End of the Year Reflections

It's that time of the year again, TIME TO REFLECT!

This time: End of the Year

     When you are in this class, you learn some excellent life skills you need in life. Some important things that I learned during this class was to be organized, time management, and responsibility. In order to do survive and pass this accelerated class, you need to be organized and find everything quick and easy. From my past experiences, Mrs. Larson will ask for papers back when you started. Use your resources and use them to organize by unit, class, or even importance. You also want to keep track of time. Homework is not easy most of the time, so that means you need more time to work on it. You do not have a TARDIS or a time machine, so use your time wisely. If it is a big blog like this, start it a week before it is due. There, you can finish the last paragraph the last day before it is due. You also want to be more responsible with your actions and work. If you forgot to do an assignment, you will be punished. Based on that, these are skills developed throughout the years, watching the little pink sheets fly everywhere to irresponsible students.

     Mrs. Larson always refers back to guides handed out a month or two ago. So that means you will constantly look back to them and remember them for the rest of your life. There is this sheet called the TIQA format that was constantly being asked for. From that, you will never forget how to start your sentences, introduce a quote, and analyze it in a formal, professional way. Keeping papers like the TIQA format is very wise to do. In fact, you will remember this for the rest of your life.

     Students help you out in some ways. They helped me out by coming to my table to explain the AoW. I do not have many friends in this class, which causes me to be alone most of the times during Galley Walk. Other people have other preferences. So, when I sit in my chair ready to present, I usually just watch others. Based of from loneliness, the nicest thing someone ever did for me was to come to my table and actually listen for what I have to say.

     As a student, you make an impact on students throughout the year. I realized it now, but I helped out a student. I helped the student be more organized by writing down their homework. He always asked me, "What's for homework,?" Literally, every day in the middle of the night, he asked that question. Now that I told him to do what I do, he writes down his homework assignments. This made him more aware on events happening the next day and prepared for random call ups and gets a hand.

     You improve on the little or big things constantly. It is either in writing, drawing, or playing an instrument. I improve on studying, which I am really proud of. We have a test to take every week, the classic, Vocabulary Test. There are new words every week that are not so familiar. You really need to study in order to get a good grade. Almost all the test I aced. I found out that colors and flashcards are perfect to study with. I will never forget the strategy I created myself. It will be useful again, I know it will.

     Like every story, there are challenges the character must face. In my story, I have a struggle with word choice. As you read through, my words are very simple and sometimes plain. I always wanted to use words like Discombobulated, but I do not know where to put it. I always wanted to write a very descriptive blog, but I do not have the skill to. I guess I forgot most of the vocabulary words since I do not use them on a regular basis. I also have a fear of loosing accelerated classes since I do not use sophisticated words.

     No matter what, you have an opinion on your best work. On my first post, I have only two sentences in one paragraph. It was not enough. Going back to the present, you see major, major changes in your writing. In fact, you might have a favorite. I am most proud of my narrative twist Karma. This gave me freedom and an idea on how my writing should be. I used words mike Madam, which was really fun to mess around. It also gave the story more silliness, but serious at the same time. Karma was one of my favorite blog/assignment I have ever done in ELA.

     You read books no matter what day or time it is. You might do it for a challenge, or for fun. I started the first book of Harry Potter and fell in love with it instantly. I always had a thing for fantasy and witchcraft, which is why I decided to start now. When I was younger, I was often recommended to read these books, but I refused by the thickness of the book. As you read it, you loose count of the pages, which is the beauty of the book. The story is magical, the characters are well though out, its marvelous. From that, Harry Potter is my favorite book/series yet.

     This is dedicated for the 6th Graders at Heritage Middle School. If you are selected to go to Mrs. Larson's class, NEVER DO THE WORK ON THE LAST DAY! This is one of the most important skill you need to develop in order to survive this class. You will not regret it, I promise. You will not believe how long you would stay up if you do it Thursday night. You also want to be organized. Keep your papers separate from each other. If you are selected, you want to practice this over the summer.

Of Mice and Men Movie

Prompts: 

Section 1 and 4 Questions

Of Mice and Men

Status: Done

(Spoilers)

     A difference with the book and the movie is that the movie showed George in a train. What I think the movie added this is the adventure George had. George looks to be pushed around and all over the place looking for a job. Since it started and ended with the train, he was always fired or ran away. This tells us that George is poor and constantly looking for money. They added this to have more description of George. Since the book had more description, it did not need that scene like the movie did.

     One of the many reasons why they chose Sharilynn Fenn as the Wife of Curley is because of the eye. The swampers complain that Curley's Wife had the eye, which is a flirt description. Giving that look to the guys really captures their attention and focus on her. So, when they were holding auditions, they were probably looking for a girl with a pretty eye and could act pretty okay, of course. In the book, it said, "... had the eye." If you think about it, and with Lennie's reaction, the Wife stares at the boys with a pretty eye, like I said before. So, that is why they chose Sharilynn Fenn to play the Wife of Curley.

     The movie begins with a girl with a hole in her red dress. You also see a guy in a train. You see, in the book, it never said that Lennie ripped off part of the dress. In Of Mice and Men, it said that Lennie wanted to pet that girls dress because of the texture. It never said it ripped. In the movie, it represents Lennie's strength and foreshadow the conflicts later on. So, the reason why both the author and the director added this is to show why they are at the ranch. If they completely got rid of that, it would change the reason why they have that job and the plot itself.

     So, the movie was not bad, it was entertaining. They added dialogue that was in the book, which makes you listen. Plus, with the setting and the looks of the characters enhances the reading experience by 75%. This just makes you understand the book more, which is neat. I would recommend this book to the crushed dreamers to show that the are not the only one. They should not be alone in this world, so they should read this book and see that they are not alone. They could realized their mistakes and fix them as well.

Of Mice and Men Conflict Blog

     Of Mice and Men are full of conflicts. There are tension between two characters all the time. Some hate one another or just sad in general. Now that George and Lennie came in, it is no help. So, this blog is about the conflicts in the book. The main types of conflict are Man vs Man, Man vs Society, Man vs Self, and Man vs Nature.

     One of the conflicts in the novella is about Curley hating tall people. Let's face it, Curley is short. What he does have that the workers do not have is a wife. He has a wife while Lennie, the tall guy, does not. He took out his anger on Lennie and caused a fight. Lennie was way stronger than him, but Lennie still refused to fight back. The effect from the fight caused Curley's hand to be wounded by being crushed by Lennie's hand. In the novella, it said, "... his closed fist was lost in Lennie's big hand. George ran down the room. 'Leggo of him, Lennie. Let go.'"This was taken place of the big fight between Lennie and Curley. As you can see, since they were making fun of Curley and Lennie was laughing too, he swung at Lennie instead of anyone else. If he did not hate tall people, his hand would not be crushed since he could have chosen someone else. Curley could have swung at Candy for making fun of his glove. George tried to stop for one reason and one reason only, which leads me to my next conflict.

     George and Lennie needs money. The reason why they are at this job and live in a bunkhouse is to have enough money for their ranch. Their dreams lead them to this job and meet these new workers that could change their lives forever. Look at them now, they have friends that will help them on their journey and work for their future ranch. So, George needs to keep this job (so does Lennie) in order to get the money. Those are one of the many conflicts Of Mice and Men has to offer.

(P.S. All titles are italicized. The font makes it hard to see.)

Glitches

Ones and Zeros are my life

They fill the room with all their might.
My mind is filled with lines of code.
I swear I could just explode.

Google is a name
My future workplace
To code and make
Oh, the things I can create!

Tech is spreading,
no more sledding
all I know I could be shredding.

Dreams not always come true
which makes you blue
you can't see though
and what you do
is eat your stew
and bills are due
you life has flew
and what you do
is sit and hear the tick
of the clock that makes you fell like a stick
and watch the time go by.

No one wants that
even the guy in the hat
that says you're a rat
Doesn't know what you have inside.

The smallest voices could make an impact
but all you have to do is ignore
ignore the fact
that you are stacked
with all these words
that could make your life go splat

What they don't know
you are packed
with ideas
that could change technology in in the future.

Go to Google
Become what you want
run as far as you can
so that no one can catch you.

Of Mice and Men Blog

Prompt: Describe the atmosphere of the ranch and bunkhouse. 

Why doesn't Curley's wife have a name?

Of Mice and Men

by John Steinbeck

Pages 38 - 107

Status: Almost halfway there

     In class, we are reading a book called, "Of Mice and Men," written by John Steinbeck. This book is about two traveling migrant workers, George and Lennie, seeking a job for money. They had to drink dirty water and eat beans in order to live. They finally get a job and hope that it goes swell and get their pay. They convince Lennie by giving him the rabbits and letting him have a mouse after they get paid. Now, they hope that they do not screw this up.

     George and Lennie's workplace is not the best, but it is all they can get. The bunkhouse has bugs in their beds, which makes it hard to sleep sometimes worrying if there are bugs on you. In the Novella, it says, "What the $&^% kind of bed you giving us, anyways? We don't want no pants rabbits." What this means is that George does not want to sleep with bugs. He hates the beds, so he complains. The bunkhouse and the ranch seems to be run by two people, Slim and the Boss. The boss's son does not seemed to be taken seriously around the workers and more respected towards Slim. Slim treats others with respect and with manners that made everyone follow his rules. Not to mention that he looks tough in all. The boss is the boss, it is self-explanatory.

     One of the reasons why I think that Curley's wife does not have a name is to be incognito. Before I begin, they describe the wife with, "She had full rouged lips and wide-spaced eyes, heavily made up." She seems too good to be true. She has to be hiding something. Curley's wife had given people, "The Eye." What this means is that she his flirting with others just by looking. That gave me the red flag and focused on her. So, in my words, Curley's wife does not have a name because she didn't tell Curley or it is a fake name. Just in case the police comes, she has an alias so she will not be caught.

3rd Quarter Reflections

     3rd quarter was a blast! I had a great time in Math, Science, surprisingly Social Studies, and especially ELA. I have learned a lot over the past few months. I believe it is time to look back at what I have done in the past.

     Some of the biggest improvements in ELA were my reading speed. We were assigned a book to finish in a period of time. So, in my group, we had a schedule to follow, which was a lot to handle in my opinion. With a tight schedule at home, I was reading like a maniac. We ended up finishing the book a day early. For that, my reading speed increased dramatically. Not just that, I am able to finish books in a maximum of two weeks. I have to thank my teacher for this one. Thank you Mrs. Larson!

(Blog for Literature Circle, Click Here!)

     We did a unit on poetry. Yes, poetry! This is not just any poetry unit, THE poetry unit. This was probably one of my all time favorite units discussed in class. I have learned a lot about different student's past and their feelings. Some poems are deep and some are enthusiastic. For me, the closest deep poem I wrote was probably the "Where I'm From" poem I did a while back. This had some deep thought about how my childhood went and how I came to be. This is not the one I am most proud of, though. I have a poem that I thought turned out great! The poem is "Another World." It was humorous and creative, as I say so myself. It gave me freedom of choice and has a wide variety of story plot. That poem is one of the many things I am proud of this quarter. 

     One of the most challenging part of 3rd Quarter is the blogs. Not just a blog like this one, a blog where you have so many expectations on you. For example, the final blog on the poetry unit was expected to be well written. Blogs like that could be time consuming and make you look for substitutes for some words. So, having a good grade on that blog could be challenging for me. For that, it is the most challenging part of 3rd Quarter.

(Final Poetry Blog, Click Here!)

     Today is the final day of 3rd Quarter. Looking back can sometimes be depressing. The adventures and the tests taken are now all in the past. Now, it is time to calm down about school and excited for summer break. It is creeping on us slowly, but surely. Monday is a new beginning, new exploratory, new quarter, and new changes.

Literature Circle - Half Brother

EQ: How does the relationship between Ben and Zan affect Ben and Dad's Relationship?

Half Brother by Kenneth Oppel

Pages 375-375

Status: Finish

     Throughout the book, I ask myself a question all the time. I wonder if Ben and Zan's relationship in the book Half Brother  by Kenneth Oppel affects the relationship with Ben and his dad. I finished the book not to long ago and seen pretty interesting changes too. Ben's dad, Richard, thought this was going to be easy and okay to let go of. Once Ben got used to the chimpanzee, Zan, he loved him too much, Ben could not let go. Once Richard announce the project is over in the late spring, Ben was devastated. His relationship was at steak at that moment. Ben fought Dad by attempting to push him to the ground, but Dad won. Ben got so mad that he actually stomped out of the house. Ben's love with Zan could question Richard's decisions about either family or project. Thanks to Zan, his relationship is worse than before. Later in the book, it heals for a specific event that I am not going to mention. All in all, Relationship between Father and Son could be affected by another person, or in this case, a monkey.

     Perspective can change the way you look at a topic. You can read something such as a book from a perspective of a survivor of 9/11 that shows what is happening down below. If you read a book about 9/11, it  would talk about the attackers and the buildings. The survivor does not know where that airplane is from. They just ran and took cover possibly with their families. The general book would talk about the screaming and the cloud of dust roaming the streets. It all depends where you stand in the book or anything you are reading. If I take this into Half Brother, the Ranch in Ben's family is different than what the owner thinks about the place. Perspective is very important in almost anything. You never know if it might change the meaning or not. 

     Books, magazines, articles, and the news can interpret the same topic differently. Just like I said before, it is based on Perspective. I found an article talking about Chimps in labs, which connect to our story. In the book, it says, "'But even if they were,' he said, 'should we be torturing animals so we can heal humans? Is that fair?'" This quote from page 165 talks about labs they might possibly send Zan to. Ben does not like the idea of torture, just for selfish needs. Ben thinks about the labs as a slaughterhouse. Ben has some pretty negative look at these labs. Let's see what the article says. In the article, "Chimpanzees in Laboratories" from Peta.org, it says, "Those who made it to U.S. laboratories suffered terribly and died young." As you can see, when chimps go to these labs, they decrease their life spam. They basically die in the next year! This is much similar to the book. One thing that is different, the article gives the history and other information on these labs, while the book does not. That is how different sources with the same topic can have a different meaning.