Week Elevin Independent Reading

This week I read more from Tom Clancy's Patriot Games. I thought it was interesting how the ending of the book was so different from the movie's. The movie ends with the main villain Sean Miller, killing himself while trying to kill Jack. the movie end with a large shoot-out between the terrorists and a group of marines and policemen.

Short Story Project Three

I decided to do this short story project on The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson.
This story is about a small town, and it’s the day of the town’s annual lottery. The head of each family draws for their family. After each head of family draws, it is discovered that Bill Hutchinson, the head of the Hutchinson family, drew the marked piece of paper. All five member of the Hutchinson family must then draw from a group of five pieces of paper. After the family draws, it is discovered that Mrs. Hutchinson has the piece with the black spot. She is then stoned by the people of the Town.
I thought that the story was interesting, but at the same time rather sick.
One thing that I thought was very strange was how each person in the town came so willingly. Mrs. Hutchinson, who ends up being the person who gets stoned, comes running to the lottery because she “forgot what day it was”. The character Old Man Warner says that this was his “seventy-seventh year in the lottery, seventy-seventh time”. It is strange to me that a person would participate at all, let alone seventy-seven times. Although this is fiction it shows how people go along with things, simply because they don’t know any different. The people who stone Mrs. Hutchinson are her neighbors and friends. Someone even gives her son a stone.
The subject of this story is the town’s lottery. The theme, in my opinion is that, people sometimes do things just because it’s a tradition. The people of the town continue this lottery every year, because they did it the year before, and the year before that, and so on.
The movie I chose to include in this project was Real Genius. The subject
Of the movie is, Chris and Mitch have to build a laser so that Chris can graduate from college, and Mitch can pass his first semester. The theme is, people need to lighten up, do things for themselves more, and stop trying to make everyone else happy. The theme is shown during the movie on many times, mostly by the character Chris, who refuses to be serious and not have fun. For instance, Chris and one of his buddies coat their dorm’s hall floor in ice and skate around on it saying they are disgusted by everyone just wanting to study. Another example is shown in the video below.

Common Misconceptions about American Pit Bull Terriers

In recent years the American Pit Bull Terrier (APBT) has been a subject of great controversy. There have been many attacks against humans and dogs by APBTs. They have been referred to as being blood thirsty, kid killers, killing machines, and other things that are both unpleasant, and stereotypical. They have been destroyed by mainstream media, and have been outlawed in certain countries and areas of the US. What people seem to forget is, most of these occurrences could have been avoided if the owners had had a better knowledge of the breed, had better prepared for the responsibility of ownership, and had bought the dog for the right reasons.
The breed was made for specific reasons, and owners need to know what
these were, and what genetic tendencies this would give the dogs. American Pit Bull Terriers came into existence from cross breeding of Old English Bulldogs and various Terriers living in the area of the British Isles. Terriers were bred for hunting small game, such as badgers, and weasels. Old English Bulldogs were bred for bull-baiting. This is a sport where an enraged bull is put in a ring with any number of dogs. Then the bull and the dogs would fight until there was only one species alive.
When bull-baiting and dog fighting was outlawed in 1835, illegal dog
fighting became popular because it was easy to hide. Many of these fights are to the death, but not all. Other are stopped by the owners, who usually pry the dogs’ jaws open with a jack, then spray a water hose down their throat. Breeders wanted the dogs to be aggressive towards other dogs, but not towards them, and so they bred for those specific traits. Dog fighting can be very traumatic for dogs, especially because of the way fights end, and since the owners usually beat the dogs before fights. This can cause the dogs to be irrational, and quick to violence (hence the attacks).
There are certain things owners of APBTs should do from the start of their ownership. First of all, they should not practice dog fighting. They should socialize the dog with other dogs, and continue this throughout the dog’s life. They should also practice strict obedience training.
Most of the attacks were done by dogs that were either in bad living condition, were untrained, weren’t socialized, had been beaten, put in dog fights or any combinations that can be made from the many. Because of their history, they have been considered “tough guy dogs”, and are bought by people who think that having a “Pit Pull” enhances their status. These people think that by having a dog that was bred to fight, they become just as tough as the dog. This causes other people to think that the dogs are instinctively mean. There is a phrase that says “attitude reflects leadership”. Well, a dog reflects it’s owner. No matter the breed.
The breed of dog that most commonly bites humans is the Cocker Spaniel. You probably didn’t know that. The reason why is that, when a Cocker spaniel bites someone, nobody hears about it, because they can’t do any real damage, and because they’re just so cute. When an APBT bites someone, it’s all over the eleven o’clock news, because they can do damage, and because they’re so vicious looking.
I have owned an American Pit Bull Terrier for thirteen of my sixteen year long life. My dog’s name is Sweetie. She hasn’t ever deliberately bit me. The closest thing to viciousness that has ever come out of her was when she used to nock me onto my back, so that she could lick my face. Sweetie is annoyingly loving. When a family member is sick, and has fallen asleep on the couch, they are usually woken by Sweetie licking their face. Every night she runs from one family member to the next, wanting to lick them, and be petted.
American Pit Bull Terriers are a loving breed that wants nothing more than to please their owner. It’s the owner’s responsibility to give them a good goal.

Week Ten Independent Reading

This week I read more from Tom Clancy's Patriot Games. I thought it was interesting how the terrorist have planned "accidents" that they use to notify each other of things without blowing their covers. For instance, in this portion of the book a man named Denis Cooley who is a terrorist, who's cover is being a book sales man, discovers that his office is being watched. He then calls one of his partners, at his cover job and asks if he is a man that works on the floor above. This alerts the fellow terrorist that Cooley's cover is blown.

Week Nine Independent Reading

This week I read more from Tom Clancy's Patriot Games. In the portion that I read this week, the gun that was used against Mrs. Ryan and the state trooper was recovered. It was found in a quarry by a boy who was fishing. When the gun was brought to the FBI, they cleaned it and fired it. They then compaired the bullets they fired with the bullet that killed the state trooper, and were able to find that the gun was the one used in the attack.

Short Story Project Two

I decided to do this project on a chapter of Tim O’Brien’s The Things
They Carried. This book was made from the author’s memories of his time served in the Vietnam War. In this chapter Tim kills a man in battle. Tim and his squad had come upon him in the jungle, fully armed, and ready to attack. The only reason this man died instead of Tim, was the vigilance of his entire squad. The only Reason Tim had killed him instead of one of his squad mates, was because Tim happened to pull his trigger first.

Tim has a lot of trouble coming to terms with what had happened. He sits
in silence, ignoring everything and everyone, except the carcass that lies mere yards away from him. Because of his refusal to talk, or even listen to what his squad mates have to say about what happened, his imagination starts to make things worse as it would with anyone in a similar position. He starts to make up scenarios about what this man was like, and where he was from.

I think that when people do something that is so rare for them and as unchangeable as killing someone, even when it is in self-defense, their own minds try to make them believe that it was wrong. Even though this person was trying to kill Tim, he felt guilt for killing him. Life is the most important thing to a person, whether they realize it or not. Once you’ve lost you life, there isn’t much more you can lose. I think when you aren’t prepared; the thought of having taken the life of another, for the reason that they wanted to take yours can be very overwhelming. Not only are you dealing with the thought of having taken a life, but you are also trying to come to terms with the fact that you almost lost your own life.

I think that the author was trying to prepare future soldiers for the
psychological trials that come with the battlefield. I think that he wanted them to know that they need to be able to keep moving after instances like this, and put it behind them. I think that he wanted them to know that they must let what is done be done, and not let it affect what they will do next.

I think that he wanted people to see what can happen when you are in a
situation like this and aren’t prepared. I think he wanted them to know that when you don’t move on, you have to carry the weight of not only your own near-death experience, but also the death of someone else. Everyone knows that life isn’t easy. I think that the author knows that it is a lot harder when you carry the death of someone else.

There is a very common phrase that many people have said and thought.
That phrase is, “I wish I had known them, what I know now.” Another phrase is, “history repeats itself.” Many of us will have to experience things that have happened to people before us. By reading about the experiences that others have had in their lives, we can apply the knowledge that they recovered to our own lives, therefore allowing us to prepare ourselves for similar experiences.

Short Story Project One: Harrison Bergeron

For my first short story project I read Kurt Vonnegut’s short story Harrison
Bergeron. The story takes place in the year two-thousand-eighty-one. In the story, every person is made completely equal. Not a single person is allowed to superior in any aspect. The way that the government keeps everyone equal is by handicapping those are superior in certain ways. For instance, people who are stronger than others have to wear weight bags on there bodies to make them weaker. Smarter people have to wear earpiece that will produce a random and startling sound to make them lose their train of thought. Good looking people had to wear cosmetics that make them look ugly.

At the beginning of the story the agents of the woman who enforces the handicaps, known as the Handicapper General, arrests Harrison, the son of George and Hazel Bergeron. Hazel and George were very sad, but weren’t able to be so for long. Hazel was a person of “perfectly average intelligence”, who could only think for a very short amount of time. George on the other hand was very intelligent was handicapped with one of the earpieces.

I thought that this story was very interesting. What I thought it showed was
what complete socialism would be like. What it would be like if a government tried to make everyone equal in every aspect of life. What it would be like if we were denied the natural gifts God gave us, simply because there were others who didn’t have them. Those who were gifted were forced to be burdened.

I thought it was interesting how being disabled was glorified, while being
able was discouraged. Being skilled was also discouraged. Ballerinas who were more graceful than the others, had to wear extra weights to make them less graceful. People who were gifted speakers were not allowed to be public speakers. Instead people with speech impediments were public speakers.

I thought that the events that took place after Harrison’s escape was
interesting. When he escaped, he first proclaimed himself Emperor, and then took his handicaps of himself. He then chose an Empress, who he freed from her handicaps. After being tormented by the handicaps for four years, he hadn’t any interest to free anyone but himself and his empress. After living under complete control of someone else, he demanded that everyone do as he says, instead of freeing them as well

I think that the character Harrison, was made to be exactly the opposite of
what the government in the story wants people to be. They say that, “he is a genius, and an athlete, is under-handicapped, and should be regarded as extremely dangerous”. It is also stated that “he is exactly seven feet tall”, and good looking. He could not be restrained by handicaps, and the one he had were more extreme than the ones worn by anyone else. Other people’s handicaps were orderly, while his were hanging all over him.

The author tells us some of the aspects of Harrison, while his actions tell the
others. The author states that “he is exactly seven feet tall” and that, “to offset his good looks, the H-G men required that he wear at all times a red rubber-ball for a nose, keep his eyebrows shaved off, and cover his even white teeth with black caps at snaggletooth random”. One thing that his actions tell are his athleticism, where it says that, “Harrison snatched two musicians from their chairs, waved them like batons as he sang the music as he wanted it played”. Also his being under-handicapped is demonstrated when, “Harrison tore the straps of his handicap harness like wet tissue paper”.

One allusion that I saw was when Harrison was stripping himself of his
handicaps. It says that, “He flung away his rubber-ball nose, revealed a man that would have awed Thor, the god of thunder”. Thor is god from Norse mythology. I also saw a metaphor. When referring to one of the ballerinas it reads: “Harrison Bergeron, age fourteen” she said in a grackle squawk.




Simile: Figure of speech that makes a comparison between things, using a words such as like, as, resemble, or than.

Metaphor: Figure of speech that makes a comparison between things, in which ne thing becomes another thing without the use of words such as like, as, than, or resembles.

Personification: Special kind of metaphor where something nonhuman is talked about as if it was human.

Allusion: A reference made to another piece of literature, or to pop culture.

Hyperbole: An exaggeration made to give emphasis.

Irony: Something that is oxymoronic, something that is the opposite of what is expected.

Week Eight Independent Reading

This week I read more of Tom Clancy's Patriot Games. One thing that I found interesting was how the C.I.A. use satellites for reconnaissance. For instance, in the book there are suspected terrorist camps in Africa. to find out if they actually are, the C.I.A. would have the satellites take pictures of the camps as they passed over. Some of the groups who had very good intelligence, knew when the Satellites passed over and would go indoors.

What Communities in Schools has Done for Me

I was home schooled and liked being so for the most part. I was home schooled for many reasons. One of which was that I’ve always been a bit of a late bloomer. I was also pretty shy, and the thought of many students and screaming teachers trying to control them scared me to death. I have a July birthday, which meant my parents had to make the choice of whether they would have me doing the work of older kids, or of younger kids. I have two older brothers and I always wanted to be exactly like them. They were doing fourth and sixth grade, but I was just going to do kindergarten, which they told me wasn’t real school. So when my parents asked me what I wanted to do, I said I wanted to start first grade!
First grade was great. I was the champion of addition. As long as the final answer didn’t exceed twelve, I was fine. Once it got to thirteen things got hairy, but in first grade it never went any further. Second, third, and fourth grade went just as well. Fifth grade didn’t go quite so well. My arithmetic struggled while my reading level came to a stand still. I also wrote at a horribly slow pace. Part of the reason is that I would subconsciously write the letters to words out of order, even when I knew how to spell them. After a few years and a comprehension class I started to regain the ground I had lost in my schooling, although I still wrote just as slow.
Not too long ago I realized that one of the reasons for my difficulty with writing was that I had hereditary hand tremors. It amazed me that I hadn’t ever noticed it before, but when I thought back, I realized that it had always been there. I always had to bear down extremely hard to keep my hand from shaking. Around this same time I found out that my problem with not being able to write the letters of words in the correct order had a name: Dysgraphia. I didn’t have any idea that my little problem was both common and known. I thought I just had a weird habit that I couldn’t break.
A few months ago I was hoping I would be able to start my junior year of
high school. Both of my brothers had started going to schools by the time they had reached their junior years, and my mom was unsure if she would be able to teach me. I was unsure if I would be able to take notes during lectures, or if I would even learn anything in a classroom of forty-five kids, with one teacher trying to control them all. Every option we looked into didn’t fit, or we couldn’t afford.
One day my mom told me about a school called Classic City Performance Learning Center, which had been started by a group called Communities in Schools. She told me about how all of the schools started by Communities in Schools, had a fifteen student per classroom rule. She also told me about how almost all of the work is done on computers, and therefore not much note taking. The last thing she told me about was how it is self paced. It sounded like we might have found what I was looking for.
On August seventh two-thousand-eight, I started going to Classic City Performance Learning Center, a Communities in Schools, school. I quickly found out that small number of students, the work being mostly on computer, and the self paced nature was exactly what I needed. I was able to keep up, and even get ahead in some in one class. I have now completed that class and moved on to another, which I’ll be finishing at the time the first class was intended to end. Communities in Schools is not only helping me catch up, but also giving me the chance to get ahead. I am very thankful for Communities in Schools, because I haven’t any idea what I would be doing now if not for them.