Handbook of Epictetus: Handbook of Daddy (1-10)

I think I finally found where my dad gets all his Blah Blah from! He's always telling me not to cry, to be strong and to be ready for deception, but what's the fun in that? I believe in living life as it comes, not expecting anything but to adapting to everything, too. I do agree with Epictetus that death is not serious, that judgement is more important than we think it is and that taking pride in something that we didn't create is simply pathetic. What he is telling us is how to live a happy life, and that is, by not wanting a happy life: "for the time being eliminate desire completely,since if you desire something that is not up to you, you are bound to be unfortunate."(Epictetus7)
So wise. I'm not going to argue against it, because he's right and he's old and he wears togas therefore he must be right. I just wouldn't want to live m life the way he proposes, because I believe negative experiences are what make you appreciate lovely surprises better.

Slaughterhouse-Five: Cancer (10)

"The Earthling figure who is most engaging to the Tralfamadorian mind, he says, is Charles Darwin-who taught that those who die are meant to die, that corpses are
improvements." (Vonnegut 74)

Disregarding what the Tralfamadorians represent, disregarding if they are real or not, they are very similar to what my ideal person would be like in his or her mind. They are smart, intolerant to ignorance and objective. They don't get caught up in something as unimportant as somebody else's death, and don't consider Jesus a miracle-man but a man with beliefs (and worship Darwin's theory instead ♥).

I can't get my head around what went wrong, but I can tell you that us humans have over-stayed our welcome. Maybe we're just too smart for our own good, but certainly we don't belong here and don't deserve to as much as we do for our own use if we refuse to grow up on the inside.

The world is dying of cancer. It' balding, it's surface is turning gray and ashy, it is chapped and dry and slowly but steadily collapsing on the inside: all because of us. People who have cancer get it from living in a cancer-infested world: it's no surprise. It's good that we die and we kill each other, nothing will get rid of us as fast as ourselves. It sounds macabre but maybe it's only because we think we're important and we make a difference and we can change everything, but it's not true. Blinded by all this it is easy to understand why some people hang on to life so dearly.

I bawled like a child for an hour and a half straight this summer while I watched My Sister's Keeper. The whole movie is based on a girl who is dying of cancer and the struggles that arise from that: everyone around Kate tells her to hang on and live, but all she wants is to get it over with and die. She was dead all along, a walking corpse, bald and cold, not able to eat like everybody else, and unable to do something as generic as going to the beach. I feel like she was being tortured by being kept alive, that shows how ridiculous people can be, so self-important.

If only we had Tralfamadrian intellect we would realize the only way to fix it all is by not being so selfish and annihilating the human race one way or another. And then cremate the bodies with flamethrowers.
So it goes.

Slaughterhouse-five: Listen to the Barbara (9)

Event though i have a strong opinion of Valencia's ridiculously unfortunate death, I decided to discuss something far more important.
When Billy walk into the bookstore and sees Kilgore Trout's book, it really made me wonder where it was all going, because even if we suppose Billy knew the book and all is delusions were based on a mixture of a handful of events, then we could say Billy's daughter Barbara was right when she said the Tralfamadorian kidnap on her wedding was caused by Trout.
My educated guess clams that Billy lost his mind during war and has the illusion that he became "unstuck in time" because his memories have all become tangled with one another and broken into unrecognizable fragments. I suppose Billy looks like an ordinary crazy man on the outside, and that outside in which we're in influences him and influences his corrupted thoughts. I think Billy can just look at a picture of a strange woman and think he knows and he'll probably "remember" where he met her and "know" what she's like.
I can't trust anything i've read up until now because clearly Billy is insane and untrustworthy, I just wish i knew what was going on!

Slaughterhouse-five: Campbell, Immaboringgeek Campbell (8)

Campbell reminds me of a silly man I met once: he was very tall and fat and had a bright red face. It would irritate me how he would keep telling me and my dad how great "Amurrika" was since he found out we were foreigners.
Campbell sound like that kind of man, not only does he have a freakish obsession with his country but he's also convinced that we're interested on what he's saying. But don't get me wrong, it applies to everybody from everywhere. It also irritates me when anybody has and obsession with their country, some people call it "nationalism" but it think its some kind of secret brain-washing technique.
I literally rolled my eyes when Campbell the American was reciting this cheap prose as if it actually meant something,''Blue is for the American sky,[...] White is for the race that pioneered the continent, drained the swamps and cleared the forests and built the roads and bridges. Red is for the blood of American patriots which was she so gladly in years gone by.''(Vonnegut 58) and not even his own american peers could stand it since his "audience was sleepy" (Vonnegut 58).

P.S.: did you know that apparently Amurrika has the best...

i ♥ u !@#$%&*

THIS is what is will be talking about before I confuse anybody: http://david-crystal.blogspot.com/2009/01/on-insults-or-not.html

So I looked hard for a blog that would spark some kind of inspiration in me, but failing terribly at it I just decided to at least write about something interesting. As a twenty-first century teenager I must swear at least ten googillion (I know it's not a real number) times a day, because it has simply turned into part of the slang. I must insult my friends in order for them to know I love them, call them &*!(#, (^?$, and $!^% amongst others regularly. Even though it might sound idiotic, I'm far from being the only one, insults don't mean what they used to, now they're just another way to socialize, to the left of shaking hands and right above smiling.
Just like David Crystal said, it can be rather confusing for some most of the time. When you're dealing with someone who doesn't know you, then they might think you actually mean what you said, and that can lead to trouble. It's very a very quirky deal with these friendly insult because you must be careful who you're dealing with. It's all in the TONE.

Slaughterhouse-five: Holy Schlachthof-fünf (7)

I really want a hard copy of the book for myself (yes, I'm reading it on Adobe) so i can highlight the quotes I like.
Int his chapter in particular I could see Billy's childish side. I thought it was adorable how when they open the door, all the naked women are screaming while "there in the doorway were Gluck and Derby and Pilgrim-the childish soldier and the poor old high school teacher and the clown in his toga and silver shoes-staring" (Vonnegut 56).
Even though it is rather sad that the men sneak in to steal some syrup, the idea that they are eating stolen pregnant-lady food is simply endearing. It's just as if all these men where just innocent, silly children on the inside, who can weep over a spoonful of sweet goop.
I still can't get over the fact that Billy survived a plane crash... it just seems so surreal.

Slaughterhouse-five: Lazzaro's eyes twinkled (6)

Probably one of the most detestable characters of this book so far is Paul Lazzaro. Not only is he frighteningly bloodthirsty, but he tells the tale of how he mercilessly murdered a dog as if it was something to be proud of. Although "'Nobody ever got it from Lazzaro,[...]who didn't have it coming.'" (Vonnegut 50) I still believe the man had issues and was twice as violent as he was insane.
It might have been the war that made him that way, because so much blood and gore can really get to a man. Lazzaro has probably seen men die in seventy-six different ways and has witnessed limbs fall to the ground like over-sized snowflakes. There's no one close to me that has fought in a war but from what I've been told by books and Hollywood, It seems like something I would not like to have anything to do with, thankyouverymuch. I just cant really imagine anybody having such low morals as to resort to untamed, somewhat cannibalistic violence.
Billy and Lazzaro have something in common: they have been enslaved as weapons and detached from their senses.

Slaughterhouse-Five: Tralfamadore (5)

I've never gotten so confused over a book in my life, this chapter simply tossed me around throughout the entire twentieth century. I was really confused about where he was standing at each part but little by little it all became clear. Billy had been kidnapped by his good friends the Tralfamadorians and learns about them and about his own human race at the same time. "There were fives sexes on Tralfamadore, each of them performing a step necessary in the creation of a new individual."(Vonnnegut 41). We can see a lot more about Billy's childhood and I think I have com to understand why he is the way he is "The cigarettes belonged to Billy's chain-smoking mother"(Vonnegut 37): that man has suffered trauma from the day he was born.

I was pretty damn sure Kurt Vonnegut was telling his own story through "Billy", i could have bet my life on it, but now I'm not so sure since Billy sees Kurt at the hospital which would be impossible if Billy WAS indeed Kurt. I'm not really sure what we're supposed to understand up to here, ther are many clues in the book but no solution to them. I'm really looking forward to finally being able to understand "who is Billy and why do we care about him?".

Slaughterhouse-Five: Billy on Earth (4)

This chapter made me wonder the never-ending dilemma of wether we would really like to know more or just stay happily unsatisfied. The only reason this is such a mystery is because you never know when it might backfire: maybe its better to just stay where you are and play it safe, but that is no option for our good old Billy. You see, Billy can see what is going to happen therefore Vonnegut knows and thats why we know: because we're reading the book and the book says Billy shall be murdered. I feel sad already that Billy is going to die over such a tiny matter, I mean, who is this Roland Weary to say Billy killed him? Billy can time-travel and at first I thought that when he traveled to the past he was just taking a stroll through memory lane, that was until he saw the future (but Billy is crazy so I can never be completely sure, like i said before: he's not trustworthy). Even if i know Billy won't die just et and I know what he'll become after the war, the author still manages to reveal more and more information that we didn't even know we needed.
I like this book, i like it a lot. The author entertains me: not only is the story itself good, but the narration is (disturbing, yet) great.

BTW: i could find the 'beard guy's' name so if someone know what I'm talking about please let me know? :)

Slaughterhouse-Five: Billy and God (3)

Billy is such a silly man: he keeps jumping from the past to the present like an ADHD goat. Reading this chapter you can really realize how crazy and unstable he is and how it has taking him so long (little over half his life) to realize he has no control on his future. It seems like the fact that he grew up being a weakling really affected him and ended up reflecting on his personality. Although, it is perfectly understandable that he is having trouble, war must've affected him more than it would any other man, any other strong man. I feel like I can trust the events, because most likely it did happen that way, but I'm not sure how right Billy is when it comes to his view on such events. I don't feel like i can trust him, so I better just make an opinion of my own.
This book is crazy, not a typical one at all, but I'm starting to catch on the rhythm of things and beginning to understand them. That's good news.

BTW: I kinda feel like Billy is similar to that one character in lost... you know, the one with the beard? Too bad I cant remember his name.

Slaughterhouse-five: Little Billy (2)

I had a hard time understanding this chapter since the time keeps flipping from present to past with little or no warning. This second chapter talks about one of the members of the army: Billy. Billy is thin and awkward and pretty much dead weight in the battlefield. He's not much of an athlete and in mentally unstable. But war is just the tip of the ice berg: Billy has gone though a lot of internal wreck throughout his life. Starting at his childhood, when his father pushed him into the pool in a "sink-or-swim" technique to teach him how to swim. Even after Billy gets married and has children, and survives a plane accident, only to lose his wife in another kind of mishap. He undergoes electro-shock therapy as an attempt to make him a 'normal' person, only resulting in a Billy that firmly believes he was once abducted by aliens. Little Billy sure is one miserable man.

Slaughterhouse-Five: First Impressions (1)

After reading chapter five I found it rather odd that it is actually part of the story, it seems like it would be more of a preface to the rest of the book.'Slaughterhouse-five' has a strange, crude sense of humor that I haven't really caught onto yet (but hopefully will soon) although once once you get past that, clearly Vonnegut is one funny man.
The main character intrigues me since he is so complex and atypical and it isn't hard to see that since he himself is narrating the story about his life and war. I agree with his view on war: although horrifying, impossible to abolish (just like many other horrifying things in life). I've seen many movies about war and how brave men lived through them, but i can see that this is going to be different, because its not about men anymore, but about real-life flesh and bone "babies"(as Mary claims them to be).
It seems like Vonnegut is one real man with real issues and serious writer's block, but somehow I still want to keep on reading...