20 english words
1. Utterly – when something is utterly, it is completely. Ex. “I’ve never felt so utterly and completely lost.”
2. Slender – means thin, or skinny. You can describe a person by saying “She was cool, blonde and slender.
3. Unaccustomed – something that is unusual, like “she had an unaccustomed scowl on her face.”
4. Scowl – you can have a scowl on your face, and it’s the same as frown. Ex. “she had han unaccustomed scowl on her face.”
5. Dawdled – when you take a long time doing something, for example get dressed, you dawdle over it. Ex. “The morning ritual was soothing, and she dawdled over it.”
6. Flustered – a person that’s flustered, is a person that is behaving in a confused manner, almost all the time. Ex. “She was the sort of woman who always looked vaguely flustered.”
7. Painstakingly – when you do something painstakingly, you do it very accurately, or narrowly. You’re critical and make sure that it’s done properly. “He checked his clothes painstakingly, to make sure that there were no leaves or grass on them.”
8. Renounced – is when you give up, or resign something. It is also when you deny something. Ex. “He’d renounced the darkness.”
9. Sinister – when something’s sinister, it’s threatening and ominous. Ex. “There was something sinister in the way the bird spread its wings.”
10. Propel – when you propel someone, it’s almost like you give them a push in the direction they’re about to walk. “Elena allowed Meredith to propel her down the corridor.”
11. Conquest – when you conquer something, you win, or capture it. Ex. “The rush of triumph at making a conquest.”
12. Clenched –to clenche around something, is like when you squeeze your hand together, or hold them in a tight grasp. Ex. “He found that his fingers were clenched on the pen he held.”
13. Patterns - A thought pattern is a way to express you thoughts. Ex. “The pressure of so many thought patterns, was making him dizzy.”
14. Ruefully – when you for example admit something ruefully, you’re kind of ashamed of what you’re admitting. Ex. “He was tired, and, he admitted ruefully, hungry.”
15. Resemblance – when there is a resemblance between to people, it means that they look very much alike. Ex. “The resemblance was uncanny.”
16. Deliberately – when you do something on purpose, or if you’re conscious about what you’re doing. Ex. “He deliberately fixed his attention on the man.”
17. Wretched – you could say that if you feel wretched, it’s the same as feeling uncomfortable. Ex. “The girl looked wretched, as the teacher turned away from her.”
18. Courtesy – when you learn courtesy, you learn how to be polite to people. Ex. “The most important things they learned were good manners and courtesy.”
19. Contempt – when you’re showing contempt for someone, it’s like ypu’re showing them disrespect. Ex. “If an aristocrat don’t dress as befits his position, he is showing contempt for others.”
20. Nobility – is a class of society that enjoyed inherited social privileges. Ex.”His place had once been among the nobility.
Later!
/Maiken
The End!
First of all, the book is written in a really well language that makes it easy to understand, and also to read. And that is an important thing, especially for me, because even though my English is good, it isn’t that good, that I understand everything. But with this book I did, and that feeling is amazing! Okay, enough about that. Another thing about this book that made it so good, is the way the author describes the characters, all of their thoughts, their feelings, expressions, yeah, pretty much everything about them! It makes the book easy to understand, because it could almost be yourself in the book. And just because it is about teenagers in my age, it makes it even easier to compare myself with the characters in the book, and especially Elena. Even though the book wasn’t so long (almost 199 pages), it did have a really good plot, that never got boring, there was always something that my mind got stuck on. Which I think also is an important thing with books, they have to get you mind going, so that you won’t lose the interest in what you’re reading. And the way the book ended, made it even more interesting, and I got really courious about the next book, and what will happen in it! (Okay, the book has been interesting and capturing the whole time, got that now, right?)
So to make a short summary:
It is a really good book that is well written, and I recommend all you guys to read it! It is easy to compare yourself with the characters and all their problems about ordinary things like love, school, and friends and so on. And the not so ordinary thing with the vampires, the druids and that just gives the book an interesting tvist!
The love story in it is amazing to read about as well, even though it’s the “normal” one, where they actually can't have each other, but in the end they get each other anyway. But that is a kind of story, or plot, that I like to read about! It doesn’t get boring even though it’s the same, because the feelings, the thinking, and the persons aren't the same.
I am really looking forward to read the next book, to see what happens with Elena, Stefan, Damon, and everyone else!
/Maiken
Halfway through chapter 12 and all the way to chapter 15
This part kind of confuces me, because it seems like Stefan will diseappear for real, and that’s not something that I want as a reader! In some ways because I can almost guess how Elena would react to that, and to read about it isn’t fun at all.
When Elena finds Matt, he tells her what Stefan said, and she gets worried – of course. She manages to get out of the school’s gym and all the way to the boarding house to look for Stefan. But she doesn’t find him, at first. But when she goes to his room, she sees that the door to the roof is open, she gets scared by the thought of Stefan doing something stupid, like jumping of the roof, so she runs up to see what he’s doing. But she really shouldn’t have done that. Because what she sees is Stefan standing with a dove in his hands, sucking its blood.
My first reaction to that was: oh my God. This is not good at all! Even though I can’t see Elena, I could imagine how she looked like when se saw Stefan. (Part of that is because the author is very good at describing, which I think is a bery important thing in a book!)
She panics of course, but Stefan manages to calm her down, and then she tells her the whole story, about everything, including Katherine, which was very hard for him, because he almost “diseappered” in to the memory. When he tells her about his brother Damon, Elena puts together the previous things that has happened, and gets the conclusion that it’s not Stefan that has done everything, it is Damon! That made me kind of relieved, because I didn’t want to belive that it was Stefan, just for the reason that he doesn’t seem like a person that does that kind of stuff. There’s not much left of the book now, but it looks lite it will be the most exciting part, because when I see the first lines in chapter 15, Stefan confronts Damon, and it doesn’t seem to be a confront with words…
I’m looking forward to the last chapters of the book!
/Maiken
text and thoughts about the book
Here is the text I was talking about in the previous blogpost, read and enjoy!
“And what’s wrong with me,” she continued quietly, “that you can’t even look at me, but you can let Caroline Forbes fall all over you? I have a right to know that, at least. I won’t ever bother you again, I won’t even talk to you at school, but I want to know the truth before I go. Why do you hate me so much, Stefan?”
Slowly, he turned and raised his head. His eyes were bleak, sightless, and something twisted Elena at the pain she saw on his face.
His voice was still controlled – but barely. She could hear the effort it cost him to keep it steady.
“Yes,” he said. “I think you do have a right to know, Elena. He looked at her then, meetingher eyes directly, and she thought, That bad? What could be as bad as that? “I don’t hate you,” he continued, pronouncing each word carefully, distinctly. “I’ve never hated you. But you … remind me of someone.”
Elena was taken back. Whatever she’d expected, it wasn’t this. “I remind you of someone else you know?”
“Of someone I knew,” he said quietly. “But”, he added slowly, as if puzzling something out of himself, “you’re not like her, really. She looked like you, but she was fragile, delicate. Vulnerable. Inside as well as out.”
“And I’m not.”
He made a sound that would have been a laught if there had been any humor in it. “No. You’re a fighter. You are … yourself.”
This is a piece that really caught me, because this is the first time Stefan and Elena really talk to each other, and when she finally gets her answer to why Stefan won't talk to her, and to why he ignores her. It is sort of the beginning of their relationship, and I think it's a cute moment! After this part, things are really starting to happen, and the book gets even more exciting than before. Can't wait to read the rest.
halfway through the book
Anyway, after that, she gets complitely out of control, she goes to Tyler Smallwood, gets drunk, and then she goes with Tyler, Vickie Bennett and Dick to the graveyard, where some really strange things happen. Elena want’s to go back to the prom, but Tyler convinces her to come with him to his family grave. At first, she doesn’t want to, but then she follows anyway. When they’re there, Tyler almost rapes her! He tears apart her dress, hits her, and tries to kiss her. But she manages to bite his hand, which kind of caught him off guard. And suddenly Stefan is there, and he saves her. And well, he beats the crap out of Tyler. Well deserved, I think, because Tyler really is a big asshole. (Sorry, but it’s the truth!)
Well, short cunclusion of chapter 7 there. But it was a really exciting chapter to read, especially what happened in the graveyard, because at first I couldn’t see Stefan coming, so I thought that Elena would get both raped and abused. But no, Stefan the hero shows up! And thank God for that.
In chapter 8, Stefan takes Elena to the boarding house, so that he can give her a ride home, but they goes up to his room first. And they finally start to talk. Or, at first, Elena is the only one talking. There’s so much she wants to say to him, and this is her chance. Actually, some of it was so good and capturing that I’ll post a summary of it later. But anyway. After Elena’s “speech” to Stefan, he gives her the answers she deserves. And then, when she almost “sees” into his soul, and sees his misery, she can’t resist going to him and taking his hand. At first he rejects her, but two seconds later he kisses her instead.It was a kiss that they’ve both been longing for, for so long. When Stefan drives her home some hours later, the first thing they see at Elena’s house is like 2 or 3 police cars, and a lot of worried people. Meredith and Bonnie is there, and they tell Elena that Vickie Bennett har been attacked by some kind of animal. The chapter ends with Elena telling the police and her aunt about what Tyler did…
After these two chapters, it feels like there's finally starting to be a little more interersting, because until now, the books has been all about Elena's desperate attempts to get Stefan. And even though she has hm now, I don’t think her fight for him is over, not at all. So now I’m excited to read the next chapters, just to see what happens!
short descriptions of the main characters in vampire diaries part 2
He is around 150 years old, but he looks like a 17 year old normal boy, except from the fact that he isn’t. Or, he is normal in some ways, and not normal in some ways. He looks just like a normal guy, okay, he’s really hot (if the describing of him in the books have made him justice), he speaks like a normal person, and he acts like a normal person. But apart from that, he is dangerous, he hears people's thoughts, he drinks blood (but Stefan is a nice guy, so he only drinks from animals.), he doesn’t get older, he has special Powers that can be used on humans, he is incredibly strong (but only if he drinks human blood, which he doesn’t), and least but not last, he is a vampire.
Apart from that, he’s a complex person as well. He’s suffering from the great loss of his life, his big love Katherine, who died when she tried to get Stefan and his brother Damon to stop fighting with each other. When he meets Elena for the first time at school, he sees that she looks exactly like Katherine, and from that moment, he hates her, just because she looks like her. After reading a couple of chapters, I also realise that it’s not just the look of Elena that he kind of hates. The way she smells, the way she talks, her thoughts, everything reminds him of Katherine. And every time he looks at Elena, or hears her thoughts, he gets reminded of Katherine, which of course is painful for him. He doesn’t let anybody in, barely talks to anyone. The only persons he talks to, are Matt, Elena’s ex-boyfriend, and Caroline, a girl that means nothing to him, and because of that he can’t hurt her the way he can hurt Elena. Looking closer into Stefan’s mind, you can see that he’s kind of miserable, and doesn’t know where he belongs; he doesn’t feel any belonging to anyone.
short descriptions of the main characters in vampire diaries part 1
Elena Gilbert:
Her age doesn’t say in the book, but she is a senior on high school, so I think she’s 17 or 18… She is the kind of girl that everyone is jealous of, because she has everything! … Or at least she has the beauty and the social status, and of course all the boys that always follow her, and watch her every step. Even though everyone at schools sees her happy face that she shows, she isn’t really happy on the inside, there’s something that’s bothering her, which makes her life kind of sorry. But she can’t point a finger at it, it’s just there. But even though she is the high school queen, and have most influence in school, there’s an insecure part inside her as well, which shows from time to time. For instance, when she tried to talk to Stefan for the first time, and he kind of rejected her, you could almost feel how insecure she became, and how sad she felt because he wouldn’t talk to her. And she blamed herself for that, without reason. Elena is a complex person, and I think it has something to do with her loss of her parents 3 years ago. Even though she has her loving aunt Judith who takes care of Elena and her younger sister Meredith, there’s something missing in Elena’s life. And when she meets Stefan for the first time, it’s almost like she feels that a part of her is falling into place again. In the first chapter of the book, you get the impression that she’s a blonde bitch that always gets what she wants no matter what. But that impression changes after having read 3-4 chapters. Then you see how insecure, and almost shy, she really is. I think that she seems like a really nice person that cares about her friends and family more than her own life.
vampire diaries - the awakening
The book is also about a boy – Stefan Salvatore, who doesn’t appear to be like an ordinary boy. Or, in many ways he is, but in many ways, he’s not. And that’s really interesting, ‘cause for the first, you want to know WHAT he is, why he’s in Fell’s Church, second, he is really mysterious, doesn’t talk to anyone, and wears sunglasses in school, when he’s sitting in class, and third, because he doesn’t notice Elena, like all other boys do. Which is something that irritates Elena, A LOT.
Just after reading the first chapter, I want to read more, to find out what happens, and what has happened. Since I’ve seen the tv-series made after this book, my expectations are pretty high, especially because I love the show.
I really hope that the book will live up to the expectations, and that it won’t get boring, or too difficult to understand.
the movie hotel rwanda
Before I saw the film, I've just heard about the war one time or so, but when I saw the movie, it hit me how hard it must've been.
The main character is Paul Rusesabagina, who is the manager at a nice Swiss hotel. He lives a happy life with his wife and three children, until the day the war begins. Since his wife is a tutsi, he does everything in the world to protect her. In the beginning, he just cares about his family, but after a while everything changes, and he cares about everyone that comes to his hotel. During the war he tries to run the hotel as usual, which is really hard, when the hutu people tries to shut it down. Paul gets help from Europe, and they're the ones that in the end helps everyone out of the country.
The movie was very good, and you get pretty affected by it. You see the horrible truth about how life was for those in Rwanda during the war.
