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I hope to diversify my reading by reading different styles of writing such as poetry, short stories, memoirs, and more.

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Brain On Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan

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Brain On Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan

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This reflection written by Cahalan is what stood out to me the most in the whole book. Despite her suffering through anti-NMDA-receptor encephalitis she sees her experience as something good that brought awareness for many people about the even if it cost her her mental and physical health during that time of difficulty. This made me as a reader realize only you can determine if your experiences were bad or good, you choose how you let your experiences affect you.

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"I'm the one I should love in this world

Shining me, precious soul of mine

I finally realized so I love me

Not so perfect but so beautiful

I'm the one I should love"

These lyrics really spoke to me, as in a world where social media depicts the societal standards of beauty, this song speaks to advocate for self love. Self love is one of the most important things that many in our world must work to find with all the pressures of society. Self love only leads to your own happiness, and once you've found peace in yourself as a person that is the biggest achievement. This song reminds me that so long as I'm comfortable in my own skin, that's all I need.

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About "BTS - Epiphany (English Translation)"

"Epiphany" is the thirteenth track off of BTS's Love Yourself 結 'Answer', and was released two weeks prior to the rest of the album. The track has a pop-rock melody and features sentimental vocals sung by BTS member Jin.

An epiphany is defined as a "moment of sudden or powerful realization". The title is significant as it represents the defining, formative theme of the album-and the entirety of the Love Yourself series. Jin's epiphany is that he is capable of unconditional self-love, a conclusion each album in the series has powerfully, slowly built up to.

The music video depicts Jin alone and brooding. However, small gestures, like closing the curtains and the color saturation changing, signify a purpose beyond the depressive scenes. Although wholeheartedly loving yourself can be lonely and difficult, such a feat is not impossible. It's one of the greatest progressions a person can undertake.

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Genius English Translations - BTS - Epiphany (English Translation)

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BTS - Epiphany (English Translation) Lyrics: So weird, I for sure loved you so much / Adapted to you with everything, I wanted to live my life for you / But as I keep doing that I just can't bear the storm inside my heart

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"Days seem sometimes as if they'll never end
Sun digs its heels to taunt you
But after sunlit days, one thing stays the same
Rises the moon

Days fade into a watercolour blur
Memories swim and haunt you
But look into the lake, shimmering like smoke
Rises the moon"

This song talks about those days where your determination grows weak and you feel as if you can't escape the endless cycle of helplessness. Similarly, I had my own moments where I couldn't find the determination to dedicate myself to my school work and had just felt burned out, but just as the song says "rises the moon," you have to persevere even if what you put forward is not your best effort is still something, which is definitely better than nothing.

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Rises the Moon is a song written and recorded by Liana Flores within her 2019 EP Recently.

The song describes changes in life, reassuring all that despite the difficulties in adjusting to change, a beautiful consistency (in this case, the moon) will always remain.

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​rises the moon Lyrics: Days seem sometimes as if they'll never end / Sun digs its heels to taunt you / But after sunlit days, one thing stays the same / Rises the moon / Days fade into a watercolour blur

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This passage, written by Anne Lamott, set the realization that while you may expect to have a certain plot or climax in your story, you cannot rush your way to that point. The story needs room to flow and evolve into the plot, and in some cases the plot may change as a whole as you realize it no longer fits the growth of your characters or the setting, etc. I'd experienced this before when writing a fictional narrative. I had a certain plot, a climax I wanted my story to reach but as I began writing I realized I couldn't just rush to that point, the story would've felt disruptive. And so, I let the story flow by itself, letting it unfold scene by scene. The main plot I wished for still sat in the back of my mind but now I had given room for my narrative to develop on its own.

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This is something I hope to strive towards some day. I'm someone who tends to regret the past, for example: having procrastinated on a project until the very last minute. The regret sets in when I'm faced with the consequences of my actions, then I'm left repeating this one sentence in my mind trying to convince myself what's done is done: "Should've, would've, could've." This sentence is something I've come to repeat one too many times and am not quite fond of. Not only regret about the past, I tend to overthink about the future. I worry about things that won't happen for months or even years. I want to leave behind the feeling of regret, the feeling of anxiety in created in the pit of my stomach from overthinking. I will learn to live in the moment, taking it one day at a time.

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Reading is an escape I find myself looking forward to often. Every book a new world, new characters that I'll inevitably grow attached to, new feelings I won't have felt before. Reading is a world that ranges from fiction to reality and everything in between, leaving no subject untouched.

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"silence isn't lonely.

-things the moon taught me"

P. 34

Silence and the moon are two things I love. It was a different type of peace when I'd look out at the moon in the dead of night, staring at where it hung in the dark sky while the entire house was asleep. My mind quiet as I stand there in that moment, no wandeirng thoughts, just me and the moon. Ironically, something like the moon can be so grounding. It's not bright and loud like the sun but just bright enough to still offer light as it watches over the world. I'm grateful for the silence the moon offers, it allows me moments to myself, ones where I never once felt an ounce of loneliness, just peace.

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"But Dolph's eyes were only for Leena. He watched in helpless horror as her body shook with the pain of her magic being ripped from her. He moved toward her, pushing past his own bone-deep fear of the Brink, but when his fingers brushed against the icy energy of it, he couldn't make himself reach any farther." P. 25

"Maybe there had once been a time when everyone knew magic existed, and certainly there was a time when people feared and persecuted those who had it,..." P. 39

Dolph's suffering as he watches the person he loves gruesomely have the very thing that defines her ripped away because she was born as who she was evoked my deep sympathy. I couldn't help but notice the parallels to real-world events such as the genocide commited on Indigenous people in western countries, including Canada. Just the same as the magicians in the novel who were hunted and murdered, Indigenous people were assimilated, Indigenous children ripped away from their families with the intention to "kill the indian in the child." These people had done nothing wrong and yet were being murdered just for existing (applicable to both the novel and our world). Even until now with genocides still occur across the world because of western countries, but just as they had deemed the magicians dangerous in the novel, they call Indigenous people savages or terrorists, dehumanizing them to the public eyes so no one questions why they are exterminating innocent people. This connection to the real-world evokes a stronger sense of emotion from the reader as it's something so similar to our reality.

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I was hoping to have explored more genres and forms of text/writing by this point so I don't believe I've quite reached my goal. Though I am still quite satisfied with the texts that I have read.

In the future I continue to hold the same goal and hope to read more books as well as broaden my horizons to different genres, such as non-fiction, self-help books, contemporary literature, and etc., as I tend to gravitate towards fictional and poetical writing.