Response to "Response to Speak 2"

This is something interesting that I found in Jay's blog that I like to talk about:

“One of the interesting things that we discussed about was how isolated she seemed in her life. (Melinda) We thought that she seemed isolated because she had no friends at all, except for the new girl that she had a one-sided friendship with. Also, in her family life, she was very isolated at home. She did not have much contact with her parents, and when her parents came home, all she would do would be to go upstairs into her room while her parents left her alone and watched t.v in their living room.”

Sadly, this is one of the horrible truth in life. Not everyone's life is perfect and some may have it way better than others. The character “Melinda” seems to be an perfect example for this theory. As to what Jay and his group described the lifestyle of Melinda to be, it reveals to me that she is one of those people that have truly been hurt inside of her heart. A person that has been isolated by everyone around you including your family is a person that can say that they truly know the meaning of pain. The pain of knowing that there is no one out there that you count on and the pain of knowing that no one is out there that would look out for you.

In my opinion, I truly believe that nobody in this world should be treated in such a way. Everybody deserved to have a good family and good friends around you. However, what I'm saying right now is nothing more than wishful thinking. The sad reality of life is that there will always be a person out there in the world that has a life like Melinda. In the hope of having a better future though, I hope everybody in the world can understand what people like Melinda are dealing with, and if they truly understand, they would be willing to help by being there for that person and becoming a person that people like Melinda can truly count on.

Final Group Discussion: the curious incident of the dog in the night-time

After I finished reading the curious incident of the dog in the night-time by Mark Haddon, I felt like the ending of the book needed a better resolution. This was one of the things that we talked about in our final discussion for this book. In my opinion, the relationship between Christopher and his father could have still been further explored since the readers of this book didn't really know if Christopher have fully forgiven his father or not.

Another thing that we talked about was about the topic of why Christopher always relied on violence so much. For example, every time he feels danger around him, he would always hold onto his Swiss Army knife:

“And I stood there and I opened my Swiss Army knife in my pocket to make me feel safe and I held on tight” (page 170)

I told my group that the Swiss Army knife symbolizes an object of security for Christopher. It is an object that has the power to provide him with safeness because violence is one of those only things that people like Christopher with Autism seem to think that can truly keep themselves safe.

Another thing that we talked about was one of the major and overall theme of this book. I thought the overall theme of this book was redemption from Christopher's father. The book started out with the death of a dog which later found out by Christopher that his dad was the one that committed the murder. After the experience of Christopher runaway, his dad then realized how important Christopher really is to him, which is why throughout the end of the book, Christopher's dad desperately tried to make Christopher understand that all of the things that he did was for the sake of Christopher. In order to bring redemption to himself, he bought Christopher a dog in the hope of making up for the dog that he killed.

In conclusion, this book is a really good book and it is especially enjoyable because it was written in perspective of a character that have Autism which really made the book unqiue and interesting to read. The only downside that I felt toward the book was that it ended in a way that made me wanted more which really doesn't really seem to be such a bad thing.

Response to "Into the wild by Jon Krakauer book 2nd response/ review"

This is something that I found on David's blog that I thought was interesting to write about:

I believed that Chris had lived an abnormal life because he didn't want to be successful in college but rather explore nature. He ran away from home. He enjoyed being by himself much more that hanging out with the friends that he makes. He donated all his money instead of using it on his trips. On the other hand, I also thought that it was reasonable because he had many family problems. The parents constantly yelled at each other so only his sister was close to him.

This small summary of the book "Into The Wild" by Jon Krakauer really intrigued me to pick this book up. It sounded really interesting because it is amazing that someone would do all of those things to experience the life of the "wild". Personally, the thought of leaving everything behind to live a life of complete freedom is just mind-blowing to me. It is also something that I would do if I could because the idea of living in the wild by myself seemed to be such an incredible opportunity to me. There wouldn't be anything to worry about at all except for finding of and that shouldn't be too hard since food is everywhere in the wild.

I could also see why doing this sort a thing is not such a positive thing to do since it could ruin the relationship of your family and friends. Like David mentioned in his blog, one of the reason why Chris left on this incredible adventure is the fact that Chris is having family problems. Personally, family is really important to me. The idea of leaving your family when your family already is having problem seemed to be not such a good thing to do. So in a way, gaining ultimate freedom is not such a good idea when you have to make the relationship of your family even worse. In conclusion, this book sounded really interesting, and it really intrigues me to find out how Chris's adventure will end up.

Second Group Discussion: the curious incident of the dog in the night-time

There were many interesting things that was said in our second group discussion about "the curious incident of the dog in the night-time" by mark haddon on Friday. One thing that our group talked about was how Christopher felt after reading the letters that revealed that his mother was still alive and that his dad lied to him this whole time. We thought this was an interesting topic to talk about because since Christopher have Autism, the way how he react to these letters would be very different from what a normal person would react. One person in our group also brought up the question about if Christopher was giving out any emotion of sadness or anger during the moments after he finished reading.

In a way, I felt that Christopher seemed really emotionless but just don't know how to express it after he reading the letters. This is how he responded to his father, after his father was trying to plead for forgiveness after realizing Christopher has found the letters that he tried to hid from him:

"And I didn't scream. And I didn't fight. And I didn't hit him." (page 115)

This action of emptiness from Christopher really emphasize the fact that something inside of him has been broken into pieces of hollowness, and just have no idea how to express it in the outside. We mentioned in our first group discussion of Christopher having Autism made him hard to distinguish people's emotion seemed to also reflect to not being able to express emotions himself either. The way how he reacted to the letters prove this.

Another interesting thing that my group talked about was the way how Christopher's brain work. Although we talked about this a lot already in our first group discussion, we dug into it even more in this discussion. The reason why we kept going back to this topic is probably because of how unique his brain really is and the fact that it had really impacted the story thus far. Many things about Christopher's brain were revealed in the second part of the book. We learned that his brain worked like a film:

"And when people ask me to remember something I can just simple press Rewind and Fast Forward and Pause..." (page 76)

This really showed how amazing and abnormal his brain worked compared to other people's. In conclusion, this discussion went pretty well and it helped me gain many new insights on Christopher's characters overall.

Response to "The Purpose Behind the Game"

This is something that I found in Leon's Blog that I thought was interesting to talk about:

I thought that the I.F. is planning on brain washing these children while they are in Battle school. They are planning to build an army in order to stay in power like Dink said in the book. The I.F. played the videos of the buggers invading Earth was a method of propaganda. They want to keep humans in fear so they would all look up to the I.F. for help. This way, the I.F. can stay in power and do whatever they want to do.

From what I read from his post, the “Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card sounded like a pretty interesting book. It made me feel like it is book that have a lot of deep meanings drilled into it. Even though, it sounded cliché because of the fact that is about humans fighting aliens, I feel like it is a lot deeper than it seemed. If I think about how the events in this book relate to life like what Leon did, I could see that this book can reflect upon the many ways of how our modern society work.

From what I know in history, many countries gave out many propaganda about the horror of doings from other countries to make the people feel like they need to rely on the governments' or kings' powers in order to survive. By doing so, the higher-ups would not have to worry about getting kicked out of their power positions, but instead they just ended up having to get the people in it's army to get stronger and stronger in order to fend other countries if they do decide to invade. In this case, the I.F. brained-wash children in battle school to make them really strong, so they wouldn't have to worry about getting beat and ended up losing their power because of their loss against aliens.

In conclusion, these kinds of analysis really brought out the fun of reading books. The “Ender's Game” seemed to be a really good book to read because it is a science-fiction that reflected itself to how our modern society work despite the fact that this book take place way in the future, but this irony is what make this book so interesting to think about.

First Group Discussion: the curious incident of the dog in the night-time

Based off the first group discussion that we had in class, it had given me a lot of of new insights on "the curious incident of the dog in the night-time" by Mark Haddon. One thing that we talked about was the characteristic of Christopher who is the main character and narrator. We talked about the uniqueness of the way how his mind work and how it impacted the story. This conversation led to the topic about the relationship between Christopher and his mother.

I believed that Christopher didn't really care about his mother as much because the way he acted toward his mother death didn't seem really sad at all:

“But when Mother died she didn't go to heaven because heaven doesn't exist” (page 32)

The view from the people in my group, however, were different from mine. They pointed out that Christopher do care about his mother but because of his disorder, he is not able to express it fully in the book. This is one part from the book that someone in my group mentioned to prove their point about Christopher did showed affection for his mother:

“I said I would make her a Get Well card, because that is what you do for people when they are in hospital” (page 37)

Even though, this was suppose to proved their point on how Christopher shared affection for his mother, I could also say it helped prove my point even more. The part of this sentence that said “this is what you do for people in hospital” made me feel that Christopher made the Get Well card just because he felt obliged to do so and now from his own good will.

Another thing that my group talked about was the way how this book is written. It is written in a way where it would jump from the “main” story about the dog incident to telling more about Christopher himself. I thought this was pretty interesting because it made it felt like I was reading two books in one. Someone in my group also mentioned that the book was written this way because it reflected the way how Christopher think since his mind doesn't work exactly like the average person would. I thought these conversations were quite interesting, and it definitely made me think more about the uniqueness of this book.

A Book Written in Unique Methods Filled With Deep Meanings

Questions 1 and 4

After reading “How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents” by Julia Alvarez, my overall thought of this book is that it was quite an interesting read. In a quick summary, the book was about a girl named Yolanda and her three sisters learning to adapt to the American Life Style over their previous life in the Dominican Republic. In a sense, I feel like this transition between the two different lifestyles symbolize changes in innocence. This book also might sound simple at first, but it is one of the most complicated books I have ever read because of the uniqueness of the writing methods that Alvarez uses throughout the book in order to hide her true purpose.

One way how she formats her book that really catches my eyes is the fact that she written this book in reverse chronological order, and this means that this book is not in order from when Yolanda and her sisters were still living the life in the Dominican Republic to when they arrive to America. Instead, the order of these events are opposite. This made the reading confusing to read because it made it hard to follow the sequence in the book. As I continue to read the book without giving up, I begin to realize the purpose Alvarez writing this book in reverse chronological order in the first place.

At first, I thought that as the Garcia girls get older, the story would tend to get more intense, but this was not the case. Instead, the intense moments tend to happen more when they are young. This allow me to foreshadow throughout each parts of the book that it was going to get more intense as the reverse chronological order of the book progresses. The reason why I think Alvarez made it more intense when the Garcia Girls were younger was because she wanted to emphasize the fact to the readers that when people are young, their sense of feeling is much more sensitive to experiences that they go through. A little kid don't have much experiences in life so each new experience that a little kid goes through would leave him a bigger mark than a person that has already have deal with tons of experiences in their past. This ties deeply into innocence because when a person is young, our innocence is still there but as we grow older and receive more experiences in life, that sense of innocence slowly begins to disappear. What this means is that innocent people tends to feel more intense when certain moments happen to them. This shows that when the Garcia Girls are older, nothing really intensify them anymore because they had already lost their innocence in America.

Another unique way that Alvarez formats her book that I think is really interesting is that she separated significant events in the book into vignettes. Whenever I read a book with vignettes in it, my first reaction is that right away I would think to myself this book is going to have a seep meaning embedded into it. I see vignettes as puzzle pieces and reading a book with vignettes gives me a mission in which I want to do my best to put the pieces together in order to fully understand the true meaning behind the whole book.

Also, the word choices that Alvarez uses to write this book is really interesting too. At times, her writing even sound like poetry: “A breeze blows the white curtains in on either side of her, two ghostly arms embracing her. A room tycoon...” (Page 69) This type of poetic language grabs my attention making me feel like I want to read more. I thought this was appealing because I never read a book with this type of writing before.

The ending of the book really stood out for me: "You understand I am collapsing all time now so that it fits in what's left in the hollow of my story?" (Page 281) The reason why I thought this part of her ending was interesting is that it blended into the whole list of significant events in the book that she mentions in the end. I realizes that each each piece of the story about her life is like a puzzle piece, and by having the reader read the book in reverse chronological order is like she is purposely scrambling the puzzle pieces to make us put each pieces together in the right place one by one to the very end of the book. She wants us to look back at every significant event she talked about and making us solve the mystery of how a person can lose their very own "accent".

In a way though, when Julia Alvarez was writing this book, I feel like she was trying to solve her own story which is why she started out when she was older to when she younger. Since, the recent memories of ourselves is the strongest, it is only common sense for a person to write about the recent memories first and then slowly developing to older memories. This is like when someone loses something, they have to trace back their step to find what they have lost. This is exactly what Alvarez is doing, by putting the book in reverse chronicle order, she is trying to trace back her step in order to truly let the reader know how the Garcia Girls lost their accent.

Also, I feel like the black cat in the third part of the book plays an important role of Yolanda losing her accent. In my perspective, the intensity of how Alvarez describe the experience that she had with the cat and the nightmare that she kept on getting until she reaches the United States shows two things. One, the intensity show how sensitive a kid's innocence is compared to an adult. Two, it shows the real difference between the life of America and the Dominican Republic of how everything starts to change when her family arrived starting with losing the nightmare of the cat.

In conclusion, this book is really unique. I found this book a little boring here and there because of the type of genre that this book is categorizes in ,but I'm glad that I stuck to it to the very end. This book shows me a whole different side of analyzing a book because unlike other books,it made me realizes that there are books out there that can only be understand when a person have read the entire book. The true meaning of the author's intention of writing this book and how the different fragments within each of the vignettes in the book fitted together like a strange puzzle. This is one of those books that really makes a person think. Since this book is not only spitted into vignettes but also written in reverse chronological order, I would only recommend this book to people that really like to think really deeply into a material of a book.

My Thoughts After Finishing "How the Garcia Lost Their Accents"

After finishing "How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents" by Julia Alvarez, I thought it was quite an interesting read because of the fact that Alvarez was able to keep the flavor of the book to the very end. The "flavor" that I'm talking about is how unique this book was. One thing that made this book so unique was the way how Alvarez ended it. The part of her ending that really stood out for me was the following: "You understand I am collapsing all time now so that it fits in what's left in the hollow of my story?" (Page 281) The reason why I thought this part of her ending was interesting is that it blended into the whole summary of significant events in the book that she mentioned in the end. It made me realized that each piece of the story about her life is like a puzzle piece, and by making the reader read the book in reverse chronicle order is like she is purposely scrambling the puzzle pieces to make us put all of the pieces together in the right place at the very end. She wants us to look back at every significant event she talked about and making us solve the mystery of how a person can lose their very own "accent".

In a way though, when Julia Alvarez was writing this book, I feel like she was trying to solve her own story which is why she started out when she was older to when she younger. Since, the recent memories of ourselves is the strongest, it is only common sense for a person to write about the recent memories first and then slowly developing to older memories. This is like when someone loses something, they have to trace back their step to find what they have lost. This is exactly what Alvarez is doing, by putting the book in reverse chronicle order, she is trying to trace back her step in order to truly let the reader know how the Garcia Girls lost their accent.

Also, I feel like the black cat in the third part of the book plays an important role of Yolanda losing her accent. In my perspective, the intensity of how Alvarez describe the experience that she had with the cat and the nightmare that she kept on getting until she reaches the United States shows two things. One, the intensity show how sensitive a kid's innocence is compared to an adult. Two, it shows the real difference between the life of America and the Dominican Republic of how everything starts to change when her family arrived starting with losing the nightmare of the cat.

In conclusion, this was book was very unique. I did find this book boring here and there because of the genre ,but after finally finishing it I'm glad that I stuck to it and was able to finish it. This book showed me a whole different side of analyzing a book because unlike other books, a person have to read this whole entire book first until they can fully understand the true meaning of the author's intention of writing this book and how the different fragments within each of the vignettes in the book fitted together like a strange puzzle.

Response to "After A Sicky Week"

This is something interesting that I found in Grizzell's blog post that I wanted to talk about:

I'm so tired, i needed to catch up with everybody else since i did not go to school for a whole week.-I am just out of brain juice, this is why i hate missing school because i do not get to learn new things and i have to catch with everybody else also doing the missed work with the current work. I am just about to quit, but no i have to stay.

From my own personal experience, I know how hard it is to catch up work after missing a day or couple of days of school. There was a time when I got really sick during my years in middle school. I remember I was out for a couple of days, and when I came back to school there was so much content in each classes that I missed and I had to make up. This made me had to rushed and complete everything quickly in order to reach the place where my classmates were at. I also had to schedule a day with my teachers to make up for the tests that I missed when I was gone. All of these things caused me to feel really stressful, and it made me realize how important it is to not miss a day in school.

In a way, I realize that this was nothing compared to what Grizzell probably had to go through. She missed a week of “ASTI” and I remember hearing that when you miss a day of ASTI is like missing a couple of days from a normal high school. So even though I had to go through a moment of stress when I was in middle school, I don't really have the right to say that I know how Grizzell feel. I never missed a day of ASTI which is good thing because I have no idea what I would do if I had to experience the moment of stress that I had back in middle school but 10 times more since it is ASTI. I think that I would be so stressed that it might just kill me. I really respect grizzell for not giving up and how she continued to work hard to make up for all the work that she missed. I hope that she feels a lot better now, and to continue to work hard in ASTI.

My Insight on the Second Part of "How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents"

After finishing the second paper clip part of “How the Garcia Girls Lose Their Accents” by Julia Alvarez, I realize that this part of the book was more intense than the first part. This bring me to the conclusion that as the story goes on, the intensity of the book increases. This book is in reverse chronological order from when the characters in the book were older to when the they were younger. I thought at first that as the Garcia girls get older, the story would tend to get more intense, but this was not the case. Instead, the intense moments tend to happen more when they were young. This allow me to foreshadow that the third part of the book is going to be more intense than the first and second part of the book.

The reason why think Julia Alvarez made it more intense as the Garcia Girls are younger because she want to emphasize the fact that when people are young, our sense of feeling is more more sensitive to things that are around us because when we are young we don't really have much experience in life. As we grow up, we get more and more experiences in life which means things won't cause as much intensity towards us anymore. Our experiences in life is enough for people to get over anything that seems intense. In way, I feel like this ties into innocence. When we are young, our innocence is still there but as we grow older and receive more experiences in life, that sense of innocence begins to disappear. People that are innocence tends to feel more intense when certain moments happen to them which shows that when the Garcia Girls are older, nothing really intensify them anymore because of the fact that they had lost their innocence in America. Also, I feel like this book is mainly about how the Garcia girls is losing their "roots" and how they are becoming more closer to being a American because the American culture and their culture is so different. As they continue to live in America, they begin to slip away from their roots.

Response to "Grant Mehserle Verdict"

This is something interesting that I found in Jackson's blog post that I would like to talk about:

I believe that this shows the legal system of the United States and how it is operated. A police officer can get away with anything. No matter what, they always have an excuse because they have the law on their side. This is why so many people are upset over the case. They see this connection too and are angered by it. That is why tonight, there are going to be numerous protests, all because of this unjust case verdict.

This is a regard to the Grant Mehserle case which has finally come to a close today. The outcome was completely unfair; Mehserle was charged with only two years in prison for involuntary manslaughter when it was clearly showed in a video that he did it on purpose. I agree with Jackson completely on this matter of how the legal system of United States is really bias and unfair. The legal system is corrupted and it is because of all the bias that is filled within the human heart in our modern society. Although there are many people out there in the world that are good, there are always people out there that are bad too. People are not perfect which make their system not perfect, but I have fate that people can actually make the system better than how it is today.

What I saw happening today was not the type of legal system that I would want for this country, what I truly want for a ideal legal system is that it is well structured that give equality to every person in this world; no matter which race or gender. This also ties into justice, and the true meaning of justice. Many lawyers in the world today lost the meaning of what true justice is, and all they cared about is winning a case for the money and power status. This is one of biggest reason why I hate lawyers so much, and ironically I hope to be a lawyer myself someday. When I do become a lawyer, I will not fall in the category of lawyers that I despise so much but instead i'm willing to become one that can make this legal system of our country a better one for all.

Vincent's First Impression of "How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents"

When I first started reading “How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents” by Julia Alvarez, my first impression of the book was that it was really confusing. There were sections of the book that didn't really make sense because the author tends to change names for each character every time she had the chance and she would skip around a lot without warning the reader ahead of time. Mr. Sutherland told us that the author of this book is doing this on purpose and we should just stick to it, and eventually the reading will start to unravel itself until it make complete sense. As I finished the first section of this book, I feel like he was right.

This book is separated into vignettes, and I thought this was interesting for the author to do that because it reminded me of a book that I read last year called “The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros. In my opinion, I really like books that is structure in vignettes because usually when books have vignettes in them, it means that book has a deep meaning within them. I believe each vignette symbolizes a small piece of a jigsaw puzzle connecting to one another to make a bigger picture in the end. Whenever I begin to start reading an vignette within this book, things start to become confusing, but as I continue to hold onto the book without giving up like Mr.Sutherland told us to do, the reading did become easier to understand.

The way how Alvarez wrote this book is really interesting too. At times, her writing actually sound like poetry: “A breeze blows the white curtains in on either side of her, two ghostly arms embracing her. A room tycoon...” (Page 69) This type of poetic language grabs my attention making me feel like I want to read more. I thought this was appealing because I never read a book with this type of writing before. She also describe each of the characters' story within their respective vignette marvelously by giving fantastic details for each one. Overall, although it seems a bit confusing at times, this book is actually quite an interesting read so far.

My Friends are my Inspiration

Blogger has given me the opportunity to experience a whole new perspective in writing. It has given me the freedom to write whatever I want, and this allowed me to explore endless possibilities of ideas. For once ,as assignments for English class, I'm able to write freely about whatever I want without any restriction whatsoever. Most of the blog topics that I have done so far in the first quarter are mainly involve around life in general. Blogger has improve me as a writer overall by improving my connection of my writing to life more and bringing inspiration to myself to write ideas that I would have never have thought of writing about before.

The first time when I started to write my very first official blog, I had no idea what to write about. My ideas in my head came out as blank, and I couldn't even formulate any specific structure to give myself an idea to start upon. The reason why this happened was that I just wasn't used to writing a topic of my own without any specific guidance from the teacher. Usually, my teachers would give me a prompt and I would start writing things for that specific prompt; this was a whole different story when it came to blogging. I had to think of a prompt myself and that was hard. In the end though, I managed to brought myself upon an idea that I should write about life. This might be a silly reason, but the idea of writing about life made me feel like I'm a famous philosopher. In one of my very first blog that I talked about life was “Right and Wrong”:

I came up with two theories on why people have different views on this. One of them is that the sense of what is right and wrong is shaped by a person's personal experiences in life such as the things that they learn from other people, the places they grew up in, and the good or bad experiences that they have to dealt with in their life. My second theory is that it is all shaped naturally accordingly to the individual specific mindset/personality which creates a certain regime for that specific individual.

This post was a great starting point for me because it allowed me to get experience of writing these kind of things on blogger. The following week, after writing this blog, thinking about what kind of idea to write and formulating structure became a lot easier. My second post about life was “Treasure”:

Treasure can come in all shapes and sizes; it can be anything. Different people treasure different things for certain reasons. Some of the reasons that I would treasure something are either that someone really important give it to me or it is something that I can't live my life without. One thing that I treasure is my friends because I don't think I can live life without them. They are my pillar of support that pushes me to move forward in life. Without them, my life would be really dull and would go absolutely nowhere at all.

On this blog, I manage to took my writing a step forward. I was able to connect my writing to my personal life more, and this allowed me to furthermore expand on the idea. Also, this tells me that as I continue to write post once every week on a certain subject, i'm able to get better at coming up with ideas and improving my brain to able to see more connections between a piece of writing to life.

To be honest, the things that inspire me to write are my friends. Their influences on me allow me to come up with ideas to write about. When I thought of the idea about writing my posts mainly about life, I thought about my friends. I consider my friends to be the main highlights to life, and this made me want to connect them to every post that I published on blogger. There are many examples from their blogs that inspired me to write. One of them is from David's blog:

Ever since I was a kid, I always acquired the trait stage fright when I was on stage. I disliked the feeling of everyone constantly staring at me. It makes me feel as if I was an important person and that I had to become perfect. I felt that if I made a mistake, everyone would laugh at me and tease me afterward.

This blog of his inspired me to write something that relates to my own life. Like how David talked about the experience that he had with stage fright, I wrote about my own experiences with stage fright in a response to his post. Another post from my friends that inspired me to write is from Jasiu's blog:

Time is precious and we should try to never waste it. Unfortunately many of us do waste it and large amounts of it. Whenever we have days off school or work, we usually want to sleep in and stay in bed for a few more hours. Some of us even remain in bed until noon time and even beyond.

Like before, these kind of posts inspired me to connect to my own post to my personal life more. Jasiu brought upon a general idea and was able to connect it to his own life. This intrigues me, and inspired me to do the same. Overall, without my friends I would have never thought of the ideas that I put into my own blog now. Their ideas inspire me to write more, and hopefully my ideas were able to inspire some of them too.

In conclusion, blogger has really helped me to improve on not only my writing skills but also my way of thinking. This sets forth two new goals for the second quarter of this semester. The first goal is to continue to write blogs the way I do now since its effective in the terms of getting better at connecting that particular idea to my own life which thus improve my writing skills as a writer since my ideas are getting more and more well structured. The second goal that I have is to continue to give my friends feedback on their writing since they are the ones that inspire to writes. Since they are the key inspiration to my writing, without their writing right next to mine means that my writing would go absolutely no where and would eventually fall entirely apart.

The Loss of Innocence

The Holocaust was a horrible time where many people died not only physically, but also mentally too. Elie Wiesel, a survivor of the holocaust, wrote the book “Night” to describe the experiences that he had during the holocaust. Throughout the book, many conflicts were revealed over and over. Elie's conflict kept building up eventually leading to the total destruction of his belief in god and inner moral as a human being.

In the beginning of the book, Elie seems to have a strong faith in God. As the story progresses, this strong belief begins to die out. The turning point was when he witnesses the execution of a small child in the concentration camp. He watches the kid suffer, and this causes him to resolve the conflict within himself about if he should continue to believe in god or not: “Behind me I heard the same man asking: 'where is god now?' And I heard a voice within me answer him: 'where is he? There he is- He is hanging here this gallows.” (Page 62) This shows that he no longer have any faith in god because if there was a god, this event wouldn't happen. This event is a great contribution to his resolution for this conflict.

Another event that contributes a settlement in one of Elie's inner conflict was the time when his dad died. He mentions in his memoir that he would never abandon his father like the other sons did to their fathers. As the story progresses, this thought of mind begins to become distorted. The experiences that he had in the camp destroy his inner moral of what is right and wrong: “And in the depths of my being, in the recesses of my weakened conscience, could I have searched it, I might perhaps have something like free at last.” (Page 106) His inner conflict of arguing himself about if he should continue to embrace his dad or not comes to an end. In reality, he still took care of his dad to the very end, but a inner demon lies within himself making him feel satisfy when his dad finally dies because he doesn't need to take care of his dad anymore.

At the end of the book, Elie's was hospitalized for weeks after getting out of the concentration camp. The whole mess was finally over, and interesting enough, the first thing that he does is look at a mirror: “From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes as they stared into mine, has never left me.” (Page 109) This last moment of the book made me realize the impact had on the people from the concentration camp is a big one. It made me realize that even the survivors of the holocaust are good as dead. Even though their body is still alive, their inner being as a person is no longer living. This was the same for Elie Weisel; his inner being, soul, humanity, all of these things has been stripped away from his living body.

In conclusion, the experiences that Elie shares in this memoir has a important meaning in life. It shows that the holocaust was filled with many horrible conflicts. Elie experiences all of these conflicts head on, and the outcomes that he get from these experiences were not good ones. He loses his faith in god, loses his sense of morals, and he loses all of these things within the inner nightmare of the camp. This goes to show that it is important for us to not let this kind of thing happen ever again.

Precious Moments Worth Fighting for...

What is a precious moment? It is a moment in our life that we can truly feel happy and warm inside of our heart. It can be more than one moment of your life that you feel is truly important and that you can never forget about it for the rest of your life. For me, most of my precious moments are consist of hanging out with my closest friends. Those moments are the time when I feel truly happy and just laugh freely without having to worry about anything at all. Precious moments are also times that you always want to experience again. It is a time in your life that makes you feel like life is truly worth living.

There are also many factors that can contribute as obstacles between people and their precious moments. These things can consist of moving away, complications that someone may have in their life, not enough time, etc... In a way, even though we can have these things blocking our way from our precious moments, we can still fight against all of those factors. If you truly consider a moment in your life to be precious then you have the responsibility to fight for those moments. If we don't fight for those moments, how are we suppose to experience those precious moments in our life ever again? Thinking about our past moments and treasuring them for what they are worth is one thing but to experience them again is better than any of those things combine.

Life can be unfair sometimes, but that shouldn't stop you from fighting against all the complications for all those precious moments that life have to offer. Creating new precious moments in your life is also important because the more precious moments that you create within yourself the more you are enjoying life. Although, this can also mean that you will have more moments to fight for, but if those moments are truly consider precious to you then they are well worth the amount of time you spent fighting to experience those moments again.

Childhood

Childhood is a period of time that I think is the most important moment of a person's entire life. The life of being a kid is such a wonderful and beautiful thing to have. I never really thought about it when I was young, but as I continue to grow older I started to realize about how just amazing being a kid really was. When we were little, we didn't really need to worry about anything in our life, and the only thing that we really care about is thinking about how we would spend our day playing around. It was time when we could just do almost anything we want and is most likely that we are able to get away with it simply because adults realizes that we don't know any better. It was time where our curiosity and imagination was at it's best and ran wild like a horse; a child's imagination knows no bound, and our curiosity multiplies every time we learn something new.

Childhood is the time where we experience many things for the first time. For example, it is a time where we first start to make "bonds" with the people around us. We make our first friends, and when that happens, those friends usually become the people that we never forget for the rest of our life. It is a time where we begin to form our inner moral and where we start to create a "identity" for ourselves. Our personality, our hobbies, likes and dislikes are all also things that begins to form within us during this period of time. You may ask why experiencing things for the first time is important? The answer to that question is that all of these things that we first experience in our life creates a bridge for our future, and help shape the person that we are today. It is where we first start to open that "book" of ours and start writing "stories" into it.

Without a beginning, how can there be a middle or an end? Everything has a beginning and have to start somewhere. For us, our Childhood is where it all begin.

Response to "Why Waking up Early is Best"

This is something that I found in one of Jasiu's blog that I thought was interesting to talk about:

Time is precious and we should try to never waste it. Unfortunately many of us do waste it and large amounts of it. Whenever we have days off school or work, we usually want to sleep in and stay in bed for a few more hours. Some of us even remain in bed until noon time and even beyond.

I agree with Jasiu about how time is precious and we should not waste it on sleep. Time is one of those things that we can't get back no matter what we do. As much as I hate to admit it, sleeping is not worth wasting our time away at all. I love to sleep, but I realize that it is important to manage the amount of sleep that we get in order to use our time to do something more effective and more productive.

Jasiu also mentioned about how waking up early has many benefits. One specific benefit that he mentioned was that waking up early helps you create a productive and successful life. Although this maybe true, waking up early is harder than it sounds. For me, I have a really hard time waking up early in the morning. People may say that setting a alarm or something can help solve this problem, but alarm doesn't always work. I even used three alarms once (my alarm clock, my cell phone, and my ipod) to wake me up, and it didn't work at all. All of the alarm went off, I just simply snooze right through them.

Whenever I wake up in the morning, I feel incredibly weak. My body have to struggle to get up, and my brain constantly keep telling me to go back to sleep. The only way for me to get up, and not struggle is when I realize i'm going to be late for school. I usually wake up around 7:50 a.m., and when that happens, my brain would suddenly click and I would start rushing to get dress, use the restroom, grab a piece of toast or something and quickly rush out of the door. It is lucky for me to live close to ASTI because if I didn't, I would practically be late for school every single day.

After reading Jasiu's blog, I realize that I need to start making my life more productive and not waste my time by sleeping. I feel that the benefits of waking early is something that I should really strive for in life. In order for me to succeed such a task, I have to create a stability of waking up earlier each morning.

Response to "Superman can't fly"

This is something that I found on Peter's blog that I thought was interesting to talk about:

What happen to a superman if he can't fly? Would he still try to help people out even though it is more dangerous than before? What is the definition of a "superman"

What interest me in a superhero is not their power, but their will to stand up for what is right. Peter asked if superman can't fly, would he still try to help people out even though it is more dangerous before? My answer to that question is of course superman will continue to help people. Danger is not a obstacle for standing up for what is right, the sense of justice is much greater than any danger. The reason why I think Superman started to help save people in the first place is that he is determine to bring justice to the world, and is willing to go against all odds to help save people.

In my opinion, "superheroes" doesn't just exist in comics and cartoons, but they also exist in real life. Anybody can become a "superhero", but they must have the will to stand up what for is right. There is a different between a "Superhero" compared to just a "hero". I think the difference is that a superhero is willing to help and save everybody around them while a hero is just a person that just help save a individual life. When a person is willing to save everybody around them and anybody that is in the need of saving is consider to be a "superman" in my eyes.

In conclusion, I don't think it really matter if superman can fly or not. His flame of justice would continue to lit on no matter if he loses his super powers or not. It might just make it harder for him to beat up bad guys and stuff, but it doesn't change the fact that he would always continue to help save people. Having super powers is not something that automatically entitles you as a "superhero"and it doesn't enable you to be able save people right away. You have to have the will to help save people,and the feeling of never giving up on the people around you in order to become a true hero.

Treasure

When people hear the term "treasure", the first thing that usually come to their head is gold coins and jewelries. I think the reason for this is probably because many people love money. Our modern sociality has imprinted a image of money to be our number one priority to have a happy and fulfilling life. For me, that is complete nonsense. Money is not everything, and I can definitely name many things that I rather have over money. When I hear the term "treasure", I think of something entirely different.

Treasure can come in all shapes and sizes; it can be anything. Different people treasure different things for certain reasons. Some of the reasons that I would treasure something are either that someone really important give it to me or it is something that I can't live my life without. One thing that I treasure is my friends because I don't think I can live life without them. They are my pillar of support that pushes me to move forward in life. Without them, my life would be really dull and would go absolutely nowhere at all.

What does it mean to "treasure" something? For me, if I choose something to treasure, it means i'm willing to protect that thing that i'm treasuring to the very end. It means i'm not going to let anything happen to it, and if I ever do lose it or break it, I would do anything to get it back. In my opinion, treasuring something means your heart is committed to do all of those things that I mentioned above. My family is also something that I treasure because they are the people that raised me to be the person that I am today. I'm grateful of them, and I can't imagine losing them. Something else that I treasure are the things that my friends give me. Anything that my friend give to me as gifts are consider "treasure" to me. I don't care if it is a just a normal piece of paper or if people call it trash, the things that my friend give to me are beyond what the real object is. Instead, the thing that I treasure is not the actual object itself but the thought of it coming from my friends is all I need to consider the object to be my "treasure".

The Road That I Have Chosen...

In life, there are many roads to choose from and each one of these roads can either lead to disaster or glory. But these rodes are not visible until you make a path for it yourself. When I was little, I always wanted to become a professional DJ. The idea of listening and remixing music for others to hear as a job seemed pretty awesome to me. That was a road that I have created for myself when I was young, but as I grew older, another rode soon begin to form. My dream of becoming a DJ slowly disappeared and something much more important appeared in front of me.

I hate lawyers and the last thing that I wanted to be when I'm older was to be one. The reason why I hate lawyers so much came from a personal experience that I had to go through when I was young. So why have I decided to choose this road? How was this road even appeared in front of me in the first place? It all started when someone that was really important to me passed away. He was a former lawyer that loved talking about politics and whenever we had the time, he would talk to me about the morality within the human society and it's system of law. He would always share his life story to me, and I would always listen to him intensely. One day, his time was up and he was sent to the hospital. Before he died, he told me a couple of things. He wanted me make a difference in the field of law, he wanted me to change the corrupted system that he failed to do. I didn't know what to say at the time, but I ended up making that promise to him anyway.

Our dreams can be shape in many ways, and there many things that can influence on the type of road that a person want to venture into. What I learned from that day was that a particular experience is able to change a person's life forever. That particular experience had already came for me, and it had forever marked me onto the rode of becoming a lawyer...

Pride can Lead to a Person's Final Resolution

In "The Dinosaurs" by Italo Calvino, it reveals that Q is a proud and self-centered character, and that these characteristics lead him to form a inner conflict within him and eventually a deep understanding of himself.

After many years of being alone, Q finally comes out of hiding and finds himself in a completely different world. This new world creates an atmosphere of fear within him causing him to feel nervous when he first meets the species that came after the dinosaurs. It surprises him with the way the New Ones interacted with him, "I would never have imagined it possible to talk like that with non-dinosaurs, and I was tense and mostly silent." (Page 96) This opens a feeling of security and acceptance around him and this lead him to feel happy and safe to stay with the "New ones" because he don't have to be alone anymore.

As the story progresses, a inner conflict begins to rampage within him like a storm. After awhile of staying with the New Ones, Q listens to the many stories that the New Ones interpreted the dinosaurs as. These stories changes many times reflecting on Q's action throughout the experience he had with them. The interpretations from the New Ones starts out as a fear, then to admiration, then to silliness, then to pity, and finally to no interest. What Q thought of all this is "I had to feel imposed on me, and by them, a kind of sacred respect for my species which I myself never felt!" (Page 104) This shows that Q is confused of who he wants to be. He don't know if he should just continue to live the peaceful life with the New ones and not be lonely while at the same time having to accept the ridiculous images that the New Ones "painted" for the dinosaurs that stumbles upon his pride as being one.

In the final part of the story, Q realizes the importance of accepting who he is. His inner pride overcomes his self-centered side. He understands now that "from the semi-darkness of fears and doubts of now ignorant generations, the dinosaurs continued to extend their necks, to raise their taloned hoofs, and when the last shadow of their image had been erased, their name went on, superimposed on all meanings, perpetuating their presence in relations among living things." (Page 111) He believes that the dinosaurs are not actually "extinct", but live on through the different stories that the New Ones gave out. Being satisfied with this, Q came up with a conclusion that he doesn't belong with the New Ones anymore since he is a dinosaur and so he left the village and went on the rest of his life as nothing else other than what he was born as: a dinosaur.

Right and Wrong Part One

What is the difference between those two words? How do you know what is the right thing to do in life? Does growing up in a certain way determines a person's judgement on the difference between what is right and wrong? Are our morals driven by what our sociality wants it to be, or it is decided by the individual themselves? Can we alter our decision in life without changing our views on what is right and wrong? I have always thought about these kind questions when I first got interested in learning about ethics and morals. In order to satisfy myself in this particular matter, I came up with my own conclusions and theories.

From what I understand, right and wrong are two complete opposite words. This can be proven by their definitions in any dictionary. They are also a paradox of each other. A person can't be right and wrong at the same time. However, these two words are more similar than you know. They can actually be the same thing. Right can be wrong and wrong can be right. How is this possible? The answer lies in the human mind. Person A can consider whatever they are doing is the right thing to do, while person B can think that person A is doing the wrong thing. This of course causes a collision of two different mind thinking about what is right and wrong. I came up with two theories on why people have different views on this. One of them is that the sense of what is right and wrong is shaped by a person's personal experiences in life such as the things that they learn from other people, the places they grew up in, and the good or bad experiences that they have to dealt with in their life. My second theory is that it is all shaped naturally accordingly to the individual specific mindset/personality which creates a certain regime for that specific individual.

These two theories are not perfect, and they have many flaws. My first theory states that a person shapes their sense of right and wrong by their personal experiences in life. This not always true. For example, a person can grow up in a family of criminals, but they can actually choose to not follow in his or her family footsteps because they decide that whatever their family doing is wrong. If my first theory is correct, this example can't be true. Being born in a family of criminals means that you are expose to doing crimes everyday, and you are heavily influenced by the bad people around you for every second of your life. How is it possible that with all of this influence, it can't even shape a person sense of right and wrong?

Part one ends.

More to come in Part two.

Response to "Stage Fright!!!!!"

This is something interesting that I found in David's blog that I would like to talk about:

When I am nervous, I also forget my train of thought. That's why when I try to say something, I usually end up saying never mind or that I will go a little bit off topic.

I have experience this many times when I was a kid. I think this is pretty common among people because I see many people that stumble a lot whenever they are nervous. There was this one time when I had to present something important to a lot of people, and I ended up stumbling many times because I kept losing my train of thought. When this happens, I contradict myself a lot and sometime I even start rambling random stuff that I don't even understand. Although, this has happen to me countless of times, I came up with many different ways that helped me to overcome this.

The first way that I came up with that helped me to overcome this was to relax the body before presenting or speaking. I just take a deep breath, and calm myself by thinking something positive. Thinking positive really helps because it built confidence in oneself and get rid of any uneasiness feeling. The second way that I came up with that helped was whenever I start to lose my train of thought, I just slow down and take my time to slowly flow in my words until I get back to the right track. Stumbling and rambling occurs because I'm forcing and pressuring myself to get back to the right track, and this doesn't work at all. I have to take my time, and just be calm by relaxing my body. The last way that I came up with that helped is just to be really prepare before speaking before a crowd of people. Being really prepare brings confidence that make me feel that i'll do good, and this would allow me to not to be nervous. If I present something that is not prepared yet, of course i'll be nervous since it would create a possibility for me to make a fool of myself in front of many people.

In conclusion, these are some of the ways that helped me to overcome my nervousness and I hoped that these ways can help David to overcome his too.

The Inspiring Funeral

The pale clouds covered the whole sky like a spartan holding a shield ready for war. The atmosphere was filled with grief and sorrow. He slowly sat down on the cold-blooded chair. His parents sat right next to him, but no feeling of sympathy or affection came to him. He was disgusted by this kind of feeling. He looked around, and saw nothing but tears. He looked up to his parents, hoping to feel a little better, but all he could see was severed hearts and broken memories; his parents were in tears too. Trees rose straight up into the freezing pale air, and winds slowly blew through the silent crowd breaking the silence for a few seconds. He felt that something important was missing. A black grand piano stood right in the middle of the funeral. He stared strangely at it as if it was a riddle or a puzzle. He had never seen one before in his life. Confusion took over him making him wonder the reason for such a thing to be doing in a funeral. He didn’t understand, and his eyes were stuck onto it. From the freezing uncomfortable air, a giant black trimmed coffin slowly appeared. He watched as people in black clothing held up the coffin. The people moved slowly, and he silently looked at their faces. They all lowered their head, but he knew they were crying because drip of waters were falling off their faces. The freezing wind blew once again causing him to feel extremely unpleasant. Out of the blue, a rhythmic musical sound like the no other sound he before broke through the eternal silence. Right at that moment, his mind clicked. The clouds slowly faded a distance away revealing a clear blue sky. The ray from the sun struck at the piano creating an aura of harmony all around. At that moment, he didn't feel any sadness. Instead, he felt blessed. His wet sleeves began to dry along with the heavy atmosphere that lingered in the air. He didn't know what was happening, but he did realize one thing. He realized that this wasn't a ending of a person's life, but a beginning of something new.

Response to "The Most Annoying Day"

This is something that I found in Jay's blog that I could definitely relate to:

Tuesday, was one of the weirdest and most annoying days that I had so far. I started off going to school, without getting enough sleep. I almost ended falling asleep in math class right in front of Mrs. McCoy.

Whenever I don't get enough sleep, everything just becomes one big nuisance to me. I'll feel drowsy and it would always make me don't want to pay attention to anything around me. This is a really bad result since if I don't want pay attention to anything, I am most likely to go to sleep in class which will probably get me in trouble by the teacher. After reading Jay's blog, I think he feels the same way as me when he doesn't get enough sleep too. This is probably the reason why Tuesday was annoying for him.

During my eighth grade year, whenever I don't get enough sleep, I always end up sleeping in class. I would always get into big trouble, and the whole day would always annoy the heck out of me. Everything became a blur, and the only thing that was in my mind at the time was to sleep. When I got home from one of those kind of days, I always went to sleep right away. This problem had stayed with me for awhile, but one day, I felt much better because I manage to find a solution: drinking coffee with a large amount of sugar mixed into it. Regular Coffee don't help at all, but if you put a large of sugar in it then it would work like a charm. It helped me to stay awake, and I manage to go through the whole day at school without falling asleep at all. To this very day, I still use this strategy whenever I don't get enough sleep. So this is what I would recommend for Jay and whoever out there that get annoy about their day because of lack of sleep: just drink coffee with a lot of sugar in it. It also very tasty too.

My Vocabulary List

1.Commission

2.Compensation

3.Convention

4.Adequate

5.Integration

6.Prior

7.Alter

8.Regime

9.Ration

10.Stability

The Rebuttal

This is a response to Peter's opening statement. I would like to start out by pointing out the big contradiction that I found in his opening statement. Peter stated that human activities do not effect global warming at all, but at the end of his opening statement he happened to mention that Humanity could just built up not bigger than 1 percent of contribution to the warming of the earth. So even though one percent seems to be little difference, he still happen to mention that it is possible for human activities to effect global warming when he clearly stated in the beginning that it is impossible for human to do such a thing. I would also like to say that it is not true that Co2 is a very weak green house gas and has a little to no effect to the temperature. From the data that I gathered, Co2 levels were 389ppm (parts per million) as of April 2010, and this was the highest they have been in the past 650,000 years. This increase of C02 was an important contribution to the 1 Fahrenheit to 1.4 Fahrenheit temperature over the 20th century. From what my opponent said, water vapor is what really causes the green house effect to happen. In a way, I agree with that statement, but C02 that are caused by human activities also have a substantial impact too. As long as C02 does have some impact on the earth's temperature, this small increase in the temperature amplifies the water vapor into a much greater rate than it is now since the warmer the temperature, the more water vapor there would be. It would be like a chain reaction from human activities creating more C02 into the air to making the temperature warmer to the increasing of water vapor which therefore shows that human activities is a crucial part to the warming of the earth. Overall, his opening statement were filled with rubbish assumptions with no evidence whatsoever backing up to what he was saying.

First classmate-response blog assignment

This is something that I found on Leon's blog that I thought has a good relation to the ASTI constitution:

It was until I grew older when I started doing what those kids did to me back then and bully little kids in school, I finally understood why they would bully a kid like me. I guess it was because people like me who had enough of being bullied and harassed, so we would bully and harass others who are weaker than us to have our anger that was stored inside of us from all the harassment done by others to release it on them.

I thought this was quote was interesting because it allowed me to see his views of what bullying is and why people would bully others. From what he said, it made me wonder what influenced ASTI students to behave in such a way that bullying had to be involved in the first place. Leon mentioned that people bully because they need to release their anger, sadness, fear, and other bottled up emotions on someone. In a way, I agree with Leon because just like him, this had happened to me in my life too. My head was filled with rage, and I took it out on the people around me.

This statement that Leon wrote in his blog made me realize more that it is our emotions that drives us to bully others in the first place. However, this is why we made the ASTI constitution. Two of the points in the ASTI constitution are to think before you act and to incorporate positive things toward others. In my opinion, these two points are great ways that allow us to be able to control our emotion within us. By following the constitution, we are able to make the ASTI community a safe and bully-free environment for the longest time.

'Just Kidding' and 'Ganging Up' from Odd Girl Reflection

'Just Kidding' and 'Ganging Up' from Odd Girl Reflection

A time when I have been made harassed by a larger group was the time when I got a bad grade on a test while most of the people in my class got a good grade. The people that got a good grade went to me and start laughing at me because I got a bad grade while they did well. I didn't care much, and I knew it was my fault for not studying so I didn't let them get me down when they started laughing. Some of the several options that I can think of in this situation that I could have done are to tell them that I'll be sure to study next so they might stop picking on me, ignore them completely, or just ask them what s funny about getting a bad grade on a test. The first option is a good way to try to make them stop laughing by changing the situation into one that make them feel that they are actually helping me by motivating me to do better next time. This might make them stop laughing and make them see that I can get good when I actually start trying. The second option is the worse option because ignoring bullies doesn't make them stop. They don't care if you ignore them, they'll continue to bully you even if you don't care. The third option is the most logical because by making them learn that everybody get bad grades once in awhile, they'll probably become quiet and it would make them reflect on the time that they had a bad grade on a test. There are many reasons why I think people bully others. One reason is that they feel the need to bully others to feel good about them. People that bully others might feel that they become a superior force compared to others which make them feel good. Another reason why I think people bully others is that they want attention. By bullying, they get a lot of attention by the people around them which may causes the bully to feel good to be the center of attention. The last reason that I can think of why people bully others is that there is something wrong with their mental state. They might be insecure about themselves so they bully others to make them feel normal. In conclusion, a person that bullies others in life is an important thing to deal way. There many options that you can do while being bullied, but there is always the one option that make the best outcome of a situation such as that, and it is the individual’s job to think critically about which is the best option.