The Five People You Meet in Heaven

Eddie has just reacently died.  He is in an extreme state of confussion and has no idea where he is or what is happening.  The last thing he can remember about his life on earth is the little girl for whom he tried to save.  He remembers feeling his hands aginst hers but after that, nothing.  He has already met his first person.  The first person of Eddie meets does clear some things up however.  He explains that he will go on a journey and meet 5 different people whos lives he touched.  He finishes up by saying that Eddie has caused his death.
The reader then finds out a little history about the first person, or the blue man.  He works at Ruby Pier, one of Eddie's favorite spots to go as a child, in the freak show.  He was rhere because his skin, was a blue colour.  He then tells his life story to Eddie; he was born as a child looking perfectly normal.  Although he had an extreme case of anxiety.  He eventually went to the doctor and was perscribed some pills that were suppossed to help with his anxiety.  He abussed these pills however and took them more than he should have.  This started to turn his skin a grey colour, which made him worry more and take more pills.  Eventually it turned his skin blue and everyone stared at him as if he were a monster. 
One day he was driving his car when suddenly a little boy, Eddie, came chassing for a ball that crossed the street.  The blue man was so shocked that he had a heart attack while driving and died without Eddie every finding out until now.

Growth as a Reader and Writer

I have grown a lot as both a reader and a writer over the course of the trimester.  One of the things that I think I have grown in as a writer is getting a more clear voice.   This means that I now use words in writing that are likely to actually come out of my mouth rather than someone else's.  Another thing I think I have grown in as a writer is my length of the post that I was doing.  For example, when I wrote the blog post from the beginning of the trimester that was supposed to get us used to blogging, it was only a couple paragraphs.  The more recent one that I am using from the end of September, was around 5-6 pages long.  All of it was not writing though because I added a lot of pictures into the post.  This leads me to my next point.  I have also grown by making more connections to other's ideas that are similar to mine that prove the credibility of my point I am trying to get across.  At the beginning of the trimester I was very hesitant to use others ideas because I felt like they weren't my own and they wouldn't help me but later in the trimester, I realized that it would just further prove my point.  Next, as a writer my spelling and grammar have gotten a lot better.  I remember the first blog post I did and I went up to click the spell check button at the top of the page and was astonished to find what seemed like every other word in the post was highlighted as a misspelled word.  Now I make much less spelling mistakes and the ones that I do make are mostly me hitting the wrong key on the keyboard.
One thing that I struggled with in my experience of blogging other than all the ones I stated above was using quotes from the book to support my claim I was making.  I used to dread looking up a quote for it and often times would forget to do it.  Now I realize that quotes really make your claim a lot stronger because they prove that the author or a character really does feel that way and it is much harder to go against your claim.  Now when I am writing I make sure that I include a quote to make my claim or thoughts more believable.
One strength I think I had during my blogging experience was the topics I could write about.  I think the blogging experience defiantly made me want to read more and also made me think more critically about what I was reading.  This gave me a lot of ideas about things that I could write about.
I think that I could have and should have used goodreads more often.  I remember that at the beginning of the trimester I thought about how neat and helpful it was, but I never had time to use it as much as I should have.  A feature that I did use on there quite a bit was the books it recommended for me.  I liked this a lot because not many people like the same books as I do.  I like books that are philosophy and give me a different way of thinking to consider.  An example was a book I read this year called The Little Prince.  It is my favorite book that I have ever read by a long shot and I think every one should read it at least once.  I think that if I did not use goodreads then I would not have been able to find it.  I did meet my reading goal and I think that part of that is due to the blogging and goodreads because I really started to enjoy reading this trimester.  I have defiantly improved as a reader this trimester.  I now pay more attention to the details in books and analyse them more critically. Now instead of watching TV for an hour or so I read instead because I have come to like it more over this trimester.