Reed's Blog

Before going into the research for my topic, I already knew how important music was to my life. What I didn’t know, and what I learned, is how music affects our lives. I learned that it decreases anxiety, increases pain tolerance, and ultimately relieves stress, as shown in the studies mentioned in the Ted Talk. I learned a lot about my topic, and it just made me realize how important music really is to my life. I selected this topic, because music has such a huge role in my life. I listen to music every chance that I get (maybe too much), I am a musician, and music pretty much controls my life. I wanted to apply this to my Ted Talk, and encourage people to listen to more music. I knew how important music was to me, and I was hoping it could change other people's lives, like it did to mine. The most rewarding part of the research process was finding credible sources, and seeing that it would be able to back up my statement. The most frustrating part was finding information th...

Vera Dietz in the novel ​Please Ignore Vera Dietz​ by (author) seems like a normal teenager on the outside. On the outside, she is a introverted teenager who lives in a small Pennsylvania. On the inside, she is an alcoholic, with a dad who is a former alcoholic, and a mother who was once a stripper that is no longer there. She is struggling with the death of her best friend, Charlie Kahn, who is framed for a horrible act which he never committed. Following the death of her best friend, Charlie, Vera must learn to adapt to life without him, in a world where everything seems to go against her. This story about moving on, and accepting the truth, is a must read. One thing that I really enjoyed about the novel were the characters, and how they dealt with adversity. Two characters that really stood out to me were Vera and her dad, Ken, both who have experience with alcoholism. Vera knows that her dad was an alcoholic, and that it is in her genes. However, it seems that the only thing tha...