The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest is the third book in the series by Stieg Larsson.  ( link )  I decided to drop Crime and punishment.  Even two hundred and fifteen pages in I didn't like it.  I have been rereading Larsson's series at home, and I decided that the books would be something that I would want to talk about.  They are very good books, if you haven't already heard, and I highly recommend that you read them.  In the third book, all of the adventures (or catastrophes, depending on how you look at them) in Lisbeth Salander's life come to a head.  I do not want to ruin the story for you, but there is a multitude of crimes committed that directly violates Sweden's constitution, and there is a huge scandal and even larger conspiracy within the government.  The book goes into pretty good detail about Sweden's judicial system and government, and I thought it would be an interesting thing to look in to.  I thought that I could compare Sweden's government and the United States' government to see why these violations against the constitution would be much less likely to happen here, rather than in Sweden.  I can't promise that I will hav

This is something I have only more recently become interested in.  As I've mentioned before, I am interested in learning other languages.  I am also interested in psychological things, like the intrinsic motivation.  I am just beginning to learn about these sort of things in my psychology class.  The first article I looked at was called "Building Self-Control the American Way".  Conversely, it mostly talked about how other countries build self-control in their children.  French teachers are very rigid and reward little.  South Korean parents actually put so much pressure on school grades that there are real government official that enfore a curfew on studying! Obviously very different than America's way of doing things.  A "polyglot" is someone who can speak many languages.  The article talks about how learning another language is a great way to teach self-control to students.  There is a growing interest in teaching other languages, as globalization increases.  I would like to learn more about how the ideas of self-control and "polyglots" go together, since they are both subjects that I am interested in.  I also think that learning more about the two could help me do better in achieving a goal of being multilingual. 

Today I read an article about the kidnappings that are happening in Pakistan.  They have been steadily increasing in the last three years, with many of the additions by the militant Islamic group the Taliban.  The Taliban is using the kidnappings to increase revenue. They are targeting wealthy businessmen in the major cities of Pakistan, and they have quite the reach.  According to the article the kidnappings are not confined to Waziristan, where the Taliban are centrally located, they are occuring all over the country.  They are also targeting people who are there to try and help, like missions.  This has cause some missions to close down and give up, leaving an area that undoubtedly needs them.  This is a problem because it is a cycle that will not stop.  The Taliban kidnap someone important.  They ask for huge amounts of ransom money.  The family or friends pay, obviously, and the Taliban gets more revenue to carry out more terrorist acts.  These people are not an unorganized rebel group.  According to the article they carry out very organized militant attacks on very protected people.  However the article also gives an insight into the lives of the captors and captured.  They interviewed a man who was taken who said that despite the danger, the Taliban were cheerful at times, even friendly to him.  The two ideas are kind of hard to mesh together.  It seems like these attacks will continue for the forseeable future, since the Taliban continues to get money from them. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/20/world/asia/pakistani-taliban-turn-to-kidnapping-to-finance-operations.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

So.  Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.  I am still not entirely sure I like the book.  It is very dark, and morbid.  You see into the mind of the main character, who has murdered an old woman and her sister.  His mind is dark, and it seems like he is slowly going crazy.  It is pretty disturbing to read so far.  Dostoyevsky is definitely a good writer, he can make you feel like you are actually listening to the thoughts of a man who has murdered.  The book is written in an older style of speaking, and it can be somewhat hard to understand, especially when you try to keep track of all the russian names and phrases.  It is getting a little bit easier, and I guess I do not hate it anymore, so I think I will finish it.  Another thing that I really do not like about the book is that it doesn't seem to be going towards any conclusion.  It just seems to be zig zagging around, following the crazy man's thoughts.  That might be what the author wanted, I don't know, it just doesn't appeal to me at all.  On the back of the book it says that Dostoyevsky does a great job of attaching you to his character.  I disagree.  I don't like the main character at all.  In fact I think that he is a pretty nasty guy, even without taking into account the fact that he murdered two people.  All in all, I do not like the book, even though it is supposed to be a classic. 

The Greek crisis.  I had heard that their was a bit of a depression in Greece, and that it was perhaps a little worse than the other countries in Europe.  Obviously, it is much worse.  I am actually surprised I didn't hear about this in detail earlier.  Here is the link to the aritcle I read from bbc ( link ).  There is a crisis in Greece, where the economy is crashing, and people are panicking.  Health care is running out, jobs are not to be seen, and the Euro itself is failing Greece.  People are desparate over there.  Now, why should we care what is going on in Greece?  One: Because a crash in one European country can mean hard times for all of our markets over there, and two: because of the basic human problems it is causing over there.  No food or vaccinations for small children and old adults.  Political turmoil is also stirring, just to top everything off.  Poeple are angry that things are not working.  Their is a call for established political parties to step aside, since their plans have not been working.  Some are even calling for a entirely new government.  One made entirely comprised of people who have never been career politicians.  Cultural resentment against Germans is also growing, as people say that the crisis is their fault.  I could not find out from the article exactly why they believed it was the German's fault.  Economists from around the world say that things are getting worse, and that with the plans so far, things are not going to get better. 

The Ted talk we saw (Being youn and making an impact) was very interesting to me.  I thought it made a lot of good points about goals.  The speaker, Natalie Warne, who is only three years older than me, has helped to make a big impact in the world.  She saw something she wanted, and she devoted herself to getting it.  I think that really proves the idea that if you work hard enough, you can acheive almost anything.  This idea is something we really need to keep in mind.  I am sure that Natalie was tired, angry, and disheartened at points, but when she pushed through it she was able to achieve what she wanted.  She did not take any excuses from herself.  It definitley inspired me to make some goals.  Goals are important to success.  Personally, I always feel better about what I am working on if I am working towards a tangible goal. This video was a sort of wake up call, since my motivation is definitely slipping approaching finals.  Watching Natalie talk about her experiences, and her work and just seeing her enthusiasm about what she does was inspiring, she makes you want to BE one of those extraordinary anonymouses.  Coming away from watching this, I want to find that thing that inspires me, and to do well at what i am doing until I do. 

So I recently read a new book. I had mentioned before that I like a certain author, Phillipa Gregory, who writes about the royalty of the medieval world, especially England.  This book was set in that small section of time after Henry VIII's son died, and his daughter Mary took the throne, but his daughter Elizabeth (THE Queen Elizabeth) wanted it.  During this time the inquisition was raging across Spain and the main character was a girl who had fled from it.  She was a jew, and her mother was taken, tortured, and burned at the stake by the inquisitors.  So she and her father fled to England, where she was taken into court as a fool.  I am telling you all of this because this book got me interested in the inquisition.  It was not just dungeons and burnings at the stake in Spain.  For example, did you know that the inquisition even came to England for a short time, during Mary's reign?  There is a lot to learn about it.  It is a very dark story.  There's a lot of betrayal and torture going on.  But the reasons behind the inquisition are just as interesting, if not as dark.  The Catholic Church wanted to keep control of the power they had amassed as the rulers of peoples' spiritual (and often political) lives.  People who threatened their power with crazy new ideas, like the world orbiting the sun instead of vice versa, were dangerous, and thus had to be gotten rid of.  And the way they went about getting rid of them is something that seems impossible to a modern day person living in America.  I would like to learn more about this part of history, and how it might relate to other, modern events and suppression of free speech. 

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky is the next novel I have chosen to read.  According to you, Dr. Ayers, it is a classic.  The language is most definitely older.  So far, it is kind of hard to read.  Right now (fifty-nine pages in) it has all been introducing characters, giving some background information on the man's family, and his ruminations on how very very miserable he is.  It is not a happy book so far.  I will continue to read it, but so far it is not really my cup of tea.  The plot so far is a little confusing to me.  I can't really tell where the author is going with it.  Interesting little side note, the last person to read or own my copy of Crime and Punishment put little notes in the margins over almost every paragraph.  They (unlike me) find a lot of symbolism in every detail of the story.  If I could see that symbolism the story might be easier for me to understand.  From what I can understand so far, the main character is very very troubled.  He is incredibly poor, with no job, and he may or may not be daydreaming about committing some nameless crime.  Most likely a horrible one.  His mother writes to him about his sister's marriage, which is for the purpose of getting money to keep him at his studies.  She mostly just makes him angry and guilty.  So far it is not really living up to it's label of a thriller, but I'll keep reading.

Intrinsic Motivation: noun- the undertaking of an activity, as a hobby, without external incentive; also, personal satisfaction derived through self-initiated achievement.  Intrinsic motivation is something that many people, perhaps even you Mr. Ayers, lack.  Especially on mondays.  It is what drives our success in things that aren't immediately rewarding.  Now, I know that this isn't a post about something I want to learn about, but it is definitely something I have been thinking about.  And it is something that affects everybodies lives.  I have especially noticed its influence on me this year.  A lot of my classes (AP us history coughcough) take a lot of studying on your own.  There's no reward like homework points that you get immediately.  You have to motivate yourself to get it done, even when you would much rather read that new book you bought with your birthday money.  I also started running again this year.  Now THAT is a test of intrinsic motivation.  I am not on a team, or getting much of an immediate reward for going running.  That's where the intrinsic motivation comes in.  Intrinsic motivation is something that is important to have, and really drives our success in life.  I think that it is something we should encourage in children.  Incidentally, I think that the way we have our projects and blog posts set up in here encourage intrinsic motivation.  If I did not have intrinsic motivation to get good grades, I would not be a week ahead of  

For this post I decided to continue talking about traveling.  Specifically, studying abroad.  Like I mentioned before, it is something I really want to do.  I am in my third year of studying spanish, and I intend to take it AP next year.  A spanish country would be interesting for me to study in, since I have a background of study in the language, but I am really not going to be picky on where I study.  I just want to see a new place!  I looked at a few blogs about studying abroad, and a few by people currently studying abroad.  They were not maybe the most academic blog posts, but I wanted to get a sort of feel for how these people do it, and why other students are studying abroad.  Their reasons varied, but the gist I got from them was that these students wanted to know what was out there, and what they could find by leaving home.  One thing that surprised me was the amount of homesickness.  I don't have much of a perspective on this given that I've never been that far from my family at any given time, but I have always been so excited about the prospect of travel I've never given much thought to the country I would leave behind.  Another thing I found was that everyone said it was one of the best experiences of their life, and that they would do it all over again.  It really taught them a lot. They highly recommended it to others and if I can I am definitely going to take their advice!