February Post Reading

3. "I think it is worst if you don't know whether it is a good thing or a bad thing which is going to happen."

This quote is very relevant to the book. It sort of symbolizes how in the beginning everything was fine. He knew what was going to happen everyday. He had it all planned out. He had his system. His system where a certain amount of red cars in a row is a good day while a certain amount of yellow cars is a “black day”. He knew what would happen during his day because he controlled what would happen. If it was a good day he would go about his day and experience good things. But, if it was a black day he would not eat, he would not talk to people, he would not do anything. He also had a sort of schedule. He knew everyday he would do nothing new. He wouldn’t have to go anywhere, talk to strangers, or do things he didn’t like. Life was good because because he knew whether a good thing or a bad thing was going to happen. 

Near the end of the book where everything goes down, he loses track. This is because things become very different. He is being sneaky, and doing more detective work. One he finds the letters it all goes downhill. He finds out that his mother is in fact not dead like he had been told. His father had made up such a horrible lie. After this Christopher didn’t know what to do. He began to feel sick. This began to kick in. He didn’t know whether or not things were going to be good or bad. Especially once his father admitted to killing Wellington. He had to get out of there. He went to live with his mother. But he had to go on a long adventure all the way to London. He saw no cars that allowed him to decide if was a good day or a bad day. This was already a bad start. But when he had to navigate around London it was worse. It was very crowded and he was panicking very bad. He was very unsure about everything. He did not know what he was doing and he had no guarantee he would succeed. He didn’t know what would happen. He just knew he had to get to his mother.

To me this quote is somewhat relevant. I don’t particularly mind knowing whether or not my day is going to be good or bad / knowing if a good thing or a bad thing is going to happen on a certain day. It would be nice ahead of time so you could either be excited or prepare yourself for the bad thing that will happen. In the end, to me it does not matter whether or not I know, but to Christopher it was very important.

February Pre Reading

   2. Think of a time when someone close to you lied to you.  Write a blog post that describes what happened; what did they lie about, why did they lie, how did it make you feel, how did the action affect your relationship with that person.

When I look back there is only one major lie in my life that I can recall. This is when my parents lied to me about Santa Claus being real. Now looking back on this it was not that large of a deal, it was a trivial thing. But back then Santa Claus was like part of the family. I believed in him with all of my heart. I wrote letters to him and all of that kid stuff. When I found out that he wasn’t real I was heartbroken. I was torn between my emotions. One part of me wished to keep on believing in him despite what my parents said. Then the other part knew that in my mind I knew deep down all along that Santa was just a silly thing for children to believe in, and that an old man creeping into your house at night and leaving presents was just accepted was crazy. But it was like my whole life, my entire childhood was over. But in reality it didn’t matter. Nothing changed even remotely. I was still receiving and experiencing the same things. All that happened was that my probably ten year old self felt as if I was lied to, and betrayed by my parents for maybe a week or two but after that I was fine. I was just completely over it. My Christmas went back to normal. The only thing different is that I knew I was getting gifts from my parents and not Santa. This wasn’t really a lie, as much as it was a white lie. It was made to make kids happy. There was nothing wrong with that. This didn’t change the way I felt about my parents or anyone who had previously backed up their claims about Santa’s existence. This did not change anything with them. I knew they were only trying to make me happy. So I accepted it and forgave them. In the end nothing really changed and I got over the lie.