It’s a Sign!

When people see things out of the ordinary, there are a few ways to interperate it. They can completely ignore it, which is what some people do because they don’t think it is anything special. Some people go over board and over analyze it. They think that everything happens for a specific reason, but in my opinion, some things just…happen. Whenever something special, memorable happens, I remember it for a long time. I will be sitting looking into a patch of roses with dew sliding off of the petals like sleds going down a hill, and remember meeting a celebrity. I wrote about a few inspirations in The Sky is the Limit also.

Latte, Latte, Latte which was about the experience me and my friends had at Dunkin Donuts. A lot of my inspiration for grabbers and such comes from my own experiences.

Butterflies is about an experience I had while playing tennis,  of course I altered it a little, but it reflected how I felt while playing tennis. I was inspired by how much you think about aside from the game, and how “It’s funny how someone else’s success brings pain.” Everyone feels this way and I decided to bring the point across by a lighter topic.

Stay Away From the Blue Haired Girl is about one of my friends. Just because her appearance was a bit extreme, people judged her in a bad way. When I read a book about a rebelious girl that people tended to stay away from, I immediatly thought of my friend. I knew that being judged on your appearance was a big problem and try as we might, it will never be completely solved. Either way, I wanted to write something about it.

Expect the Unexpected is about the area in which I live. In our town, observing the weather is something we rarely do because it changes so often. When you think about it, the weather could be inspiration for change in the story or show how time passes by the weather.

The Blooming Flower was research about the Harlem Renaissance. Research is one of the inspirations that Kathy talked about.

Lighting of a Play is about a field trip that we went on in the Science museum. Although it isn’t directly about the science museum, thats what writing is about. You focus on a subject, but not so obviously that it gets boring or annoying. Writing about trips we have gone on was also one of Kathy’s suggestions.

The Sky is the Limit

Where do we go for inspiration? Some of us go to great lengths to find it. Personally, I spend awhile just thinking of a way to start off an essay. It feels as though you are stuck in the darkness, trying to find dim light. I sometimes just sit and wait for words to flow in and out of my head until something that sounds good comes along. Did you know that you can get a story out of anything? This is new to me because I always thought you had to think until you exhaust everything possible and then you still have to settle for an ordinary, average idea.

Kathy Duble came in today to talk about where to find ideas to write about. She gave many examples. The ranged from something as simple as our own experiences to using the ideas of other people. You can also write about your own hobbies and interests, but my favorite idea was to write about places or my vacations. On vacations, I always feel like a different person. You are around strangers and don’t have to watch what you do and live up to the expectations of people you know. I love it. The final idea was to write about what is around us, this includes our own backyard, the town, anything. I like this too because you know the area and it makes it easier to write about what fits with it.

It’s important to know that stories don’t always have to be made up. Parts of them can be influenced by your life or the people around you. Any personal story can be added to some sort of writing and enhance it. When you use personal stories, they may not always fit into what you are writing about and it is ok to use stories of other people. Kathy used stories from her sister in her writing. She wrote about her sister’s flying experience to add something real to a story. You know how people say girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice? Well, a story also has many parts. For this reason, you have to use as many ingredients as you can to make it amazing, the sky is the limit.

Zero to Hero

When making a decision, you think of most of the possibilities. Although sometimes, when in a rush you may think of a bad, hasty decision. The decision that you make reflects your personality. If you have to decide between kicking a puppy or bringing it back to their owner, it would depend on whether you are loving or not. Also, you have to think of who this affects. Sometimes, it may just be you that it affects, but usually whether intentional or not, it affects other people. It may be as difficult as a math problem, but you have to think it through.  Any decision has some form of influence, and you find yourself choosing between the right decision and the decision which will make you look good.

In “A Break With Charity” by Ann Rinaldi, the main character is Susanna. Throughout the whole story, she has to make decisions that are very difficult to make for a 14 year old girl. Yet all of her decisions show her loving, smart and unique nature. Susanna portrays her loving nature when although she doesn’t like the idea of Jonathan believing in witchcraft, she still comforts him after his arguments with his dad because she know that these things upset him very much. She is smart when she realized that it is better to not tell about the girls pretending to be tormented by witches. ”I knew I could not speak out now. For these girls did, indeed, have some dark powers. And they could hurt the rest of my family.” In the long run, the fact that she doesn’t tell about the girls hurts many people. I still think that for her family’s sake, it was better safe than sorry. Finally, Susanna is unique. While the girls are in their circle with the ultimate power, she doesn’t join them. She wanted to in the beginning. She hovered around them, but when their evil was revealed, she stopped trying to feel included and did what was right instead of what was “cool”.

Deciding to not tell about the girls was proof of being loving also. “But I had to protect my family, so I could not speak out.” This was a smart and loving choice. When she hid the truth, it was because she didn’t want her family to be cried out upon. Another decision was at the very end. “Yes, Ann, I forgive you.” After all of the trouble Ann has caused, Susanna forgives her. Not many people would be able to do that. The final decision that Susanna makes is whether or not to go to the court trials. People find them amusing, but they only scare her. They prove that Salem is falling apart. She gets no good from it while other people find it to be the most amusing thing. “I think we should not come to court again, he said. No good comes from it.” This is said by Jonathan, but Susanna follows his suggestion. She is unique because knowing that these trials are no good, they help her keep her head therefore making her one of the only people disbelieving in witch craft. 

Follow the Leader

In the mall I was at the store with my friends. We were looking at dresses for the dance. Usually people care about not looking to over do it about looks, or not looking too out casted. At the dance you can look as pretty as you want in whatever you want whether its bright pink, frilly or something more subtle, with people only thinking of how good you look. In the store I tried on a dress that I loved. It was as perfect as I could imagine. It was a flowery print with a skirt that would look like a hot air balloon if I twirled and I could see myself in it. Unlike me, my friends didn’t think it was so perfect. They thought I would choose something more outrageous, but this dress made me happy so why listen to them?

When you have to choose between being accepted and happiness, what do you do? Either you take the safe way out and do what they want or you put yourself out there. If your opinion makes you happy, then use it and don’t listen to the others. You might want to take them into consideration, but if they make you someone that your not, then it’s not worth it. Rachel said, ”If you listen to other’s opinions, you may become someone your not.” I agree with her. There is nothing more important than staying true to yourself, if you follow others blindly then you could end up doing something that you will deeply regret.

Sometimes when people want to fit in, they go to extremes. They don’t do what makes them happy, but blindly follow the opinions that others share. Peter says, “You should follow their own opinions, your the only one that knows what you want, not other people.” I agree with him because you are the only one who knows what you want. Someone could want you to ditch school, but in the long run you know that it has bad consequences.

Just Let Me Go

Not all parents are able to support their children. In “the Reckoning” by Kelley Armstrong, Chloe has to survive on her own with only her friends to depend on. Her mother is dead, her father can’t know about her new life and her aunt is imprisoned. Not only does she have to survive without them, but she is also on the constant look out for people who wanted to recapture her and continue testing her supernatural powers and if they turned too strong, they would kill her. During the time away from the adults she trusted, she grew up. So that makes us wonder, do we have to do something against our parent’s wishes to grow up?

Whenever I do something against my parent’s wishes, I feel somehow guilty, like by doing this particular action I am growing away from them. Every time I come home later than I should or yell at them for not letting me do something, it’s like I need more than I used to have and that’s a sign of me growing up. I no longer needed them to treat me like their little girl, but their girl that soon will be in high school next year, driving a car in a couple years and going to college after. They need to realize that I wont always be their little girl. Even though I sometimes need them for help, I fend for myself pretty well too and soon they’ll need to let their little girl go.

Growing up is necessary for everyone, but it can be done in many ways. It doesn’t always mean sneaking out and going to a party to get arrested to show your old enough to drink alcohol underage. It can mean being more responsible and taking care of the house more or getting better grades. In my opinion, responsibility is a sure sign of growing up. Anyone can prove that their parents don’t let them do what they want, so to show that they treat you like a child, you do what they tell you not to. Only the people that are truly growing up can either compromise or accept their parent’s requests.

Stay Away From the Blue Haired Girl

Trusting people is one of the hardest things to do. In life you have so many problems that you can’t just go telling everyone. You have to be careful, if you tell the wrong person, well it’s like telling the whole school. For example, if something embarrassing happened, you only tell your good friends. I just recently thought about how horrible it would be to not be able to talk to people. What do people do when that happens? Well according to my social studies teacher, they resort to drugs, alcohol and cutting. Usually it is their own choice to be isolated and keep everything inside. It’s as hard for me to hide my feelings as it is for a person to go without food. So, trust, not always the easiest thing to do.

Meg had cancer when she was little and since then, she hasn’t trusted anyone because her parents let her be strapped to a gurney and knocked out with medication. It would obviously be hard to trust anyone when you can’t even trust your own parents. She had leukemia and every time her hair grew back, she would dye it some unnatural color like bright, indigo, purple. This alienated her and she didn’t let anyone get close enough to her. She uses alcohol and drugs to avoid her problems so she doesn’t have to face things for real. She finally trusts somebody and dyes her hair back to the natural color. I think that her hair is the symbol throughout the whole story. The natural color resembles the fact that she finally trusts someone.

The topic that this book inspires is trust. It shows how unnatural people are when they have no one to trust. Then when she finally trusts someone, she goes back to normal. Trust is something that everyone needs to possess. If you don’t trust people, who will you tell your secrets and happy things to? Who will you go to when you feel horrible and need to vent your feelings? It can be trusting anyone, from your sister to a police officer boyfriend like Meg.

The Blooming Flower

Imagine living in a world where you have no right to express your feelings. You can write them out, but truthfully there is no point because no one will bother reading it. This happened to a lot of colored people during the segregation time period. They had wonderful ideas, just like white people, yet they were treated like animals. No one would listen to them, it took a lot of them to make the point that they are as good as white people and their ideas are worth listening to. They expressed their feelings through literature and it bloomed like a bright, unique flower. The period in which the literature of black people became acknowledged was called the Harlem Renaissance.

The Harlem Renaissance began during the migration of African Americans from southern states to New York and places like it. The New Yorkers settled in a place called Harlem. Along with them, these people brought music, art and literature. They had been cooped but by slavery and segregation, of course they have been through enough to make beautiful art, poetry and music. The Great Migration was when they all moved to the north and that was when the black community started expanding. Although the black population grew, people were still racist against them. It made no difference that they were now harassing a larger group of people, they kept at it and hoped that it would make the black people feel small again. Instead they created more art about their feelings. In a way, I guess it was like going to a therapist in modern times.

The Harlem Renaissance began in the late 1910s. They kept creating art and music and eventually the music began to sound good to the white people. The poems written by these people were about how they wanted so badly to be equal, but they didn’t want to surrender to these people that wanted to hurt to them. During the Harlem Renaissance there was violence against the white people. After all, what were they to do? Listen to people making fun of them and absorb it? No, in my opinion, it was good that they fought back. In closing, the Harlem Renaissance helped black people show that they had something to offer in the world and that they shouldn’t be treated the way that they were.

Things Change

“Things change” is often a response that people use to get others off of their backs. It is old, unoriginal, but people still accept it. For example, you walk up to your friend and they look at you funny and ignore you. Then they pull you aside and tell you how they don’t want to hang out with you anymore saying, “Things change”. Trying to keep your dignity, you walk away although inside it hurts as much as if someone were punching you in the stomach. During the Harlem Renaissance, people hoped for change and eventually it came.

We have read many poems that have been written during the Harlem Renaissance. All of them were about how African Americans hoped for equality. The white people didn’t treat them the same. This seems unthinkable in these days, but back then that is how things were. African Americans weren’t allowed to go to the same colleges, jobs and even bathrooms as white people. In the poems that we have read in class, there is a secret meaning to them. It is almost like a mystery. A poet will write about eating dinner and secretly mean that he will one day be as equal as a white man.

“Yet I do Marvel” by Countee Cullen was written in 1925, during the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance. I always noticed that African Americans were very religious and worshipped God greatly, and it is clearly shown in this poem. The first line implies how much they honor Him. “I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind”, These people are going through horrible lives and keep expecting help to come from God, but it never shows up. “The little buried mole continues blind.” The little mole is the people, they are waiting for help, and they think that they don’t know what to do without God. At the very least they want to know why this is happening, but in the end, they helped themselves on their own.

Chinese Food

Sometimes when you talk to people, it feels like what your saying goes into one ear and comes out of the other. It make be a nuance like you tell them to bring you a fork, but they bring you a spoon. You say come over tonight at 8 and they come over at 6. Honestly, is it that hard to understand simple things like that? I’ve been misunderstood a few times and it has made me feel as stupid as getting an F on a project. In general people don’t like being misunderstood.

One time I was over my friend’s house and we were ordering Chinese food. We ordered Lo mein, orange chicken and chicken fingers. We both hated oranges because they were slimy, smelly, disgusting, but it tasted good with the chicken. Well, the effusive Chinese people aren’t very good at English. They gave us some random food that we never had. The wonderful part was that we all got food poisoning from it that night. We never went back to that place again.They looked so excited to have customers that they must not have them often. I wonder why.

Misunderstandings happen all the time. Sometimes the person is high handed and doesn’t feel the need to listen to what you say because they think that they know better. Other times, the person is a sham and tries to act cooler and pretends not to understand you. Usually though, it is just that they don’t understand you, or they are distracted. I usually get frustrated when misunderstandings happen, then again I misunderstand people all the time too.

Stages

In life there are stages. You go from a small, helpless baby, to a child, to a teenager, an adult then an old person as independent as a turtle. Some stages are harder than others, but you have to go through all of them. You can’t skip any because in life it is impossible to skip it. In projects there are also stages. You also have to go through them all, but in projects you can skip some things. This isn’t always a good thing and you need to know when it’s ok to skip things and when it’ not. This is what I learned from the project as well as things about the rocks.

I learned techniques in this project. I learned how to make a good website. It has to be visually interesting, but still informative. I tried to split writing up with pictures and keep it to the point. There is no reason to make things go off topic and be completely useless. Also, I learned technological things about websites. For example, how to import videos and pictures, add music and make a website look good. Not only did I learn how to make a website, but also how to work with a team. I was the project manager so I had to plan everything out. I had to make sure that my group did all of the work, but they didn’t do too much so that the website got boring.

I also learned about the rocks. I learned about the different types of sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic. Before this project, I thought that there was only those three types of rock. I didn’t know that they were classified further. Later I found out that erosion and weathering  goes on around us. It happens on the sidewalk, mountains, and forests. The videos that me and my group found on youtube also helped us understand everything better. In closing, this project had a lot of things for us to learn about from the actual subject, to learning about working with groups and technology.