The Circle Character Emotion Reading Response

       When you begin anything new you might at first feel intimidated and unsure of yourself, but as you progress you will surely feel confident and hopeful that the  job that you have is a good one. In the book "The Circle" by David Eggers Mae's personality and emotions greatly change from the beginning to the end of the book.  Mae goes from feeling resentful and foolish of herself, to feeling refreshed and hopeful of her life, and her time working at the circle.

        Before going transparent Mae often felt foolish of herself and regret some of the actions that she made.  For instance before her transparency Mae committed a very minor crime of stealing a kayack and boating in the bay.  She did not know that the circle was watching this very instance of hers through tiny cameras they have placed throughout the world.  She thought that there would be no cameras placed at that location, but as soon as she does and people at The Circle bring it up to her she instantly feels remorseful of her crime. Mae instantly commits to letting people know about her past actions by being completely transparent about her life.  This is when Mae is remorseful, foolish and disappointed in herself, but started to take a turn for the better and started to change her personality by committing to a transparent lifestyle. 

        Mae goes from feeling disappointed and foolish of herself, to feeling hopeful and refreshed about her current life.  Mae's transition to being completely transparent helps her find herself and made her feel much better about her current life she is having.  She does not need to keep anything away from anyone, therefore all of her bad feelings are off her chest and shared with the internet.  This is something that makes her hopeful of the future because she has millions of people who are concerned and respectful of her life and she will always find someone who has gone through her same experiences that can relate and help her overcome some problems she is facing.  For example her father has MS disease, so by sharing this information with the world she can find other people facing the same problem and can instantly feel relieved because there is always somebody willing to share their experiences with you.  Being transparent also really helped Mae feel confident in herself and always feels delighted when she can help someone else overcome their problems as well.  This is how transparency helped Mae feel refreshed and hopeful of her life ahead.

         Although complete transparency may not be available anytime soon, websites like Facebook and Twitter are quickly making this a reality in the real world, but it probably wont be as glamorous as portraid in the book.  Even if this might be a bit far off from reality people will probably feel like Mae feels in the end of the book and others might not and might fear that their right of privacy might be infringed upon.  Either way their would be lots of people like Mae that might feel hopeful and confident of their life that they are living.

  

                                                          SUMMER READING BLOG

  
 Over the summer i read "Lone Survivor" by Marcus Luttrell which i thought was a very inspirational piece of wartime nonfiction and shows the bravery and courage of 4 navy seals forced with a Taliban ambush in Afghani mountains. This book tells an amazing story of the war and an encounter with the enemy where there was only one survivor.
      Lone survivor shows bravery and courage of people in the was, especially the Navy Seals that were in the war. In the book 4 Seals were sent on a mission to find and kill a big Taliban leader that was known of ruthelessly killing soldiers.  The situation turns for the worse when three locals stumble across the seals then shortly tell the enemy forces of American presence nearby.   Marcus and his squad dont think much of it at first but when the rag tag Taliban forces start to surround them the tides quickly turn.  The Afghans start to lay down suppressing fire on the Seals positions but dont hit anyone at first.  After the initial suppression the Seals training and experience quickly comes into play picking off the poorly trained Taliban one by one. Later on in the fight things quickly start to turn worse for the Seals, with three out of four seals dieing or injured in some kind.  They tried to get a radio signal out but there is minimal signal so the signal would not get out.  Seal Michael Murphy quickly realized that he valued his friends lives more then his and that he would sacrifice himself for the greater good of the team, more specifically for Marcus to have a fighting chance of getting out alive. Michael bravely sacrificed himself to get out a distress call to the base to tell them about their situation. After this he was quickly shot and killed from a stray bullet to the chest.
     This was truly an act of bravery and courage and I find it extremly inspiring that certain people care enough about others to self sacrifice for the greater good of the situation.  This was just one instance in the book about bravery and I could have chose another but this one was personally the most important and courageous act in the book.