Chanler - What would happen in a world where it was the child's choice to go to school? Would you go to school?

If I had the choice to go to school or not I would choose to go to school. I would choose to go to school because people can't survive in this world without a good education. The only reason I wouldn't choose to go to school is if there was some sort of way to instantly learn things like in the matrix. If there was such a thing as that, I would choose to learn all of the basic material and maybe some extra stuff. I don't think skipping every bit of school possible is necessary.

 I would skip elementary school if I could. Elementary school in my opinion is a waste of time. I don't think I need an entire year of school dedicated to learning the Alphabet. I think middle school is somewhat important. High school is definitely the most important part of school. High school is where you find out what you want to do in life. College is where you go to get good at what you want to do and that isn't worth skipping.

Writing Center Expierience

When I went to the writing center I got a lot more help with my paper than I was expecting. I know this is kind of a generic answer, but I didn't think I would get as much help as I did. I didn't have too many questions when I went, I really just wanted to get it done. The writing center showed me some more ways to lengthen my paper when it was too short. My paper ended up being long enough after I got home and changed a few things and edited a few paragraphs.

I thought signing up for an appointment was easy and reliable. I went online scheduled the appointment in about thirty seconds and my appointment was setup. When I arrived at the writing center I got my priorities strait on what I wanted to do and I got on it immediately. We went through the paper seeing what sounded weird and what sounded alright I made notes to the paper and highlighted things that needed to be changed. after school the same day I went back into my paper and started changing things.

Reading Times 12/2/13

Lord of the Flies
William Golding
11/18/13 30 min
11/22/13 45 min
11/23/13 15 min
11/25/13 30 min

Blog Prompt

Prompt: If you were president, what would you focus on fixing first?
My answer: I would focus on removing some of the debt of the country.

Free Post

                                                                    Orthodontist.
Today I was checked out during Spanish class about thirty minutes before the bell and went over to the Orthodontist to let them stare at my mouth for about an hour. As usual I signed in, brushed my teeth, then walked over and sat down in the patient's chair that I normally sit in. I had a feeling that this time I was going to get rubber bands to move my teeth some more so I don't look like a horse with buck teeth.

After I had my wires changed and had all the other unnecessary things out of the way, the Orthodontist's assistant asked me what color I would like for the clips that go on the bracket of the braces. I chose the color dark purple. She then gave me two big packets of rubber bands that were lime green, purple, and pink. My mouth is asymmetrical so I have to remember how far back the rubber band's are supposed to go. They attach at the top and bottom on each side. When I got home I fell asleep and woke up an hour later. My mouth didn't hurt earlier, but now it really hurts.

The Lord Of the Flies: 120 minutes

Free Post

Although the other freshman and I have to do everything because of seniority, I am extremely exited for soccer season. Having played soccer since fourth grade, I am going into the season pretty well prepared. Playing with the upper class-men is going to be a really fun experience.

The one thing that is bugging me with soccer is the practices run late almost everyday. The reason for this is that at the end of every practice there is a workout that includes a lot of running. I also start off every season out of shape and get totally winded every time I run more than ten feet. After a few weeks of showing off my absolutely pitiful amount of stamina I start to get back into shape and can then run for longer periods of time and not get as tired. Aside from my terrible stamina and the late running practices I am definitely looking forward my first soccer season in high school.

Deserted Island Simulation Reflection

When our class did the Deserted Island Simulation I expected our class to be really unorganized. I honestly think that our class was pretty organized when doing the activity. Even though we weren't really stranded on an island it was still interesting to get a basic understanding of what our class would do if this really did happen to us.

Although our class was organized I think most of us had no idea what to do because i'm assuming that most of us don't camp very often or have never been. If this had actually happened in real life I don't think we would have been as quick to making a plan. I think we would probably start looking for water or shelter instead of saying who's doing this and who's doing that. This activity was a really fun experience for our class. If we had a few more tries each with different mind sets we could have had a better chance of coming up with an action plan.

LOTF: 11/10. 1 Hour
Literary Analysis: 2 Hours

Reading Times

"A Worn Path" 70 minutes
Work on detailed outline and thesis 50
"World War Z" 20 minutes

Reading Response and Reading Times

     For my three short stories, I read The Sniper, Araby, and A Worn Path. Out of these stories, the two short stories that I enjoyed were The Sniper and A Worn Path. I thought The Sniper was engaging although I wish it were more detailed. I didn’t enjoy A Worn Path as much but I did like the story. I enjoyed A Worn Path because after all the trouble the main character Phoenix Jackson went through to get some medicine for her grandson made me think about how difficult the trip would actually have been if I were in her position.

     I honestly didn’t enjoy reading Araby because there was no closure and the plot was really strange. I wish I had chosen a different short story to read because I would have had a better list of short stories to choose from when picking one to analyze. The short story I am going to do my analysis on is A Worn Path. Although I enjoyed The Sniper more, I think it would be better to do my analysis on A Worn Path

10/27 Araby – 40 minutes

10/25 The Sniper – 30 minutes

10/27 A Worn Path – 50 minutes

free post

When I was a kid my dad decided I needed to have a haircut like he had when he was a kid.

We went to the barber shop and the barber asked how short I wanted my hair.  My dad said

“He wants a buzz cut”.  Of course, I did not know what he was talking about. After the haircut was over I looked in the mirror and immediately started complaining about how short it was. This was the worst haircut I had ever seen.  

The buzz cut the barber gave me is known as a number one at the barber shop.  The number one is

the blade length on the razor attachment.  That means the hair is cut one eighth of an inch long.

The hair is cut so short, it’s like not having any hair left on your head when the barber is through

cutting your hair.  It was a horrible experience and I would never do it again.

Reading Times & Questions

The hobbit:
10/8 30 minutes
10/9 20 minutes
Reviewing short stories:
10/9 35 minutes
10/10 35 minutes

How can I make myself a faster reader?
How do I make a reader want to read my short story?

Reading Log

9/30 The Girls and Their Summer Dresses- 35 min
10/2 Waltz of a Fat Man- 55 min
with annotating and rereading and everything.

Short Story Plot sort of

(Don’t have a name for the main character yet) is just a regular guy trying to get a job and have a nice life and he was living with his parents in (need a place for them to live) until one day he comes home to an empty house and no idea where his family vanished to. He had heard that a few people had gone missing not too far from where he lives and that they were never found. With the help of his friend he must get leads as to where his family has gone. If he doesn't find out what happened to them he will never see them again.

Short Story stuff

I don’t really know what I think about these short stories but I feel like it is helping me be better at annotating. While reading these short stories I've noticed that all of the stories we've read so far are really strange. I caught myself having to reread a lot of these short stories to really understand what is going on in them. In some of the long short stories it got more difficult to annotate because there were more sentences that just didn’t really need to be there and I noticed that I wasn't really underlining things that were important.

I don’t like the fact that we’re writing our own short stories. I don’t think making my own will help me learn as much as I could from reading other short stories. I enjoy learning and talking about these short stories in class because I think it helps understand how they are written so well. I don’t think writing my own short story will help me be a better writer in general.

Reading Log

9/20 The Hobbit 45 min
110-150
9/21 The Hobbit 45 min
150-180

"I Have a Dream" speech

Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech 100 years after Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. King quoted the Declaration of Independence stating that all men should have the freedom of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. He encouraged people to change their attitudes peacefully. King said he did not want African Americans to be victims of police brutality or segregation.   I believe he made a big difference in the way people judge others by making people more aware of racism.

          

            Martin Luther King also quoted the Declaration of Independence saying “we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal”.  He didn’t want people to be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. He emphasized freedom when he read some of the words to This Land Is Your Land. Freedom is something we all take for granted. 

E-Book

For the EBook, my paper is ready to be made public but I would like to look at it one more time just in case there is something I change my mind about. Also I don’t think we should use MLA format, it just isn't attractive at all and I don’t think anyone would want to read it because of how bland it looks. 

Skateshop Dialogue

Reno = skateshop owner

Reno- Hey welcome to Urban Nine.

Me- Hey how are you.

Reno- I’m good, are you looking for something in particular?

Me- Yes, I think I’m going to get a new skateboard deck.

Reno- Alright, cool. What kind did you have in mind?

Me- I think I’m going to get a REAL deck.

Reno- Which one do you want?

Me- I think I want the one with the zombie on it.(pointing at the deck on the wall)

Reno- What size deck would you like?

Me- I would like to get an 8.25 inch deck.

Reno- Okay, is there anything else you want to pick up while you’re here?

Me- Yes, I’d like to get the Pretty Sweet DVD.

Reno- Alright, cool. Your total is going to be $95.

Me- Okay here you go. (handing over the money)

Reno- Have a nice day. (handing over the deck and the DVD)

"This is Water" review

Literacy Narrative “This is water”

The “default setting” is a way of thinking that makes you believe everyone should do what you want them to or they’re doing it wrong and they’re useless. Thinking this way leads people to overlook things that they might enjoy, like if someone is sitting in their room and their parent asks them if they want to go to the grocery store and that someone says no, they might have just missed out on an opportunity to do something great or to see their friends or just have a good time.

 When In this mind set people especially me are very judgmental towards people that they have never even seen before. The person that is being judged might have had a bad day or they are sad because their family member or friend died sometime earlier. If people could just stop and think hey maybe this person is cooler than I thought maybe I should hang out with them it would make a big difference to that person.  While passing by someone just giving them a compliment could change their entire day or even just saying good morning or good afternoon. 

Reading Response The Hobbit

I am currently reading The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien. The way this book is portrayed is by using the narrator to explain some parts of the story, but the other parts of the story are just supposed to be understood by the way the story is written. The way the author wrote this book easily makes this an enjoyable experience.  In this fantasy, the author uses imaginative details when describing his characters known as Hobbits.   They are smaller than dwarfs, they wear bright colors such as green and yellow, and they don’t wear shoes. The main character, Bilbo Baggins, is a hobbit.

            The setting of this book is Middle Earth, in a land they call The Shire. Bilbo Baggins lived in a single story Hobbit Hole called The Hill. Bilbo’s home was built by his father before him, and he was considered very rich. In general, the Hobbits are considered to be very quiet and peaceful. They are also not very adventurous people. The story starts to get exciting once these dwarfs barge in Bilbo’s house and start eating all of his food, and discussing the journey they are about to go on involving Bilbo.

The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien

120 min 8/24/13

reading log week one

8/17 60 minutes. A Long Way Gone; Memoirs of A Boy Soldier.
8/18 60 minutes. A Long Way Gone; Memoirs of A Boy Soldier.

Acceleration Blog

I read the book Acceleration and honestly this book was too fast past for me. The book is going along and suddenly the climax of the story hits and it’s not even half way into the book which was kind of annoying to me. In the beginning of the book it tells you the main character who is a 17 year old boy named Duncan who works in the lost and found of a transit station. Duncan’s boss is an old man named Jacob that has clearly been working in that transit station for too long. Jacob sits around during work while Duncan works in the back organizing piles of people’s lost items and sifting random clothes.

While looking through items in the lost and found Duncan finds a mysterious leather journal that belongs to a crazy serial killer. Duncan must find out who this killer is before his time runs out to stop this madman. 

The Knife of Never Letting Go

     When I read The Knife of Never Letting Go I thought that the way the author showed how people felt was really good. When the reader first starts to understand Todd’s relationship with Manchee the Author shows that he doesn’t like the dog, and he thought he was really annoying. Also Todd first saw Viola he was mad because he thought that she couldn’t speak and that she was just dead weight, but he ends up liking her.

     My favorite character in The Knife of Never Letting Go is Viola because she is very clever and she can make things that are very useful to the situation. An example of this is when they are trying to escape from the prentisstown men and she blows up the bridge. Also she made that little Taser type thing and shocked the guy with it so they could get away. Another thing I like about her is that she doesn’t talk often but when she does it’s important in some way.