ROAR Post # 5 Slam by Nick Hornby Pages 244 to 309

Beginning this next and final chapter, Sam starts off with the birth of his son, Rufus. As earlier mentioned in the book, Rufus's nickname was Roof. With Rufus being born on September eleventh, Sam moved in two days later in with Alicia. The next morning, Sam wakes up with Roof crying, and the beginning of his previous dreams are starting to happen right before his eyes. Later on he gets into a small fist fight with a stranger, and accidentally kicks him in the crotch area, very similar to what happened in his dreams. Sam also gets into a fight with Alicia about their personal relationship and about how he might have been happy if the other guy, the one he got into a fight with, was the father. Later on, or in the story its a couple of weeks after the fights, Sam gets a call from his father about visiting him with the baby. After that, Sam goes home and starts talking to his Tony Hawk poster about his father and how he would write a book, without his father being in it, and starts to get even more separated from Tony Hawk, up to the point where he thinks his advice is pointless. Sam then gets into worse fights with Alicia that almost have him ending up not seeing Roof again. By the time the book came to a closing, Sam concludes by saying that every story has a beginning, middle, and end, where his story is going to stay in the middle for a long time, and started to answer questions about what happened after the end of the story, or rather the middle.

"It wouldn't be so bad if Roof had looked round and gone, you know, " Hooray! Daddy!" But he didn't, because he was one day old.

When reading this quote from the book, I started to thin that it would really cool if babies would be able to talk the day after they were born. This would mean an automatic super baby, sort of like supernatural powers, like the Fantastic Four. Powers that would have been involved in rays that enhanced their regular human abilities.

ROAR Post # 4 Slam by Nick Hornby pg 184-245

After having meetings with Alicia about her being pregnant, with his mother, her parents, and other strangers, Sam is starting to want his old life more and more as the story progresses. Although, at the same time, Sam was starting to get closer to Alicia's parents as this story developed. Instead of using last names with the, they got so close that they started using first names with one another, even though her parents were already using Sam's first name. Further on into the story, Sam falls asleep again to wake up into another dream. This dream was the same as the one before, where he is starting to feel more omnipresent. After meeting his future with Alicia and his baby, Sam starts to talk more with her family, such as her closest siblings. He also starts to spend more time with his child, and at the same time, his baby has his first words in the story. As he is in his dream, Sam comes to the point where he doesn't even remember his child's name. Then comes the point where Sam is at the end of his dream, having conflict on what to do next, and to seem like he's not from the present, being the past for Alicia. All this starts to get confusing for Sam all at the same time. By the next chapter, Sam admits that he is going to have a baby named Rufus, and also admits that is all that readers will have to know. Now he starts to know more facts about his dreams and reality, such as that he will be getting a baby, and that his mother is going to have one, which doesn't bother him at all because he already saw it coming in his dreams. Later on, in the skate park, Sam finds out that Alicia was in labor, about to give birth to his son any minute.

"Oh bloody hell, I thought. I don't really know my kid's name." (Hornby, 210)

After reading this quote, I thought to myself "FINALLY!!!" because i always hear British people say bloody hell as another way of swearing. It also reminded me of Harry Potter because they were British too. Although, this may be stereotypical because I'm not sure if British people actually say it, or it might just be a way of being funny. Another funny thing that I found about this quote from the text was that Sam didn't know the name of his child until the next child came. Even if it was in a dream, Sam was in a dream, meaning that he had the power to control, or maybe not, not all people do. After thinking all this about dreams, I started to remember that someone told me one day that dreams are based on one's experience and memories.

ROAR Post # 3 Slam by Nick Hornby Pages 123 to 184

In this next section of the book, Sam isn;t seeing much of Alicia as last time. This shows that he and her are getting more and more distant from one another. After going to a new city while having his mother worried sick, Sam finds a job, to be able to support the fact that he will be a father. Sam leaves the fact that he has a pregnant girlfriend ( more like ex-girlfriend), in a way running away, and ended up getting a job where he didn't really expect to have one in. Although, he is getting paid and staying in a hotel, Sam is doing pretty well, but has been away from home for a few months already. Other than being at work, Sam was starting to have some more man versus self conflict about Alicia being pregnant, and starts to see things in three different time frames: the past, present, and future. Then all of a sudden, when Sam was starting to feel high and mighty with his life, he gets a package from his mother, but instead of a regular messanger, it was Alicia, who appears once again in his life to reveal their future from the pregnancy test. The section ends with the plans that Sam and Alicia are going to make in the future, for them, their family, and their baby, since they're going to keep it.

"I was living in three different time zones at once" (Hornby, 140)

After reading this quote, it reminded me of something scifi. At first, it reminedd me of movies like The Matrix, or Star Wars, because he had the ability to live in three different time zones. Sam would immediately know the past, live in the present, and look into the future. This also reminded me of more holiday stories such as A Christmas Carol, with how Scrooge has to go into the past, present, and future, to be able to change his perspective towards Christmas.