1.      My favorite class activity was when we got all the different words and had to make a poem. I think mine turned out well.

After the Fight

Mother said never to lie to my father.

I told him that he was a perfect loving father.

On my 14 year-old birthday

He sent a blue dress and petticoat.

It was expensive,

Picked from a women department store,

I wore it during the divorce.

There was a card with a check

And a wood box of something.

I never opened it.

2.      I haven’t been very good a paying attention to other people’s work this quarter, but I think that’s when I do my best work because I’m less influenced.  I haven’t done much reading lately. But, a couple of weeks ago I read A Clockwork Orange. I really liked it because it was truly different and I felt to be in a whole different world while reading it.

3.      I came up with the name of my blog by going to a random title generator. I don’t think anyone read it except from you (yup you the only person to read my blog, thank you). I probably won’t use it in the future.

4.      Usually the only things in my journal are those things we did in class but I usually wrote more than needed. I probably won’t journal.

5.      I really don’t like anything I wrote in my journal but I do enjoy some of the pictures I drew in it. Here are some similar, better drawn pictures,

                   

6.      I think in three days you can’t know if you love someone. Infatuation defined is an intense but short-lived and irrational passion for somebody or something. The definition of love is, to feel tender affection for somebody. Tender being the main word here. Let’s say you’re marinating a chicken breast. For it to turn tender you must first beat it with a meat cleaver, and then marinate it for a day. The same goes for love. One must be in a relationship, have a few fights and if you still have that feeling of love afterwards it will stay with you, like the marinade flavor.

7.      I love this class because it was easy and relaxing. There never was a day when I left this class that I have felt mad or upset.

8.      “Pretend you are being charged money for each word you write.” Ok I found this on Google but its saying, brevity is best. I agree. Yawp!

7. I think in three days you can’t know if you love someone. Infatuation defined is an intense but short-lived and irrational passion for somebody or something. The definition of love is, to feel tender affection for somebody. Tender being the main word here. Lets say your marinating a chicken breast. For it to turn tender you must first beat it with a meat cleaver, and then marinate it for a day. The same goes for love. One must be in a relationship, have a few fights and if you still have that feeling of love afterwards it will stay with you, like the marinade flavor.

11. when I was a kid hide and seek was my favorite game. Some of my best hiding spots were the ones not thought about. One time I hid in the dryer. It was really hot and crowded but they never found me untill 30 minutes later I appeared. I also was one of those people that hid in plan site, like hiding behind a plant in the middle of a room. I also recently have hid in a closet and had to come out because I was having backpains.

30. I am a horrible bowler, my mom and sister can bowl professionally, I didn’t get that gene. When I was eight I went bowling and threw the ball into a whole different lane. I also am the worst skater ever. My friends will try to get me skating and I never go because I don’t want to hurt myself. They just don’t understand how bad I really am at it.

20. I think to be a good conversationist you should be able to find something in common with the other person within two-minutes, so asking questions are a good idea, just not too many.

Movies

·        My favorite movies are Lord of the Rings and 500 Days of Summer.

·        I don’t really care for “scary movies” because I don’t enjoy having thing pop out of nowhere. Also I do not like “comedy” movies because I have such a different humor  than everyone else and mainly they are just raunchy.

·        I usually watch movies by myself I’m my room before I go to bed. But I often suggest a movie with my friends when they want to hang out and I don’t. That way I don’t have to talk to them.

·        I need a dark quiet room to watch a movie.

       My highest score in my survey is “Informational” movie and my lowest is watching movies with friends

The gift was not what I expected…

                A fairy dress-up set for my 11^th birthday. She must have thought me to be 5. I told her I liked it and I thanked her. When I got home I threw it in the trash. That was the first of many horrible gifts from my aunt. Just this past year she figured out I hate her gifts and so she gives me cash now. Thankful am I.

Ask a teacher about Music…

            I asked Mrs. Willis about her thoughts on music.

What music reminds you of your childhood?

            Cat Stevens, Elton John,   James  Taylor.

I think this is great because I listen to these artists now.

 I wonder if that who I will later connect back to my childhood?

Is any music offensive to you now?

            Yes, rap about miss treating women.

                                    I agree, here here.

What music reminds you of someone you love?

Josh Groeben

Music Questions.

3. My taste in music has changed a lot in the years past.   In the 90’s  I would listen to rock old and new with my dad. When I was 7 I moved in with a new family and they listened to country. I didn’t like it then and I don’t now. Then around 9 I started to listen to the oldies station. When I was adopted I was introduced to classic rock and 80’s music. Now I like pretty much anything but country. Right now I’m in an indie/alternative phase.

6. Without music the world would be quiet.

7. Without music m life would be very dull.

8. I admire the music of The Beatles, because they changed they world.

13. Music is poetry because it is all a big poem put to rhythm.

14. Music can change my mood faster than anything else.

Child’s Play.

                12. Describe a childhood aliment. I was born with two pinky toes on my right foot, and an extra bone in each of my pinkies on my hands. My dad has really messed up feet too. I can remember him having like two sets of webbed toes. An extra pinky toe and like an extra middle toe or something. So I suppose my strange digits are hereditary. When I was about a year old I got my extra pinky toe removed. The Shriners in Saint Louis had the operation paid for, because my family couldn’t afford it. Then, the summer before 7^th grade I got my extra pinky bone in my left hand removed. The surgeon was really good. I had limited movement in my pinky before, and she said that after the surgery it may be the same. It turned out better after the surgery! I love my freaky pinkies!

                19. What was your biggest childhood accomplishment?  My biggest childhood accomplishment I had was in fourth grade. That year Hurricane Katrina hit the southern coast of the U.S. I always would watch the Nightly News with Brian Williams, and see the damage and I felt a need to help. I got the idea of putting a big culligan bottle in the cafeteria and see if people would donate money that we could give to the Red Cross. We raised over $400, which may not seem to be a lot but for Aurora, Mo. It’s good.

                20. When I didn’t feel safe as a child at my house I would just start walking. One time when I lived in the country, I was 6 or so, I woke up and my mom and sister wasn’t there, I just went out the front door and started walking. I walked down the road and into the woods, it was a great time, but then I got stung by a bee and went back home and waited for my mom to come home. After my mom, sister, and I moved into town we were just around 4 blocks away so I would walk there. It was a safe haven for me.

37. My favorite childhood movie was Edward Scissor hands. I loved the music. Also the subject matter was similar to my life. For years my hands have been criticized by people because they are not what they are supposed to be. I understand why he wants normal hands. I still love that movie.

Are You My Mother?

In this story a baby bird falls out of it's nest. It ends up wandering around looking for it's Mother. It asks a dog, cat and cow, "Are you my Mother?" Eventually the bird finds it's mother behind a rock.





                    

                       Corduroy

In this book there is a Teddy bear that is sitting lonely on a shelf in a store. It wears a pair of corduroy overalls but it is missing a button so people don't buy him. At night he comes alive and searches for a button but can't find one. Then one day a girl comes by and buys him.

City of Ember

This book is a chapter book. It is about a town that had to move underground because of the pollution on ground. It tells of the struggles of living underground and the sacrifices the people have to make.  The main Character is a girl of 13. She spends her time trying to find out where all of the supplies are going.

If I was ever to write a children's book it would be about a Leprechaun. I would try my best to make it rhyme, because books that rhyme are the best. My main characters will be talking animals. Writing children stories would be easy because you wouldn't have to use complex language.

Photos as Inspiration

   This is a girl,

   A girl who falls down a rabbit hole,

   She never stops falling,

   Never goes anywhere or does anything.

   This is a girl who, before she tripped,

   Loved any type of food, being around people,

   And had a true passion for always doing something.

   This is a girl now,

   Who is trying to figure out herself,

   W hy her friends are her “friends”,

   What clothes she should be wearing,

   What music she should be listening to.

   Or what her perants demand her to be and why.

   These are the shelves that hold her past,

    Full of past experiments,

                                                                                     Pictures from different families,

                                                                                     Butterflies that she caught while being free,

                                                                                     And her Grandmothers crossstiching.

                               Now this is just all stuff to her.            

                Old Italian man, hunched over with a cane. Once again feeding the neighborhood cat grapefruit. He thinks his neighbor, Adelina, needs to stop feeding it risotto with tomatoes because the cat is getting to fat. Calvino had a cat when he was a child, her name was, Dolce. She would come and go as she pleased. Calvino gave her food for every mouse she killed, she was fast and strong. The best place to scratch a cat is on its back. The old wizened man stands over the cat to be reminded of his childhood where life was simple.

    Life in Italy was easy in 1919. No dictator or war, Live on a farm was good. Get up when the rooster crows. Go to the barn and milk the cows, feed the chickens and go to school. Come home and harvest grapes and eat dinner with my 3 brothers and parents. Not much happened, just a non-complex daily routine. When my dad brought home the kitten it was so nice and soft. He let me decide the name, its name was Dolce. It was an independent cat but I felt that it was my duty to feed it. So every mouse it caught I would feed it. I loved that cat, she was fast and strong.

     The old man stands over the cat watching it, remembering his childhood.
               
Old Italian man,
Hunched over with a cane,
Watching a cat.

The cat is getting fat,
Adeline, his neighbor,
Won’t stop feeding it table scrapes.

The wizened man watches the cat,
Reminded of his childhood.

In 1919 life in Italy was easy,
No dictators or war.

Get up with the rooster,
Milk the cows,
Feed the chickens, go to school.
An everyday routine.

The kitten was nice and soft,
I named it Dolce,
It was so sweet.
Independence should have been that cat’s name.
I loved that cat,
She was fast and strong.

The old man stands, watching the cat, remembering his childhood.

Famous Lines from Famous Books

“I the town there were two mutes and they were always together.”

This is the opening line of, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers, It was published in 1940. Saome other works of McCullers include, Sweet as a Pickle and Clean as a Pig and a collection of short stories named, The Ballad of the Sad Café.

Summary:

Sentimental story centers around a deaf-mute, Singer, and Mick, a teenager who lives in the house where he rents a room. Mick and Singer become friends, though they are separated by Singer's lack of communication ability and Mick's struggle with teenage traumas. The lives of the people Singer touches are varied, linked only by their friendship with Singer. His friends include a deaf-mute, a drunk, a and a doctor. Singer does his best to help those around him solve their problems, but who is there to help him solve his own? by MellisaPortell

Review:

"This book is literature.  Because it is literature, when one puts it down it is not with a feeling of emptiness and despair (which an outline of the plot might suggest), but with a feeling of having been nourished by the truth.  For one knows at the end, that it is these cheated people, these with burning intense needs and purposes, who must inherit the earth.  They are the reason for the existence of a democracy which is still to be created.  This is the way it is, one says to oneself - but not forever." - May Sarton.  ``Pitiful Hunt for Security:  Tragedy of Unfulfillment Theme of Story That Will Rank High in American Letters." Boston Evening Transcript.  June 8, 1940.

“The knife came down, missing him by inches, and he took off.”

This was the last line in, Catch-22  by Joseph Heller, it was published in 1961. Some of his other works are Something Happened or Good as Gold.

Summary:

During the second half of World War II, a soldier named Yossarian is stationed with his Air Force squadron on the island of Pianosa, near the Italian coast in the Mediterranean Sea. Yossarian and his friends endure a nightmarish, absurd existence defined by bureaucracy and violence: they are inhuman resources in the eyes of their blindly ambitious superior officers. The squadron is thrown thoughtlessly into brutal combat situations and bombing runs in which it is more important for the squadron members to capture good aerial photographs of explosions than to destroy their targets. Their colonels continually raise the number of missions that they are required to fly before being sent home, so that no one is ever sent home. Still, no one but Yossarian seems to realize that there is a war going on; everyone thinks he is crazy when he insists that millions of people are trying to kill him.

Review:

Catch-22 is like no other novel. It is one of the funniest books ever written, a keystone work in American literature, and even added a new term to the dictionary.At the heart of Catch-22 resides the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero endlessly inventive in his schemes to save his skin from the horrible chances of war. His efforts are perfectly understandable because as he furiously scrambles, thousands of people he hasn't even met are trying to kill him. His problem is Colonel Cathcart, who keeps raising the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempts to excuse himself from the perilous missions that he is committed to flying, he is trapped by the Great Loyalty Oath Crusade, the hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule from which the book takes its title: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes the necessary formal request to be relieved of such missions, the very act of making the request proves that he is sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved.Catch-22 is a microcosm of the twentieth-century world as it might look to someone dangerously sane—a masterpiece of our time. By Simon &Shuster

Memorable Passage

Alice in Wonderland

“Fury said to

        a mouse, That

          he met in the

            house, Let

              us both go

                to law: I

                  will prose—

                    cute you.—

                  Come I’ll

                take no

              denial: We

            must have

          the trial;

        For really

      this morning

    I’ve

  nothing

  to do.

   Said the

    mouse to

     the cur,

      ’Such a

        trial, dear

          sir. With

            no jury

             or judge,

              would

             be wasting

            our

          breath.’

       ’I’ll be

      judge,

     I’ll be

    jury,’

   said

  cunning

   old

    Fury:

     ’I’ll

        try

          the

            whole

              cause,

                and

               condemn

             you to

          death.’”

            Over this summer I got a GIANT book of everything that Lewis Carrol and ever gotten published. I decided that many of his thought, although amusing, told it like it was.  This passage talks about a pair of creatures that are having a dispute, one believes he’s been wronged by the other. The Fury did not give the mouse a chance to explain himself nor did they try to work out their dispute. Instead, the Fury immediately took the mouse to court, but it was not the court that most people think. In this court the Fury is the judge and the jury, overall the deciding factor. People in real life do this, before the final word is spoken they already decide in their head if the person is guilty or not. Humans seem to want to condemn people to death when the person condemning has done something far worse.