted criminal. I won’t spoil much, but they basically both uncover something sinister about the Republic after a confrontation. I think one distinctive feature of this book that other books do not follow is that th...

  Deadfall review   Dead Fall  By Stephen Wallenfels focuses on the point of view of Cory Bic whose past story is given in a third person narrated account, and whose present is narrated by himself. The book starts off with Cory and his twin brother Ty on their birthday as their father, in one of his better moods, decides to let the boys in on a guarded secret of his.  He takes them to a few stops in the woods before arriving at normal looking clearing with a stump in the middle. However, underneath is an abandoned living space dug out long ago and whose entrance is through the stump. They dub the place “Stumptown” and their father talks about how they will someday come up there and live free and happy, detached from the world. He talks about how he is planning on changing for the better, but soon afterwards, he seems to take a step in the opposite direction. He moves them to a new town, for a sketchy job, to live in a worn out house. Here he joins ranks wit...

    I read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part - Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. The story is centered around a Native American teenager by the name of Arnold. It is an inspiring story of a poor Indian kid who juggles his two identities as a Native American, and as an academic superhero.      Known mainly by the nickname Junior, Arnold is a teenager who lives on the Spokane Reservation. He has a knack for basketball and has a good friend, Rowdy. Rowdy is very aggressive and loves getting into fights, and has an anger management problem. However, he tries his absolute hardest not to hurt Arnold, as they are best friends and he has a soft spot for people close to him. Arnold also has a passion for academics. He attends the regular high school in his reservation, where sometimes the teacher forgets to come to school. A quite revealing detail about the school’s state. He is particularly excited about geometry, however upon receiving his textbook for high school geom...