carizfanggoloworld-blog

[carizfanggoloworld-blog]

1st Book: “The Last Song” by Nicholas Sparks (eng80) Connector- Cariz Fanggolo

Nicholas Sparks’ novel, “The Last Song” is somewhat related to the film “I’ll be There” starring KC and Gabby Concepcion.  In the novel, Ronnie was angry with her father for leaving their family without any explanation. This was the reason why Ronnie has stopped playing the piano, a passion she and her father once shared, and has not spoken to her father for three years. However, Ronnie was forced to spend the entire summer at her father’s home in North Carolina. Initially, Ronnie does all she can to avoid her father by hanging out with a new friend on the beach, but as the time goes by Ronnie finds herself reconnecting with her father in a more meaningful way than she could ever have imagined. On the other hand the film “I’ll be There”, the story revolves around Maximina Dela Cerna, the role KC Concepcion, a fashion designer based in New York and is in debt after her ex-boyfriend swindled her money. Shortly after her mother’s death she returns to the Philippines in order to claim her share of inheritance from her father, whom she hated for neglecting them for 15 years. Her father is glad that she decided to return and asked her to stay for one month before passing the inheritance to her. Although Maxima finds it hard to forgive her father she leaves herself with no choice as she desperately need to pay off her debt and hope to return back to USA soon. Just like in the novel, the protagonist in the film also forgives her father. Both Ronnie and Maxima opened their hearts again towards their fathers.

Comment: Indeed it is connected to the movie “I’ll Be There” and the theme is connected also. Our connector have chosen a very much similar movie to the book.

Vocabulary Enhancer – Aiziah Shehanie T. Usop

1.    Adrenaline a substance that is released in the body of a person who is feeling a strong emotion (such as excitement, fear or anger) and that causes the heart to beat faster and gives the person more energy.

*Sometimes the burst of adrenaline you get the night before the deadline is enough to propel you to a successful finish

2.   Chemotherapy the treatment of disease by means of chemicals that have a specific toxic effect cancerous tissue.

*At the completion of high-dose chemotherapy, all tumor markers had returned to normal in 6 patients.

3.   Empathy intellectually identifying the feelings or thoughts of others; not feeling what others feel but being able to understand their feelings.

*He seems to have a genuine empathy with the part.

4.   Hospice a healthcare facility for the terminally ill that emphasizes pain control and emotional support for the patient and family.

*Patients and their families too often hesitate to call hospice.

5.   Malignant a tumor that invades surrounding tissues, is usually capable of producing metastases, may recur after attempted removal, and is likely to cause death unless adequately treated.

*The malignant cells are invading and destroying the muscle fibers of the heart.

6.   Metastasized to have spread to other parts of the body.

*Take a virtual tour into the growth of a tumor and watch how blood vessels help tumors grow and metastasize.

7.   Oncologist a specialist in the study and treatment of cancer.

*Each consultant has a clinic covering general pediatric oncology.

8.   Pasty pale and unhealthy in appearance.

*Len’s face was pasty white and for a moment she thought he was going to throw up.

9.   Psychopathic those having antisocial behavior who were most likely born with temperamental differences such as impulsivity and fearlessness that leads to risk-seeking behavior and an inability to internalize social norms.

*Psychopathic killers coming out of the past are not even her driving reason for trying to hide herself.

10. Sociopathic those having an anti-social personality disorder yet have a relatively normal temperament with erratic criminal behavior.

*People who smoke marijuana or hashish will run around doing unspeakable acts that can only be described as sociopathic.

Comment: I hoped that they understand some of the difficult or unfamiliar words in the story.

Passage Picker/ Literary Luminary - Mary Den Lea S. Duron

“Truth only means something when it’s hard to admit”

        Yes, I agree with this quote because there are really times when situations get worse then all you have left to do is to accept the truth because it is the reality that speaks, whether it is from the view of society, influence of belief or the principles you personally value as moral and right. Because if you deny the fact, the truth will still haunt your conscience and then follows the consequences of the decisions you have made. Interestingly, realizing, weighing and admitting the truth are three difficult consequential processes- for me, they only mean of surrender because you have no more moves to get rid of the situation. And when such truth means something to you, it just reflects that it is real and affects you and the situation at most.

“In the end you should always do the right thing even if it’s hard.”

In life, people are expected to always do and follow the right thing whatever situations they are in or whatever factors are at stake. However, there are really times that decision-making is tough when there are many considerations to weigh about. Sometimes, you beat your own self against the expectations of your family, your career, your friends, your obligations and better opportunities that divide your focus. An old man once shared, it is better to do the right thing to so everything would happen accordingly. I can agree to that however, I also allow mistakes to happen because I believe nobody is truly perfect. There will also be exceptions to expectations. One can lie, the other can be selfish and more cannot deny the fact of committing other sins. There can be times that we cannot prevent situations to complicate because we are many. We cannot control everything on this world. We have different personalities and intellectual capacities, that even the society affects our doing one way or another. Nevertheless, it is up to us to make or life because it’s our choice how to live it. Yes, doing the right thing is the best but sometimes, having mistakes are more fun and exciting. One should also mind to make sure that mistake doesn’t end as still mistake, it should be taken as room for better learning and understanding of what sense life really means.

“In a lifetime of mistakes, you two are the greatest things that have ever happened to me.”

This passage is from the main character of the story Steve Miller, the father of Ronnie, who admitted to have made a lot of mistakes especially to his daughter but he tried to find ways on how to revive their relationship and bring back the love of his daughter despite how Ronnie treated him he still hoped and loved his daughter. This passage affects me personally because I have resentments to my parents. I belong to a broken home that’s why I have grown and live with my grandparents until now. My parents are separated and both of them already have families. My mother just died a month ago and my father currently resides at Dumaguete. Well, it’s really painful to experience abandonment and rejection from your own family, being away with them for your whole life but everytime I think of it, it becomes more tiring and stressful that’s why I decided to drop off the issue, forgive and forget as much as I can, and continue my life. Upon reading this line, it just made me think of the greatest things that ever happened to me. Well, there are so much to say. For now, I am just happy that I am still alive and I am looking forward to be graduating soon.

“We’re not perfect, any of us. We make mistakes, we screw up but then we forgive and move forward”

Well, this passage simply says that how inevitably imperfect we people are. Yes, I can commit mistake, others can be able too. We can make mistakes no matter how we see and plan things yet at the end, we are still unsatisfied to ourselves. However, we cannot move forward in life if we don’t know and learn to forgive ourselves and forgive those who failed us.  That’s why, difficult as it is, we cannot deny mistaking and be selfish of forgiving because nobody is perfect. Even the Bible said that so, why can’t you forgive others? Haven’t you sinned at all?

Sometimes you have to be apart from the people you love, but that doesn’t make you love them any less. Sometimes it makes you love them more.

Yes, being apart from your loved ones is really hard and I believe everybody knows home-sickening. It’s the thought and feeling that you missed already the moments at home with your family, the bonding with your children, and the laughters with friends but because of important reasons that we bear being away with them for some time or even years like the sacrifices of the OFWs. True enough with the above-mentioned passage, actually it is a reminder because most of the people today tend to forget this truth. Oftentimes, people are consumed with arrogance and opportunities, and have forgotten where they actually started. In the passage, it reminds me that sometimes, distance has become an excuse to escape, make promises and leave people behind. This should not be. Being distant to the people you love only shows how much you still think and care for them despite how busy the career you are in. By texting, calling or any electronic communication that you can avail just to send regards to your family only proves you really loved them and that your love remains the same with and away with them.

Comment: Our Literary Luminary had posted and explained well most important and realistic passages in the story, he even related it to her personal life so she got an A for me.

Summarizer - Darlene Mamoso

The Last Song is a novel by bestselling author Nicholas Sparks. In this novel, Ronnie Miller has spent the last three years not speaking to her father because of his decision to leave the family. However, Ronnie finds herself forced to spend the entire summer at her father’s home in North Carolina. Initially, Ronnie does all she can to avoid her father by hanging out with a new friend on the beach, but overtime Ronnie finds herself reconnecting with her father in a more meaningful way than she could ever have imagined. The Last Song is a novel of growth and maturity, but also a novel of love that takes the reader’s breath away.

Ronnie Miller is angry with her father for leaving the family without explanation. Ronnie assumes that her father had an affair and this is what has caused him to abandon her, her mother, and her little brother, Jonah. For this reason, Ronnie has stopped playing the piano, a passion she and her father once shared, and has not spoken to her father for three years. However, Ronnie finds herself forced to spend the summer with her father.

In the beginning, Ronnie spends as much time away from the house as possible. Ronnie makes a new friend in Blaze, a girl her age who is also struggling with parental issues. However, when Blaze’s boyfriend, Marcus, makes a public pass on Ronnie, Blaze retaliates by setting Ronnie up for a shoplifting charge, her third in recent years. Ronnie finds herself forced to turn to her father for support as she tries to get everyone to believe that she did nothing wrong.

A short time later, Ronnie’s father shows her a nest of turtle eggs. Ronnie becomes obsessed with the nest, frightened that a raccoon might attempt to eat the eggs before they emerge. Ronnie spends several nights sleeping beside the nest and harassing a volunteer at the local aquarium to place a cage over the nest to protect it. This volunteer, Will, is a local teenager Ronnie literally ran into on the beach her first day in North Carolina. Will decides to spend the night sleeping with the turtle nest beside Ronnie in order to protect it before the cage can be placed.

Ronnie and Will spend an afternoon together after sharing guard duty over the turtle eggs. Ronnie greatly enjoys herself. However, Ronnie begins to doubt herself and her trust in Will when a girl tells her that Will is a serial dater. Ronnie shuts Will out, but later regrets her actions, asking for his forgiveness. Will and Ronnie begin to see one another regularly. Will’s friends resent Ronnie’s presence in his life because of the time it takes him from them and Will’s mother dislikes Ronnie. However, Will and Ronnie manage to forge ahead despite these difficulties.

On the day that the turtle eggs hatch, Ronnie discovers that her father is dying from stomach cancer. Ronnie is devastated by this news, especially due to the fact that she did not speak to him for such a long time. When Ronnie’s mother comes to take her back to New York, Ronnie makes the decision to stay with her father and help him through the final stages of the illness. Ronnie shuts out everyone in her grief, including Will, struggling within herself to find a way to honor her father and make up for her childish behavior after the end of her parents’ marriage. Eventually Ronnie realizes the best gift she can give to her father is to embrace her own gift, to return to the piano.

Ronnie finishes a song her father had been writing before his illness forced him to stop. Ronnie begins playing for her father each day as the cancer slowly takes away his life. After her father’s death, Ronnie returns to New York and auditions to attend Julliard. Will, whom Ronnie thought was gone from her life for good, comes to New York to attend school and to be close to her.

Comment: Our Summarizer having a hard time summarizing a very long novel. But then thanks to her that I understood well the content of the story.

Discussion Director - Jezreel Kris Puda

1. Why is the book entitled “The Last Song?”

Mary Den Leah Duron: I think the novel is entitled the last song since Ronnie and her dad share a common passion - piano - that relates to the title. Moreover it ends up with her father having cancer and that may lead them having the last song - few moments to be together - to sing.

Darlene Mamoso: The novel, as I understand is a twist for the protagonist  (Ronnie) as she rebelled at first and served as her father’s support at last. She has to be strong and gather her strength to finish what her father was doing (stained glass window) and composing a song for her dad. That was for me is the reason why the novel got the title, “The Last Song”.

Cariz Fangolo: I think it got his name from the last part of the story where emphasis on the composition of a song is noticed. Ronnie wrote a song and she was the only witness to her father’s death. for me that is the last song for her father which was from Ronnie.

Aiziah Shehanie Usop: The novel got its name from the moment where Ronnie and Steve reunited and spent a father-daughter relationship while cancer struck Steve down and Ronnie has to play the piano and write the last song her father may hear in memory of his daughter.

Benita Benito: It is entitled “The Last Song” because the first song that Ronnie composed for her father is the same song her father heard before his death. Song in here emphasizes on reconciliation and love.

Ezel Mae Polo: The novel is entitled “The Last Song” because Ronnie and Steve share a common passion for piano and Ronnie offered a song to her father before his death and that for me is the last song for Steve.

2. Why do you think the story ended that way?

Mary Den Leah Duron : I think the story ended that way to serve as inspiration to Ronnie and her family. Her mother, they don’t fight anymore and she lived happily from that experience that she had. How to forgive and discover the beauty of life.

Darlene Mamoso : It emphasizes on embracing and flourishing life because life is for the living. It also teaches her a lesson about continuing life no matter how difficult it has been to her.In the true form, the story has a happy ending.

Cariz Fangolo : This shows that it does not matter how many people one touches in one’s life — what is important is the depth of one’s relationship with those people. The love of a daughter to her father is greatly shown in the ending of the story.

Aiziah Shehanie Usop : Steve listens to the composition that he and his daughter created together and is at peace. He compares life to a song and finally feels God’s presence in the world. That leads to a beautiful ending with a realization that love of God is love in its purest form and Ronnie greatly learned from that.

Benita Benito : I think the story ended that way because it signifies a calm  and serene situation between the father and his daughter. This means that we should continue life as Ronnie did. The love of God is the purest form of all love.

Ezel Mae Polo : It focuses on how beautiful life is, so the protagonist in the story lives on with her own life and that was a very beautiful ending for a story involving a family and their relationship with each other.

Comment: Its really fun when our discussion director discusses the novel to us, and when he raised these questions we have different opinions. And i’m impressed because he manage to take notes even we answered in chorus.

Literary Artist - Benita K. Benito

Father’s Love

A father loves a child Like no other love on earth From the moment he first meet the child Nothing can compare its worth. Forever they are bonded With love that never fails For always he will hug and Kisses goodnight with fairytales He will love his children and protect them With strong arms just in case But also hug them tenderly With a fatherly embrace Eskimo kisses touches their nose With a giggle and squeeze And that sparkle in their little eyes Could bring him to his knees What more could any father want Than a child so lovely and pure There’s nothing in this world so rare Of that he can be sure A father’s love is so unique It can never be replaced He will always treasure time with them And the memories embraced.

This poem relates to the fatherly love of Steve to his children. Steve is almost an ideal father. Even though he is dying, he keeps his illness a secret and puts the wants and needs of his children ahead of his own. Through his words and actions, Steve demonstrates to his children, but most significantly to Ronnie, what it means to love another. And Ronnie is able to learn from her father’s words and actions as she grows into an upstanding young lady.

Comment: Our Literary Artist found out Father’s Love as relative to the novel. She focused on Ronnie and Steve’s relationship and she got it right.

Character Captain - Ezel Maze Polo

Veronica “Ronnie” Miller- “She  is rebellious she shows this on page 9 when she snaps her gum she does this because she knows that her mom hates it when she does it so she does it just to annoy her mom who always cringes when she hears her do it.

“The 17-year-old protagonist; at the beginning of the novel, Ronnie is angry at her parents, who are separated, and resents having to spend the summer with her father. During the summer, however, Ronnie gains a new appreciation for family, life, faith, and love, as she develops from a rebellious teenager into a responsible young woman”.

“At the beginning of the book, Ronnie comes off as very rebellious and carefree, but towards the middle and end, we learn that she really has a tender spirit and a loving heart.

           “Up until her father, Steve, divorced her mom, Ronnie avidly played the piano and was without a hint of rebellion. But after Steve left for the south, Ronnie started to hate her father and blame him for the separation. She began breaking curfew, shoplifting, and doing everything she could to go against the wishes of her mother. She went from being a sweet, innocent child to a rebellious, independent teenager. Hopefully by spending the summer in Wrightsville Beach, Ronnie will learn to correct her ways and go back to the kind and loving Ronnie he family used to know”.

Will Blakelee -  is considerate he shows this on page 34 when he smacks Ronnie’s soda out of her hand and spills it over her he asks her if she’s okay and offers to help her clean up while she rejects it really angry with him.

“The “eye candy” beach volleyball player who is definitely not Ronnie’s type … or is he? After literally bumping into Ronnie, Will’s path continues to cross hers until they cautiously and carefully explore their mutual attraction. The only problem is the secret that he is keeping, a secret that might irreparably destroy their young love.

“At first, Will comes off as a popular jock that doesn’t care about anyone but himself. However, later in the story, a different side of him is revealed. Will is not superficial by any means. He doesn’t care about money or looks; all Will cares about is the real person inside”.

“Will comes from a very wealthy family owning a large and successful chain of break shops along the east coast. He grew up as the rich, popular guy that everyone wanted to hang out with. He dated the pretty cheerleaders and was invited to all the parties. In a sense, he was living every teenager’s dream. But, somewhere along the line, he realized that he didn’t want to be that superficial, popular jock. He was tired of fake people. Will was ready to turn over a new leaf, and that started with Ronnie”.

Steve MillerRonnie’s estranged father. They used to share a passion for the piano and writing music; now they share nothing. Steve has one summer to reconnect with his daughter. During this same summer, Steve engages in his own spiritual journey as he struggles with the question of what it means to experience the presence of God, and he develops a lasting and special relationship with his son.

Jonah Miller - Ronnie’s 10-year-old brother. Unlike Ronnie, Jonah is looking forward to spending the summer with his dad. Not only does Steve teach Jonah how to build a stained-glass window, but he also teaches his son about love and trust. It is clear that Jonah has learned from his father when he unexpectedly assists Ronnie in her time of need.

Blaze -is a pushover she shows this on page 87 by letting Marcus eat all her food just because he was her boyfriend when before she told Ronnie that she was really hungry.

“Wrightsville beach girl whose real name is Galadriel. Initially, Blaze befriends Ronnie when she first arrives in Wrightsville Beach, but jealousy and insecurity cause Blaze to betray this budding friendship. In the end, Blaze has the opportunity to redeem herself, but will she?”

Marcus - is a flirt he shows this on page 104 he shows this by putting his arm around Ronnie’s waist and asking her if she wanted to go to walk on the beach even though Ronnie tells him that Blaze is his girlfriend he doesn’t care.

“The resident bad boy and fireball thrower. Although Marcus is interested in Ronnie, she does not fall for his charm. A self-centered manipulator, Marcus’ primary concern is taking care of himself”

Pastor Charlie Harris - the local minister. Pastor Harris served as Steve’s surrogate father and piano teacher as well as Steve’s oldest friend. He provides both Ronnie and her father with spiritual guidance and strength during their journeys of self-discovery and faith.

Scott - Will’s best friend. Because Scott saved Will’s life, Scott is able to convince Will to keep his secret.

Kim - Ronnie’s mother. Unbeknownst to Ronnie, Kim is responsible for two of the important life lessons that Ronnie learns.

Megan Blakelee- Will’s older sister. Rather than holding a grudge about the interruption of her wedding, Megan uses it as an opportunity to show understanding. She is a minor character who plays a major role in attempting to reunite Ronnie and Will.

Ashley- is Will’s ex-girlfriend who will seemingly do anything to get him back,

Cassie is the girl Scott seems to have his eye on.

Tom and Susan- Will’s parents. Susan believes that Ronnie is beneath her son’s station in life and is hesitant to encourage any relationship between the two.

Teddy and Lance - Marcus’ flunkies.

Comment: Our Literary Captain had actually laid down the characters and their role and description in the story and she got it from the most important to the least.