Self Assesment

Making a blog helped me to deal with a lot of my problems, I've always been the type of person to let my feelings out on paper and never even thought of making a blog. I wrote a lot of entries while feeling alone, angry or disappointed in myself but never posted them because I wanted to be the one to view it alone. The only thing that I didn't like about making a blog were some of the assignments. I don't like to write and have to look up information, I like to just know what I'm writing about and give my point of view on it. Still, i enjoyed the process of the blog and plan on keeping it although the class is over. I am definitely proud of my blog, I like looking back at my entries and adding more to it on occasion. I think that my work in this class was fair, I did my best to complete MOSt of the blogs assigned to me even though some I really disliked. I think that it's fair to say that i can atleast earn a 75 in this class. 

Busted

Some people may think that posting videos of fights, pictures while intoxicated , or as bad asses is cool until it bites them in the ass. I read three articles in which it shows how young adults have been given no  sympathy due to their postings over the Internet.  

December 5th 2007, a couple of  teenagers from Brooklyn thought it'd  be cool if they started problems with a Caucasian guy and film it. They started harassing him, calling him names, throwing things at him, and getting in his face. One thing led to another and because of the  man answering back to them they ended up hitting him and posting the video on YouTube by Kadejra Holmes, a highschool student and aspiring Harlem filmmaker. The girls soon got asked about the video by the police and the denied being involved in anything. They deleted the video from YouTube but it was too late, the police had already seen it. 

In an article titled Web Networking Photos Come Back to Bite Defendants by Eric Tucker, it talks about many different stories involving teenagers/young adults who post up videos, pictures, or blogs associating them with drugs, liquor, or violence. In one specific part, it tells how a judge was thinking of possibly giving Lara Buys probation for a 2006 drunker driving crash that killed her passenger. But just before right before sentencing her, he decided to check her Myspace page. unfortunately for her, he saw pictures of her, after the accident but before the sentencing, holding a glass of wine and making jokes about drinking and driving. 

In another article, Teenagers Misbehaving for all Online to Watch, They talk about how kids make dumb videos of them beating each other up or post up pictures that were taken at a slumber party in panties and bras on the internet. They asked a couple of kids questions and got responses like "I wanna be known" or "hey it could get me on TV" they do all this for street cred, or 15 minutes of fame, but they don't know how much it'll affect them later on.

I AM Angela

I am Angela 

I am positive and demanding

I wonder if the last day on earth will ever get here

I hear my mom telling me that i need to graduate

I see a bright future ahead of me

I want to be the best I can be 

I am positive and demanding 

I pretend to not care about a lot of things 

I feel as if I'm being pushed to live my life to the max

I touch the stars with my fingertips at night 

I worry about my family

I cry when I feel helpless

I am positive and demanding

I understand that i can't have everything my way 

I say That it is not the length of time, but the depth of it 

I dream of the day that I become a mommy

I try to maintain myself around positive people

I hope to one day have my own healthy family

I am positive and demanding

Satire

Satire
is the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like in exposing, or denouncing. "Advice to Youth" is satirical because Mark Twain was sarcastic about his advise to kids.

Basically Twains message in this article is to obey your parents. He doesn't go right out and say "kids you should all obey your parents", instead he uses reverse psychology on us because he knows we always want to do the total opposite of what we're told to do.

In "Advice to Youth"
Mark's ridiculing kids by giving them wrongful advice telling them that they should pay attention to their parents when "they're around", meaning when they're not around do as you please . Another example of how he's giving wrongful advice to us kids is by telling us to "practice lying" that way we'll be good at it and won't get caught. In my opinion, this piece is successful because it shows a perfect example of satire. Then again it might not be successful because some kids might take his bad advice into consideration and actually do all he suggests to do.

Why We Lie

Lies are something that shouldn't be told. Children do it a lot though. There are four reasons why they lie.

One reason is fear. When  children lie out of fear they do it because they know that what they did was wrong and they're afraid of the consequences. Another reason why kids lie is 

that it's a habit. This means that they've lied so 

much that it's an instant reaction. They'll lie about dumb little things that don't matter as much then, but later on they'd have to keep lying just to protect the first lie. Modelling is another cause

 of lying. This is when the child is surrounded by people who lie constantly or when adults have made it seem as if lying isn't such a big deal. Last reason is due to over prediction. When they lie because of over prediction, they do it thinking that their parents will over react.

This image shows two people talking business. One of them says that in that situation he  suggests they lie, meaning they know they did something wrong so they'd prefer to cover it up. There have been times when I  was younger when I'd lie to protect what I know I did wrong. I did it because I was afraid of my mom grounding me or yelling at me. I later grew out of it, well kind of.  I still do it once in a blue moon just to keep her from nagging. 

This cartoon shows a man who's lying because of habit. He's telling his partner that whatever he just said he made up right then and there, probably out of reflex.

I've also lied because  of this. I got used to lying so much that every time I got questioned about my whereabouts I'd lie, even if I wasn't doing anything wrong. This was a stressful thing to do because after the first lie, I'd have to keep lying over and over again just to cover up the lie I told first. I found that making lying a habit was too much work for me so I always thought twice before answering to my parents with a lie. I still say a couple of white lies to them from time to time though. 

Gore's Challenge

On July 17, 2008 Al Gore, in his speech,  challenged America to commit to producing 100% of our electricity from renewable energy and clean carbon-free sources within 10 years. He mentions how the survival of the United States and the human civilization is at risk. According to scientists, there is a 75% chance of that in 5 years the north pole will completely disappear within the summer months.  We need to "find the courage", as Gore says, to make some major changes quickly. His solution to help deal with this is saving energy by using solar power, wind power and geothermal power.

If we keep living the lifestyle that we've lived for the past years, sooner or later we will have no place to call home. The United States will no longer be where it's at today. We need to make some changes for our own sake.  A couple of small ways that will help is by saving our water bottles and reusing them with our own filtered water, we can reuse plastic bags when we go grocery shopping, and we can put up solar panels on our houses. They're all small things, that at first might be hard to learn how to get accustomed to, but would definitely make a difference if more and more people were to do them. 

In his speech, he  mentions how we've been using the same strategies over and over again throughout the past years and it hasn't benefited us in any way, all it has done is produce the highest gasoline prices in history. You'd think this would make them start thinking of a new policy, well no. We've kept doing the same thing over and over again hoping that sooner or later the oil companies can  lower the prices but they won't. Politicians are giving oil companies more and more money to bring gasoline prices down , meanwhile their rising higher everyday. One of the many ways  we can bring the cost of driving a car way down is to end our dependence on oil and use sources that are renewable. 

Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see

"Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see"

- Benjamin Franklin

I go a lot by this quote because I believe that not everything that you see or are told is true. You always need proof to confirm things that you're unsure about. Unless you know that it's a fact you have to ask questions. Sometimes , even when you see them with your own eyes there's a possibility of it not being true. 

A situation where I thought like this when when my little brothers school call me telling me that he had gotten into a fight at school. When they told me this, I stood calm and thought to myself that it wasn't true. I know my brother well, and he's not the type of kid to argue with other people other then me. He's quiet and keeps to himself, so no one would annoy him. I went over to the school and there he was, with a ice patch on his forehead. Turns out he DID get into a fight with a older kid because he had been bullying my little brother for a while now. I was angry at him for fighting but was proud that he stood up for himself. i was even more proud when i saw the 5Th graders lip BUSTED. Like the quote says , i didn't believe my brothers school until i saw it with my own eyes and had my little brothers ice patch in my hand as proof.

"Who are you to judge the life i live ? 

I'm not perfect, and i don't live to be. 

But before you start pointing fingers, 

make sure your hands are clean"

- Bob Marley

This quote is very true. There are always people criticizing others, meanwhile what they don't realize is that they're not perfect either. Everyone has their own way of doing what they do, dressing how they dress, thinking how they think, and living like they live. No way is a wrong way, just a different one. Nobody's perfect, but somehow there are those people who think they are. 

Jay Z

I love music, one of my favorite types of music is hip hop. Jay Z is my favorite rapper because I like his lyrics, I like his mentality, his style, and his flow.

Shawn Corey Carter also known as "Jay Z", was born August 4,1969 in Brooklyn New York. He was raised by his mother because his father abandoned his family when he was a baby. He says he was caught up in selling crack cocaine as a young boy. People nick-named him Jazzy in his neighborhood, he later shortened that name to Jay Z while in pursuit of a career in music. He attended High school in Trenton, NJ. He dropped out, but was is remembered for his lyrics and rhymes. It's said that his involvement in dealing drugs ended when he was shot at six times by another drug dealer ( he didn't get hit). After that he got more serious about getting into the music business. Jay Z co-founded Roc-a-Fella Records with partners Damon Dash and Kareem “Biggs” Burke. His debut album "Reasonable Doubt" was released in 1996 to considerable acclaim within the hip hop community, and included four charting singles: "Ain't No Nigga" (with Foxy Brown), "Can't Knock the Hustle" (with Mary J. Blige), "Dead Presidents" and "Feeling It." 

Now, a few years later, he blew up. He's considered to obe one of the best rappers alive. He's dating one of the most well known singers of r&b , Beyonce Knowles. Has his own sneaker company & has enough money to retire now ans never work a day in his life again and STILL manage to afford luxurious things. 

NYC Schools

In the article from the NYTimes about our NY Schools, they mentioned how so many students and parents were satisfied with their schools. Like last year, the city gave everyone a survey again this year, to let them know what people thought of their schools and whether they felt safe or not there. 

In the article, Jennifer Medina mentions how more than a third of middle and high school students said getting good grades did not earn the respect of other students, and nearly a quarter of parents named smaller classes as the improvement they most wanted. I agree with this because at my old high school, students who got good grades were considered "goody goody kids" or "nerds", they were limited to the "groups/crews" that they could hang out with. When I transfered to the school I'm in now, which by the way is way smaller, everything changed. I'm now surrounded with a new environment, a better one. Students in this school are focused on getting good grades, and those who don't, are considered to be "wasting their time". My mom loves the fact that i transfered to this new school, She said she knew it'd be better for me, and i must say that i agree.

While completing the survey, they asked questions that I never took the time to pay close attention to. A couple of the questions were whether I felt safe or not in my current school, whether or not I was satisfied with my education, and if my teachers were successful on teaching me. I do feel safe in my high school, we have security guards who are alert and on point at all times. There are very few fights a year, if any at all. I am satisfied with my education, I feel that now I have a greater chance of graduating, I understand my classes better, and the lessons that students here are given are challenging. The teachers that i have now, are the best I've had in all my 11 years of my attendance in school. They're helpful, understanding, determined and have an amazing amount of patience for their students. They're always willing to stay after school on any given day, call home when they get worried about kids grades or attendance, and are sometimes more excited about regents then the actual students taking them.

Habits of MInd

Taking Responsible Risks

Habit of Mind is how you react & your way of thinking when your confronted with a situation.

People who take responsible risks usually go beyond the limit of things. They seem to like taking tasks in which they're not sure of what the outcome will be. They accept failure and confusion easier than others. The risks that they take aren't dumb or uneducated. People who take responsible risks follow on past experiences and knowledge . They're aware that not all risks are worth taking, These people are usually risk takers because they feel that by holding back from doing certain things, they're increasing the chance on missing out on opportunities.

I've been confronted with this habit many times in my life. One particular situation was when i was given the chance to come to my new school. I was doing so bad at my old school, that i was getting ready to drop out. My aunt kept insisting that i transfer schools and come to West Side after freshmen year. I debated against it and decided to stay at Washington Irving. I completed my sophomore year there and i was doing worse then i had been doing my first year there. As i was just about ready to drop out of high school, my aunt reminded me of this alternative school. She told me I had nothing to lose, and how this was my last chance I'd be getting in order to graduate. I figured she was right and 2 months later i transfered here for summer school. I'm doing ten times better in this school then I would've been doing at any other school. I'm expected to graduate in april of '08, thats 2 months earlier then when I was originally supposed to graduate. If i would've never taken this chance i would've never had another chance on getting my High School diploma.