Yes this post is after the Finally

I know, the order of these weekly post is not in order, but deal with it.  I have to do two more responses to my readings so here they are.
In Heaven is For Real, Colton is now getting better after a hard fight with appendicitis.  His parents and nurses are still constantly squeezing out toxins from his body, but he is regaining the life that he was so near to loose.  After a few days, the doctor comes into the room with great news; Colton and his parents were being checked out of a seemingly prison-like hospital.  Super excited, Colton and his parents get their dirty laundry along with somehow finding the energy to get up and pack up.  With all their bags and celebrations balloon on the house, they head towards the elevator.  Once packed into the elevator, the doctor comes rushing to catch them saying that Colton's CT scans showed even more toxins in his body and they have to operate on him again.  With Colton's parents about to faint, they reluctantly return to the care of the hospital.

Finally

Before this class, I never read any book on my own.  I was one of those kids who didn't care for reading and if a didn't have to read a book, I didn't.  The only things I read ranged from only the subtitles on a TV screen to the words in a novel in class.  Nothing in between.  I never read on my own because I didn't have time and I wasn't interested.  If I could pick something to read on my own, the themes would be sports, zombies, and comedies.  I despise those brainwashing love stories.  This semester I read weekly for this class to get my grade.  It was not easy to find books that were interesting to me.  World War Z was the only easy pick because it was entirely about zombies.  Yet, I didn't even stick with that book; I moved on to a sports short stories book and then to a book that my best friend gave me called Heaven is For Real by Todd Burpo.  I've been trying to stick to this book because my friend wanted me to read it and I owe many a things to her.  At first I did have trouble meeting the reading quota but after awhile a got a routine in place where it was easier.  I read by myself and I never talked about it to my friends and families because there's not enough time in the day.  I still have trouble finding books to read, but I'm staying on the same themes to help me narrow the choices down.  Who knows what I will read next or if I will even read.  We'll just have to wait and see. 

Deuces.

Currently: Week 3 Qtr. 2

Heaven is For Real by Todd Burpo: 50 pages

World War Z by Max Brooks: 115 pages

3 Favorite Sentences of the Week:

- "I was desperate for prayer, desperate that other believers would bang on the gates of heaven and beg for the life of our son."

•  This kind of reminds of how the movie "Insidious" where the evil spirits are trying to consume the little boys body so they can live again.  This is how a took this sentence; like other spirits are trying to obtaining Colton's physical body to live again.

- "Time dragged, the minutes moving at the speed of glaciers."

• Well put analogy comparing the minutes to the slow, seemingly forever-like movement of glaciers.

- "The tone of her voice, and the fact that it was a nurse and not Dr. O'Holleran, sent a surge of hope through my body."

• The parents were relieved that the nurse was coming to talk to them instead of the doctor, because if the doctor had come to talk, that means that something went wrong or they found a diagnosis that was worse than the previous.

Update: Heaven is For Real Pt. 2

Colton receives successful surgery and is screaming and yelling as soon as he comes out of the anesthesia.  The nurse runs into the waiting area where his parents so nervously waiting.  Todd Burpo is relieved to the fact that the nurse came to talk to them instead of the doctor.  If the doctor would have come to talk to them, there would have been a problem with Colton's surgery or something came up with new results.  The nurse explained to Mr. Burpo that Colton was dying to see him and that they should go back there immediately.  Relieved to know their son was ok, they rushed back to answer Colton's calling.  Once in Colton's sight, a vibe of happiness was radiating from all three family members like they just won the lottery.  Colton's doctor explained to his parents that they had to keep the incision open so they could keep draining the extra pus and toxins still circulating throughout his body.  A pump was attached to the opening with gauze around it to keep the blood from coming out.  The pump was used to suck out the extra poison twice everyday.  Since Colton was off the anesthesia, he could feel the pump sucking his organs dry of nasty toxins; which as you can imagine is pretty excruciating.  In the end of the chapter, Burpo leaves us with Colton on a bed that is three times too big for him with his parents comfort during his hospital visit.  This kid has gone through so much over five days and its going to take longer than that to alleviate the pain of the pollutants contaminating his body.  At least they are close to home where the area was very familiar and supplies were easily accessible.  Colton is one tough kid and is going to be one strong man.

Update: Heaven is For Real

Just read that the son has been in Imperial hospital with no concluding diagnosis.  The parents are fed up with the hospital and transfer him to a hospital more familiar one closer to their home.  There the doctor prescribes a CT scan for further testing.  It took at least an hour of Colton fussing and screaming about not drinking the thick red liquid, required for better results on the CT scan, before the nurse decided that they'll try to run the test without him forcing down something his body will not retain.  Colton is known for refusing IVs and other things that entail needles.  It takes three to four people just to hold him still for one needle. When the results came back, the doctor diagnosed Colton with a ruptured appendix and that poisons have been spilled into his body for about 5 week now.  Colton needed to have surgery right away to clean out the pus and toxins in order to survive.  The doctors agreed to put him under the anesthesia before giving him the IV so they didn’t waste time trying to keep him still while the poisons continue to run rampant throughout his organs.  Almost right away, the surgeon and his team were ready to cut open this young man and save his life.  What will happen next? That is for the next post.

Close Reading Bingo

http://jimmehftw.blogspot.com/
Weakness 6: "...the author uses phrases like..."

http://star-bellysneetch.blogspot.com/
Weakness 5: "Needly are of shine," "adding long glassy highlights," and " Towering volumes of marble and glass."
     - "Full quotations" can't sit all by themselves like a quote island.

http://skullandglossbones3.blogspot.com/
Weakness 9: This gives the impression of a fancy an intimidating lobby.

http://bookworm-days.blogspot.com/
Weakness 2: In statements such as “split my heart down the seam” and “felt the longing build in my chest,” Kidd’s diction expresses the emotion that swelling within Lily.

Best Overall Response: http://twilightlover2.blogspot.com/
- Very smooth
- Nice flow
- Couldn't find any weaknesses
- Good use of adjectives

Practice Diction Analysis

In the excerpt from Catcher in the Rye, the straightforward diction portrays the condescending personality of the narrator and his or her vague life.  The narrator describes his childhood as “lousy” and giving background on his or her life “bores [him/her].”  The narrator refuses to talk about his parents because “They’re quite touchy” about anything personal “especially [the] father.”  This depiction of the narrator’s life illustrates an unfriendly personality and the rough childhood this narrator has gone through.  This narrator can relate to many people making this story an interesting read.

Currently: Q2 Wk 1 + "Style Mappings"

Heaven is for Real: Chapters 4-20

Total: 100 pages

UNDERWATER:
She uses a language right off the bat that is scholarly and elevated.

Hog Smog Blog:
He uses a lot of the type of language you would hear in a hospital room full of doctors. This type of language is very well educated and flanery.

bill963:
In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, she uses Elevated and sophisticated style of diction

Notoriously MoFulla:
Picoult's use of straightforward language gives off a sense that she doesn't care about the norm of our society and what they will think.


TheyCallMeFreshMoney:
The words on the pages create a  language of denotative tone and sound almost journalistic as if I was reading a two hundred page newpapers article.

My favorite out of these 5 was bill963's sentence describing Shelley's Frankenstein as elevated and sophisticated.  Both adjectives are creative and original.  Other Style Mappings used the adjectives from the chart we made so they weren't original.

Style Mapping

Max Brooks' World War Z has a very scholarly formal language.  The connotation in his language is very straight forward and denotative because he is explaining the accounts of the war through his own eyes and other peoples' experiences.  There is a sense of harsh sound to his language because of the violent scary situations he and others have witnessed and been through; he is trying to get the point across so readers can fully understand what happened during this horrific time.  Unlike Max Brooks' language, Nic Sheff's language in Tweak is very different.  Sheff's blunt, common, and informal language is spoken in the first person in this book by a pothead introducing the book.  Also, the language is playful in a sense of a musical way as the narrator adds facts little by little in a lyrical-like way.  Yet, both Max Brooks and Nic Sheff are both straight forward and literal in the meaning of the words they chose.  Kenneth Kamler, M.D. in Surviving the Extremes has a scholarly language like Brooks but with a flow to his sentences like Nic Sheff.  Kalmer’s sentences are not as choppy as Sheff's, but they both have a lyrical and harmonious flow.  Yet, unlike Brooks and Sheff, Kamler has a figurative, metaphoric, and connotative language when describing the areas he's traveled to and the way he explains how he managed to stay alive in the most hazardous situations.  All three books have their similarities, but each writer has their own personality creating small differences that give away their own styles.

Quarterly

Well this quarter wasn't that great of a start in terms of consistent reading.  I changed books three times and now I think I'm reading a book that I'm fully into.  It's been hard to blog about my independent reading because I don't know what to say.  I'm not very good at explaining things in a long elaborate way.  In person usually I'm very concise and straight to the point so I'm clear with people.  I am usually a good writer in terms of an academic standpoint, but when it comes to opening up to what I think or how I feel about things, it's extremely hard.  At the beginning of the quarter, I thought the blogging wasn't going to be an issue for this class; now I reconsider that thought.  Next quarter I'm really going to crack down on blogging so I don't get another "F" on blogging on Powerschool.

Heaven is For Real

For the past three or four weeks, my best friend and I have been going to the youth group Fuel on Sunday nights.  It was out first time to this specific youth group; we heard it was really fun so we decided to go and check it out.  It's at the Sunrise church off Scott Road by Deer Ridge Elementary School and all middle and high school age students are invited to attend.  I was a little hesitate of going because the last youth group a went to was boring and I never understood what was going on.  At Fuel, they have an area called "The Garage" where we worship and the youth pastor gives us our weekly lesson. Anyways, my friend and I really enjoyed it and she was happy that I enjoyed it because she, "wants [me] to get closer to God and [my] faith."  It was touching because I've never really had anyone do something that extensive for me or thought about trying to help me improve my life.  Usually it is the other way around; I give advice and my opinions about life to my friends and I usually never talk about myself.  I don't know why I don't; probably because there is not enough time in the world for everyone's problems.  But it was so comforting that my friend thought of me when going to this weekly event and wanted me to come with her so I can learn something and understand her beliefs at the same time.  It is a "win win" situation and I will never think about regretting to attend Fuel with my best friend.  It has brought us closer as friends and now we can fully talk about anything.  Because of this, at school, she gave me a book called Heaven is For Real by Todd Burpo.  She explained to me that this was a good book to read to help me with life.  I was skeptical at first, but I trust her with my life so I took the book hoping that she was right.  She excitingly gave me the book and told me to read one chapter every night.  The chapters are only around four to five pages long, so I thought, "Yeah I can do this."
     As I begin to read, the prologue is just introducing in medias res of what is happening to this specific family.  The story is written on first person accounts and the speaker is also in first person.  The first three chapters talk about this family where the father [author and narrator] takes his wife, daughter, and son (both very young) to the Craw-le-seum and their experience with different creepy crawlies.  Knowing me, I was trying to find things right away that would help me improve my life; so far, this was just another regular story about some family with two kids and their problems.  I asked my best friend a couple days later, "How is this book suppose to help me?"  She replied, "You have to wait until the middle of the story."  So I guess I was being impatient and now I'm continuing to read this book and see what's next for this family.

To be continued...

Top 3 Sentences of Week 6

No favorite sentences from books, but I have some lyrics that stood out to me this past week (all from Eminem):

"Your hate is what gave me this strength...cause I came at 5'9" but I feel like I'm 6'8"!" - Eminem in "Lighters"
      - I admire this sentence for its confidence that Eminem radiates when he is rapping.  This confidence is how I would love to feel; the confidence to say anything you think is right, the confidence that people will listen to what you say, and the confidence that you don't regret what you say or do.

"Had a dream, I was king, I woke up, Still king" - Eminem in "Lighters"
     - This is another line by Eminem that shows his confidence in himself and what he is doing.  He's the best rapper right now and he knows it while showing he knows it in a cocky, perfectly described way that flows well with the soothing beat and attitude of the song.  He is also saying that his dreams are his life.  He is a internationally known artist and is living the "American Dream."

"I swear to God I [anger] a Happy Meal off" - Eminem in Nicki Minaj's "Roman's Revenge"
     - The reason I like this line is because Eminem has a talent and a feel for creative rhymes.  Sometimes they aren't appropriate but if you think about it, you can see that what he says makes sense and in a creative fashion.  In this line he saying to his "haters" (people who don't like him) that he can make them mad, but he is still going to continue what he loves to do (make songs) and in the way he wants to do it.  Many of Eminem's rhymes including the line above are forms of satire that make you laugh, but at the same time criticizes the subject he portrays.  Eminem's confidence allows him to describe what he is thinking in the most satirical way possible; ways that the average person wouldn't even begin to think of.  And it comes so natural for him like a God given gift.

Pink Out, But No Pink

     It's Senior Night for the varsity football team and the leaders of the student section told the student body to wear pink to school and at the big game; actually it's not a big game in terms of who we play(Carroll), but more to the fact that its the senior players' last home game at Homestead High School.
     The problem is with the Pink out is for one, I do not have a pink shirt.  My failure attempt at thinking salmon was close to pink was a big mistake. Plus, at lunch, the back table is selling breast cancer shirts that are pink but also black shirts to raise money to support the research of breast cancer.  Most of the people I saw bought the black shirts so in the end, the school will look like a "blackout" instead of a Pink-out.  Some people did actually buy the pink shirts so at school and at the game, our student section won't be any "out;" it'll be a mixture of pink and black and it will make Homestead seem unorganized in how their student section supports the football team.  This years painter boys need to do a better job at organizing the student section and getting students to actually participate in the cheers.
     It's not their faults entirely though. Some students of Homestead that go to the games are there just to socialize and not watch the game; therefore, they do not care about the cheers led by the painter boys and the excitement that needs to be presented in order to support the football team.  It's a sad scene at times when the painter boys are the only students performing cheers while the rest of the student body sits around and stares at them like they're idiots.  The painters boys need to find a better way of getting the crowd pumped, but at the same time I feel bad for them because many of the students that stand in the student section don't care about what's going on besides in their little world.

Currently: Week 6

Best American Sport Series: pps. 170-340

Total pgs: 170

Currently: Week 5

Title/Pages:

Yao Ming Biography/Pgs. 167-200

The Best American Sports Series/Pgs. 1-81

Total: 114

Sentences of the Month

"Only the strong survive" - Only the Strong Survive.  This sentence is from a biography of legendary basketball player Allen Iverson and this sentence summarizes the entire book.  Iverson had a tough route to the NBA, dealing with drugs, family problems, and friend issues which shaped him into the person he is now.

"I prayed they would not notice the color draining from my face." - World War Z.  This sentence is said by the narrator in the first chapter after the infected young boy broke away from his chains while the doctor was inspecting him and chased them out of the room.  The doctor (narrator) was so terrified yet he didn't want to show it because he is a cocky person and a "man."  That fact that he was so terrified made me laugh.  It was like a annoying self-centered character in a movie finally dying or something of the sort.

"His voice was flat, robotic as if he had rehearsed this speech or was reading from something" - World War Z.  The narrator called up his best friend that's also a doctor to help him diagnose this young man's infection.  Once he told the doctor his symptoms, the doctor froze and said the line above like he knew what was going to happen and what the results were going to be if he didn't do something about it quickly.

Currently: Yao

My mom bought me Yao Ming's biography about 5-6 years ago and I haven't picked it up since she handed it to me as a present.  I figured now would be a great time to read it so I have something to blog about.  I read the first 171 pages for this weeks reading log and I hope to continue reading and finishing the book.

Yao Ming grew up in China as most people know with his basketball parents.  His dad played for the China national team for awhile and his mom played ball in college.  This is where Yao Ming not only gets his skills, but his ridiculous height.  He was ALWAYS taller than the kids around him.  In fifth grade, he was already six feet tall!!! I'm six foot one now but back in fifth grade I was only about five foot two maybe.  Yao started playing basketball when he was around the age of five when his parents took him to a recreation league fo youngsters.  At first, since he was growing so fast, he didn't have much balance and was slower than the shorter players.  He ended up loving the game and wanted to improve so his parents worked with him.  He became a dominating figure by the time he arrived in high school and started playing for China's national team when he was seventeen!!! When Yao got drafted into the NBA, he was an instant superstar.  Everyone around the league wanted to see how good this 7'6'' Chinese was and what he could do for his new team the Houston Rockets.  Yao qutoes in the biography that we was extremely nervous about coming into the United States and learning the culture let alone the up-tempo, more physical game play of the NBA.  Yao ended up being an All-Star every year he played in the league and almost won a NBA Finals with the Rockets.  Yet, Yao was prone to injuries; he suffered many knee, feet, and other lower body injuries that kept him out for seasons at a time.  This is not in the book, but Yao eventually had to retire because he had too many injuries and didn't want to risk a more serious injury.  Yao left his own great legacy in the NBA and is a future Hall-of-Famer.  Basketball fans and the NBA will never forget the kind, gentle, dominanting Yao Ming.

3 Most Interesting Poems

1. "The Trail is Not a Trail" - Gary Snyder
2. "Gee, You're so Beautiful that It's Starting to Rain" - Richard Brautigan
3. "Wild Geese" - Mary Oliver

"The Trail is Not a Trail" by Gary Snyder makes my think of someone who doesn't have many options in life at an early age but then as the person continues to work and continues to move forward more options become available until everything is available like in Snyder's last sentence, "Everywhere to go."  Another way of thinking about this poem is the literal meaning of just taking a trip into the wild, the roots of life where there are no roads, no rules, and you can go anywhere you want; the true definition of Freedom.

"Gee, You're so Beautiful that It's Starting to Rain" by Richard Brautigan is humerous in the fact that he relates the girl's beauty to the grades you get on a school report card.  I also took it as he saying that she is his top priority rather than school, but he is intertwinning the two important things at the time for a teenager.  Brautigan probably thought of this poem in high school or college.

"Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver makes me think that you have to trust your instincts like geese do as they migrate thousands of miles as she states, "You only have to let the soft animal of yuour body love what it loves."  Yet my mindset changes when she ask to tell her about somone's despair and she'll tell them her's and at the time the world still goes on.  It's like when a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship is broken and each side goes to their friends to talk about it.  If it was a bad break up then both sides would be hurt and it would feel like the world has stopped or that they are stuck in life, but as we all know, time doesn't stop and love hurts.  They have to move on with their lives like "the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscape."

Friday Menu

According to this personality test, my type is E.N.F.J.  E. for Extroverted, N. for iNtuitive, F. for Feeling, and J. for Judging. My results put it in words like "I'm distinctively extroverted, moderately expressed intuitive personality, slightly expressed feeling personality, and moderately expressed judging personality."
I looked up the word "extrovert" and dictionary.com defines it as being out-going which makes sense for me.  I make decisions with my intuition so that part makes sense.  I expected my feeling personality to be higher than intuitive and judging because I care about other people and I use my emotions on many occasions.  Having a judging personality really surprised me.  I don't consider myself as a judging person.  I always thought that when people are judging it has a negative connotation behind it.  Is there a positive connotation for a judging personality?  Overall this test was really fun and I hope that we do more of these in the future.

Reading Log

Pages Last Week: 167
This Week: 135

Total this semester: 302

Only the Strong Survive, But what makes you strong?

The biography about NBA Allen Iverson is very unique in the fact that when we say someone has a rough childhood, Iverson's was the roughest.  His father left him when he was very young.  Allen doesn't even remember what his father looks like.  His mom worked two sometimes three jobs to be able to afford food and barely a shelter for her and her son.  Allen stayed in the same school district but constantly moved from different apartments to hotels then motel and so on.
Everyday after school, Allen would shoot hoops at his school's playground to pass the time until his mother picked him up very late at night.  One day, while he was in elementary school, a group of high school boys asked him if he wanted to play a pickup game with them.  He agrees reluctantly since he didn't have anything else to do.  He was the last player picked up and on the first play, he crossed one of the boys and spun pass the others to lay the ball right in the rim.  While Allen was playing, an AAU Travel basketball team coach happened to see him play and was amazed by what this young man was doing.  The coach approached him after the pickup games were finished and asked him to come to the next practice that he was having.  Allen didn't want to at first and declined the offer, but the coach was persistent and talked to his mother the following day. Allen's mom thought it would be good for him to play and make friends so she agreed to have the coach stop by later to pick Allen up.  Once Allen's mom told him about the practice, he refused to go with the coach to practice.  His mom literally dragged him outside to the coach so he would go.  This one little incident changed Allen's life forever.  He became the starting point guard on the travel team and was becoming well known.  His high school varsity coach even game to most of his AAU games to witness greatness in the making.  By the time Iverson was a freshman; he was already a top ten player in the nation and started on his high school's varsity team.  Freshman making varsity let alone starting was extremely rare back then so everyone wanted to see what this new kid was made of.  In Allen's first game, he put up an amazing 42 points against another top team.  He went on to lead his team to three state championships from his sophomore to senior year.  Yet Allen had an ego which redirected college scouts away from him, so his mom personally went to THE coach Josh Thompson II (Hall of Fame Coach) and begged him to let Allen play for him because Allen needed a fatherly figure and she always admired Coach Thompson II as a coach and as a person.  He agreed and the first year Iverson played at Georgetown, they won the national championship.  Allen then went into the NBA draft and was selected by the Philadelphia 76ers.  Iverson lead them to the Finals in 2000 but came up short to the LA Lakers.  He was also the League MVP in the 1999-2000 season.  His journey to the NBA taught me that even the smallest things in life can make a hug impact later on.  Iverson now says that he thanks his mother for dragging him to his first practice.  Now Iverson is playing for Turkey in the Euro-league and soon he will be in the Hall of Fame.  This is a story that will guide me through my life and hopefully help me be successful.

World War Z Pt. 1

     Why are all things made in China?  The infection in World War Z began in an abandoned village in China called Old Dachang where a young man and his father went "moon fishing."  Supposedly moon fishing is illegal but the mother stated that the village was their old home and they went to retrieve some lost items.
     The narrator's name in the first chapter is not given.  He/she is a doctor in China and get an emergency call from the hospital sending him/her to an area where a young boy is being kept with a deadly infection.  What a great way to start a zombie story.  Going to an isolated area to inspect a young by who has an contagious infection and is trying everything to give it to another host.  The doctor is very cocky and thinks that he/she is not afraid of being in the same room as this boy.  The boy's skin was grey as cement and the wounds created by his restraints were not bleeding or even red.  The boy did not have a pulse which is a huge indication that the boy is a zombie.  Yet, with any good zombie story or film, the characters seem oblivious to the fact that the "infected" are not human and they shouldn't go anywhere near them, but they do anyways because it makes for good entertainment.  Just the other day I was told that Hollywood is filming a movie based on this book staring Brad Pitt.  This story would be a great movie and a haven't even read much of the book.  I chose this book because I love zombie stories and especially movies.  That fact that there may be a chance that you will get infected intrigues me because I would want to know how to survive something like that or help the people I love survive something that extreme.
     There is one pat in this story that I don't fully understand.  When the narrator comes to this isolated area where the boy is infected, there are other bodies there that also have bite marks but aren't alive or "undead."  They are just corpses laying around like trash.  Why aren't they zombies or have they become undead and the villagers already shot them?  Yet the narrator did not specify if there were any gun shot wounds, only bite marks from the boy.  I guess I'll have to keep reading.  Also I've seen and read in other stories about zombies that the military and the Ministry of Health are involved but never seem to do a good job of containing the virus.  Eventually one person makes a small mistake and it results in the spread of the infection.  Also I notice that the military and Ministry of Health always seemed terrified even though they are trained to handle the most extreme situations like containing an infection.  If they do their jobs then the infection won't spread.  Yet, if they do their jobs then Hollywood and novelists wouldn't make any money because those stories and movies wouldn't sell.  There's that sense of excitement and suspense that drives authors to write about zombies and its the reason I enjoy reading zombie stories.  I great example of a good infection movie is I am Legend starring Will Smith. It's one of my all-time favorite movies because of the suspense the movie creates in multiple scenes.  Plus Will Smith is in it so he just makes the movie 10 times better.  World War Z created that same suspense when the narrator was inspecting the young boy then one of his assistants let go of the boy's arm to reposition himself and the boy jerked and came loose.  The narrator and his assistants sprinted for the door and shut it as fast as they could behind them while the boy is just dragging himself with one arm because the other arm snapped when he jerked.  Picturing that just gives me the chills.  The infection has taken over the boy's body.  The boy himself is not there.  His soul has been replaced with this nasty infection, and since infections don't have emotions or feelings, the infection makes the body look like it doesn't care that the arm is broken.  It's too focused on transferring more infection cells to another host.  Very creepy.  In conclusion I'm excited to see where the infection travels next and how many people it will consume.

Favorite Sentences

"Only the strong survive" - Only the Strong Survive.  This sentence is from a biography of legendary basketball player Allen Iverson and this sentence summarizes the entire book.  Iverson had a tough route to the NBA, dealing with drugs, family problems, and friend issues which shaped him into the person he is now.

"I prayed they would not notice the color draining from my face." - World War Z.  This sentence is said by the narrator in the first chapter after the infected young boy broke away from his chains while the doctor was inspecting him and chased them out of the room.  The doctor (narrator) was so terrified yet he didn't want to show it because he is a cocky person and a "man."  That fact that he was so terrified made me laugh.  It was like a annoying self-centered character in a movie finally dying or something of the sort.

"His voice was flat, roboticm as if he had rehearsed this speech or was reading from something" - World War Z.  The narrator called up his best friend that's also a doctor to help him diagnose this young man's infection.  Once he told the doctor his symptoms, the doctor frooze and said the line above like he knew what was going to happen and wha the results were going to be if he didn't do something about it quickly.