The last couple of chapters in this book made me realize how influential our minds really are. Chapters 24 begins with Harold's encounter with Maureen at a coffee outlet. He feels very determined to continue his journey to finish his walk to see Queenie by the help of his followers. On Harold's walk that's accompanied by his pilgrims see Maureen and Rex out in Darlington for what she explains to just be "driving around", pretty believable excuse right?

Truthfully she went all that way in the hopes that she would be able to persuade Harold into coming back home, which does not work out so well.

Throughout Harold's journey, seeing different people along the way as well as adapting to new personalities and behaviours, changes the way Harold perceives things. I guess by him meeting Martina speaking about her marriage, also meeting the famous actor made him become a little more different with his actions, which Maureen senses. Many people idolize Harold for this journey. Maureen notices how different this exposure made him. For example within the coffee shop he is able to easily sign autographs for people without showing any sign of confusion, as if he is a celebrity...like the fame changed him into a completely different man. Even though they have been married over 40 years, it's as if they met for the first time. "Maureen and Harold sat opposite, not side by side. And even though she had drunk tea with him for forty-seven years, her hands shook as she poured. Harold's cheeks hollowed as his frappè shot up through a straw and entered his mouth with a honk"(Joyce, 244). It looks like after the couple of weeks they've been away from each other, they became total strangers because of the awkward small talk they tried to have. Reminds me a little bit of the encounters I've had with the old teachers I've had throughout high school, or even after semesters.

But seriously, having the people that Harold met did impact a small fraction of his mindset. I'm not saying it's a bad thing but having people/things in your life can motivate you positively and/or negatively towards certain goals, which could change they way you act as a whole. The dog that followed Harold though the middle of his pilgrimage was the only companion that he felt was by his side. Talk about a man's best friend. While Harold was reflecting on some of the events that happened to his life, he did not realize that the dog had made a new friend and decided to follow the schoolgirl onto a bus. "He reasoned the animal had made its own decision. It had chosen to walk with Harold for a while, and then it had chosen to stop, and walk instead with the young girl. Life was like that. But in losing his last companion, Harold felt a further layer of skin had been ripped from him. He was afraid of what would come next. He knew he hadn't got it in him to take much more"(Joyce, 268). He lost all of his motivation to continue on his pilgrimage because he felt he did not have any support or motivation to continue  his journey; even regretted turning the offer of going back home with Maureen and tried to call her for her to come back to pick him up. I can connect with this because it reminds me of a series I used to watch called BET The Game, and one specific scene was about how one of the main characters was trying to get his life back on track after his intervention on his drug abuse. After getting cured he explained to his friends and family how with the help of one girl named Tasha, he was able to push through and complete his days at rehab with her motivation and positive energy, even though most of the members in the group that relapsed back onto the drugs they took.

In conclusion, I really enjoyed this book and the question I have for you guy's is, what motivates you?

As Harold continues his pilgrimage, I've gotten a lot more interested because of the many different people he has met along the way. They have given him either the motivation to continue this journey or even have opened his eyes as to why he is doing this pilgrimage in the first place. To continue on from where we left off, chapter 13 begins with Martina offering a helping hand by opening up her house to Harold after his fall.Martina insists he should stay with her and give up on this journey to Berwick because of the injury he's gotten from the lack of physical strength he has. Harold being hard headed, reminding me of myself sometimes, is being stubborn and decides to not fail Queenie by stopping this journey. Basically the motto he is going after is "never say never", following Justin Bieber's footsteps.  

Over the days he spent at Martina's household they begin to share a lot as well as bond as they confess to each other the personal secrets about one another. I found one quotation that was mentioned through their dialogue which was very interesting and yet so very true. "For a while there was only the silence that carried her words. It struck Harold afresh how life could change in an instant. You could be doing something so everyday-walking your partner's dog, putting on your shoes- and not knowing that everything you wanted you were about to lose" (Joyce, 144). Reading this, it sounds to me that he is specifically talking about how we don't tend to appreciate our loved ones enough, and that we could lose them in a matter of seconds. 

This is something I feel that everyone could connect with or at least understand. Connecting this to a novel we all are familiar with, The Namesake, it shares the same concept of losing a loved one. As Gogol isolates himself from his parents, especially his father, he regrets the lack of interaction he had with them after he found out that his father had passed away. He later shows process of conformity that he's going through by going out of his way to do the things that pleased his parents like taking off his shoes when he came inside, or even picking up their calls and visiting more. Personally I can connect to this as well within my own family. My dad works for the United Nations and so he is required to travel a lot. Whenever he comes to visit, my siblings and I usually get sick of the over affectionate care he shows us by calling us everyday about outer where abouts and trying to be in our personal lives. But as soon as its time for him to leave, we are the sadest human beings on earth, and start regretting the times we haven't spent with him when we could.

Overall, I feel that people will go extreme lengths to be with a loved one that may have been taken for granted.

To describe the beginning of this novel by only using one word, faith is the most suitable term that sums up the plot of this book. Throughout chapters 1-13, faith is essentially what keeps Harold Fry motivated to continue his journey to deliver his message to Queenie Hennessy. The little girl from the garage that he encounters on his way to the mailbox introduced him to the concept of faith. “ You have to believe. That's what I think. It’s not about medicine and all that stuff. You have to believe a person can get better. There's so much in the human mind we don't understand. But, you see, if you have faith you can do anything”(Joyce, 15). Harold saw this little girl to be the hope and change he was looking for, which he described, her as the "standing pool of light”(Joyce, 15). To Harold, what he learns about faith gives him the little hope he has for Queenie to survive her diagnosis of cancer. As long as he keeps walking to the hospital, he feels that she will miraculously be cured. Evidently, he believes this idea that the little girl tells him because of the way she connected Queenie to her aunt. Later on in chapter 3, Harold calls his wife using a pay phone to explain his where-abouts. At the end of the conversation he comes to the conclusion that he will be continuing this journey from what he argues is in the best interest for Queenie. "I was talking to a girl at the garage it should be in the idea. She saved her aunt from cancer because she believed. She showed me how to heat a burger as well. It even had gherkins"(Joyce 23). Now Harold has gained confidence and shows this through his certainty to carry on with this un-organized pilgrimage. Personally I feel that with faith, it can play a huge factor that can affect the way all of us think and react to certain situations. The only things that can stop motivating us from achieving a goal is by allowing obstacles to get the best of us. In chapter 5, we see how Harold is hesitant on moving forward when explains the minor setbacks he has with the things he needs to survive. "Harold felt a testing in his gut. It would be better not to speak about Napier. Instead Harold explained how he had set off with the letter for Queenie, and realized it wasn't enough. Before the landlord could point it out, he admitted he had no phone, walking boots, or map, and that he probably appeared ridiculous"(Joyce, 44). I can connect to this idea by relating it to a documentary I watched of my favourite football athlete Jamaal Charles. He was explaining his journey to make it into the big leagues but also explaining the struggle he came from, concerning him financially and his negative surroundings. Overall, If Jamaal's persistence and faith didn't drive him to make his interest into a career, he wouldn't be in the NFL now an praised for his accomplishments. Near the middle of the book, we will understand how strong Harold's faith is by seeing if he continues on his journey.

After finishing this book, my initial thought and reflection of this novel was a cliche everyone is familiar with such as “what goes around, comes around”, in better terms known as karma. As cheesy as this sounds, the message being said here still stands true to its meaning. This is a saying that can affect all of us throughout our whole life time. As readers, we learn in the 8th chapter that Gogol, or should I say Nakhil is having an affair with a married woman he meets at the bar named Bridget. Gogol knowing full well that Bridget is a married wife to a professor that teaches out in Brooklyn Heights, still chooses to meet up with her twice a week to help her cheat on her husband. Disregarding the consequences, Gogol knows that there is no chance they will be caught with the affair they are having, which motivates them to continue the interaction they are having. Throughout chapters 9-11 we figure out that Gogol ended the relationship he had with Bridget because of the guilt he had for her husband. A year later Gogol’s able to restore the friendship he had with his old friend Moushumi and evidently ends up marrying her overtime. Gogol's deeds don't get overlooked becomes essentially what he did to others happened to him. Moushumi’s desire to be with Dimitri lead to the Monday, Wednesday and Friday late night affairs they had that lasted for a month. In a superstitious mindset Gogol had what was coming to him. Personally I feel that you get what you give, and Gogol got what was coming for him. “This is what upsets her the most to admit: that the affair causes her to feel strangely at peace, the complication of it calming her, structuring her day”(Lahiri, 266). Without Moushumi knowing anything about Gogol's past with Bridget, she is able to do exactly what he did when he was in Dimitri's shoes. The reasoning of why she has no sympathy from this situation is the “universe” trying to get back at Gogol's actions. I can connect to this idea because I've witnessed this concept happen to my pet cat. As a kid my cat would always chew on toys and put anything in his mouth. Over time my family members and I would always try to correct him by taking them out of his mouth but he'd continue to do the same behaviours as always. it didn't take too long before he chewed on something and then turned very ill for a couple of weeks. I'm not only referring to my personal experience but this goes to show that there are such things as positive and negative types of karma, and are basically determined with your own moral beliefs and values.

In all honestly, other readers including myself have seen Gogol develop to a more rebellious and less traditional character. By drawing apart from his traditional Indian background, I feel that this is the result of the environment he is in by having his surroundings (peers) transform him into the identity he is long searching for. Most likely theorists would be interested in this topic because it brings up the nature vs nurture debate. I personally agree with the nurture side of the argument because Gogol is living proof of this debate. A prime example from the book that illustrates this reasoning is Gogol trying to convince his parents into changing his name to Nakhil. In the Bengali culture, it is unheard of and even looked down upon to switch your birth given name. It evidently shows that he has taken more of the western culture to have more free will into creating the identity you want to be, one of which is the preference in your name. "It's our way, Gogol, his mother maintained. It's what Bengali's do. But it's not even a Bengali name. He told his parents what he'd learned in Mr. Lawson's class, about Gogol's lifelong unhappiness, his mental instability, about how he'd starved himself to death" (Lahiri, 99-100). The conversation Gogol's having with his parents clearly shows the transformation he has went through on adapting the American lifestyle that he is exposed to everyday. To the readers that have seen the movie "Mean Girls", they can connect the plot to this exact situation. In the movie Cady represents Gogol by her being the new girl in a completely different country. she ultimately changes her beliefs due to the fact that she is associating herself with different cliques and/or groups. This shows overtly by her changing her appearance in order to fit into the group that she thinks she belongs in. As you can tell this movie and this book both have common approaches to showing the reader how the development of a personality is obtained, and I feel that this could ultimately either benefit or destroy the morals of a person

"New on Netflix: House M.D., Titanic, Mean Girls, The Bible Miniseries." 
Reel Life With Jane. N.p., 01 Apr. 2014. Web. 19 Nov. 2015.

"Peer Pressure for Teens Paves the Path to Adulthood." 
WSJ. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Nov. 2015.

It just goes to show the diversity of culture we have around the world today. By only comparing two ethnic groups you can find either some common similarities or major differences of how they perform the same custom. While I was reading “The Namesake” in the first two chapters, it helped me understand the key concepts of having children in the Indian culture, specifically concerning their naming process. The first issue Ashoke and Ashima faced was determining the name of the child, which to them was not a priority at the time after Ashima’s pregnancy. In order to leave the hospital, the doctor will need all documentation to be completed including the child's name to keep on file and on the birth certificate. In Indian culture, they want to choose a meaningful name that gives character as well as preferred qualities in the hopes of having the child live up to its name. “Good names tend to represent dignified and enlightened qualities”(Lahiri, 26). Personally I agree with the opinion of having meaningful names instead of whatever fits right. My mother named me Daniel after the biblical figure in the holy text of Christianity. My mother liked this name because some of the qualities associated with Daniel from the bible are courageous, full of loyalty and a respectful man, which my mother hopes that I will follow. I can connect to the naming process of the Indian culture which by reading this book, helps me understand the difference in culture that they have to the Americans.