Key West Beach vs Pompano Beach

          Recently, my family took a vacation down to Florida. We stayed at Pompano Beach, Florida but we traveled down to Key West for one day. From our travels I was able to compare the two beaches and decide which one I liked best. First of all, if you have a chance to go to either of these beaches I would recommend it; the Atlantic Ocean is amazing.

         

          First I will start with Pompano Beach. Centered right outside of Ft. Lauderdale, It was the most populated beach. Right behind the beach, there was a lot of hotels and condos. This was kind of nice because if you had to use the restroom or if you required some other hotel service, you could always go and get it. They also had places where you could rent various items like chairs, umbrellas, trampolines, etc. The beach was also lined with un-hatched turtle nests. This added a little uniqueness to the beach because there were so many.

         

          The beach that we went to in Key West was one off of the main beach so it was more isolated than Pompano Beach. The fact that it was a more isolated beach kind of showed in the beach quality though. The beach had a lot less sand than Pompano Beach. I mean the sand in Pompano Beach was probably brought there but still. There were also no waves at the Key West Beach. It was different from the actual coast, It was kind of part of a bay where the ocean waves didn’t touch. Because the Atlantic Ocean water was so clear, and the lack of waves made it very easy to see the bottom, which kind of made it gross because of all of the seaweed that grew.

          Even though we found some beaches to be better than others, they are still beaches so they really can’t be overlooked. If you ever find yourself at either of these beaches, I would highly recommend going to them. (339)

How to Pass Time during a Car Ride - Games

The first game that we have played is the license plate game. All that is required for the license plate game is a piece of paper, a writing utensil, and a good eye. The goal of the game is to see who can spot the most license plates. Every time you see a license plate, you write down the state that it came from. At the end of the trip, see who got the most states. Usually it is only really long car rides when you find all fifty states.

          A few years ago, my mother bought a set of auto bingo boards. They are in the shape of regular bingo boards but instead of letters they have pictures of things that you may see in a car (airports, police officers, speed limit signs, etc.) We always bring them along and play a few games in the car. This usually lasts a while and we find it amusing.

          The next game is the alphabet game. This one is similar the lecense plate game but instead of looking at license plates, you look at signs. You start at the beginning of the alphabet; A, and when someone spots the letter A on a sign they yell it out. Then it moves to the next letter; B, and so on and so forth.

         

          Another game, usually for shorter car rides, is the semi game. Each person chooses a color except for white. As soon as all colors are chosen, everyone looks for that color of semi. The person with the highest number wins.

         

          Finally, the last game I have is the celebrity game. To start, someone says the name of a celebrity or a famous person like Brittany Spears. The next person will say the name of another celebrity with the first letter of the first name starting with the previous celebrity’s first letter of their last name. So the next person could say Shel Silverstein. Saying a celebrity with a double letter name, like Mickey Mouse, Ronald Regan, etc., would reverse the order of the people playing. So in this example, the person who said Brittany Spears would be next.  

          Hopefully these suggestions will help you stay occupied during your next car ride, but if not, you can at least say that you knew what to do! (388)

How to Pass Time during a Car Ride - Dos and Donts

If you have ever been in a long car ride, you have probably found yourself with nothing to do. I have compiled a list of my family’s common ways to pass time on a road trip and listed them below. So whether it is two hours or twenty four hours, you will hopefully never get bored and it might even speed up the time!

         

          The first and most important thing not to do during a car ride is twiddle your thumbs and just sit there. Sure, you can look out the window but wherever you are going, I assume that the terrain will probably be the same after a while which will ultimately lead to your boredom. The second “no no” in a car ride is too many rest stops. It is fine to stop every once in a while for gas or the required services but keep it to a minimum. If there is someone in your car that has to stop to use the restroom every half hour it makes for a very long car ride. I would however, recommend that you stop at interesting places along the way. It may make the trip a bit longer but they will make the trip more fun.

         

          There are always the normal activities that would keep you occupied for a while; i.e. reading a book, watching a movie, listening to music, painting your nails etc. There are also those electronic games and the travel games that you can get just about anywhere that sells toys but they can be a bit difficult to play in the car. If you are feeling especially bored, or just don’t feel like doing any of the common activities, you can always print out some road trip songs and sing them along the way. I warn that this method will definitely get annoying for some people. My family always chooses the car game route. Not like bingo or anything, just simple car riding games. (341)

The Girl Who Played With Fire Annotation

                In AP Lang we are discouraged to read multiple books in a series, but I was so intrigued by the first book, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and gave in to reading the second when I was contemplating my next read. I was delightfully surprised to find that it wasn’t really a continuation of the first book. While it did contain some of the main characters, it was centered on an entirely new concept and adventure. The first book explored the disappearance of a well-known figure while this book was an adventure through the world of the sex trade in Sweden and the mission to expose it. It contained violence, drama, love, and suspense. In my opinion, if a book includes that many genres it is almost guaranteed to be phenomenal.

This is a fiction book that is centered in Sweden and the surrounding parts. I realized in the first book that it was a little hard to figure out all of the Swedish cities and jargon and in this book the characters moved around a lot more. I could have found a map and tracked all of the places but I kind of got used to at least the vicinity they were in by the author’s description.

As I said earlier, this book is full of suspense. The author has an uncanny ability to make the entire book suspenseful. Everything that was mentioned and every suspicion I formulated from it had ended up being wrong and in an entirely different situation that I had not even thought was possible much less expected. I’ll admit that my basic knowledge of any other form of drama or literature had given me the inevitable suspicion that the heroes and main characters will win and live and the bad guys will always lose but other than that I was clueless. The author added so many twists that I had trouble keeping up. This did not decrease my addiction for the book at all though.

The Girl Who Played With Fire is a phenomenal and exhilarating book and I would recommend it to anyone and everyone. While it does get a bit eccentric and sexual at times, it is so suspenseful and addicting that it cancels out all things wrong with it. (390)

Be Yourself

            When I was eight, my family went to Disney World. Every day we alternated going to the Disney parks in order to make it to every one of them. On the very last day, we went to Epcot. Epcot is very different from the other parks; it is not packed with amusement rides and theme park games. Instead, it represents the World, and time. In the park, there is a lake, and surrounding the lake are eleven different countries from all over the World. These countries are filled with buildings and shops that resemble those found in those places and regions. When we got there, we decided that in order to get the full experience, we would buy one dessert that represented each country; a crème brûlée from France, chocolate from Germany, and flan from Mexico.

            Each of these desserts had their own unique taste and every bite left me wanting more. It wasn’t just that these desserts tasted good, because they did, it was that they were an entirely new and exciting experience for me. Each country had its own dessert; a dessert that had made its way to fame in the many years that the country had existed. It had entangled itself into the country’s history and somewhere along the way, it became a representation of the unique culture and traditions.

            Since then I have realized that it is not just countries with these distinctive and delectable desserts, it is also people. Every time I meet someone, I look for these traits and characteristics that represent them as a whole. It is automatically evident when someone has a trait that doesn’t belong to them. For instance, if I traveled to France in search of the perfect crème brûlée and spotted a Mexican flan on the menu, I would be completely baffled. My mind would be so stuck wondering why that flan was on the menu that my crème brûlée search would fade into the background and eventually be lost.

            It is important to keep the crème brûlée distinct because it is France. It represents everything about France and by replacing that crème brûlée with a dessert that belongs to something else; France is lost and is no longer represented by something distinguishable.

I believe that everyone should be themselves and strive for those delectable and distinguishing characteristics that are completely unique to that individual. Without them, they are no longer memorable, and no longer interesting. (410)

A Tribute to My Father

If anyone has taught me about love it was my father.

My father is not an extraordinary man on the outside; he could walk through a supermarket without extracting more than a glance. I assume he appears to be like any other father; a thinning hairline, emerging pot belly, smile lines beginning to show, and pictures of his kids in his wallet seated in the back pocket of his pants. The extraordinary bits are under his father façade, invisible to the human eye but clear as day to the abstract world.

Ever since I was little, my father has shown me how to love. He used to take me into our living room and set me on the coffee table. He would select the same CD from the rack every time, put it in the stereo, and skip to the one track that played the song “Butterfly Kisses” by Bob Carlisle. When the lyrics started playing, he would take my hands, put them around his neck, and we would sway back and forth to the music and he would sing to me. One time, I told him that I when I grew up, I would play this song at my wedding so we could dance for real and I could be like Belle in Beauty and the Beast. He said “Lexi, you go ahead and play any song that you like, but if you play this one, I will cry my eyes out.”

Believe it or not but this was the first time that I was even aware guys could cry. As I grow older, my father is there every step of the way teaching me more and more about boys and the many things that they are capable of. He comforts me when my relationships get tough and gives the best advice he can when applicable. I don’t know what I would do without my father because he is, and always will be, the first person to teach me how to love. (339)

The Hunger Games; Movie vs the Book

                The popular and fantastic book known as the Hunger Games, has recently come out as a movie and like the book, has topped the selling charts and was sold out in almost every movie theater for three weeks straight. I went to see the Hunger Games two weeks after it came out and was surprised to walk into a crowded theater. I read the book before I went to the movie and to be honest, was expecting to be disappointed. I was actually very pleased with the outcome of the movie compared to the book. I thought that it kept with the book for the majority things but it did leave out a few details.

                One of the biggest differences that I noticed was where Katniss acquired her mocking jay pin. In the book, the mayor’s daughter, her basically only friend besides Gale, came to see her before she left on the train to go to the Hunger Games. When she came, she brought the pin with her and told her to wear it as a sign of disrespect to the capital. It was pretty big thing that she gave it to Katniss though because the pin was pure gold and in the district that they were from it was hard enough to afford bread let alone a gold mocking jay pin.

                Another difference was that they left out the story in the beginning where the man and woman were running away and got caught by the capital. Gale and Katniss were out in the woods and the woman looked at Katniss and wanted them to help but Katniss was afraid and then the girl was captured. Katniss also encounters the girl again when she goes to the capital. The girl had her tongue cut out and was a servant for Katniss and the others.

                Even though I was kind of disappointed about these main differences and the other more subtle things that the movie people left out, the movie did follow the book pretty closely. I also understand with the time crunch why the producers and writers decided to leave these little things out. The movie was absolutely phenomenal though and I would recommend it to anyone that hasn’t seen it yet. (381)