Thirteen Reasons Why

            The young adult novel, “Thirteen Reasons Why” by Jay Asher, tells a tragic story of Hannah Baker’s reasons to commit suicide. She makes thirteen different cassette tapes, each giving the reason why she doesn’t want to live any more. The cassette tapes get sent to each person who is responsible of her death, then the tapes get passed to other people, and the tapes somehow ended up in to Clay’s hand. Clay is the always the good boy, he would always turn in his homework, and never go to parties. He goes through a painful process listening all the cassette tapes that an anonymous person left on his porch. Clay goes through each tape questioning if he is one of the reasons that Hannah committed suicide.

            Reason number one is Justin Foley. He was the one who stole Hannah’s first kiss, she slid on the slide, slid in to her kiss, as she quotes it. This leads to her suicide because it starts to create a snowball effect. He accuses her of being a slut, creating a rumor that everyone believed. The second reason why is because of Alex Standall. He created a list of the hottest ass in freshman year. He added Hannah’s name, creating a bigger snowball. The third is Jessica Davis. She also accused her of something, creating another rumor, which made Justin’s more believable. She blamed Hannah, apparently, stealing her ‘man’. The fifth cause of her death is Tyler Down. He stalked her, took pictures of her, and even masturbated in front of her bedroom window. Hannah then told the entire school that she has a peeping tom, taking pictures of her, and it is Tyler Down, the student in the graduation book club. No one believed her, because she had no evidence what so ever.

     Reason six is because of Courtney Crimson. Everyone in Hannah’s high school loves Courtney, they adore her, she is the goodie two shoes that every mother would dream of. In reality, she is a fake. She became Hannah’s ‘best friend’ to use her, she used her for car ride to parties. Courtney isn’t always a sweet and nice, just like everyone she has a dark side. She created a horrible rumor that made the whole school give a disgusted look to Hannah Baker, which made the snowball increase drastically. Evidently, Hannah has a stash of sex toys in her dresser. Marcus Cooley is the seventh cause. Marcus asks Hannah for a date a Rosie’s Diner, which she happily accepts. While the two were sitting in a booth at Rosie’s, Marcus forces Hannah to touch him sexually, humiliating her in public space. The eighth is because of Zach Dempsey. Zach was in Rosie’s when Marcus humiliated her, he comforted her, assuring that everything is going to be okay. Hannah rejects his effort in comforting her, she doesn't know who to trust, after all those people who back stabbed her. Zach gets angered by this ad decides to steal Hannah's notes of encouragement from her Peer Communications class. Those were the only things keeping Hannah going. The ninth reason of Hannah’s story is because of Ryan Shaver. He is the editor of the school’s papers. He steals Hannah’s missing poem and publishes it at her English class, where the teacher annotates and studies the poem word by word, but no one knows who wrote it. The tenth reason is Clay Jensen. Seemingly, Clay was not one of the reasons. She was really sad she didn't get to know him. Clay helped bring the better person Hannah is.

     The eleventh reason is with the help of Jenny Kurtz. After a wild party that Hannah went, Jenny, being the ‘kind and generous’ person she is, gives a drunk Hannah Baker a ride home. Hannah falls asleep in the car, but was soon woken up by Jenny crashing in to a stop sign. Jenny gets scared and wants to flee then get her car fixed as soon as possible. On the other hand, Hannah want to report this to the police, but Jenny refuses and kicks her out of the car in to the cold rain. A few days has passed, and Hannah was informed that a senior that goes to her school was dead, because there was no stop sign. Hannah blames herself and forms suicidal thoughts. The second to last reason is Bryce Walker. Hannah joins Courtney in to the hot tub. Bryce Walker joins in and starts to sexually assault Hannah. Hannah doesn’t stop Bryce from what he is doing, she wants to “let myself go completely”. The last and final reason behind Hannah Baker’s suicide is because of her guidance counselor, Mr. Porter. He had the power to stop Hannah from killing herself. He was too busy trying to inform her parents what Hannah is going to do to herself, that he didn't realizes that Hannah Baker’s time is up.

 In conclusion, all of Hannah’s meaningful reasons behind her death was because almost everyone had two sides to them. They would always lure Hannah in with their kindness, but they would always turn Hannah down by revealing their true side.    

Can Your Phone Testify Against?

            Recently, they have stopped to search your phones more frequently. According to “Can Your Phone Testify Against You?” by Patricia Smith, a police officer pulled over David Riley. They found two loaded guns they also check David’s phone without a warrant and found out that he was also contacting a gang nearby he was then arrested. Searching you phone is wrong, because it is your own personal device, which you paid for, which contains private information.

            When David Riley was pulled over because his car registration expired and coincidently, they found two loaded guns and searched his phone without a warrant. Even though he has committed a crime, this is also against his fourth amendment right, which states “unreasonable searches and seizures”. The officers broke this law by having a unreasonable search with on his phone without a warrant from the court saying that they can search his phone against his will. This also applies to different devices other than your phone.

            Even though it is wrong of the police department to search your electronic device(s) without a warrant, you still can give it to them if it is in desperate measures. This similar situation happened to David Riley, when the officers found two guns stocked with bullets in his car. They forced David to give them his phone to check for any information of why he had those guns

            Another reason why searching your phone is wrong, because it contains personal information. In the article it states “An average smartphone can hold 100 times more information than the entire 72,000 page of James Maddison’s papers in the Library of Congress, according to privacy advocates.” Giving our phone to police department can be very revealing of what kind of person you are with the information in your phone. But the down side to this is all this information contained in the phone can be wiped out in a few quick swipes, making the warrant to search the criminal’s phone useless.  

            In conclusion, it is wrong to search your phone, it contains certain information that can be private to others. It also goes against the fourth amendment right to “unreasonable searches and seizures”.      

Faithful Elephants

            In Faithful Elephants, a tragic short story by Yukio Tsuchiya, it talks about how the zookeepers in Ueno Zoo, in Japan, are forced to kill all the animals in the zoo because of the war going on. It is finally time for the three elephants, John, Tonky and Wanly, to be executed from the zoo. The setting in the short story shows what might occur next, with contracting and gloomy settings.

            In the very beginning it takes place in a zoo, where a cherry blossoms are at full bloom, and the petals are falling on the soft breeze and warm sun. This description gives off a very warm and peaceful atmosphere. It feels like something happy, or will happen, but the contrast to that is there are tombstones on the other side of the zoo, making it gloomy and foreshadowing something bad is going to happen. “Not far from the cheerful square, there stands a tombstone. Not many notice this monument for the animals that have died at the Ueno Zoo.” This contrasts from the warm and happy vibe going on in the beginning. But at the same time it still shows happiness from the sun warming every corner.

            After the untroubled introduction, they move on to a more heartbreaking occurrence. A zookeeper describes how Japan is being bombed like rain, day and night. Which causes the next act to be heartbreaking and disturbing. They try to poison John first, with the potatoes, because he loves potatoes. In the end, they decided to starve John because he was smart enough to throw away the poisoned potatoes and eat the healthy one. The setting helps to transition to a more disturbing scene and get a scene of what might happen next.

            In the end of the story, they wrap it up with going back to the beginning setting. It gives off the same tranquility feeling, like they’re saying the elephants are still there. The zookeeper describes the bright blue sky has floating white clouds. They’re describing the tears the elephants and the employees of the zoo have produced from the tragic event that have occurred.

            In conclusion, the setting links to all the feelings that happened in that scene, making whether it gives it a gloomy or happy feeling.  It can contrast to the setting before it or ahead of it, it is the author’s choice to create his story. 

The Uglies

            The book The Uglies, by Scott Westerfeld, is a science fiction book written in 2005. This novel takes place in Uglyville and later on in Smoke, Rusty Ruins and finally Pretty Town. In this book it talks about how the main character, Tally Youngblood, goes through changes when she becomes the age of sixteen. Where she lives in the world of plastic surgery, forcing everyone on their sixteenth birthday to get plastic surgery. The reason behind this is because the government’s standard of prettiness is by getting surgery after surgery. Also doing this surgical procurers can help prevent wars, because after getting the operations done your brain would be taught to think like the “pretties”, as they call them after getting the pretty surgery.

            When it was Tally’s sixteenth birthday, also known as the day when she becomes pretty, she wasn't able to become one, because of one of her friends, Shay, which ran away from becoming a pretty. Shay believed that being ugly was pretty, she didn’t believe in the surgeries that the government provides. So she runs off to Smoke to join the rebels, leaving Tally a note. Giving Tally clues to where she is so she can join her if she changes her mind. Dr. Cable the surgeon/ the head master wants to hunt down the rebels and turn them to pretties and make the world an equal place, so he makes a deal with Tally. If she brings back Shay with her to Uglyville, they would both become pretty, but if she fails to do so, she will be an ugly for the rest of her life.