My Final Post

Well I haven't had like any time this week because of rehearsals and my crazy busy schedule to read through the websites to find a story that I could relate back to my reading, so I just decided to write my final blog about all the wonderful lessons I have learned this year in English. I started out my English year with the Christy Miller series by Robin Jones Gunn. Those books were some of the best I have ever read. The main character, Christy, went through so many of the same situations I have already experienced in high school or will experience some day and she was such a great example of how you should handle them. The books also had a big Christian influence in them and I learned so much about standing up for your faith and leading others to Christ. The books also, like any good book, had a love story in them which taught me many important lessons about taking things slow in a realtionship and working through the hard times. These books were truly amazing and every teenage girl should read them.

The next book I recall reading was To Kill a Mockingbird!! Wow, what a powerful book!! Even though it took forever to read and was difficult to understand at times, I am so glad I was given the oppurtunity to read it. There were so many valuable lessons to learn in that book as well. For example: when Atticus went ahead and defended Tom Robinson because he knew it was the right thing to do, despite all the teasing and mistreating he went through, and how Scout learned that she should have never have made assumptions and judged Boo the way she did before she met him and got to know him herself. These are both very important life lessons!! This book also made me realize how badly African American people were really treated back then. I mean how unfair is it that Tom Robinson didn't even get a fair trial just because of the color of his skin. I can't believe people could have been so mistreated in a country as powerful as America when in our own constitution our forefathers stated that all men are created equal. It just blows my mind. All young people should read this book for themselves and experince first hand what those people went through.

And last but not least Shakespeare's masterpiece, Romeo and Juliet. The most difficult, frustrating, and depressing work in literature that I have ever read. I will never forget how hard it was at first for me to understand at all what in the world Shakespeare was trying to say, but by the end of the play it seemed like just normal English to me. This is truly a remarkable play and it just amazes me that one man could think all of this stuff up. The poetry was absolutely gorgeous though. It all just had this rythm to it that made it seem so perfect. This play really demonstates how fate can never be changed no matter how hard you try to overcome it. Probably the most important lesson I learned from this incredible story, was to not take things to quickly. Most of the time in the story problems were created because different characters overreacted and moved to fast. I mean just imagine if Romeo and Juliet would have taken the time to date and actually get to know one another before running off and getting married. Maybe they would have found that the other wasn't as perfect as they thought. Or what if Romeo would have checked with the Friar before running to where Juliet was supposedly "buried" and killing himself. He could have found out that Juliet was only sleeping and then not have killed himself over nothing and saved both their lives. Being patient is so important!! Oh what a play!!

Well as you can tell I have learned very many valuable lessons from the books I have read this year!! I truly have enjoyed my semester in English and I am going to miss Ms. James very much!! Thanks for a great year everyone and keep up the blogging!!! Hope everyone has a fantastic summer!!

Kids having Kids

I went to the NPR web site and listened to Malissa who is an eight teen year old girl who is about to become a mom. She is eight months pregnant at the beginning of the interview. She didn't mean to get pregnant. As she puts it she was just starting school and a new job she was just starting her life. When I sate and listened to this interview it was really sad. We don't really know how it is to live a "hard" life. This girl was in foster and group homes all of her life. Her mom had her when she was eight ten and hadn't talked to her in over a year. She didn't have a caring dad for the baby. She was living in a one bedroom apartment paid for by the government. How could she raise a new born baby? She thought about abortion. Malissa said that she couldn't do that it would be like killing a human being. She thought of adoption but she was put up for adoption and she was in and out of group homes all of her life she was never adopted she couldn't make her baby go through that. She decided to keep the baby. Listen to this all of her friends had kids except one. Do any of your high school friends have kids? It put me in realization that this really does happen. She does have the baby who is a healthy 7 pound boy. I just wanted you guys to know that this does happen and we need to get it out there that it isn't always a good thing.

Here once again is the npr site http://www.radiodiaries.org/index.html please check it out!

summer fun

This is me, Kendra and my best friend, Robyn. We took this picture last weekend. She spent the night the whole weekend because I willbe gone this coming weekend because im going to a family reunion. Then after that, I am going to Ohio to Cedar Point for my birthday present from my aunt. My birthday was last April 14 but my aunt wanted me to wait after i got out of school and her get ff work for us to go.


I hope everyone has a great summer and i hope everyone will stay blogging beacause i will. Well good luck on all the finals you have to take. I hope to see everyone next year. Enjoy your summer and sleep read and BLOG!!!!


love ya all,
kendra


p.s other intresting blogs:

Lets Be Friends

Left behind in a fish bowl

once upon a feast

Soweto 1976

I was visiting the Radio Diaries website looking for an idea on what to do my final blog on when I ran across a story about black students in South Africa who , thirty years ago, started a new resistance against the racist apartheid system and oppression in their schools. About 12,ooo students protested on the streets of Soweto on June 16, 1976. They headed toward a local stadium to hold a mass meeting and were greeted my the local law enforcement who tried to stop them by spraying tear gas and releasing dogs on them. When this didn't stop the rapid movement they opened fire on the students and killed at least 23. They didn't give up and the next day more prostested and the police killed 100 more. The movement began to spread until every township in South Africa was protesting. One thousand workers at a local Chrysler plant went on strike with the students the next week.

The strikes continued through the fall and students started sit-ins, boycotts, and night raids where they destroyed police outposts and other signs of their power. The nationwide resitance went on for 18 months and resulted in over 1,000 deaths before the law enforecement could regain control. The movement did help with some new improvements including urban black the right to a permanent residence in the city even though they were still segregated. Most important of all a new generation of leaders had emerged who were trained in the struggle and who would help the new fight within a few years. You can go and listen to all of their stories aat this link, http://www.radiodiaries.org/

Black Hawk Down!! (Final)

Do you believe in the war in the Middle East?

I was reading the book Black Hawk Down and that reminded me of the war in the Middle East.

my thoughts of it is that i believe that we went in for a good reason but i don't understand why we are not getting anywhere with the Middle Easterners. i think that the reason why we went over there was too capture Saddam Hussein, and to help the people there make their own army. What everyone is wondering about like myself is why are we still in there when we did both of those things. It does not make any sense to me why we keep our own soldiers in their, and they are still getting killed. Why do you guys think that we are still in the Middle East.

This also brings me to another topic, and it is about the same type of issue. My next issue to talk about is why does the US think that they have to get into everybody's business when we are not even involved in the conflict. We are not the conflict doctor of what ever they think. I don't understand why we have to kill our own soldiers for something we didn't even have to get into. Its just my opinion that we did a mistake by even attempting to help the Middle East, and instead of helping the Middle east we Killed our soldiers.

Another thing is that we went to the war supposedly becuase they bombed us with the plains. My reasoning for that is that we dont even have evidence that the bombers were Middle Easterners, they could have been Korean or any other culture so that is only my opinion.

If you have any opinions of your own i would love to hear them!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Can you believe it? [FINAL]

Have you ever thought about how race can effect getting hired? A young African American, is in college and is working on a degree in health education and a minor in biology. She is also taking Nursing school outside of everything else. Have you ever thought how hard that would be? I mean come on thats a lot of time and school. It just makes upset when i read that she was saying i am happy to be going to school working on nursing, but because i am black it wont be easy to get a job. I really believe that even if you are another race that shouldn't matter. Even if your pink purple or black you should be treated the same and have the same advantages. She also states that people are not wanting colored to be in a higher position in a career. I believe that racism is getting better than before but its still happening...alot. It should not matter, everyone is the same and everyone knows it. But, careers are not everything that can be effected. Anything in life can be effected by race. I am white, and i respect african americans just as much as i respect people my race. I guess i just don't see what people that are racist see? But, you also have to take into consideration if the african americans are acting in an inappropriate then people might not treat them like others, i mean anyone can act inappropriate im just saying. I think that everyone should respect everyone and it would make a very good impact on the world:)

Great Reading Lessons from the Year (FINAL!!)

This year we read To Kill a Mockingbird. I loved reading To Kill a Mockingbird. The book was so meaningful; I got a lot out of this book. All the racial differences in the book taught lessons to everyone. It expressed the message that even though everyone might have a different opinion than you, it is okay. This sounds a bit cliché, but you have to stand up for what you believe in. Do not let anyone change your mind, if you know that what you believe is right and fair. That is one of the most valuable lessons I learned from the book.

I read another book, Pink Angels; it and To Kill a Mockingbird have something in common. They both conveyed the message that you should never give up when times are hard. In To Kill a Mocking Bird the Finch family struggled with standing up for Mr. Robinson, a man of African American descent. They knew that he didn’t do anything wrong and they never stopped trying to give him a fair trial. In Pink Angels a girl has a mother with MS. The girl volunteers at the hospital to be a volunteer for the summer. She has a really hard time trying to balance her life because her mom feels like they should be together all the time. Everyone else knows that she needs to do somethings for herself. Her mom gets really sick and has to stay in the hospital to get a major surgery on her heart. The mother and daughter pair never give up on each other. In the end the mother got better and got to go home. Also the mom ended up understanding why her daughter had to do things for herself. In both of the books they express the same thought, but in totally different ways; never give up.