TCWE - Book Post Three (LAST ASSIGNMENT OF THE SEMESTER!!)

In our third discussion we duscussed all the events of the third section.


Winter has escaped the House of Success - foster home she was placed in until she turned eighteen - and is living with someone she never would have expected to be living with, Sister Souljah. Souljah is a big time celebrity with access to all events including concerts, parties - you name it and she was a VIP member. Winter joins her in attending these events in hopes of  creating a new hustle for her by coming up on a well payed man. She sleeps with a rapper (or so she thinks) but when she confronts him, he never recalls being with her. Winter eventually leaves Souljah's place, but not before she is robbed of her money by Souljah's sister, Lauren. Winter goes on a hunt to find Midnight, who she hopes will help her. On the way, she is sidetracked by and old lover, Bullet. She goes with him and is living the high life - aside from the negative aspects of her mother being cracked out and Winter being pregnant and getting an abortion. She becomes Bullet's right-hand woman, assisting him in his life of work and doing what ever he tells her. Unfortunately in the end, Bullet abandons her and she is arrested and sentenced to fifteen years in prison for being caught with his illegal items. Her mom dies in the end, and she sees her father one last time at the funeral.

My group and I discussed:


Why is Sister Souljah in the book when she is the author?
Why isn't Winter overly concerned about her family? 
Why didn't she help her mom stay off drugs or try to get her sisters back?
Why did she abandon the idea of locating Midnight?
Why didn't she snitch on Bullet?
What do drugs do to a community?
How did the title tie into the story aso=ide from her name being Winter?


All in all this book was really good and my group enjoyed it.

TCWE - Book Post Two

My team and I discussed a lot more ideas in this second section of the book.

More has happened because Winter's father is now in jail, there is no money, Midnight abandoned her in Brooklyn, Sterling put her out his house for another girl, she can't trust her friends, her mom is a whole new person, the goverment is after her because she is under eighteen, and she has no idea where to start at getting her life back together.

Santiaga was charged with everything you could name: murder, robbery, weapons, distribution of narcotics, etc. All of his money he had stashed away for situations like this was gone. Midnight was the only one of Santiaga's workers that was clean and not in jail, so he gave Winter three thousand dollars and left Brooklyn for good. Winter wanted to go too, but he said she was a "dumb woman and could never roll with him." She tried to stay at Sterling's again, but he put her out claiming he had "company". Back in Brooklyn, because she was no there, her friends began to pretend they were above her because her family had fallen apart. Her mom was on drugs and looked horrible al the time because she didn't have Santiaga there to take care of her. Winter has nowhere to stay nor any way to get money, and is avoiding being picked up by the cops and aken to a foster home, though eventually she is.

My team and I discussed each of these issues through Level One questions and even Level Three questions :
Will Santiaga (Winter's father) ever get out of jail? Maybe not, the charges were too severe.
Why did Midnight abandon Winter? He thought she was a dumb girl.
What made Sterling finally get rid of Winter? Maybe he realized she was using him and used another girl to make her go away.
Can/should jealousy ruin a friendship? This went unanswered.

We reviewed many ideas in our discussion, and can't wait to continue reading.

TCWE - Book Post One

I've read this book twice before, but even reading it a third time, the book is just as good. Ghetto-born, Winter - the main character and narrator - is the young, wealthy daughter of a prominent Brooklyn drug-dealing father named Santiaga. Quick-witted, sexy, and business-minded, Winter knows and loves the streets like the curves of her own body.


Chapters one through six, so many events occur it was difficult not to continue reading. Winter is sixteen years old when she begins her story. Her father Santiaga taught her to be smart about her actions and how she carried herself as a young lady. 


Growing up with money, Winter never settled for less than what she was worth. She and her family spent money like it was nothing, because it wasn't. Because her father was the man in charge, everyone in Brooklyn respected him and knew not to mess with his family. Winter wanted to show off her body and be with boys, but Santiaga didn't want her with any man who wasn't worth her time. Her mom however, knew what a woman's needs were, and put her on birth control.


Winter's heart was so devoted to the streets of Brooklyn, that when Santiaga moved to Long Island to "keep people guessing", she found every way possible to go back. Santiaga wanted her to stay away without him around, but she snuck and went anyway.


Time passes and drama stirs. Winter's mother demand Santiaga buys her a car so she can get out the house. Without thing, he takes her out with him to buy one. During that trip, Winter's mom is shot in the face by enemies of Santiaga's. She lives, but a war breaks out in Brooklyn.


Winter's birthday Comes up and she once again deceives her parents, by saying she would be one place and be at another. While she if off enjoying herself, the police ransack her house and arrest Santiaga and all his men. Winter's mother at one point too gets arrested, and Winter is stuck with her three younger sisters until they are taken away by the police as well.


She is seventeen and is legally not allowed to live alone, but she avoids being picked up. Winter remembers everything Santiaga taught her growing up about being smart and playing her cards right. She is determined to save her family.


This book is really good.

Response to a Response Post: "Making Jokes"

I chose to respond to this post because it sounded like it was genuinely written, and I agree with it's points. Pedro responed to a post Lhadze wrote about how making jokes are bad because they hurt feelings. Here's what he said:

Lhadze talks about how people can get hurt when there is a joke made about them. I agree that it is wrong to make fun of someone for something that they can't help, but at the same time, we are teenagers and we like to make fun of each other through jokes. For me, I like to make jokes about people, but only to the ones who know how to laugh along and not get so butt-hurt when I say it. I wouldn't make fun of someone if I knew that they wouldn't know how to take a joke. I know my limits and even if I make jokes, I would not take it too far, only with people who I am closer to. If I don't know someone, then of course it would be wrong to poke fun at them.

Pedro was the perfect person to respond to her post. 


There's a difference between "joking around" and intentionally trying to piss someone off. Every teenager is at risk of being made fun of, just because that's life. The people who are making jokes know who it is okay to tease and ridicule, and who it isn't, based on other's reaction. 


Pedro (and others) tease and joke around with me all the time. At one point when it first started, I used to get so aggravated by it. I didn't know how to respond, so I kept my mouth shut and just took it. At this point however, I'm a lot closer with Pedro, so I know he never purposefully tried to make me upset - he noticed something worth pointing out, and made a joke about it. Now, I just laugh along - completely aware of my flaws and imperfections - and joke back. 


I've been in Pedro's shoes as well, making jokes about others but never wanting to hut their feelings.


If you notice, those who are constantly goofing off and teasing people, don't go around the entire school involving everybody. They (we) stay within a group of significant individuals and don't spread out much. Like Pedro said, they know their limits, and even if they make jokes, they don't take them too far - and when they do, it's only with people they are closer too.

 

Book Review

For the past three weeks or so, I – along with my class – have struggled reading How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez. The book is structured into several vignettes, all in reverse chronological order, which made it horrifically complicated to understand. Alvarez's style of writing, according to my research, is intentionally a fictionalized version of her real life. Alvarez successfully includes various themes – such as sexuality, independence – and non-fictional ideas – such as the dictatorship in the Dominican Republic and cultural and societal differences in America – which all builds onto a really good book.

Myself and the entire class had struggles understanding the structure of the book. To my understanding, the Aristotelian theory of a well-knit plot is that it has an underlying structure that promises the reader that the author is in control, and any event an author is telling will eventually make sense. Alvarez however, takes on her own method by telling her story with fifteen vignettes, all in reverse chronological order, which obviously is not a “well-knit plot”.

Imagine trying to make sense of how one event has an affect on another event, because the first event mentioned is actually the result of the event that happened first, but the first event is not mentioned until after you found out about the result. Did that just confuse you? It confused me. Depending on the reader, and on the content, this can be a creative way to write and tell a story. This is essentially Alvarez's structural technique. I had trouble understanding it, but in the end was appreciative of it.

Alvarez's background history plays a major part in all of the books she has written. She was born in the United States, but grew up in the Dominican Republic because her parents favored a dictatorship over the life in America. When her father got involved with trouble however, their family was forced to flee the Dominican republic and head back to the US, to New York.

Her english was moderate, but she did not know enough to be able to communicate in school or with others who only spoke it. The most she picked up from others was that they were not very open-armed to new students, especially to someone who could not speak their language. Her mother encouraged her to believe that the hate remarks she received from other children, were actually statements for her to embrace. This later encouraged Alvarez to begin writing. Throughout high school she wrote stories, took creative writing classes, and didn't let the thought of never becoming a writer discourage her. Not knowing the language forced her to pay close attention the each and every word, resulting in being a great writer.

The “plot” of Julia Alvarez's life is very similar to the stories she writes. In this book, the main characters travel back and forth from the Dominican Republic to America because of the terrible dictatorship. When in America, each member of the family has difficulty adjusting to the language and the change of lifestyle. When traveling back to the Dominican Republic however, some characters find it hard to disregard American culture. Alvarez's style of writing is basically reflected off her childhood and teenage/adult life to the present day.

Although Alvarez uses her personal life as the baseline of the story, there are several underlying themes she brings up – such as independence, sexuality, and culture/society differences. For example, in the first vignette, Antojos, the readers meet Yolanda, one of the four sisters in the book. Yolanda returned to the Dominican Republic from America possibly to stay on a permanent basis. Over the time she had been gone, Yolanda forgot much of her native language, making it difficult to communicate with her family. She stuck out physically from the rest of her family because she dressed informally and wore her hair long and natural, whereas her cousins wore designer pantsuits and colored their hair. She didn't fit in linguistically because she forgot much of her Spanish and could not express herself well. She also had a dramatically different perspective on class than the rest of her family. For some reason I believe Yolanda went back to the Dominican Republic to find out who she really is, because if she was happy in America she would have stayed. This is somewhat opposite of Alvarez's story, but she uses the contrast to bring out the idea of the culture change between life in the DR and life in America.

In the second vignette of the book, The Kiss, Sophia – another sister – had an ongoing conflict with her father for a struggle over control of her sexuality. For a long period of time, Carlos (Sophia's father) forbade her from spending the night with her boyfriend. To enjoy any intimacy, Sophia had to go on vacation. Her desire for sexual relations frustrated her to the point where when her father denied them from her, she ran away. For so long she was denied sexual freedom, and it broke the relationship between her and her father. She believed it was her right to explore her sexuality however she pleased while also enjoying the privacy and independence of adulthood, while her father believed that the presence of a 'loose' woman in his house disrespects his parental and male authority. Nowhere did I find information on Alvarez's sex life, but as you can see she once again portrays a theme of both independence and sexuality in this book.

I could go on forever analyzing every vignette in the story, but my main idea is that although the structure of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents was grueling, the content and writing style was outstanding.

Book Post Tres

      Well, this time around I decided to take a different approach on analyzing this book. Writing about each vignette was, pretty boring. So here is/was my overall opinion of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents:


      First off,  as everyone has agreed, because of  how the book was structured, it was horrifically complicated to understand. I had struggles understanding how one event had an affect on another event, because the first event mentioned is actually the result of the event that happened first but the first event was not mentioned until after we found out about the result. Did that just confuse you? It confused me.


      Second: WOW. Excuse the cliche, but you seriously can not ever judge a book by its cover. This book took an unexpected route that I never imagined it would. From the conflicts between the family members to how sexuality poses a problem for nearly every character, to the cultural and societal differences, etc. It all just plays out so well for me. There were parts I got to while reading that I just set down the book for a moment and said, "The hell did I just read?" then went back again and said, "Wow, I know he/she did not just..." then kept reading and was like, "Damn dude, intense." Most books I read in school don't keep my attention long enough to stay awake - this did.


      I believe the title really fit in perfectly as well. Sometimes book titles are so abstract and seem to have no relevance, until you see the word on some random page in the book but still don't understand its purpose; this thankfully didn't happen with this book. The title did much justice because it was metaphorical-ish yet a literal expression of the overall theme of the story. The girls from the Dominican Republic at a point in their lives ended up in America, and the story just plays out from then on.


      So in the end, I fairly enjoyed this book. On a scale from one to ten, I'd rate it about a seven (points deducted for confusion), and i believe Mr. Sutherland has a way with choosing literature.

What I Want To Be When When I Grow Up

      Ever since I was old enough to understand what college was, I knew I wanted to go. I've always known what I wanted to do when I got older too,  and I have had my heart set on one school. I want to attend the Academy of Art University. I want to be an art teacher one day, and create my own art program in Oakland. But now that I'm older and getting close to leaving the nest, alot of conflicts have come up. 

      I was asked once, “Would you rather be poor with the job you love, or be rich with a job you hate?” It was something I had a hard time deciding, and to this day I still don't have my answer. With a job you love, you have the motivation to wake up in the morning and get to work. You don't stress too much on how much money you make because you have an intense devotion to what you're doing with your life. But with a job you loathe, what drives you to keep doing it? Everyday of you wake up and hate your life. Nobody ever sees you happy because...well, you aren't happy! Yeah, your bills are paid, but what then?

      With today's economy people don't have much leeway to "follow their dreams".  At young ages people have big ambitions, but as they get older, they don't seem to have the same intentions for their future that they once had. This somewhat upsets me because I don't know if I will be able to persue my career one day. Artists don't make much money. Teachers definitely don't make as much as the should. I have no idea what an art teacher will be making.

      I've never known what else I wanted to do with my life - art is my passion. And my even bigger passion is helping others express their creativity. I want to be an art teacher because art is an expression of creative skill and imagination. Art programs have sadly been cut from public schools, and my dream is to bring them back. In middle school I loved going to art class - it let me relax, unwind, and let loose all the stress I had from any academic classes. I want the next generation of kids to be able to have that same experience.

Book Post Numero Dos

The second section of the book was much more riveting than the first section.


      In A Regular Revolution, there were a lot of family conflicts. The four sisters were exposed to casual attitudes toward sex and drugs in the United States, which evidently did not go down well with their parents. The girls roam around freely and aimlessly as the parents try to find a balance between American culture and original culture, so that the family roots can be maintained , supported, and celebrated. Unfortunately, the girls disappoint their parents (the mother mostly) because they do not behave as good as she believes Dominican girls ought to. This confirms her fear that they have lost their connection to the culture, and that she has failed in her effort to instill in them the values they grew up with.


      In Daughter of Invention, the mother is trying to blend in with America like her daughters do. She attempts to invent useful and profitable gadgets to reflect her desire to find a place for herself within stereotypical America. Her role as a mother is different from when she was in the Dominican Republic, and now she wants to create a new identity. She supports Yolanda through her struggles at school with the satisfaction that with many trials and tribulations, she is now the best American mother she can be to her kids.


      In Trespass, Carla is terrified and humiliated by men in America. She is ridiculed by younger men for her accent and inability to speak or comprehend english. Carla longs for the familiar and comfortable home she left behind in the Dominican Republic, as any girl her age might after moving a long distance. She encounters a pervert, and though she was able to explain the situation to her mother, she had much difficulty explaining to the police. They did not have enough information from her to find a man, and Carla felt unprotected and humiliated. 


      In the last two vignettes of the section, Snow and Floor Show, Yolanda's vocabulary grows and better prepares her to interact with American culture, whereas a family outing turns out to be an enormous embarrassment for all involved with the family, despite them all being on their best behavior.

Not In the Mood for A Response Post

      After aimlessly searching, Kaila Belgarde's post caught my weary eyes with something like this:

There are two ways to handle situations in life; you can do things on your own or you can do what everyone else is doing.  I think that depending on the situation either can be a good idea. Doing things own your own is a good thing.  You learn independence and responsibility. Doing things on your own allows you to make wise decisions about things you do that can majorly affect your life. Unfortunately a lot of people are incapable of making their own decision and are forced to rely upon the capacity of others.  This can sometimes get people into trouble...In doing things on your own you can kind of learn from your mistakes and get a better sense of what the world is like for yourself.  You can also rely on our own knowledge and not have to go to others to ask.

      Making the decision to be independent or to be a follower is much harder than it may seem. And this concept can apply to anything: for example, style of clothes. People have this obsession with Hollister clothes now, and when I ask people who have never worn it before that wear it now, I get responses like "Oh, I don't know. My friends were wearing it and I liked the style."


      Independence and responsibility rely on the person's ability to understand that it is important to develop leadership skills. Sometimes when one does things on their own, they can learn the hard way not to do them again, so maybe in this instance it is better to do that something with a friend. On the other hand, learning the hard way once allows one to educate others not to follow suit. Is that good? I think it is.


      My writing sucks. But I really liked Kaila's honesty and analysis on the idea of a leader versus a follower. I can expand better, at a different time.
      

I can't be proud anymore.

January 1st, 2009 at 2:15am, Oscar Grant was shot and killed at Fruitvale BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) Station, by BART police officer Johannes Mehserle. 

      Officer Johannes Mehserle and another officer were restraining Grant, who was prostrate and allegedly resisting arrest. Officer Mehserle stood, drew his gun and shot Grant once in the back. Grant turned out to be unarmed. During his court testimony, Mehserle said that Grant then exclaimed, “You shot me!” Grant was pronounced dead the next morning at Highland Hospital in Oakland. It was all caught on camera.

      In the days following, the citizens of Oakland took over the city in efforts to protest Grant’s death. In other words, they rioted. Breaking business windows, burning and flipping over cop cars, discontinuing public transportation routes; they caused mayhem throughout the entire city. Mehserle was eventually arrested and tried in court.

      On July 8, 2010, the jury returned its verdict: Mehserle was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and not guilty of second degree murder and voluntary manslaughter. Mehserle Initial protests against the ruling were peacefully organized; however, looting, arson, destruction of property - people broke the gate and windows of Foot Locker and cleaned the place out -, and small riots broke out after dark. Nearly 80 people were eventually arrested, though many of them were not originally from the area.

      Today is November 5, 2010 and the judge has decided to sentence him two years jail time with credit of 292 days, meaning he will serve under two years for killing Oscar Grant. Oakland is pissed.

      Now I don’t even feel safe stepping out of my house, because the citizens of Oakland do not know how to better express their anger for something. They destroy their own town and don’t realize how that makes us as a city look. I love my city, but I wish everyone in it knew that we aren’t getting anywhere by robbing Foot Locker and blowing up police cars. 

      It makes no effing sense, and I’m sick of it.

      Rest In Peace, Oscar Grant.

Book Post Numero Uno

      Love, independence, sexuality; these are very big themes within the first one hundred or so pages on this book, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents.

     In the first vignette, Antojos,  we meet Yolanda. Yolanda returned to the Dominican Republic from America possibly to stay on a permanent basis. Over the time she had been gone, Yolanda forgot much of her native language, making it difficult to communicate with her family. She stuck out physically from the rest of her family because she dressed informally and wore her hair long and natural, whereas her cousins wore designer pantsuits and color their hair. She didn't fit in linguistically because she forgot much of her Spanish and could not express herself well. She also had a dramatically different perspective on class than the rest of her family. For some reason I believe Yolanda went back to the Dominican Republic to find out who she really is, because if she was happy in America she would have stayed.

      In the second vignette, The Kiss, Sophia had this ongoing conflict with her father for a struggle over control of her sexuality. For a long period of time, Carlos (Sophia's father) forbade her from spending the night with her boyfriend. To enjoy any intimacy, Sophia had to go on vacation. Her desire for sexual relations frustrated her to the point where when her father denied them from her, she ran away. For so long she was denied sexual freedom, and it broke the relationship between her and her father. She believed it was her right to explore her sexuality however she pleased while also enjoying the privacy and independence of adulthood, while her father believed that the presence of a 'loose' woman in his house disrespects his parental and male authority.

      In vignette three, The Four Girls, childhood stories are told about all the girls by the mother. Some are positive - like when  Carla really wanted red sneakers, and the family improvised with white sneakers so she could have them - and some were negative - like when Sandra was in the mental hospital. Each of the stories were told with the mother's ability to create a reality and history for the family that is more comfortable and positive by redefining the more difficult moments her daughters experienced.

*I'm way over the word limit now.

      The fourth and fifth vignettes are about Yolanda – her descent into madness and her inability to communicate with other people, along with cultural differences between Dominican and American attitudes toward sex and relationships.

Reflec-flec-flec-tion Essaaaay

      My sophomore year has reflected much off of my freshman year. The mistakes I made then are the mistakes I detect immediately now. One class that has been especially distinct from last year is English 10. Ever since eighth grade, I have been incessantly used to writing analytical papers and essays, I was bordering on the thought that I had lost all of my writing creativity. From deceptive introductions, to featureless concrete details, to scheming illusionary conclusions, I began to despise English, which was once one my most favored classes. In English this year, having a blog that permits exemption from mind-numbing analysis helps me exercise methods of editing and revision, and appreciate the composition produced. 


      On my blog I have flexibility, which helps the flow of what I am writing. Last year my usual editing and revision process was a bunch of nonsense; it did not reflect what my opinion of the piece was, and the tone I was required to write in did not display me as a satisfactory writer, whatsoever. What bothered me most – in writing as well as in school generally – is I am often not allowed to write without constrictions. When I would write my essay or paper, I would scan and scrutinize them again and again, to edit them in such a way that they would meet the expectations of my teachers. (It very much annoyed me that teachers were very reluctant to accept papers with even a miniscule amount of an artist's inventiveness.) Other times, I would not even revise the paper myself – I would allow an upperclassmen tutor to revise it for me, and I would just leave it at that. It frustrated me that my best wasn't being put into my essay, but for the sake of my grade in the class, I did not dwell on it. At this moment, the blogs I come up with for class do not require a first or second draft, because the ideas come to me like ants to a picnic. For example, in the blog Change For Who? You? Nahhhh, I wrote about something I sincerely believe in:

“The thing about society is that people - a lot of them being mostly women - want to alter something about their body. They don't appreciate what they have, they complain, then they try to change it. Some want to look like celebrities, some like their friends, who the hell knows. They may have a good or bad reason as to why, but most often it is media influence, peer pressure, or strictly unhappiness. Dumb right? What I believe people need to realize that everyone looks different for a reason. If everyone looked the same, why would we have the word originality?”

 My individual opinion is much less demanding to construct than it is to write an entire analytical essay. With the words vomiting from my brain, all I have to worry about is spelling and grammar check.

      I have surprised myself this year with my ability to produce such exceptional work (in my opinion, of course) under time and workload constraints. I compared an essay I composed lat year on The Color Purple last year, to the Q Essay I wrote this year about a month ago; the disparity between language, diction, syntax, tone, etc. was shockingly conflicting. I realized that being given the leeway to write as I please, and in a tone I am contented with, has given me practice with writing acceptable papers on impulse, without having to BS them. With the blogs I have been writing I've been actually putting in serious thought and strength. In one response blog, I approached a topic I at first though I was familiar with. With second though however, I seen there was much more I did not know about. I surprised myself by being able to analyze this topic in depth enough to write 350 word blog on it.

      The way I write and the way I think about writing has been altered by having a blog; and I love it. I think it is very important for students – especially in our age group – to be able to express their strengths, no matter what subject. Mr. Sutherland allows the class to apply themselves to the very best of their abilities, and he doesn't overly scrutinize our work content or ridicule our ideas. A blog stands way over on an essay in my opinion, because blogs can represent the personality of the author; their personal experiences, views and/or hobbies. It also can include the most random things like pets, comics, celebrity gossip, personal diary etc, the list can go forever. Even with a professional approach we can include blogs that offer informative information, products and/or services (I doubt anyone is doing this, but it's an available option).

      In conclusion, I think that my performance in English class has increased to the greatest expectation that I can set myself to. My essays are more suitable, my flow and tone reflects me as a writer, and I really enjoy the class. This is my reflection.

***pretty sure it didn't meet the word limit, I apologize :)

Night Essay

* Mr. Sutherland, this isn't my best work at all. Please consider that.


     Most of us decide our fate evryday we live. In the book Night, Elie's fate is determined for him. At a concentration camp,  his fate can be death at any moment. His motive is to survive, but there are conflicts holding him back. Elie's struggle to avoid his fate is hindered by the complicated relationship he must endure with his father.


      In the beginning, Elie is seperated from all of his female relatives and is only with his father. Being that is the only family member he has left, Elie is determned to keep him alive. However, considering the circumstances they are under, keeping his father as well as himself breathing is not going to be easy.  Another victim reminds him,  "Don't forget that you're in a concentration camp. Here, every man has to fight for himself and not think of anyone else...even of his father...don't give your ration of bread and soup to your old father...you ought to be having his ration (pg. 105)." Elie wants to save his father, but becomes conflicted because he also wants to save himself. If he had kept his food as well as his father's, it'd only be one meal closer to his father's death, which Elie so badly wants to prevent. Elie is risking his survival in the camp by trying to save his father, thus pushing himself to his sure death. His conflict continues as his father brings about more trouble.


      As time passes in the concentration, abuse from the authorities - also known as SS officers - gets worse. The men in the camp who were strong and useful were allowed to be kept alive, while those who were weak and useless were put to death. Elie's dad was growing older and becoming weak and unable to keep up with the officers expectations. When he lied back, sick and craving water, Elie watched as his father was beat up, but did nothing. "The officer came up to him and shouted at him to be quiet...he went on calling me...the officer dealt him a violent blow on the head...I did not move. I was afriad. My body was afraid of also recieving a blow (105-106)." Elie's father was at his most vulnerable point, when he needed his son the most, but could not reach him. Elie ignored his father's claims in fear of his fate, death. Had Elie helped or even protected his father from the SS officer, he may have gotten a blow to the head himself, maybe even worse than his father had. This may have resulted in is father's death, but Elie allowed it so long as it kept him alive. He ignored his father for the saftey of his own being.  The sooner he realizes his father is a nuisance to his survival, the sooner he wants his father gone all together.


      By a certain point, Elie wants nothing more but to live through his horrid journey. With his father tailing on toe, Elie realizes it may not be easy to survive. At the same time, he is conflicted because he wants to save his father as well. As his father grew old and sick, his death became eminent. Elie could only do so much for his father, but limited his services for fear of the fate that may come. Elie woke up to his father's bed, replaced with another person. Now that he was finally gone, Elie was relieved to say, "I did not weep...and, in the depths of my being...I might perhaps have found something like - free at last! (106)" Sad to say, his father had died, but he was happy. He no longer had to feed or protect another (barely) living being, and is able to avoid the possible fate he had coming with his father in toe. Elie could finally care for only himself, and bear any small tragedies he had before him. His biggest conflict was over.


       Elie's fate of death was avoided by overlooking his biggest conflict - his father. Elie strived to keep his self and father alive, but in the end knew he could not. His father's death ultimately ended with Elie's neglect. To avoid a terrible fate may require sacrifices. Elie successfully avoided his fate.

MAX IS THE BEST!!!!!!!!!!!

MAX IS THE BEST!!!!!!!!

Response Post: The Belief In...

Quite frankly our life can be a little boring. And perhaps my inclination to think that there is more out there (wherever that is) comes from the fact that I can feel like our life is less boring if there is something mysterious and new out there (again, wherever that is). Sometimes I don't think life is boring at all, but during the times I feel like all we do is breath, eat, sleep, work, play, die, and other things, I think that life can seem pretty boring. So I start to think about additional realities hidden behind reflections, I think about if your soul flies out of your body when you die, and if love is an actual bond that two people can share without question, or if it's just a masked heart breaker that a few of the freshmen know about and I don't.  - Amber Gomez

 At the age of fifteen, there is only so much I can do with my life; especially living in a home under extraordinarily protective parents. I am of the same mind/opinion as Amber; life is boring, but to what extent can we go to change it?


My weekly ritual consists of: waking up, going to school, coming home to do homework, and sleeping. Throw a few snack breaks in and you have my life Mon-Fri. Saturday and Sunday, never too much thrill out of those days either.


When people submit themselves to a constant, tedious, uninteresting, unexciting, uninspiring, unstimulated life, they can collapse under such boredum. The one thing that saves them (along with myself, and Amber) from absolute desolation, is the belief that there is something inexplicably remarkable in the world, that we can one day get to. Day to day we console in ourselves. We say that it will one day change; that one day we will discover the answer to a hidden question; that one day life will reveal a new significance; that one day we will satisfy our curiosties.


I tell myself life isn't so bad. It could be worse right? 


Amber and I allow ourselves to think about the impossible, or the unanswered, or the ignored, aspects of life. It reminds us that, yes, life can be and is boring; but we know how to look through and beyond that.


Great blog Amber, I loved it :)

"So where is He...?"

The idea of religion makes a big impact in the story Night, as well as society today. 

When tragedies occur, when things go wrong, or life is downright unfair, people ask, "Where is God when we need him?" The idea that God is all-knowing and all-powerful leads his followers to believe that life will be right with him in charge. This entitles the assumption all misery can be restored by Him alone.

Elie, from Night, had questionable feelings about his religion and the purpose in praying. Though he believed in his religion and conformed with it immensely, he was uncertain why. By this time, Elie was in the concentration camp with numerous others. He confirmed his rebellious feelings toward God after he was separated from his family, witnessed deaths by massive numbers, and had his property, religion, and identity stripped away from him. For the first time, Elie felt revolt inside him. "Why should I bless His name? The Eternal, Lord of the Universe, the All-Powerful and Terrible, was silent. What had I to thank Him for? (pg. 31 par. 4)" In his eyes, if there truly was a God, he was forsaken by Him.

I personally have had mixed feelings on the idea of religion. People claim that "everything happens for a reason" or "God makes things happen for a reason"; in other words, all occurrences happen intentionally. What puzzles me is, when do we find out that reason?

The idea of God is a controversial one, so take no offense on anything I ask or say.

What I believe society does (those who are religious, of course) is allow their life to be run by the belief that there is a supernatural being, in the sky, watching and controlling their lives. That concept, personally, scares me.

If there truly is a God up there, do we really want to believe (s)he has complete jurisdiction over lives, and scrutinizes our every mistake? And, if God permits or generates the most unfortunate of events, what is our praise and faith really doing for us? Do all people believe dreadful; events aren't so bad, because God commands them or authorizes them to be done? And if God controls the Earth, why isn't the world in peace like we so desperately want it to be? 

I can go on for days with questions that may or may not have answers, but I wrote this post in relation to Night, as well as to get some sort of response.

Have fun.

Gateway Drugs: Prescriptions/Anti-Depressants & Marijuana

Prescription drugs and Anti-Depressants are two very common drugs used by teens. The drugs are often already in the user’s home or can be easily prescribed by a doctor. This can make the teen feel comfortable with using them, and help legitimize their reason for doing so. 

Teens also seem to believe that prescription drugs are safer and less addictive than street drugs because many people use them. Whether they are safer or not, addiction to these drugs has become a serious problem. 

“It is not uncommon for abusers to exhibit drug seeking behaviors - going to several doctors...reporting lost or stolen prescriptions...in an effort to obtain their drug (toftampa.com).” Once a teenager has become fixated on these drugs, he or she will use any excuse in order to be given more. It becomes unhealthy for their body to constantly consume additional unneeded drugs. 

Then, when the teen becomes bored with prescriptions or feels they aren't getting the satisfaction they crave, they turn to something slighty more extreme than what is in the medicine cabinet.

Marijuana is usually the first drug a teen turns to when buying drugs off the streets. It is the most common and easiest drug to get a hold of, and the teenager becomes introduced to a whole new territory.

Teens may turn to marijuana because they want to fit in, because they are stressed, or simply because they are bored. However, a very common reason is that they want the “high” people get when smoking it. Thus, addiction kicks in. 

It seems that “[m]arijuana addiction is simply an uncontrollable urge to possess and use the drug. Those with marijuana addiction are not able to stop using the drug even if they wish (marijuana-addiction.net).” The addiction isn't necessarily within the body, but within the mind. As the user becomes more frequent in buying and using the drug, they gain an obsession with doing it more, and it becomes their main priority. 

Smoking marijuana becomes more of a social pastime rather than an exciting illegal activity. 

The drugs teens are exposed to in society can greatly affect how the rest of their lives turn out. Addiction is something that is not easy to break away from, which is why teenagers must do their best to stay away from drugs, and know there is always a better path.

Q's Insecurity - Essay

Q molds himself into what he gathered others wanted him to be, therefore he is immensely insecure.

Q's instinct make him wary of his surroundings, yet fearful of the residents. When Q first arrives to the land where there are no dinosaurs, he does not know how to react. Q is aware of the reputation dinosaurs have and he ceases to wonder if the others know who he really is. After his first encounter with them, he thought, “... I would never have imagined it possible to talk like that with a non-dinosaur, and I was very tense...(pg. 98)” Q's instincts taught him to be wary of these creatures. Speaking to one so nonchalantly made him edgy and fearful. The fact that he was incredibly out-numbered added to his worries. Had he told them he was a dinosaur, what the non-dinosaurs resented most, they surely would have shunned him – or worse, killed him. Because of this, he is caught between two worlds in hopes of survival. To remain alive, he settled into his new habitat.

Q builds personal relationships that only intensify his insecurity. As Q settles into the life of a non-dinosaur, he becomes interested with one particular girl – FernFlower. When they conversed, she only told him of dreams she had of dinosaurs. Some were peaceful, others spine-chilling. He felt discredited over these dreams she had, yet he wanted to embrace her and be her comfort. He wanted to seize a moment of affection, but “[n]othing too intimate; [he] had never dared touch her (pg. 101).” Either of of fear or respect, Q decided not to clasp FernFlower the way he wanted. She may have dreamed of dinosaurs, but had she encountered a real one, her fondness of them would have shifted. Q knew this, so he continued to let her be convinced that he was a non-dinosaur, though the real Q was inside him, waiting to rupture. Soon enough, that happens.

Though Q is adjusting to the life of non-dinosaurs, his insecurities can no longer be confined inside him. Q continues to allow FernFlower to tell him of her dreams, but eventually he can bear no more. With a sudden burst of pride, he bursts out: “Why do you bore me with these dreams of yours? You can't dream of anything of sentimental nonsense! (pg. 107)” Though it is does harshly, Q finally allows his inner anger to come out as a dinosaur. After all the time he spent deceiving the non-dinosaurs, Q firmly tells FernFlower how he is through with her nonsense. By allowing his emotions to intensify within, his outburst only proved to others how dreadful dinosaurs really are.