Picture? Hopefully?
Trying this again:
Empire State of Nerd
Note: let the empire state of nerd commence!
It’s here! I realize that the picture is sideways (actually, it’s absent for the time being) but I don’t know how to fix that. And also, ignore my pre-rehearsal grossness. But still, it has arrived!
I suppose maybe I should introduce myself. I’m KT, or diamondelight92.tumblr.com. I’m an acting student at Marymount Manhattan College in New York City but I am from Park City, UT and went to high school in Cincinnati, OH. I’ve been a Nerdfighter for four years this summer (woah), and I dream of someday finding my Augustus Waters except he doesn’t die. I love to read books and humorously annotate them, ride horses, act (obviously), ride rollar coasters, and behave like a 7 year-old. For example, The Book may well come with me to a tea party at American Girl Place next week. So…that’s good.
Anyway, I am beyond excited for this project and I can’t wait to see how everyone else reads the novel!
Best Wishes,
KT/diamondelight92
Sorry for the Cone of Silence!
The project is very much still underway and is in fact being packaged and sent to New York City TODAY.
Get ready for a really exciting journey!
Attention all Participants!
A lengthy (yet informative) email has been sent; it’s of utmost importance that you read this email’s contents and reply as appropriately as possible!
DFTBA
HOORAY FOR FREE STUFF!
By the end of the day, I’ll have the entire project mapped out along with the order listed for all to see.
However, this isn’t the super awesome news I wanted to share!
Thanks to the talent and generosity of lizzie, we have these really cool postcards!
Along with the book and various other goodies, I’ll be sending these in the care package. Hopefully we’ll come up with a super awesome way to utilize these!
DFTBA!
Hurdles and Basketballs
“Yeah, hurdlers. I don’t know why. I started thinking about them running their hurdle races, and jumping over these totally arbitrary objects that had been set in their path. And I wondered if hurdlers ever thought, you know, this would go faster if we just got rid of the hurdles.
“This was before your diagnosis?” I asked.
“Right, well, there was that too.” He smiled with half his mouth. “The day of the existentially fraught free throws was coincidentally also my last day of dual leggedness. I had a weekend between when they scheduled the amputation and when it happened.”
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What is so fantastic about this dialogue is the hidden social commentary regarding to obstacles that we all face on a daily basis. Issues that we encounter, whether it be body image, self-esteem, or other people’s opinions and judgement, are all placed inconveniently for the purpose of tripping, knocking down, and detouring us on our journey. Sure, we can take the fatiguing task of leaping those hurdles, as we all do everyday, but why?
Augustus is challenging the very notion that we have to even acknowledge these barriers, an option that many have never considered due to it’s ludicrous simplicity. Ignore societies expectations for how we’re “supposed” to look and embrace ourselves as we are? Absurd! Imagine the blissful freedom of a blank, expansive track and the endless possibilities that await. Don’t we all deserve that inner peace?
However, a question must be asked in regards to this aforementioned passage: Did Augustus truly have an epiphany regarding his lack of passion towards basketball? Or was he simply trying to distance himself from the emotional pain of losing the very thing that “made him matter,” an extremely important ideal in Gus’s mind?
(In my personal opinion, it was a combination of the two: his life was put into perspective screechingly fast, therefore resulting in the amazement of how pointless an activity such as free-throwing can consume a life. Still, we can’t discount the fact that no matter how mature he is [or seems to be], he is only 17 [and younger at the time of his “epiphany”] so a possible interpretation would be the seperation of himself emotionally and mentally on his own terms, since he did NOT have a choice in the amputation of his leg.)
What do you guys think?
Mapping out the Journey
Thanks to the dozen or so people who’ve eagerly agreed to participate in our global “book club” and discussion, I’m currently mapping out who will get the book in which month and in what order.
In the meantime, all of you are encouraged to start submitting discussion topics regarding “The Fault in Our Stars.”
DFTBA!
Commentary:
Augustus nodded at the screen. “Pain demands to be felt,” he said, which was a line from An Imperial Affliction. (page 57)
Pain absolutely DOES demand to be felt. However, there are several different facets of pain. Physical pain can be distracted from; that’s where all of those natural-births or walking over burning coals derives from. Mental and emotional pain…well, those are encompassing and consuming. That anguish cannot be imagined or led away. As Green mentions in the “preface,” time is like the continually shifting tides. However, one could argue that pain is also like the thrashing waves: able to be washed away, stagnant and docile in the crevices in your mind before being resurfaced, as it eventually always is. Those late nights where you revive a painful memory from years ago? That’s a pain that refuses to be satiated. That’s a pain that demands to be felt.
Please:
When expressing interest via ask box, pretty pretty please include your email address!
Please and thank you!
So much interest!
Hello fellow nerdfighters!
Thank you so much for all of your interest in this incredibly awesome project; so far we have EIGHT people all raring to begin!
If you follow the steps shared in the “Join Us” tab, we’ll all be able to map out where the book will start out and where it will travel and begin as soon as possible, so keep up your enthusiasm!
DFTBA!
