Blog 10 for Always Running

In the novel, Always Running by Luis J Rodriguez shows the life of the author as he grows up during the prime time of the gang days in LA. One thing that the author shows is the impact of one's ego playing when you're dealing with gangs. Most of the time each person puts up a facade that shows every other person that they are tough and powerful when in most cases they are just a small boy or girl that was deprived of something crucial in their lives. This is seen in the author as he meets Roberta and discovers that she sells her body to provide money to support her sister Frankie. The thing that Luis is missing is the true love of another person that he should have received from his family, which he did not really have or feel close to. Although it would hurt all guys if he found out that his girlfriend is an escort, you are able to see the confusion in him when he asks Frankie why Roberta was being a hoe when he first met her. Then as the conversation goes on Frankie tells Luis that he is actually a nice guy, which implies that he was one of the only guys that genuinely loved Roberta, meaning that she wouldn't tell Luis that Roberta sells her body.

Blong 9 for Always Running

In the novel, Always Running by Luis J. Rodriguez shows the life of the author as he lived through the gang days in LA. While reading the novel it shows how easily the conflict between the Sangra and the Lomas is continually shot back at each other, instead of finally settling and peace is resumed. A perfect example of this is when the author was told to set fire to a Sangra's members house. Before this has happened the author explains that targeting the family is one way of showing revenge, but as that is said after some time, Luis' sister is targeted for a shooting. From these events we can see a pattern that is happening between the members of each gang. Every time a problem is faced each person tries to take it to another level, another level of severity. As the challenge goes on so does the risk, but each person does not want to show that they are scared, as that can be a sign of being weak which can hurt ones ego.

Blog 8 for always running

In the novel Always Running by Luis J Rodriguez tells the story of the author's struggle and journey during the gang days of LA. During his teen years, after he was accepted into the gang, he crosses paths with the character puppet, who is the leader of the Lomas locos. Everyone in the gang showed either fear or respect towards the man, as he is the toughest in the whole gang. The author shows this when puppet and toots were playing billiards for money. After toots lost, he took money out of his girlfriends pocket and handed it over towards puppet. Once this happened puppet's girlfriend, Pila, starts to start a conflict with Lourdes, toots' girlfriend. Before anything could happen, toots stopped the both girls from fighting by pulling out Lourdes and pushing her into the corner of the room. Toots does this for two reasons, the first being that messing with Pila will result with Lourdes ending up with a slash to the face or chest, and second being that it may have resulted in him crossing puppet, which toots wanted to avoid the most. It is also implied that puppet hates everyone, whether it be Blacks, Mexicans or Whites puppet didn't like anyone.

Blog 7 for Always Running

In the novel, Always Running by Luis J Rodriguez is about the author's life as he lives through the gang days in LA. One of the conflicts that the author faced was drug abuse and drug use. During that time Luis and all of his friends would do drugs, their most common way of getting their high was spraying an aerosol can into an enclosed bag and would cover their mouths and noses and then would inhale all the fumes. Doing this would damage their minds and literary eat their brains. Although the dangerous side effects Luis, and his friends would use the drug to escape the harsh reality that is their life. The author even explained that the spray would allow him to see things differently and would let him let loose. Then he explains that he becomes water with the spray, which one could see it as him becoming relieved, loose, stress-free, and relaxed. But as each time that he does this he comes really close to over dosing, once he does this his friends take the bag away from him and tell him to go home. Later one of his girlfriends would join him to inhale the spray, but after they both would partake in lewd and explicit activities.

Blog 6 of Always Running

In the Novel Always Running shows the life of the author Luis J Rodriguez when he was growing up in the gang days of LA. During this part of the novel the author is at Mark Keppel High school and over there it is basically a war zone between the Mexicans and the Whites. When over there they two races are constantly harassing each other, and trying to start a fight with one another. It even say in the passage that it wasn't just the males doing the fighting it was the females too. The fighting got so bad that the police and ambulance were needed to get involved. But these incidents are also happening during this era, which is the year of 2016. Although the segregation wasn't even as close as it was when the author was a teenager, the segregation is happening on a much higher scale.

Blog 5 for Always Running

In the novel Always Running by Luis J. Rodriguez shows the life of the author during the peak of gang wars and violence in LA. The gangs that the author typically talks about all fight for territory or for racial reasons. But one person that challenges the norms is the character Viviana, who is Sangra born but she challenges the boarders and questions why the two factions fight. While at the Carnival with Luis, she start to question why does the sangra and lomas fight even if they have the same conflicts and problems. She even stops Luis from joining the fight that breaks out later on in the carnival. Even before that she knew that Luis was from the lomas and she still hung out with him even though her brothers are all sangra.

Blog 4 for Always running

In the novel Always running by Luis J. Rodriguez shows the life of the author as he grows up with the gang violence and segregation in LA. But no matter how hard his life was, or how "bad ass" he thought he was he still had love and respect for his mother. It is shown as he was attempting to cut himself and he washes his blood as he fears his mothers yelling at the mess. This is also seen in the language that the author uses. Throughout the story, he would call his dad father, which sounds cold and distant rather than papa or dad which is more comforting. Whereas for his mom, he would call her mama which gives the reader a very comforting feeling. The author does this constantly throughout the story, no matter the conflict the author went through with his mother.

Blog 3 for always running

In the novel, Always Running by Luis J Rodriguez shows the segregation that was present between the minorities and the white residents in Southern California during the time of the events that take place. First, the author describes the beach that most residents in the South San Gabriel Valley as one of the ditches with running water that is underneath a bridge. As the author goes into more detail he makes the conditions sound worse as he explains. The scenery described sounds more raunchy and the people shown as uncouth. After Luis describes the Gabancho beach or the white beach which was Huntington beach. While there one of the events that took place was a fight between the "surfers" and the "homeys" which actually turned out to be one-sided as the surfers were actually cops. Then, the cops instigated the conflict and then gave them cruel and unfair treatment.

Blog #2 Always running

In the novel Always Running by Luis J. Rodriguez shows the brotherly love that Luis has for his older brother Rano by showing the readers how Luis got beaten trying to defend his brother's title when it was tarnished by two street ruffians Eddie and Ricky. Before doing this Luis still looked up to his brother, he still idolized him and uses him as a role model or in this case an unreachable goal. This could be seen as Luis takes the gang life as it gives him the tough guy appearance and power that Rano used to have in their neighborhood when they were younger. But Rano has little to no knowledge that his choices and past behavior have affected Luis in the way that he is Luis's greatest influence in his behavior and certain actions. The novel shows that Rano is oblivious towards this fact when he told Luis that "They aint worth it.".

Entry 1 for Always Running

In the novel Always Running by Luis J. Rodriguez tells the life of young Luis and the hardships that he faced when he was growing up in Los Angeles. The novel is called always running because the author has nowhere to go, nor does he have a place where he feels like he fits in thus he is always running, running to a place where he can stay and be himself. In the beginning of the story, the author implies that he is having relationship trouble with his father, as he calls his mother, mama, while he calls his dad father, a more distant and cold name. We can relate this to the cover of the book where is shows gang-related images and quotes. Coming from the Television show Beyond Scared Straight one of the mothers notes that the gang is a replacement for her child's father and that kids join gangs because they fill a hole that was not filled by one's family. So once we relate that here we can see Luis participates in gang-related activities because he is missing his father and most importantly a family.

Entry 2/5 The Great Gatsby

In the novel The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald sports a very important quote in the very beginning of the novel. The quote state "Whenever you feel like criticising anyone.... just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had." This is important as it can relate to our everyday lives. Everyday we judge someone without thinking about or considering the advantages that we could have over them, and as we forget these advantages our mind goes off on how lazy a person is because all they do is sleep, or how stupid someone is because they were unable to finish college or because they failed a test. Although the person that said this is the father of the narrator, who we can tell is quite wealthy, so we can assume that his father is talking about living style or how much money someone has in their pockets. The father is saying this to his son so he can grow and learn to be humble, and not let him have the mind set of "money makes a person".

The Heir of Fire, a novel written by Sarah J. Maas revolves around the character Celaena Saedothien, A half Fae and the ruler of an old empire. In the first novel, it describes how Calaena made friend with Chaol Westfall, the Captain of Adarlan's Military, Dorian Havilland, the Crown prince to the crown of Adarlan, and Nehemia Ytger, the crown princess of Eyllwe. It also describes the hardships that she had to face to become Adarlan's assassin, the personal assassin of the king of Adarlan. In the second novel, Celaena is adjusting to her new job as the assassin of the man that has killed her kingdom and finds out new secrets of people she thought she knew. And finally the third novel, the Heir of Fire, the main focus is on Celaena's journey to unlock and master her Fae form so she can save her old kingdom. As she is treading into new water she finds more secrets and complications that she must face in order to reach her first goal that she was aiming for since the first book, to obtain her freedom and be free from the corrupted rule of the tyrant of a king. But to do this she must learn from a Fae warrior and pass his tests so she can see her aunt, the current queen of Fae.