The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

A little over a year ago, I read Kristin Hannah’s, The Nightingale. It was an extremely quick read, and I genuinely couldn’t put down the book.  It remains one of my most favorite books of all time.  Recently, Kristin published another novel called The Great Alone.  I read this in Greece, finishing this 400 page book in about four days.  Clearly another quick read!

Leni, a third grader, has grown up for most of her life in the Northwest Pacific.  Her father, Ernt Allbright, a scarred veteran from the Vietnam War is abusive towards Leni’s mother, Cora, yet it is not who he was Before.  He has habitual drinking issues and cannot seem to find common ground with his wife and Leni. Leni tries to convince her mother to leave her husband, yet Cora’s love for her husband is fierce and she refuses to be without him.  Her thoughts and memories are grounded in the time before Ernt went to war and she fails to admit the person her husband has become upon return. 

One day, Ernt receives a letter from the family of a man whom he fought with in the War, which leaves him a house and acres of land in Alaska.  Cora and Leni hesitate about moving to Alaska, but Cora’s attachment and love for Ernt drives her to follow him.  

The Allbrights learn about what it truly means to survive in the wilderness as they prepare for their first winter in the harsh environment of Alaska.  They rebuild the house, tidy up the land, and prepare land for growing crops.  With the help and support from friendly neighbors, Leni and Cora find their ground in Alaska.  Specifically, they are helped by Tom Walker, whose grandfather founded the town, and Large-Marge, a former lawyer from the East Coast.  During the first few weeks in Alaska, Ernt’s temper has been quite placid and for the first time in a while, Cora believes he may be healing in the wilderness of Alaska. 

Meanwhile, Leni attends the local school, where she meets Matthew Walker. The two are inseparable.  Matthew shows Leni around town and some of his favorite places in nature.  There are fewer than ten students in the class so Matthew and Leni spend most of the time together.  Matthew and Leni spend elementary and middle school together, but Matthew leaves the area for high school and Leni is once again left alone with Cora and Ernt. 

When winter finally arrives, Ernt is hit the hardest by the bleak, short days.  His temper becomes capricious again and for the first time, Leni witnesses her father abuse her mother.  However, Cora’s bruises and scars are not invisible to the members of the small town.  Tom Walker and Large-Marge send Ernt off to a work camp and is banished from returning until Spring.  

Through the winters, this proves to be an effective method for avoiding Ernt’s worst mental stages of the year.  Cora and Leni live more freely and feel most at peace when Ernt isn’t home.  When Ernt comes home, it takes all his willpower to avoid abusing Cora and for a little while this works.  

However, peace is broken when Tom Walker proposes to build a hotel in the town for tourists.  Ernt disagrees with Walker and says he came to Alaska to get away from people.  Soon, the two become so argumentative that the town becomes divided between the two ideas.  Downing drinks and getting drunk every night, Cora has no choice but to side by her husband on the issue. 

One day, Matthew Walker returns home from high school in his senior year and implores Leni to go to college with him.  That spring, the two fall deeply in love again and Leni secretly, against her father’s knowledge, applies to the college.  But the young couple’s love cannot remain a secret forever, because Ernt spots Matthew with Leni.  How far will these two go for love with an abusive, overly-protective father on the tail of his political enemy’s son?

Hannah writes a riveting novel about love, connection, morality, and she challenges what it means to love someone.  The ending of this novel absolutely terrified me.  As a reader, it edged on the unrealistic side just a tad, yet Hannah writes so vividly that I found myself constantly telling myself, “no this isn’t real, this can’t be happening!”  Hannah writes with smooth, easy to follow language and never lets the flame of the plot die.  I wouldn’t say this book is an “action” book but it is written in the style of an action plot.  Through the summary, it’s pretty evident that this novel has a fresh take on literature yet it was a breathtaker and a page turner.  I would definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for something a little new to read. 

Greece 2018

A few days after I was released from school, I hopped on a plane to Greece with my family.  Earlier this year, I visited my first country in Europe, Portugal, and Greece I must say, was one very different country.  Its capital, Athens, went on strike against Uber the day we got to the city so there were no taxis to take us to our hotel.  Athens was the third part of Greece we visited, and it resembled the life in a typical city, with high traffic, rambunctious street nightlife, filled with both natives and tourists.  Overall, we went to three different islands in Greece: Santorini, Naxos, and Athens and our vacation lasted 13 days.  Each island was vastly different from the last, with different cultures. 

Santorini may as well be the epitome of a Greek island, most widely known for the three sky blue domes located on the cliffs in Oía.  Santorini has an interesting configuration, there are three major towns located along the main portion of the island and Oía is the last of the three.  Oía is so famous that my family actually visited twice in our four night stay on Santorini, and it is particularly renown for sunset viewage.  It was horrifying crowded on the night we watched the sunset, people we clambered on the castle, filling the restaurants, and crowding all along the sidewalks facing west.  When the sunset ended these massive crowds dispersed throughout the town and perhaps it was the busiest then for the shops as people squished through the narrow streets trying to get as quickly as possible to the bus stop.  In Santorini, the buildings are primarily white, because it becomes extremely hot in Greece throughout the summer (it was nearly 90 degrees in early June!) and the houses are built of a rock/clay material which kept the insides of the house cool.  People in Santorini, at a glance are the masters of building houses on cliffs.  Hotels were even built on cliffs and since cars cannot drive down on the cliffs (there are no roads), people had to drag their luggage to their hotels down the narrow and bumpy roads. 

Three domes

Naxos is presently a fishing town.  Dissimilar from Santorini, the houses are built as high on cliffs and the main part of town is ocean level.  This naturally allowed for a huge rowdy port, and every night seemed to be a festive one.  Restaurants were lined up all along the dock, most with a view of the sunset and the sailboats.  The most famous ruin in Naxos is the Arc of Apollo, and at sunset, the sun set at an angle that shown directly through the arc.  Naxos has an old market/town, located behind the restaurants bordering the docks.  The old town has windy and narrow streets, filled with clothing, jewelry, and souvenir shops.  Restaurants are located around central locations and mini squares in the old market.  The old market was built with white houses, and the frames of the house including the windows and doors were painted bright colors such as yellow, red, and blue.  During our five night stay in Naxos, we took evening walks along the port and amongst the rowdy and musical streets which were truly relaxing.  The sound of the waves was ceaseless.

Arc of Apollo

Our final destination in Greece was Athens.  Athens is known almost solely its ruins.  True to word, we visited Acropolis, which was ancient Athens.  Acropolis was located in an advantageous point on a mountain, so the ancient greeks constructed their city there.  In Athens, it was hot.  I mean, really hot.  The sun never failed to shine and it was over 90 degrees each day we were there.  The neat thing about Athens is that there is both a modern and ancient side to the city, both encompassing a little of the other.  In Acropolis, on the Parthenon (which was the temple for Athena), there was construction.  Modern technology rebuilding and strengthening old structures.  However, much of the modern parts of the city are influenced by the ancient, with sculptures, museums, and other remaining ruins which used to be the suburbs of Acropolis now located in the modern part of the city.  As I mentioned earlier, when we went to Athens, there was a taxi strike which minorly impaired our ability to get around the city; the tourist part of Athens is fairly walkable.  The taxi strike targeted Uber and for the first two days of my stay, there were no taxis.  As soon as the strike ended, it seemed that 40% of the cars on the roads were taxis, especially since June marks the beginning of the tourist season.  

I was very excited to visit Greece because it is quite different from what people typically associate with a European country.  I believe what comes to my mind are old churches, intricate opera houses, and luxury shopping, but Greece is quite different from that.  The architecture is one of a kind (especially the blue domes) and the history of the country is truly extensive and interesting to explore.   

_________________

We also visited Mykonos during our stay in Naxos by ferry. Below are some photos from Mykonos and perhaps the most famous view here is the mills.

Little Venice

Lately, my grandfather, and Melbourne

Golly, it’s been a long time since I’ve written.  It’s also been a long time since I’ve used a computer, to the point where typing feels nouveau. These past three weeks I’ve been off my computer have been some of the most eventful days of my life.  A lot has happened and having not had access to my computer to write, I’m expecting for the next couple of weeks, I’ll be reflecting on everything that has happened in my first month of summer vacation. 

A few days after school ended, I hopped on a plane to Santorini, Greece. However, on our 12th night in Athens, at 4 AM, my dad received a call from my aunt in Melbourne.  

For around a year now, my grandfather has been sick with severe Parkinson’s disease.  That night my aunt called, the doctors had discovered he had an infection.  Overcoming this infection would be difficult, and in that time, the doctors estimated he would only be able to live for another 48-72 hours.  My family was left in a quagmire: it would be too late to wait to finish our vacation, go back home to Boston and then catch a 25+ hour flight to Melbourne.  It would also be too late to catch a flight directly to Melbourne after our vacation directly from Greece because of the time difference.  Our final decision was finalized in a matter of a few hours and by 5 AM, my dad found himself (probably alone) in the hotel lobby booking two tickets to Melbourne for that very night at 11:00. 

My dad and I ended up flying to Melbourne while my mom stayed in Athens for the remaining two days of vacation.  It was a terribly difficult time especially for my dad.  And that morning when we walked into the hospital, even I found myself crying at the sight of my now 80 pound grandfather.  Perhaps it was because I kept thinking back to this photo of him. 

He looked so different now.  His face was slim, and Parkinson’s had destroyed his ability to think clearly and function by himself.  He relied on others to feed him, bathe him, clothe him, every basic function… Going with my cousin, David, my aunt, grandmother, and my father to the hospital hit me with a lot of shock because I had never in my life seen a man so weak.  I’d only seen this stuff on TV, never in front of my face, giving my feeble grandfather a gentle hug. I had never seen a man on the verge of death, potentially sitting in his deathbed, in a hospital, surrounded by other men also on the verge of death.  We were blessed, because that very morning, the nurses informed us that grandfather had responded well to the shot they had given him in hopes of fighting the infection.  My aunt explained this medicine they had given him: it was so strong it could only be taken once, and chances of fighting the infection vitally depended on how well my grandfather responded to it.  

My dad and I stayed in Melbourne for a total of four days and left early in the morning on our fifth day.  It was a constant balance for my dad and I, having to remember to be strong and sensitive around my grandmother, who is bipolar and further struggling to contain her emotions because of the medical state of grandfather.  This trip to Melbourne was supposed to happen in July, well after our trip to Greece.  I remember my aunt telling my dad that while grandfather was delusional and confused (he thought he was still living in China), he wasn’t going to die anytime soon in early June.  I’d believed her until the phone call at 4 AM.  When we left Melbourne, my grandfather still had a little bit of infection, and now, I’m not so sure.  I’m extremely fortunate that I was able to see my grandfather.  Leaving Melbourne and shaking hands with my grandfather on our final day was difficult and the night before our early plane flight, I felt this odd feeling in my stomach.  It was a ball of confusion: I felt joy in spending time with my cousins, uncle, aunt, and grandmother, I felt sentimental about leaving Melbourne, I felt distress having to leave my grandfather, and the thought of home felt odd after spending weeks outside of the US.  

Here was a man who’d given life to my aunt and dad, dedicated his entire life, well beyond retirement to research for the technology and engineering field, come to the US to spend the summer with me about eight years ago, and who I’d inherited my eyebrows from.  Leaving Melbourne, knowing I may never see grandfather, who was still breathing today, ever again was difficult as hell.  

Freshman year reflection

Freshman year is officially over.  It was my first year at Phillips Academy, and time flew by quicker than I thought.  I’ve established aspects of my life on campus that hopefully won’t change next year, such as my friendships.  However, there are parts that I know are going to change as well.  I’m a little bit wary as to how not being the youngest on campus will feel, and what campus will be like without the class of 2018. My dorm gathered for a dorm meeting during our last two weeks and we did a reflection on the year.  I’m going to replicate that exercise.  So here we go…

Favorite memories: WQN Field Night

   Tent Dance

   Tennis match against Exeter

   First hockey game I’ve ever watched 

Appreciation: Thank you to my parents, who drove up every weekend to talk with me.  We always had good conversations, and even though I was always really busy, they were consistently flexible and came when I was free.  Thank you also for making my education a reality.

Thank you to my advisor, for endless nights of discussions about random topics like my friendships, my relationships with different people, and how to talk to people, for giving me motivation, and for embodying morals that I inspire me to be a better person every day. 

Thank you to my friends, for being my go-to people for support, and for helping me relax.  For giving me feedback, and for being honest with me.  

Thank you to my teachers. From each teacher, I’ve learned a lot about the subject they teach but also how to adapt to different teaching styles and how to study differently and more effectively. 

Thank you to my dorm mates for their patience.  This one’s a special one, because I’ve began to learn how to live with other people.  At home, being an only child, I’ve never had to consider the volume I play my music at, when I shower, or how loud I stomp my feet.  

Firsts from freshman year:

• Face mask
  
• Poptart
  
• Living with other people my age
  
• Doing my own laundry
  
• First time watching a hockey game
  
• Sleeping at midnight because of homework
  
• …Plus all the academics…
  

Outlook for lower year:

• Don’t wear a blazer to class every day…:)
  
• I’ll become better gradually at managing my time, so making sure I stick to my schedules and mental checklists
  
• Make time to relax on the weekends (so that it’s not procrastinating)
  
• When I’m trying to study, be in a quiet place where there are no distractions.  This year I’ve learned my studying has been a lot more efficient and effective when I studied in my dorm rather than in the library, which I adopted Spring Term.  I spent less time working and achieved the same results.
  

I think I’ve grown as a person this year.  My study habits are different, my priorities are different, and my friend groups change frequently.  I view challenges a little bit differently thanks to various teachers I’ve been around.  And I’ve become more aware of social issues in our society through attending various club meetings and discussion groups.  It’s been a great year, and as they say, that’s a wrap!