Blog 4

Throughout Marley & Me, John Grogan shows that he has quite a talent for literary techniques. His use of imagery made me feel like I was there. For example,
"He[Marley] would spot a rabbit munching the lettuce and barrel off down the hill in hot pursuit, ears flapping behind him, paws pounding the ground, his bark filling the air".(Grogan, 219).
Not only does he use imagery, Grogan used oxymorons and metaphors:
"He was as stealthy as a marching band".(Grogan, 219)
John Grogan's use of literary terms really help readers feel a part of the story, like they were there. I know that sometimes I would get so sucked into the book, I would forget about everything around me. The descriptions that Grogan used were not boring or dry, they were smooth and exiting, it was almost as if the book was a movie playing in my head. I think that other authors need to take a leaf out of John Grogan's book, and use a wide variety of literary techniques in a fun way, like he does.

Another Prefix Poem

Two bipolar bears were comparing biceps. Finally, they both decided on a winner, who won a double whopper. The two then bicycled to voice lessons, where they would sing a duet bilingually. They then went home, where they were told that they were two twins tragically torn apart twenty years ago due to a terrible carbon dioxide poisoning in the twisted hospital where they were born.

Blog 3

As a dog owner, you need to expect that your dog will eat anything and EVERYTHING! In fact, if there is anything on my floor, I have taken to just dumping it on my dresser or desk before my dog Kozmo can come in. Kozmo has eaten the weirdest things. Before we learned better than to leave things on the floor and close the door, Kozmo's diet consisted of: toilet paper, garbage, homework, stuffed animals, pencils, pens, socks, underwear, jewlery, gum, headphones, once even my retainer. My expirience with Kozmo really helped me understand the way that John Grogan talked about all the things Marley ate. In the book, there is an entire chapter called "What He Ate". I think that people who are not dog owners might think that the Grogan family was just irresponsible, but the truth is, even if you are the most responsible people in the world, your dog will still end up with your essay. It just comes with the territory of having a dog.

Prefix Poem

There was once a unicorn who lived in the universe. Everyday he put on his uniform and unicycled to the university. He was very unique because he wore a unitard on his head. The unicorn then divided the world into units so that it wasn't unified.

Blog 2

In Marley and Me, there is a point where Marley, a wild, hyper, dog stops and puts his head on his master's lap when she was very sad and almost seems to understand. I have had firsthand expirience of this. Somehow, dogs can sense what you need. After everything going on with family, school, friends, my dog Kozmo knows exactly what to do. He just cuddles with me. The first time this happened, I was extremely suprised. Our crazy, dog who was constantly jumping off the walls, had snuggled up next to me. He was looking at me as if to say "It's okay, I'm right here". Since then, he has always been there for me. Apparently, it's not unusual for dogs to seem to understand how you feel. There's just something about dogs that help you feel better. Maybe its their patience, understanding, the way that they just listen, or maybe it's their unconditional love.

Spontaneous Poem

I kind of misunderstood what we were supposed to do for the poem, so I used only the words that I had written down on my list.

Kozmo flys
Johnny Depp smiles
Footprints walk
Grab the sun
Dip toes in the ocean
Burn water
Sweet, smelly love
Outside the box

Blog 1

I am currently reading Marley & Me. At one point, the narrator/ author, John Grogan tells the readers about something awful. He remembers that:

"We had read enough to steer clear of the so-called puppy mills, those commercial breeding operations that churn out purebreds like Ford churns out Tauruses. Unlike mass-produced cars, however, mass-produced pedigree puppies can come with serious hereditary problems, running the gamut from hip dysplasia to early blindness, brought on by multi-generational inbreeding". (Grogan, 7)

I did a little research on so-called 'puppy mills'. Apparently, the sellers view these living, breathing animals as cash-crop. So in order to make the most profit, the people who run puppy mills spend hardly any money on taking care of the dogs. The puppies get little or no excersise. Many become 'kennel crazy' and constantly run in circles. They recieve inadequite nutrition. Also, according to Friends of Animals,

"Puppy mills typically confine large numbers of dogs in rows of crudely constructed, over-crowded pens. The floors are constructed of wiring to allow feces and urine to drop to the ground below. This causes discomfort to the animals’ paws. Considered nothing more than breeding stock, mother dogs are forced to have litters at an early age, and kept continually pregnant. Mother dogs are killed when they’re no longer able to produce a profitable litter size."

My question is: what made people think that they could use innocent animals to make their money? Who made humans supirior to animals? The people who run puppy mills should think about how the animals feel. I have been told several times, while arguing my reasons for being a vegitarian, that 'animals are here for us.'. SINCE WHEN??? Humans have no right to use living, breathing animals for money. As Grogan's quote says, puppies from puppy mills are usually very sick. Who do puppy mill owners think they are? It is completely unethical to doom a poor puppy to a life of misery just for a few extra bucks. I think that puppy mills are wrong, and they should be stopped. "Man's best friend" is suffering, we need to help. For more information about puppy mills, go to http://stoppuppymills.org

Outside Reading Choice

For my outside reading book, I chose the #1 New York Times Bestseller, which was made into a movie that starred Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson. "Marley & Me" by John Grogan. I had heard talk of the book before the movie came out and I was intregued, but with schoolwork and drama, I never started it or saw the movie. I really forgot about it until my dad brought it home from Target. After he read it, he insisted that I do too. My dad said that it reminded him of our dog, Kozmo. Kozmo is our crazy, lovable, loyal, hyper, curious and wild one year old Coker-Bichon. I am really exited to learn about other people's expiriences with their dogs.

Poems

So much depends
On that round little cup
Surrounded in crinckley tin
With the smell of peanut butter
and the smooth chocolate surface
Although it does taste kind of stale

So much of spring depends upon
the forest
where a hint of life is returning
where green is slowly emerging
where a bird chirps and
where the wind rustles what is left of winter

Holocaust Paragraph

When people think of what happened during the Holocaust, their minds usually turn to concentration and death camps. Although the camps do play a huge role in the outcome of the Holocaust, it was not the only hardship that the Jewish people had to face. First, Hitler began taking privileges away from the Jewish community. The History Place Holocaust Timeline states that by 1938, most Jewish rights were long gone. At that point, Jews were already being deported to concentration and death camps. These people were taken (sometimes violently) from their homes, and forced to board a freight train. With days of travel, no food, and no room to even sit down on the train, several people died before the train arrived at the camp. Perhaps they were they lucky ones, for the ones who dismounted the train had no idea what terrors were to follow. Louis Bulow says that after getting off the train, germans examined each Jew. Some were told they would be getting and led to large buildings. The ‘showers’ that the prisoners were led to were in fact, large gas chambers. After undressing and given a piece of soap, the giant doors were shut, and the gas was released. Within twenty minutes everyone inside the chamber was dead. Those who had been fortunate enough to avoid the gas chambers were immediately put to work, most of them perished. According to 'Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race' website, the Nazis at the camps conducted awful medical experiments on the prisoners. This is shown in the novel 'Night' by Elizer Wiesel, Elie undergoes an operation without anesthesics "They had not put me to sleep" (Wiesel, 75). They viewed the Jewish as people who could just be disposed. One experiment that the Nazis did was they put people in the freezing cold, to first, establish how long it would take to lower the body temperature to death and second, how to best resuscitate the frozen victim. Over 6 million people died, and several were very near-death when the Americans finally came to release the prisoners from the death camps.

Holocaust Research Flow-Map

Holocaust Research

I was given the task of finding some things that happened during the Holocaust. After being in a play about the Holocaust, visiting Holocaust museums, and learning about it in school, I know that there had to be hundreds. I believe that the Holocaust truley began when Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany in 1933. The terror for Jewish people followed quickly. TheIt started with people destroying Jewish stores. Although it must have been terrible, no one had any idea of what was to come. That is when the Jewish community started to loose their priveledges. First, they were not allowed to own land, then they could not have health insurance, then went their right to serve in the military, finally, Hitler took pretty much all of their rights away when he wrote the Nuremberg laws. They were a number of laws that prohibited Jews from doing pretty much anything. As if that wasn't enough the Nazis demanded that any Jewish people had to register wealth and property, Jews over age 15 had to apply for identity cards from the police, which any policeman could ask for, at any time, for no reason whatsoever. THen they had all Jewish women add "Sarah" and Jewish men to add "Israel" to their names on their passports, the Nazis then forced them to wear a red J. Imagine being a Jew at this time, you could'nt work, because they had been banned from almost all kinds of work, the children were not allowed to go to school. You were forced to be relocated to Jewish houses, could not own radios, or be outside from 8 p.m. to 9 a.m. That was just the beginning. Soon, Jews began dissapearing, never to be seen again. They had been deported to concentration camps along with gypsies, black people, homosexuals and mentally disabled people, where they faced horrors beyond our imagination. After a long ride on freight trains, where there was no room to move, they arrived at the camps. There, they were either killed instantly, by being told they were getting showers, and then being put into gas chambers instead. Or forced to work until they were dead. Not only that, but I learned that the Nazis conducted several expiriments on their captives that were held in death camps like: Auchswitz, Dachau, Buchenwald and Natzweiler. The tests that the nazis conducted were inhumane and awful. They put people in the freezing cold,to find out first, to establish how long it would take to lower the body temperature to death and second how to best resuscitate the frozen victim. These people did awful, unspeakable tests on twins. I'll spare you the details, but know this, they were gruesome. Over 6 million people died, and several were very near-death when the Americans finally came to release the prisoners from the death camps. Beleive it or not, those things listed above were only a portion of what happened during the Holocaust. It was an unbelievable thing that happened, and we will never forget it.

Sources:

http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/deadlymedicine/

http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/timeline.html

http://www.deathcamps.info/FAQ.htm

Holocaust Cause and Effect

Vocab Circle Map

8. Culture

I just got back from a great trip to New York that I took with some thespians from school. We went to four shows in three days. All of which were phenomonal. One of the shows that we saw was called "Billy Elliot". Billy Elliot is the story of a young boy who developes an amazing talent for dancing.In my opinion, it was the best musical we saw. For many people, culture means only things like religion and heritage. But according to my mom, culture can be what is important or who you are to anyone in particular. It can be heritage, food, family, music, traditions, pretty much anything. For Billy Elliot it was dancing. Dancing becomes apart of him. At one point, Billy sings a song about how dancing makes him feel. It is called "Electricity". The song talks about how dancing makes it feel and how it completes him. Dancing is Billy's culture, what is yours?

7.Change

Yesterday, I was babysitting a little girl, and for her bedtime story, I read her Peter Pan. Most know the story, so I won't tell it. However, there was one thing that really stuck with me. That second star to the right, Neverland, where nobody ever grows up. Sometimes I think it would be the best if I never had to grow, but the truth is, growing up is part of living. Change can be extremely hard, but it needs to happen at some point in our lives. Without change, new opportunities would be non-existant. In the book, Peter asks Wendy if she could stay in Neverland forever. She says no. I think that, as tempting as it was to have the chance to never grow up, she made the right choice. Wendy knew that things could not stay exactly the same forever. They would have to change.

6. Hope

I recently read a poem about hope that really stood out to me. Here it is:

What hope means
Hope is bright shining light which keeps darkness at the bay
Hope is gentle cold breeze on a hot summer day
Hope is to remain positive when going gets tough
Hope is seeking more when others think you had enough
What hope means
Hope is dreaming of tommorow
Hope is simmering under sorrow
Hope is sparkles when tears in our eyes
Hope is a beautiful thing & beutiful things never dies
What hope means
Hope is as light as a feather
Hope keeps all of us together
Hope is ubiquitous and free of cost
Hope is the last thing ever lost.....

-Vineet Bansal

My family and I are currently going through some struggles and hope is something that we can hold on to, no matter what happens. In my opinion, hope is everything, one cannot live without it. This poem shows how that is true. Hope is free of cost, and it is the last thing ever lost. As our class read "Nectar In A Sieve", we all know how important hope is. Despite everything lost, Rukmani does not give up, she still has hope. In my opinion, without hope, everyone would just give up at the slightest hint of trouble. Suicide would probably be alot more common if there was no hope. Think about how hope affects your everyday life. With problems about homework, social life, family and everything else, everyone is bound to lose some heart. So then what drives one to keep going? Hope. Hope to get good grades and to get into college. Hope to be happy and have friends. Hope for everything. In the end, hope IS everything and without it, all would be lost.

5. Religion

A few years ago, when I was in Colorado with my church, we went to this camp. There was another church there from Atlanta, Georgia. As it was a sunny, summer day, I decided to wear my beloved Harry Potter hat (after reading the books about 15 times each, I am a bit of a nut). Everyone was divided up into groups and told about an activity that they had to do. As soon as we started, the adult (from the other church) in our group turned top me and demanded that I remove my hat. Instinctivly, I asked why. I was extremely suprised by the answer. " Because witchcraft is the work of the DEVIL!!". I stared at him in disbelief, but took my hat off all the same. I was fine with him having his own opinions, but he should not have brought me into it. I would completly understand if I had been wearing something offensive, but really! Harry Potter? It was his belief that Harry Potter was the work of the devil, and I am certain there are thousands more people who believe the same thing. Thankfully, we all have different religions and beliefs. Religion makes us each unique and helps people cope with what goes on. But I think that one's religion should not keep someone else from wearing something that they like from a book.

4. Gender Roles

I babysit this little four year old girl, she loves Disney princesses, as alomost all four year old girls do. Anyway, whenever I babysit, I bring over something of my own to share. This time I brought over the Disney classic, "Sleeping Beauty". You all know the story with Princess Aurora who touches the spinning wheel and falls into a deep sleep. As I was sitting there, watching, I thought about how so many movies and books follow the same story line. Girl falls in love with guy, girl gets into mortal danger, guy saves her, they live happily ever after. Some might say that the reason that all these Disney movies have the same theme, is because they were made a long time ago, when women were viewed as weaker than men. But the truth is, movies and books today still have that theme. What will it take to have the women saving the men? I realize that there is the occasional flick that shows the girl saving the guy, but really, there is a definite need for more. I think that, subconsiously, people are getting the wrong idea about women, and that they need to be saved. Women are strong! And they can do anything men can!

3. Different Culture

As "Nectar In A Sieve" is written by an Indian woman and shows much of the Indian culture throughout the book, and because we are reading it in class, this is the perfect time to talk about the culture differences. For one, here, we usually don't pay dowry. One problem that arises during the story is the ability to afford a suitable dowry for the soon-to-be husband of the daughter. Another cultural difference is the fact that pretty much the one reason for having a wife, is to make children. This is shown when Ira is "returned" to her family. The only reason that she is is because she is infertile, and her family understands this. In my opinion, in America, people marry mostly for love. In India, the order is: get married, have kids, and THEN fall in love. Here, it is usually: fall in love, get married and THEN have kids. One other difference is that, in India, there was someone who chose who you were married to. In the end, there are ALOT of cultural differences between India and the United States.

2. Overcoming A Struggle

Yesterday, I was really in the mood for some Disney, so I got out some old tapes and watched Robin Hood. There are several characters attermpting to overcome struggles. Many instantly think of Robin Hood, who is constantly trying to help the poor in their hard time, there is also the poor themselves, who are trying to survive with hardly any money at all. But, there is one character who works tirelessly to overcome his battle with guilt. Prince John. As revealed in the movie, he came up with the idea for his right-hand man, Sir Hiss, to hypnotize his brother, the king. PJ wanted King Richard to go away, leaving the throne all to himself. On top of PJ feeling slightly guilty about that, througout the movie, Sir Hiss makes PJ feel very guilty, because PJ destroys many of his mother's old things. I believe that, because of the guilt he feels, PJdevelops a bad habit of sucking on his thumb. The guilt doesn't only do that, but it forces him to become obsessed with becoming a great king. He puts all his energy towards catching Robin Hood. Prince John never overcame his guilt, but it wasn't for lack of trying.

1. Natural Disasters

I learned, from a National Geographic article that on December 26, 2004 an enormous tsunami rolled across the Indian Ocean. In just 24 hours, more than 150,000 people were dead or missing. It also left millions of people from 11 different countries without homes. This seriously affected the way that millions of people lived their lives. For me, I would be very distraught with loosing my possesions. Pictures, letters, old projects. Those things help remind me of my history. Without them, it would feel as though a part of me was missing. I can't even begin to imagine what those people felt when they lost their homes, their families and their possesions. It would be interesting if people could go and visit the people that were involved with this terrible disaster, to see how they are now. Or maybe to ask them how the tsunami has affected their day-to-day lives. The hard thing to realize, is that people's lives change dramatically every day due to natural disasters.

O.R 17

For Christmas, I got a book I have waited for to come out. The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K Rowling with extensive commentary by Albus Dumbledore. For those of you who have read all the Harry Potter books, you'll know that in the seventh book, Hermione recieves this book from Dumbledore (in a manner of speaking). At first she is quite confused as to why he would choose to give her that book because it is a collection of stories that are told to young witches and wizards. It is as well known to witches and wizards as Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty are to muggles(people without magic power). In the end, it ends up being quite an important element. The first story was called The Wizard and the Hopping Pot. It was about this wizard whose father had a magic pot. It provided remedies for the entire muggle town. When the man's father died, he decided to discontinue helping the people of the town with the magic pot. So one day, a woman came to his door and asked him to heal her granddaughter who had awful warts. As soon as he had turned her away, the pot began jumping on its brass leg and started sprouting warts. The wizard continued to ignore the people of the town. With each, the pot took on the symptoms of the townsfolk, jumping on its brass foot the entire time. Finnally, the wizard gives up and begins to help everyone.

O.R 16

So I finished "It's Kind of a Funny Story". It was an alright read, I didn't love it though. The thing that kept me reading was all these interesting people that this boy meets in an insane asylum. Underneath these people's odd quirks, you can see that they are sane. This led me to ask myself... Who really are the sane ones? The people who are constantly trying to hide how they feel and change who they are just to fit in. Or the people who express themselves, no matter how weird and don't care what others think. Who decided that the people who are different should be dubbed insane and cooped up in a mental hospital? Maybe WE are the ones with the problems. I do realize that sometimes people can be a danger to themselves and to others, but aren't we all really? We are constantly putting people down with our cruel words, and we critisize our bodies and how we are which can lead to severe problems. So, with that said...Who really is insane?