what is identity? (multigenre project)

i decided to write about identity not just because it would be something "easy", which it isn't. i wrote about identity because i feel that not everybody knows what identity is. while wrote these poems and this master/epic paper, i started to discover my own identity. you will hear a lot more about this in my conclusion though. what exactly is identity? who defines identity? why should you care? these were the main questions i had to think about and consider while i wrote all of this. i tried to answer all of the questions i myself had thought of while writing this project; i didn't answer all of them because both i wasn't able too and if i did this project might have bee 300 pages. i hope you enjoy and now i will take you deep into the topic of identity.

Song Lyrics from songs the define me

It starts with one thing, I don’t know why

It doesn’t even matter how hard you try

Show me how to lie, your getting better all the time

And turning all against one, that’s an art that’s hard to teach

Somewhere between happy and total f**king wreck
Feet sometimes on solid ground and sometimes at the edge

Fall, now the dark begins to rise

Save your breath it’s far from over

He wears his heart safety pinned to his backpack,

His backpack is all that he knows

The faster we’re fallin, we’re stoppin and stallin, we’re runnin in circles again.

Just as things were looking up, you said it wasn’t good enough, but still we're trying one more time

Poem collection for my identity

when you ask me to define myself i say that i am

ME

 me, not 

HE

well maybe he, but definatly not

SHE

yes, definitely not she

ME

you ask me who do you want to

BE

and i respond 

ME

because if i wasn't 

ME

then who would i 

BE

who, what, when, where, how, is identity

identity is 

Everchanging

shaped like the grand canyon except with things other then identity

who is identity

nobody is without identity

when is identity

identity is forever, when you least expect it and when you most expect it

when it is in dire need and when you can care less

where is identity

identity is everywhere and is shaped by everything

how is identity

identity is, because of you

There used to be a joke in Paris. What is the difference between the Chief Rabbi in France and the Cardinal of Paris? The Cardinal speaks Yiddish!"  In August 2007, the archbishop of France died and they chanted Kaddish at his funeral, which is the Jewish prayer for the dead. They did this because he was actually a Jew. During the holocaust his family had hidden him in Poland with a Christian family, to prevent the holocaust from reaching him. Although this family never converted him, he converted himself. He said “For me, the vocation of Israel is bringing light to the world. That is my hope and I believe that Christianity is the means for achieving it.” I think that the main idea of the article in which I read this, is expressed perfectly in the author’s quote at the end: “Sometimes there are profound inconsistencies in our world.” I just love this last quote; it completely talks to me, because I, as well as many other people, am one of these profound inconsistencies. The archbishop’s story shows me that identity isn’t always what it seems to be.  Not only that, but also that you can have multiple identities and sometimes you can even choose your own identity.

Who defines identity? In shule, when the topic of identity was raised, we had so many different ideas about what defines identity. One of the activities we did was, “What makes somebody Jewish?” We were given cards. On each of these cards was one thing that people may consider a factor in making somebody Jewish. We had to pick five out of these 20 cards that best fit what we though was most important about being Jewish. None of us had five identically matching cards; some of us didn’t even have any in common. After we did this activity I could just tell how controversial the idea of identity would be. Boy was I right.

I used to believe that your identity was exactly what you choose. Then we learned that during the holocaust it didn’t really matter what you considered yourself to be. If you wore a cross every day, went to church every Sunday but your mother was a Jew, then you were a Jew in Hitler’s eyes. If you were a Jew in Hitler’s eyes then you wouldn’t be in his eyes much longer. This is what I learned that stopped me dead in my “your identity is what you choose” tracks. I had never even stopped to consider something like this.

Another example of identity that wasn’t self-chosen is in the land now called Nigeria; originally, there lived several tribes and the three largest were the Ibo, The Hausa and the Yoruba. All of the tribes were different; there were some similarities but for the most part they were very different. They spoke different languages, they had different political views and they had different cultures. The British came to this land and, through diplomacy, bribery and just pure force created the colony they named Nigeria. The new colony included The Ibo, The Hausa and The Yoruba; these tribes were all united as one people, the Nigerians. The people were then faced with a dilemma concerning their identity:  were they Nigerian or were they still Ibo, Hausa or Yoruba? Some people adopted the new name, calling themselves Nigerian and others didn’t. To the rest of the world, everybody was Nigerian, although many still considered themselves first and foremost to be part of their tribe. I interviewed two young women, one Ibo and one Yoruba; here is what they said when asked about identity.

“With Americans, I identify myself as Nigerian. However, among Nigerians, I identify myself as Igbo. Igbo people think that they are better and Yoruba people think otherwise. The two ethnic groups have different ideals and stereotypes about one another. There isn't that much unity between the two. We are in constant conflict with one another and don’t really trust each other. But this is the sequence; I trust an Igbo person more than a Yoruba person, I trust a Nigerian more than any other African and I trust an African more than an American.”

And here are some thoughts from a Yoruba person. “Initially, when people ask me to identify myself, I tell them that I am Nigerian- that's who I am- but then I always specify that I am Yoruba. It’s funny how as Nigerians we clarify what "type" of Nigerian we are, although we are all Nigerians, but every tribe is unique in its own way, each with its own language, customs and culture. I don't consider myself as an American, although I believe that I have been "Americanized." I was raised in a Yoruba home and brought up with my culture, which wasn't tinctured with any form of Americanism.  I identify myself mainly as being Yoruba. There is a wide spectrum of Nigerians, so I like to specify which one I am.”

  

The Archbishop’s story shows me that sometimes you can choose your identity, while the Jews in the holocaust and the forming of the colony Nigeria show me that sometimes you can’t choose your identity. These quotes show me that sometimes identity is both self-chosen and forced upon and it can be expressed in many different ways.  The one thing all of these stories and quotes show me is that identity is one complicated thing.

Another question I have is how does upbringing affect your identity? How does what you were taught and what your families believe and what they passed on to you affect your own personal identity?  I think about Clara Lemlech, who was a famous union organizer and fighter for workers rights. I believe that she identified herself as a working class, Jewish, immigrant, sweatshop worker. I wonder if she would have had different labor ideas if her dad had owned a sweatshop. This idea is raised in the story, “Solomon” by I. Raboy. The main character is a girl named Rosie. Rosie’s dad, Solomon, is the owner of a sweatshop; he employs many workers for very long hours and very little pay. Rosie, who works in her dad’s office, becomes outraged at how her father is treating his. Workers.  She decides to write a letter to the Yiddish newspaper. This letter states that she feels her dad “has no rightful place in the Jewish community,” even though he “gives money lavishly,” because of how he treats his workers. As she says, “Day in and day out these five hundred girls are grinding out riches for my father. They do not even dare laugh as healthy young girls should.” Then one thing she says in the last paragraph really stuck out to me. “And now allow me to please ask you, is it just that such a man as my father should be honored by you…” This story shows that, even though your identity is shaped by what is around you, you don’t always have to go along with what is trying to be shaped; to put it in simpler terms you still have a say in choosing your identity.

The question I raised about how your upbringing affects your identity is a very important question, especially when I think about myself. I am a very different person from most teenagers. Unlike the typical teenager, I go to a socially conscious camp and shule, and I have also been taught the values of two different religions, Christianity and Judaism. My dad’s side of the family is Christian, my mom’s side of the family is Jewish and I, along with my parents, am an atheist. One thing that I find the most interesting when learning about these religions and their teachings is that they all overlap in certain aspects. For example they both talk about just being a good person. The Talmud says “Let the honor of thy neighbor be as dear to thee as thine own.”  This quote is much less well known in the United States then the quote by Jesus Christ that speaks to this same idea. “ Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than this.” 

Whenever I hear this, I think of the biblical story of Cain and Abel where, after Cain has killed his brother, Abel, and god asks Cain where his brother is, Cain responds “am I my brother’s keeper?” God asks Cain how could he be so cruel and then he marks Cain so that whenever he tries to grow something it won’t grow. And basically he will wander earth homeless. In shule we spent close to three weeks talking about the question “Am I my brother’s keeper?” I think the question is, am I responsible for my brother, and not just my brothers but all my family, friends and neighbors? 

This story and these quotes show that the two religions overlap in their core beliefs of the importance of just being a good person. I think that this just shows how two religions that have fought wars against each other can have the same principal ideals. I am very happy that even though I identify myself as atheist I can still enjoy the story and understand the values and ethics that are in the story. I think that the point of religion should to teach values needed for life. From all of these, the values we learn, that you should love your neighbors, be good to others and the world. These values tell me that your believes become part of your identity. Being partially Christian and partially Jewish makes me have conflicting thoughts when I identify myself. Sometimes I identify myself as Jewish sometimes Christian and sometimes both but always as an atheist. I don’t identify myself as one thing or another based on whom I am talking to though I just say which ever first comes to mind.

My last question is, to what extent does your identity shape your actions? During the period of slavery in the USA, one of the Jews who fought for emancipation was August Bondi. He said that, because he identified as a Jew, it was his responsibility to help fight against slavery. His mother, urging him on, had told him “as a Yehudah I am obliged to protect institutions that guarantee freedom for all faiths.” Another person whose identity shaped his actions was Emmanuel Ringelblum.   Emmanuel Ringelblum was born in Poland in 1900 and died in 1944 as a victim of the holocaust, murdered by the Nazis. Ringelblum was the historian of the Warsaw Ghetto. What Ringelblum is most known for is the Oneg Shabbat group that he organized to secretly document the daily life and traditions of people in the Ghetto. By documenting all of this information Ringelblum was certain that no matter what happened to him and the other people of the Warsaw Ghetto, the ghetto way of life and Jewish culture would be preserved and safe. I think one of the main things that drove Ringelblum to do this was his identity. I think he identified himself as a Yiddish historian, somebody who lead and organized his culture and community and as someone who wanted to keep prewar Jewish culture alive. I think the mix of these two things and the fact that he seemed to want to help everybody is what led him to start the Oneg Shabbat group and shows his commitment the oneg Shabbat group

I think that being a 13-year-old teenager having had the opportunity to shape my identity at Kindershule has been a special opportunity.  It has gotten me closer to having a completed identity.  I mean you can’t mold clay without knowing what shape the clay is.  And I think the same thing goes for identity. What I mean is that if you don’t know what your identity is at the time then you can’t really hope to change it. I think that everybody unconsciously has an idea of what his or her identity is. In my opinion everybody should know what their identity is on more than just a subconscious level. I feel greatly privileged that I have been able to talk to people at Kindershule and everybody in my class about such deep and important topics as identity. I didn’t change my identity here at shule, but what I did do is discover my identity. Now, after going through Kindershule, I feel I will have a different outlook on my identity, other people’s identity and life as a whole.  I’m not exactly sure where my identity is going to be going from this point onward, but what I do know is that Kinderland and Kindershule have been major factors in shaping what it is today and these two places will continue to shape my identity even after I graduate and move on in life.

extra credit a winters tale reasponse (play)

okay now i'm going to be completely honest right now, i totally hated that play it made no sense what so ever. now the play me my friend and our parents i think was an abridged version so it didn't have all five acts but still it was long and the first act i thought i was going to have to puke out my ears and eyes. i saw this over the summer and as far as specifics go i can't really remember but i think i can give a general plot outline thing. basically two old friend kings are meeting together for the first time in a while and the king that is visiting has to go back to his homeland. the other king wants him to stay longer so he tries to persuade him into staying. he refuses so the other king asks his wife to talk to him about staying and he convinces him in three short speeches. the king then becomes consumed with a crazy paranoia that his pregnant wife had an affair with his friend. basically the other king leaves and the kings wife is arrested. the queen gives birth in prison and the king considers killing it but actually he ends up just casting it away. during the queens trial the oracle pops up and says that she is innocent but the king refuses to listen. the queen faints and is thought to have died and from that day forth promises to grieve for her. the baby gets picked up by a shepherd who becomes rich because the baby was sent with a lot of money. basically the rest of it is that the other kings son after 16 years wants to marry the shepherds daughter (the kings daughter) so they slip into a party and find her and they agree to marry. now the other king chases them out so they flee to the kings country where the king and his daughter finally unite. he takes his daughter to a statue of the queen which then comes alive and starts talking and says that she was waiting for the oracle prophecy to be fulfilled.
ow my hand hurts from all the typing.

reasponse to my papa's waltz

this poem, out of all of the poems i have read with my class is definitely the most controversial. i read this poem for the first time last year and just like this year it sparked 2 sides and 2 ideas. now i personally think that the father wasn't beating his son because i think that the whole tone of the poem would be different if the memory was something sad. this poem i think has it's own little beat and i don't think Theodore Roethke would have done that if he was remembering a sad event.

some people make the argument that "oh well the father is drunk so he must be abusing his son" i disagree with this, just because you're drunk doesn't mean that you have to go beating people. i don't think this point is really valid i mean i have seen many drunk people and they don't go around randomly beating people. they're just a little loopy.

also another big reason why i think that this was a happy event is because the title of the poem is "my papa's waltz" i personally wouldn't associate this title with beating or with unhappy memories. another reason why i think that its just having fun is the meaning of the word romped,"rompedpast participle, past tense of romp (Verb)1. (esp. of a child or animal) Play roughly and energetically.

 it says play not abuse. 

another thing people seem to misinterpret is the line "You beat time on my head With a palm caked hard by dirt"  i think that this is actually just enforcing the fact that this is a waltz and what he means by beat time is he kept the waltz's 3/4 beat by tapping it on his head. since all waltz have a 3/4 beat i think his father was just showing his son that what they were dancing was a waltz. because if he was actually beating him why would he be beating time. 

these are some of the few reasons why i think that the father isn't beating his son, but then again there really isn't a way to be sure because we don't know what happened. so it is still up to you to decide but this is what i think.

MY PAPA'S WALTZ
 
  The whiskey on your breath
  Could make a small boy dizzy;
  But I hung on like death:
  Such waltzing was not easy.
 
  We romped until the pans
  Slid from the kitchen shelf;
  My mother's countenance
  Could not unfrown itself.
 
  The hand that held my wrist
  Was battered on one knuckle;
  At every step you missed
  My right ear scraped a buckle.
  
  You beat time on my head
  With a palm caked hard by dirt,
  Then waltzed me off to bed 
  Still clinging to your shirt.

independent reading reasponse

I am reading a book called "Jews without money" this book is a half fictional autobiography. It is Michael Gold's autobiography and it was used in the holocaust as Nazi propaganda. This book is about a 6 year old boy named Mikey who lives in the lower east side during the early 1900's. Mikey belongs to what he refers to as a gang but really it's just his little group of friends. Mikey has seen some pretty crazy stuff and known (sort of) what they were, he taunts prostitutes, makes friends with a pimp, takes care of a hobo and meets a one eyed gangster and he’s only six.

What this book so far has showed me is that the lower east side wasn't all just factories and big busy streets; it also had its little alleyways where all the dirty business goes on. whenever i use to hear of the olden days lower east side I always thought of busy streets pushcarts and such which, don't get me wrong are in the book, but you never are told of the dirty things that go on. This actually really interested me while I first read it. Another very weird thing for me at least is the fact that this 6 year old kid is basically living his life in these back alleys and he makes friends with pimps and hobos and prostitutes, it just seems weird.

independent reading reasponse revised

I am reading a book called "Jews without money" this book is a half fictional autobiography. It is Michael Gold's autobiography and it was used in the holocaust as Nazi propaganda. This book is about a 6 year old boy named Mikey who lives in the lower east side during the early 1900's. Mikey belongs to what he refers to as a gang but really it's just his little group of friends. Mikey has seen some pretty crazy stuff and known (sort of) what they were, he taunts prostitutes, makes friends with a pimp, takes care of a hobo and meets a one eyed gangster and he’s only six.

What this book so far has showed me is that the lower east side wasn't all just factories and big busy streets; it also had its little alleyways where all the dirty business goes on. whenever i use to hear of the olden days lower east side I always thought of busy streets pushcarts and such which, don't get me wrong are in the book, but you never are told of the dirty things that go on. This actually really interested me while I first read it. Another very weird thing for me at least is the fact that this 6 year old kid is basically living his life in these back alleys and he makes friends with pimps and hobos and prostitutes, it just seems weird.

Then again though those were different times and I really don't know what the norm was back then. I really am now interested as to what the norm was back then and how it compares to today. I would imagine that it would be much looser back then as apposed to now. I also wonder what kids used to do for fun I mean now it is watching tv or playing video games but back then it couldn’t have been and I think these kids then would have a whole different mind set then what they have today. Sort of going off what u was saying, I bet that the same exact kid raised back then and raised today would be completely different, but that’s only my opinion.

narrative poem

I told little jimmy many things
Many things important
But there's one I hope stuck with him
It surely would be worth it

One day little jimmy came crying to me
His mouth twisted in pain
I said what could you have done now
He said I fell off a trampoline and got a bad sprain

Now to this boy I said
Now jimmy how did you land
And he replied back
I landed on some sand

Now I was very distraught
I asked how could you sprain your ankle on some sand
He said I don't know
Then he said lay off man you have such great demands

Then I said
Now jimmy if I were to lay off who would help the sprain
He then replied
I'm sorry that wasn't me talking it was the pain

Good now that we have this sorted out we can get back to your ankle
He said so what should I do
I thought for a moment then said
Go to the hospital they will know what is best for you

I hope he remembers this lesson but I bet you he will not
See I told you as he knocks on the door again
I see him holding his arm as he walks in crying and I said
Jimmy your bane will forever be the fact that you are insane

response to a starry night (or whatever it's called)

I didn't really hate this poem, it really made me have to think about the meaning. although it looked like i was spacing out during the class discussion i wasn't and it really helped me to understand the poem better. i personally think that the line, "oh starry, starry night this is how i want to die" could go either way, positive or negative. some people will say oh my god what a suicidal maniac. others will say she is just thinking that that would be a nice place to die. i also really liked the last stanza, probably because i didn't know what it meant. still as i am writing this response i have no idea what she meant by this beast of the night. by the no flag i think she means that dieing removes the country flag you have on yourself and you just die with no allegiance.  

poetry thingy. # I lost count

observations: there is a road cutting through the mountains. she is wearing a clear veil on her head. there is this little knob right next to her. she has black hair and brown eyes. the further away from her the greener the scene gets. she is sitting in an arm chair. she is smiling.


inferences: i think that her smile is fake. i think that she is upset about something. then again that wouldn't really make sense because of such a peaceful, serene background. in the bridge there is a train crossing it, i wonder if this has anything to do with her thoughts or was he just a damn good artist.

authors note/ work cited page

The Armenian Genocide was the killing of about 1 ½ million Armenians boy the Ottoman Empire. From 1514 to 1918 the country Armenia was part of the Ottoman Empire. After the Russo-Turkish war in 1877, the Armenians were thinking of declaring independence. This, the already weakened Ottomans took as a threat. During WW1 the Ottomans thought that the Armenians were aiding Russia so they deported 1 ½ million Armenians to a desert in Syria where they all died of starvation or dehydration. Most people consider this to be genocide but the Turkish government still denies that this event ever took place (“Armenian Genocide”).

I stumbled across this topic while researching the song yes, its genocide by Serj Tankian. This song is written in another language so as I was trying to find out the meaning to the words, I found out what it was about, the Armenian Genocide. While I was researching more about this topic I really had a hard time finding good sources. This really bothered me; I feel like an event as terrible as genocide should be recognized by everybody, including the US (who doesn’t as of now) and the whole world. (“Armenian Genocide”).

I am not really trying to send a message like “always eat your vegetables” or “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” I just want people to know about this event and what it exactly was. I also want the US being one of the largest and most influential countries to recognize this event.

St

John, Ronald Bruce. "Armenian Genocide." World Book Student. World Book, 2010. Web. 13 Dec. 2010.

 
Cohan, Sara. "A Brief History of the Armenian Genocide." Social Education Vol. 69, No. 6. Oct. 2005: 333-337. SIRS Researcher. Web. 13 Dec 2010.

Research assignment #2

the second article i got was from world book again and it was about the holocaust. i choose the holocaust as my second topic because it is by far the most studied genocide and since i am doing the Armenian genocide i wanted to look at the biggest example. so, as established before, genocide is the systematic killing of a group of people based on religion, nationality, race, ect... the holocaust was the genocide committed by the dictator Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers society (Nazi) party. the Nazi party is most famous for killing 6 million Jews, but he also had killed anybody who opposed him or he thought inferior to himself, ie: gypsies, mentally retarded or disabled people, poles, soviets, communists,  gays and lesbians and also Jehovah's witnesses. one of the ways that Hitler and the Nazis would kill people was by sending them to the various concentration camps around Germany and Poland. these concentration camps were most famous for their gas chambers where people thought that they would be taking a shower but really they would be getting killed by poisonous gases. near the end of the war, the Americans and the Russians liberated all of these concentration camps. very few people survived these camps and even fewer weren't changed for life.

reaserch assignment #1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide

i know, i know when you see this your gonna be like "why is he using Wikipedia?!" because it is a good starting point to learn a little bit about a topic i and many other people know about. so the Armenian genocide was, well a genocide. genocide is the systematic killing and destroying of a race, religion, ect... so that means that the holocaust was a genocide and a very terrible one at that, but it wasn't the first. the Armenian genocide was one of the first genocides. it started up in Armenia where the Ottoman empire started a genocide against the Armenians. it basically was the inspiration for the holocaust. 1.5 million people died and i bet you that half of Americans half no clue what it was. one of the most outraging events in this genocide is the deportations in Constantinople. what happened was that many leaders from Armenia were in Constantinople doing something when the ottomans came and arrested them and then later deported them. and it also had all of the best from the holocaust including burnings, gasing, death marches and last but not least concentration camps.

i also used the world book Armenian genocide but it gave me the same info so i just combined the stuff into one.

social awarness issues in my book

• anti semitism
• death
• hopelessness
• survival. 

i want to write about anti antisemitism because i am reading MAUS and that is the main topic in the book. MAUS, with the bulk of the book about a Jew who is in the holocaust you would assume that the book would be very antisemitic. before i read this book i had read many other books about the holocaust, Milkweed, Uncle Misha's Partisans and The Diary Of Anne Frank to name a few. MAUS really stuck out to me though because it was about the overall mix of the holocaust and the war and how they both sometimes collided. i also really likes MAUS because it was a graphic novel. most of the other books i have read have been about a specific thing, like being in hiding, being a partisan, or being in a ghetto. but what was great about MAUS is that it wasn't actually people, they were various animals i will give you a key

the Jews- mice
the polish- pigs
the Germans- cats
the Americans- dogs
the french- frogs
the russians- not said

i am really suprised that you can get such a convincing and point telling message through animals so that really impressed me

social awarness song gathering and one entry

bully- three days grace
borders are...- serj tankian
yes, it's genocide- serj tankian
left of center- serj tankian
peace be revenged- serj tankian

entry about peace be revenged

although this might not in some eyes be the biggest issue in the songs I've named others were the armeninan genocide, borders and war but this one stuck out to me the most because it directly had to deal with me.
this song is basically saying how humans are screwing up the world, an example of this from the song is.

"Once we used to hear the light footsteps of dear
now we have no fear and in turn will disappear
We have built our lives without nature in mind
So that we've become the disease but we wont go"
this song is not only one of my favorite songs but also, at least to me, it leaves a very, very strong message. i also agree with this, humans have become a disease but we aren't stopping we are just spreading. nature means next to nothing to more then half the people in the world and the people who do are out numbered and out gunnned

social awarness issues in my community

• bullying
• racism
• disrespect
• stabbings
• gangs
• violence

although there aren't many gangs in my neighborhood/ community, there are some and those some aren't really that bad but they still are there and they affect me daily. throughout most of 6th and 7th grade i was scared to walk up 4th st to get to my house so i walked up 3rd st and that worked out fine this year and the end of last year i started walking up 4th st. the other day me and a couple of friends were walking up 4th st and we saw these kids from John Jay high school came down the block and they were smoking pot. my friends and i had no idea what to do because a high person is a dangerous person. so we just started randomly talking about how in the world does a spider spin green silk. this worked and looking back on that experience it was really funny but trust me at the time we all, or at least i know i was flipping out inside. and an earlier experience i had gone through was when i was going to shule(shule is school in yiddish and it is basically hebrew school except you learn yiddish and more about culture.) when these highschool kids popped out from around the corner and started walking after me. the exact details aren't really clear to me but i do know that they tried to mug me, then they left, they came back and tried to mug me again. ever since then i honestly will not go up that street.

social awarness song

(taken from Mrs Robinson)

hola todos of you immigrants
stand up and fight for all your rights
its aiiiiight

nosotros sing para tu derechos
we are all equal humanos
en este muuuuundoooooo

extra credit entry, The Giver

In the book The Giver, there is a world full of completely oblivious people. They have no connection to the outside world; hell they think that their little town is the only world. I feel that their form of government is wrong for shielding the peoples eyes like that I don’t think that it is helping anybody, it is actually killing people because in their attempts to keep people ignorant they have to kill people to do so. An example of this is when the old receiver filed for release because she couldn’t deal with the reality. By shielding their community from the harsh reality the elders made a problem of when this reality gets through not only do the people not know what to do they don’t really know what to do.

I also think that in Jonas’s case people are being fed lies on a silver platter and when one person refuses to take that food and eat it, they die. An example of this is when the plane crashed into the city. They didn’t know what to do so they killed the plane driver. They die because the government wouldn’t know how to deal if people stopped believing what they were told and if they wanted to not be in this community anymore and go out and basically have free will.

In our case though I think it is different because our government doesn’t forcibly block our thoughts and… wait never mind they do or at least on some occasions but that’s not what I meant. They don’t forcibly make it so that we are ignorant we choose to do that ourselves and I don’t really understand why. I think that it may be because since it doesn’t directly affect us we don’t really seem to give a damn.

I think that we as Americans are sort of disconnected from the world I mean really think about it. (Everywhere else uses centimeters but we use inches.) So many people are ignorant about the world outside in other countries; the only reason people know what happened in Haiti is because of the people on the news.

social awarness october 28

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/28/opinion/28kristof.html?_r=1&src=ISMR_HP_LO_MST_FB 

i was reading the new york times trying to find something to do and a certain article really caught my eyes. "end the war on pot," was the name of the article. this was really interesting, it was about one journalists who went into how pot should be legalized, i might disagree with him but, he brought up a very good point, he said that the USA spends more money on jail and juvenile for drugs then on many public schools. "A Harvard economist, Jeffrey A. Miron, calculates that marijuana could generate $8.7 billion in tax revenue each year if legalized nationally, while legalization would also save the same sum annually in enforcement costs." that's a lot of dough so basically it makes the USA 17 billion dollars every year. but it also raises the point, well the same is with smoking, although it isn't illegal to buy and smoke it could soon be and is this fair, legalize one thing and illegalize another? i don't think so.  

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/28/world/middleeast/28iran.html?ref=world

this article also caught my eye, it was about the USA and other European countrys are trying to limit the amount of nuclear bombs Iran has. they are proposing to make Iran ship 2/3 more then they already are in uranium. also they would have to bring its nuclear fuel levels down to 20 percent of now which would really lower their ability to make nuclear bombs. this really made me think, if we are enforcing and cracking down on theses middle eastern countrys, why do we still have nuclear bombs. i bet that half of these people we are attacking because they have nuclear bombs would get rid of theirs if we got rid of ours. just a thought though 

entry #8

At first, this poem doesn't seem to be that deep. My first read through i didn't get a feel for the poem at all, i think this was because i wasn't looking at the poem in the right way. the second time through was a little better, i got the crystal stair-life thing and i enjoyed it much more. the third time through i picked up even more, i picked up the hard things in her life and her reaching platforms is like goals and progress and i thought that turning corner was discovering new things, maybe being a little scared. so all in all my understanding of the poem got better the more times i read it, i also liked it a lot more the last time i read it as opposed to the first time i read it.

Appreciation First Draft

You know that you have a book when the two main characters are a short genius and a big idiot who bond and become the best of friends and start "riding high above the world and slaying dragons."

There can only be one book I'm talking about, Freak The Mighty and that is one of the many things that make me read this book over and over again, the uniqueness. This book is one of the most unique books in the world because it's different from any other book I have read and this is why I keep reading it time and time again. For me, it takes a lot to get me reading realistic fiction, I mean A LOT, but this book, whatever the reason, has drawn me in and won't let go and I am glad for that.

I can make a connection here despite this books uniqueness. I feel like Max and Freak can be compared to any other character's that are different, for example Wilbur in E.B. White's Charlotte’s Web because they both have something different about them that people don't like or that make them out of the group until a friend comes along who will accept them for who they are.

Another thing I appreciate although others may disagree was the movie. Although people will argue that hey they wrote a whole damn new beginning, well that is what I liked most about the movie and the book for that matter, how they met. In the book it is when Freak loses an Ornithopter in a tree, in the movie Blade rolls a basketball at Freak, which knocks him down, and Max gets blamed for it. The reason why I love the fact that there are two different beginnings and their relationships start differently but they still end the same, with me in tears.  Personally I loved the actors; they kept it action packed and humorous while still keeping that great essence of the book. Kieran Culkin played freak, and was very good. Although he wasn’t the textbook Freak I still love the job that he did. Eldon Henson played Max I loved this. I don’t think they could have picked someone better to play Max, he really made himself seem like a big bumbling idiot.

And last but certainly not least, actually probably greatest thing I appreciate is how this short little genius and this big idiot, bond and become great friends. Personally I love this idea that 2 people so different can bond and turn into great friends, personally I don’t think in real life it is like this, or at least not in middle school. In middle school everyone stays to their own little group of friends. This also goes back to my first idea but I won't get into that. I love how they become friends, by the same common goal and interest, adventure, even though Max doesn't know that's what he loves yet. Regardless of how they became friends I love it how they ARE friends because it really shows that anybody can be anybody's friend if they try hard enough. The only thing I question is the truth to this, can anybody actually be friends despite their differences, I think that the answer is yes and I also think that people should give anybody and everybody a shot, I try to do that to the best of my abilities and I think everyone else should to.

Entry #7 Movie: The Mighty

well despite things i have heard about this movie i had a great experience watching this movie. i had heard from certain people (cough, cough, Tomin) that the only part of the movie that was good was the last 15 minuets of the movie. although the last 15 minuets were so good and sad enough to make me start balling, i thought the movie as a whole deserved a thumbs up. i really enjoyed watching this because it really helped me to think more about the book and also i basically got a whole new beginning of a story. i think that watching the movie defiantly did it's job by helping to expand my thinking and questions about the book. even though it was very good and even though Kieran Culkin was really good as freak it really is hard to get over the fact that the beginning was completely different. Kieran Culkin did a good job at what it seemed he was trying to accomplish as Freak but just Freak's whole character and attitude was much different from how i imagined Freak would be. all in all though i really enjoyed the movie and now i sort of want to read the second book.