Reading Logs 4 - 6

Reading Log # 4

Title : Wild Things

Artist : Alessia Cara

Text Type : Song

Wild Things is a promotional single released by Alessia Cara. I personally like this song because it’s fast-paced and is anthemic.

I think this song is about accepting yourself and to remind those who don’t feel like they don’t have a place that we can make our own place. The song starts with

Find table spaces, say your social graces

Bow your head, they’re pious here

But you and I, we’re pioneers, we make our own rules

I think this part of the song talks about social norms that people feel like they have to follow in order to ‘fit in’ our society, but it says in the song that we’re pioneers and that we make our own rules. This tells us that we don’t have to follow in anybody’s footsteps or follow social norms to feel like we belong somewhere. I think the lyrics we make our own rules refers to the place in where we feel like we belong and a place where we can be ourself. The idea of ‘fitting in’ or being in the ‘in crowd’ relates to a lot of people in our world today including myself because we feel like if we don’t follow what’s ‘cool’ or what’s ‘in’ in our society, we will end up alone feel like they don’t belong anywhere. But this isn’t the case since we can make our own place as said in the song.

After a few lines it says

And we will leave the empty chairs to those who say we can’t sit there

We’re fine all by ourselves

So hey, we brought our drum and this is how we dance

No mistakin’, we make our breaks, if you don’t like our 808s

Then leave us alone, ‘cause we don’t need your policies

We have no apologies for being

The words we brought our drum refers to our culture, beliefs, attitudes and how we dance refers to how we are as a person. The words ‘cause we don’t need your policies refers to the idea of self-acceptance, which relates to many people especially teenagers who feel like they have to change themselves or that they are ugly, or isn’t up to standards. I relate to this because I myself felt that I needed to change myself or that I am not up to societal standards. But the lines

We will carve our place into time and space

We will find our way, or we'll make a way

Find you're great, don't you hide your face

Let it shine

Tells us that we mean something to this world and that we will soon learn to accept who we are, realise we are all awesome in our own unique way and love ourselves which I have done and is a wonderful feeling. And after you have accepted yourself you will find that you don’t have to change anything about you and that you don’t have to please everyone because what’s more important is self-love and acceptance and no matter what you turn out to be, you are loved.

Reading Log # 5

Title : Don’t beat yourself up

Author : Lucy Hone

Text Type : Article

Don’t beat yourself up is an article written by Lucy Hone which is about being nice to yourself and how to handle situations in which it gets tough.

This article made me understand that feeling stressed, having a rough time or suffering isn’t wrong because we are humans and every human has their own problems and go through rough times.What matters is what you do in those situations, like showing yourself compassion. The author says in the article “The easiest way to understand self-compassion is to think about the compassion we extend to others”. This means that when things get rough, we should think of us helping other people. How we talk to them, how we comfort them like giving them hugs or simply just hugging them could help someone going through something rough feel better even in the slightest way. I think this relates to us in Hornby High School and around the world because some students are going through rough times which can be caused by family problems, academic problems or even life in general, people need to know what to do in those situations because eventually things will get better.

Reading Log #6

Title: Seven Ways We Lie

Author: Riley Redgate

Text Type: Novel

Seven Ways We Lie isn’t an in-depth study on why we lie; it’s a study on how our secrets make us human. Riley Redgate’s deft prose twines and twists between graceful and gritty, weaving seven unique characters into a story with threads so universal yet variegated, it could belong to any one of us. Don’t expect a fairy tale. This is reality at its most raw, most poignant, and most relatable. Art imitating life. Fiction perfected.

This novel was interesting because it’s relatable to many people especially teenagers around the world including myself. An example was when Claire Lombardi - one of the seven main characters in the story - talked about her problems in her life. These included her feeling that she wasn’t enough and that she needed to change herself in order to be liked by people around her. Another problem she had was that she felt like no one really cared about her including her two best friends, This made me think about the people around the world especially teenagers who may be feeling the same as Claire. We should remember that even though others don’t constantly say that they care about us doesn’t mean that they don’t. This relates to me because I have also felt this way.

Another character in the book that was interesting for me was Katrina “Kat” Scott. I found her interesting because she pushes anyone who tries to get close to her away but it was explained that she became this way because their mother left them. This made me sad because she didn’t want to become this way but she did. This relates to sons/daughters around the world who changed because of their families being broken.