A wish on a Star ( Airplanes)

In the song Airplanes by B.o.B and Hayley Williams the concept of making a wish on an airplane is discussed. It is like making a wish on a shooting star, according to the song. In the song, B.o.B. expresses regret over what his life has become. " To go back to a place much simpler than this...", apparently would be the purpose of this wish. He then describes the things that have gone wrong, like the line "and you're hoping but the people never call you back". 

One thing that I think is similar between the concept of wishing on an airplane within the song, and wishing on a star in real life, is the unlikeliness of them both. When someone wishes on a star in daily life, they don't truly believe that their wish will come true. They are just making this wish in vain hope. I think it is the same in the song. B.o.B. is just expressing a desperate wish that things would go back to normal.He doesn't expect anything to come from it. This led me to wonder what airplanes represent within this song. Sure, they are something you see along with stars when you look up at the sky. But what other significance could they  have? Later on in the song B.o.B mentions having a flight to catch, and it's a little bit hard to tell if that's just further metaphor, or something else. My best guess would be that airplanes represent movement somehow to him, and probably because he's seen them in the sky, he wishes that he could get on an airplane and go back in time.

I think that this is definitely a feeling that everyone can relate to. Everyone has made a wish on a star, and hoped that it will come true. They also know that it won't. Wishing to be able to go back in time is also relatable. It's nice that there was a song made to finally voice that feeling of regret.

The Supernatural (Where She Went, Gayle Forman)

Where She Went, by Gayle Forman, is the sequel to the heartbreaking If I Stay. If I Stay is the story of music-crazed Mia who gets into a car accident with her family. She is in a coma for most of the book, trying to decide whether to try to fight death or to let it take her. Where She Went is the continuation of Mia's story, told from the perspective of her now ex-boyfriend. A concept that started in If I Stay was the idea of being able to have an out-of-body experience, like Mia does when in her coma. This was probably just intended for the readers not to get bored with just Mia's thoughts, and this way they can watch the other characters lives and still be reading from Mia's perspective. Ultimately, it led to the event that gave Mia the will to wake up and survive: when Adam, her boyfriend begged her to. This concept continues slightly into the next book, which made me wonder if this was possibly the inspiration for the books themselves.

When having her out-of-body experience, Mia was able to see and hear the things around her, which she should not have been able to do when being in her coma. This idea never really gets confronted or explained within that first book, besides Mia wondering if she is dreaming. The only way that is does get elaborated on within the second book is when she tells Adam about it. Struggling with her losses and angry at him for her pain, she yells at him for asking her to stay alive. This immediately tells him that she somehow miraculously heard him when she was in her coma. She then tells him about how she had once been able to see all of the way outside the hospital where she lay, and that she had watched him struggle with her car accident. Though this whole thing is incredible, they do not contemplate it for too long. The one way in which it affects them is to make Mia open her mind a little bit more to the idea of ghosts.

After losing her family, Mia is thoroughly devastated and traumatized. The one thing that keeps her going is the conversations that she believes to be having with her mom, dad and brother in her mind. When admitting to this, she also says that she knows it sounds crazy and that she is not sure if it it real. I can't help thinking that the author put this in intentionally to make the readers wonder about ghosts and the afterlife. It is not a big plot within the books, in fact is only quickly mentioned,but all the same I think the author thought it was a weighty idea. Maybe she had some sort of personal relation to these ideas and thoughts, or maybe she thought they were just interesting. I truly don't know. I think the idea of ghosts is very controversial and interesting. In the book it definitely comes to me as a comfort to think that her family is still there somehow, because of how attached to them I got as a reader. It is definitely something else entirely to think about in real life, but is surely worth putting some thought into.

Love, Love, Love, (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close SPOILERS)

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer is the story of nine-year-old Oskar Schell, who loses his dad during 9/11. He sets out on an adventure across New York to figure out what the key that he finds in a vase in his Dad's closet is for. This book is truly incredible, with countless stories all woven together into one extraordinary book. Mostly, it is the experiences of a sad child who wants to discover why his dad has died.The one theme that carries through the entire book of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is love.

For the main character of the book, Oskar, love is what keeps him searching for meaning in the little things his father left behind. In the key, and the name Black, and the circled words on the back of the newspaper. He believes if he does not continue searching, he does not truly love his deceased dad. Love is what drives his incessant need for answers. Love is what keeps him safe on his journey around New York and the other boroughs, with his caring mother watching over him the entire time. Love is what stripped Oskar's grandfather of his ability to speak, when the weight of all of his loved ones that would never return to him became too much. When the thought of the life that he could have had with Anna destroyed him. Love is what bound him and Anna's little sister together in their times of need, even if they would never truly be in love. And love is what compelled every single person Oskar visited with the last name Black to show him compassion. They all had their own stories full of love and loss, and helping Oskar to find some closure within his life gave every single one of them closure as well.

 There are many other themes to this book. There is tragedy, and loss, and the search for a reason to keep living. There is also hope that lies within every hopeless story. But for me, all of these themes were related to, or somehow always led back to love. I feel as though that theme in this book was what kept it so true to life. It didn't exclude the hopelessness that the characters felt, or the depression. The only driving force that kept this book from being one of tragedy was love. This is where this book is very realistic. I believe that love is the one thing that keeps us all going. It is also the something we all share in common. If we didn't have love, then all we would be left with would be that hopelessness. This all shone through so brightly to me through the love that Oskar shared with his mother, and old Mr.Black, his grandmother, and eventually even his long lost grandfather.

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If you haven't already i 100% recommend you read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

Arctic Meltdown

According to the article "Arctic Meltdown" by Justin Gillis, ice currently covers about 24% of the arctic ocean. In 1970 it covered 50%. " The Arctic is Earth's air conditioner," says Walt Meier, research scientist at National Snow and Ice Data Center. " We're losing that." Without the Arctic to keep our earth cool, the ice in the Arctic will melt. The ramifications of this have and will be the gradual extinction of polar bears, local tribes being forced to move and adapt, and according to Justin Gillis, the rising of our sea levels.

How Justin Gillis wants the readers of his article to feel is intimidated. He tells the audience strong and terrifying facts about the arctic, hoping to scare them into taking action. By saying that the results of arctic meltdown will be like a stronger version of Hurricane Sandy, he connects to the reader's personal experience with flooding; he makes them see that this is not an imaginary problem. He continues to throw shocking facts at the reader throughout the article, hoping to make them realize the horrible situation we are in.

I believe that this article is very strong and very helpful. Justin Gillis has found a way of stating facts that people might not want to think about in a very clear and straightforward way. Where other people might not approve of scaring your audience into agreeing with you, I think it was very effective on me, and hope it will be on other readers of "Upfront Magazine". I believe that we should be doing whatever we can to prevent sea levels from rising. As stated in the article, the reason people aren't doing anything to stop these issues is because they haven't seen any bad effects of the melting in the arctic. Well soon enough they will be seeing those bad effects, and I think that Justin Gillis got that across very well in his article.

 Please leave a comment :)

Here's the article: http://home.d47.org/jgwalsh/files/2012/01/Arctic-Meltdown.pdf
 Gillis, Justin. "Arctic Meltdown." Upfront 19 Nov. 2012: 8-11.