The Neighbourhood

I absolutely love this band so much. I listen to them everyday and their music is just awesome! They have really deep meanings and nice beats to them and I just really like their music. I'm addicted to one of their albums called "Wiped Out!" And I will be sharing my top 5 favorite songs from that album.

5. Single


I really like this song, I don't know why. The lyrics make me want to cry.  and the whole song is nice and mellow. I love songs that are like nice and slow but still have a good  rhythm and beat to it. So, I just really like this song.


4. Cry Baby


This is literally the song I listen to everyday when I walk home from I school. It's more upbeat than most but it's such a great song. The lyrics really get to me and just his voice is absolutely amazing in this song. I also like this song because it has some acoustic parts too so it sounds really nice and I love it.


3. Greetings from Califournia

 
This song is different from most of them in the album. I'm currently listening to it as I type this out. It's very mellow and dark. The lyrics sort of confuse me. This song sounds a little creepy in my opinion but I absolutely love the beat. And his vocals are amazing. He sounds like a God. Anyways, it's a really cool song.


2. The Beach


The first time I ever listened to this song I swear I cried so ha. rd. The lyrics are just so beautiful and his voice makes me want to take singing lessons. I know every single word to this song and I'm absolutely obsessed with this song. I like to listen to it when I'm in the shower and its just great. You'll have to listen to understand.


  1. Daddy Issues


This was the first song I ever listened to by The Neighbourhood. As you can tell, I fell in love instantly. I watched the music video and it just made me feel so empowered. The lyrics get me so emotional, his voice doesn't help either. It's like when I'm listening to this song I suddenly forget how to function. I know the entire song and I recommend it to everyone. It is just such a great song.

A Slice of Life: Summer Bucket List

     I'm gonna be honest and say that I've never really liked school. I've never liked the idea of getting up way too early in the morning to go this place called school and then learn all this information that I would probably never use in my future. But, when it comes to eighth grade and leaving to go to high school, I feel like crying like a little baby. I'm trying to most of this last year with all my really good friends. Not only that, but I'm trying to make the most of this summer. This summer is the very last before I go to high school and it's really scaring me. What I've decided to do is make myself a Summer Bucket List. I'm going to try my very hardest to do everything I put on my list and hopefully I will have a really great summer.

1. Ride A Roller Coaster

 I've never been the biggest fan of roller coasters. I've always felt that there was no need to go on one. But then I grew up and everyone was going to Great America together and I never wanted to go. I've always felt that I'd
1) Cry
2) Pass out
3) Throw up
4) Pee my pants
5) Die
So I've never wanted to go on a roller coaster. But, this year our eighth grade class is getting the chance to go to Great America for one of our field trips. A part of me wants to conquer my fear but then another part of me wants to stay a chicken and never go on a roller coaster. I just don't know what to do but hopefully I'll know.

2. Go On A Plane

As you can probably tell, I don't enjoy being high up in the air going who knows how fast. Ever since I was like 5 I've always wanted to go and get away. I've always wanted to go to California or New York, somewhere far away. But the thing is, I am absolutely terrified of flying on a plane. I'm very stupid and naive so when I watch the news and someone crashed a plane I get anxiety and think, "I'm never going on a plane." But you see, I'm even more stupid because I want to be able to take picture of the clouds and sit in the airplane seats and eat the cheap airplane food. I'm a very indecisive person. I'm not sure whether or not I want to go on one but my family and I are taking a trip to California over the summer. Whether or not I'm going to have to suck it up.

3. Take A Picture Every Day

It might sound lame but I really like photography. I've been asking for one of those Nikon cameras for the longest and I'm really hoping that this summer I will be able to get one. Either way I want to challenge myself and take a different picture every day all summer long. I've always loved taking pictures and capturing the moment. I actually want film and photography to be one of my majors in college. I feel that if I practice now I'd be great later on and I'll be able to succeed in a career of taking pictures. Also, summer is the perfect time because I feel that everything looks so much more alive and colorful which helps me take different, cool pictures.

4. Hanging Out With Friends

I know what you're thinking, Emily why? Well the answer is that I want to make the most of my summer with my friends because this might be the last year I get to be with them. I'm going to a different school than most of my friends and we're all going our separate ways and starting new chapters of our lives. I want to be able to have great memories with my friends before we all leave each other and meet new people. It really sucks to just think about leaving half the people I know. I'm going to be leaving friends that I've known since kindergarten. I want to just have one final goodbye before we all leave.

5. Go Camping... Kinda

I've only been camping once and I don't really count it as camping. One year for the Fourth of July, my whole family went to Yogi Bear. We rented out this huge cabin and stayed for a couple of days. This summer I want to go camping again, sort of. The thing is, is that I want to go camping in my backyard. My backyard is also pretty big so I don't think it would be such a hassle. It's a really good idea to because, you're having fun and saving money! Win, win! I'm also really big on décor so it won't be so much camping but more glamping (glamorous camping) I want to decorate my backyard with cool fairy lights and have our tents stocked with food, blankets, pillows, etc. This was like every kids dream. My childhood consisted of me constantly asking to sleep in the backyard but getting rejected every time. I think it would be great!

I'm not lying when I say that I have a list of 34 things that I want to do this summer. But these five are probably my top five that I just really want to do over the summer. I hope you enjoyed this lovely blog post and I hopefully influenced you to also have a great summer!

The Impact of the Holocaust

In the movie Life Is Beautiful it tells the story of a father and his son that were taken away to a concentration camp during World War II. Throughout the movie it shows their DVD tire on staying alive and pushing through. During our Holocaust unit we read poetry that was written by children while they were in death camps during World War II. Between both the poems and Life Is Beautiful they had many similarities that involved the overall message of the poems and movie. They both gave such a powerful influence on the audience and left you thinking. Not only that but it showed how real the situation was and how both kids and adults were severely affected.

The overall moods of both the poems and the movie I would say would have to be sad, something along the lines of the feeling of loneliness and loss. Both pieces showed the situations as something that was so horrific but beautiful at the same time. When you read the pieces of poems by the children you think to yourself how it was such a tradegy for these kids to have to live through this. But, in Life Is Beautiful the two main characters, father and son, both show different points of view on the situation. The father understands everything that's happening and is welorking to keep himself and his son alive. On the other hand his son thinks everything is a game and hiding will give him the most points so that he will eventually end up "winning" Both point of views really have an emotional meaning and leave you in tears.

Throughout the film you could really feel the love that the father had on his son and vise versa. Life can really be shown as beautiful throughout this film even though the plot was in a tims of tradegy and horror. An example of life being beautiful is when the father had explained to his son that them being at a concentration camp was all a game. I interpreted this as being beautiful because it really shows the love a father can hold for his child. Also, the consequences that could've gone with what he said didn't stop him from keeping his little boy happy and safe. He risked his life to make sure his son would be alright. Another example is when both the son and father are being loaded on the train to the concentration camps and the wife had demanded to go with them. The father and son are Jewish when the wife isn't. She risked her life to be with her family. That really shows how even in the worst situations life can be beautiful.

This is the scene of the wife demanding to I'm 

be on the train with her family.

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

     The book Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson is considered both a memoir and an autobiography. Also, the book was written in poem format; each chapter was a new poem. The book mainly talks about Jacqueline's childhood, mainly on how it was growing up black in the 1960's. Throughout her childhood she goes back in forth between South Carolina and New York. She explains how she never really knew where home was. She never felt completely at home in either place, it was always 50/50 with her. Jacqueline grew up in the same years of the Civil Right Movement. She writes about the struggles of growing up black and how big of an impact it had on her childhood. Although the book talks about the negativity in her childhood it also talks about her beautiful memories she shared with both sides of her family. She explicitly talks of both her mother and fathers side. She speaks of New York and South Carolina and the sacred memories she has there.
     I absolutely love this book! I'm usually not into nonfiction, biographies, memoir etc. but this book was absolutely beautiful! You didn't feel like you were reading a biography, you felt as if you were Jacqueline herself reliving all of her old memories. I can't even express how much I liked it. I read it twice because I liked it so much! She gives so much detail with her writing that you can easily imagine as if you were there with her. She talks of helping her grandfather garden, she uses such strong emotion with this one poem that it leaves my heart swelling. What I'm basically trying to say is that she literally put all my thoughts into words and made an amazing book. I'd recommend this book who likes to take their time reading. Since the book is in poem format, it might take you a while to digest the meaning of her words and poems. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but sometimes her poem get confusing if you don't take the time to analyze them and find out their meaning. I overall give this book a 10/10

Jacqueline and her family 

Love, Lucas by Chantelle Sedgwick

      The book I read was Love, Lucas by Chantelle Sedgwick. This book was about a girl named Oakley Nelson who loses her brother to cancer. Oakley is in a bad place with her brother dying, her parents constantly fighting, and the feeling of emptiness. Oakleys mom suggests staying in California with her Aunt Jo for a while to get her mind off everything. Oakley loves it by her Aunts house but her mom gives her a notebook with letters from her brother inside. Oakley tries healing from her brothers death by the help of a boy named Carson and her brothers advice in the notebook. It becomes very hard for Oakley to admit her true feelings for Carson knowing that her brother would never be able to have the same experience. She has this incredible journey about finding her true feelings for Carson and coping with her brothers death.
     I absolutely love this book with all of my heart! I read it into literally two days and then I bought it for myself so I could reread it. It was written so well and gave so much detail that I felt that I was in the story too! I would be lying if I didn't say that I cried, because I cried. A lot. The story was so heartwarming and it made me think so much. What if something like this happened to my little sister? Would I have my own Carson? I'd recommend this book to anyone who likes realistic fiction and a tad bit of romance. It's one of those books that you can never put down. I'd rate it a 10/10 because it was just that good!

Butterfly

On a purple, sun-shot evening
Under wide-flowering chestnut trees
Upon the the threshold full of dust
Yesterday, today, the days are all like these.

Trees flower forth in beauty,
Lovely too their very wood all gnarled and old
That I am half afraid to peer
Into their crowns of green and gold.

The sun has made a veil of gold
So lovely that my body aches.
Above, the heavens shriek with blue
Convinced I've smiled by some mistake.
The world's abloom and seems to smile.
I want to fly but where, how high?
If in barbed wire, things can bloom
Why couldn't I? I will not die!

Regret

I regret many things in my life but, I'd say that what I regret the most is opening myself up to people who didn't take the time to do the same. I've always had the worst trust issues, and once you lose my trust you've basically lost me. Without trust what is the base of a relationship, a friendship? So when people toss my trust away, when they carelessly say things I've always kept secret about myself, it hurts to know that I was so stupid enough to not see the their true personality. I was too blind to understand that this person couldn't be trusted, that something was off. It huts me to think that the one person who I relied on the most, betrayed me. I regret being so blind to the point where I didn't even truly know who my best friend was.