I was looking at Bassam's post and I decided that this was what my response post was going to be about.

  I am rambling so let me get to the point why Oakland is a great place. well its a great place for some who is not shy of any one and not afraid to get out there. once you've made friends with kids in your neighbored you will never want to leave. Every day of break i would go to my friends house and play with there wii. there would always be a lot of people playing and that made it the best. The only reason that people think that it is not a good place is because they don't any friends i n Oakland, if you don't then it will be a living hell because people always walk in groups and if your not apart of it then you have no reason to be there.   

I just kind of wanted to point a few things out there. When you said that Oakland is a great place if you're not afraid to go out there, it makes it sound like it is a bad place and that you have to face your fears or something like that. You probably mean that if people aren't paranoid about Oakland or have some stereotypes on violence there and such, but you should explain it a little more.
         Another thing you say that kind of ties in to what I said above is that it will be a "living hell" if you don't make any friends and don't walk in groups. That sounds like a bit of an exaggeration: if you don't make friends and hang out in groups then you'll be in your misery for a long time? I not paranoid, but I do have a few stereotypes on Oakland, basically that it can be pretty violent sometimes. I'm looking at all these posts on Oakland and trying to know the facts and what Oakland is really like and not be stereotypical on it. And life being a living hell by not making friends sounds like a bit of a death wish if you want to go there. I'm just saying, that's what the sentence sounds like or would sound like to someone who only thinks bad things about Oakland. Just a few things I wanted to point out.

Unwind Blog Post #3

           In my final lit-circle discussion for the novel Unwind by Neal Shusterman, my group talked about some very interesting things. The most interesting discussion we had was when we talked about the possibilities of this happening. The setting is supposed to be a while in the future, so at some points I wondered and thought to myself, Could this really happen?. My group actually talked about it and gave a lot of evidence on it. There's one part in the book where a character named Roland tells a lady to do something, and she that it is very strange. However, she only thinks that she shouldn't worry about it and that she should just do what he says, then she can forget about it and it will no longer be her problem. People today already are fine with making a decision if it means that they move their problems and give them to someone else.
           The reason that people in this book unwind kids, or take off all their body parts and donate them to someone else, is because there was a war. It was called the Heartland war, and it was basically fought to protect people from getting all their body parts taken off so they can be donated, but then people decided that that could donate most of them without technically killing them. It was fine for people because they were already adults, and they couldn't get unwound, only kids would. This shows that the people who had the power to disagree to this didn't because they wouldn't have to worry about getting unwound. So they were just pushing their problems away from them and onto someone else. So if this kind of war were to happen, then this would probably be the outcomew.
            The main reason that this could happen is because unwinding is like abortions, except that it happens to kids and that the organs, brain parts, and limbs are donated to people. If abortions become legalized, then people might say no and get into a fight a bit like the Heartland War and people would lose money from the war and then decide to comprimise by accepting something like unwinding. Like I said, people will push their problems on someone else and feel nio regret whatsoever.

Response to Sam's post on Oakland

            I heard in Mr. Sutherland's class that there were some blog posts on Oakland, so I looked at a few and decided to respond to Sam's post.

I happen to live in Alameda, but I still can see the frustration that people who live in Oakland have.  Just because things happen, doesn’t mean that it will happen to you.  This is of course connecting to what she said about there being shootings on occasion, but her never actually being shot at.  No matter where you live people will assume things about you and your community based only on where you come from.  I admit that I do this sometimes. Sometimes seriously, and sometimes as a joke.  I am sure that people in Oakland have plenty of stereotypes about people living in Alameda.

          The part where Sam says that things happening could or couldn't happen to you. My stepdad is a firefighter in Oakland, and he always says that Oakland has a lot of poverty and violence and stuff like that. Of course he works near Fruitvale, so that is obviously a place where there's just a lot of trouble. I heard that some places aren't so bad, and are actually considered nice parts of Oakland. So the people who live in more peaceful areas not in Oakland probably judge that if some parts in Oakland are bad, then all of Oakland is bad. People who don't know a lot about things usually depend on stereotypes for knowledge so they can sound smart.
          The part where Sam says that Oakland most likely has stereotypes on people in Alameda is the next part I want to talk about. I've been to my sepdad's fire station sometimes and I've heard some of the other firefighters say that Alameda firefighters are lazy and get paid for doing nothing. You can get a lot out of that sentence right there. They think that since Alameda barely has any problems that the firefighters in Alameda are bums that sit on a couch all day at their fire station and don't get any calls. This makes me wonder if some people who live in places like Fruitvale think people in Alameda are wimps and people who can't deal with anything because they don't have any problems.
           The last thing I want to say is not exactly a response to what Sam said, but just more something I want to point out. Alameda and some of the nice areas around Oakland will get a bad reputation at some point in time. I've heard that there's a nice part in Oakland called Mont Claire (I think that's what it's called), so it's probably one of the places that is peaceful. Well I saw on the news a while ago that a lady that was in Mont Claire or some other really nice part of Oakland left her 6 year old daughter take care of 2 or 3 of her baby siblings for an entire day. The lady came back the next day and the police came and arrested her (I don't know how they found out). That's just an example that some nice places turn out to get a bad reputation, so these peaceful places and Alameda will probably get that. The shooting in Alameda 3 years ago is another example. A little girl got shot by some kids at a park in Alameda, so that's another sign. I heard that all of Oakland used to be a nice place, but it just slowly turned into a bad place. I predict that Alameda and the rest of Oakland will share the same fate. It's only a matter of time.

Unwind book post #2

            In this second lit circle group discussion on the novel Unwind by Neal Shusterman, we talked about what would happen and how the characters in the book might end up. We also wondered about some of their reactions to things. One of these questions and discussions was about Conner and how sometimes he couldn't control his anger at certain points. He would just turn around and get in a fight with someone for no apparent reason. I had a theory for why this was. A few chapters before this happened, a kid named Cyrus Finch (CyFi) was introduced in the story. He was kind and was always in good humor, but later on, he stole gold necklaces, Christmas ornaments, and other valuable items. Later on, we find out that CyFi had been given a part of someone else's brain when they got in an accident. That someone stole valuable items, so at certain points, CyFi would be controlled by that piece of mind and start to steal things and talk differently. This could have been what happened to Conner. Maybe he had been given part of someone else's brain, and that person got in a lot of fights or had mental problems where they couldn't be around crowds. This could have been why Conner would have sudden impulses to punch someone because they were being too loud.
            Something else that I wondered about why Lev all of a sudden hated his parents. They obviously showed that they didn't want Lev to be unwound, but when he realized that it was wrong, he said that he hated his parents and was surprised he meant it. My lit circle group said that Lev suddenly hated his parents because their religion was more important than Lev. They also said that he hated them for not being able to see that unwinding was wrong whether it was a religious matter or not. I think that these answers kind of answer my question on Lev and his parents, but it still makes me wonder why Lev was surprised to hear himself say that as well.

Revisions for Corbally's essay

Kathy, Lhadze and Luis, here's the essay.

Kathryn Douglas, Lhadze B., Jesse Valdez, Luis Alba

21 September, 2010

Writing One, 6^o

Mrs. Corbally

Pearls Before Swine

            “Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.” (Matthew 7:6)

            The silence never sounded as loud when Paul held Abbey’s dead body in his hands. He stepped away from Abbey and held the bloody pen in his hand. All his memories of Abbey were playing in his head. Slowly, all of those memories became clear. He knelt beside Abbey, and closed his eyes.

 *                                 *                                         *

            His years of high school were the whole reason why he ended up killing Abbey. Paul and Abbey had been a great couple. Paul loved her; he would do anything for her. He remembered picking her up from her house in his truck and getting out of the car. Abbey came out of her house in her little red dress, nimbly walking over in her heels while putting on a delicate corsage. He was stunned at her amazing grace and beauty. He opened the truck door for her and headed to prom. Paul was nervous and the ride was quiet.

            As they entered the gym where prom was being held, he had a slight feeling someone else was looking for her. Paul and Abbey sat at a table with their friends from high school. They had fun with their friends, but as they left to dance, Abbey and Paul remained silent. As the night went on, Abbey acted strange. She kept glancing around as if she were looking for someone. She suddenly stood up, walked away and never looked back. Paul wondered where she was walking to, but it didn’t take him long to figure out. She was walking towards someone who just came in. As Abbey went over to him, Paul began to notice something strange: he had a pig tattoo on his biceps. Anger boiled inside Paul’s stomach. Abbey, with no sense of pity or regret, kissed the man with the pig tattoo. Paul jumped in his seat and stared at them. Fury exploded within him, but he didn’t want to make a scene. He got up and left, thinking about how Abbey could have just done that to him so easily.

            As Paul drove his truck in anger, his mind was still on Abbey and how he witnessed her cheating on him. He began to think cruel thoughts, all in which included revenge. The tattoo of the pig was on his mind since he had left the prom. He wanted to know who that man that he hated more than anyone else was. He began to swear at the top of his voice, all of them being about Abbey and the man that she was with. While driving, he spotted a pig, and the remaining amount of rage that was inside him was vented out. When he saw the pig, he thought Abbey and the other man and the everlasting pain that they had inflicted on him. Acting on impulse, Paul drove his truck as fast as he possible could, and he rammed into the pig. The truck shook and swerved. When it stooped, Paul left to see if the pig was dead, but when he found nothing, he realized that he had imagined it; the pig was merely a hallucination. He wondered why the car had shook if he did not hit the pig. He noticed a boulder a few feet away from where he was; that had been the cause of his crash. As he realized what had happened, he began to laugh. He was still laughing when he saw two bright lights coming closer and closer. In a matter of seconds, he heard a horn blare, and everything went black.

                                    *                                       *                                              *

            The next thing Paul knew, he was in a room with shiny white walls. He then noticed the numerous amounts of wires attached to him. It didn’t take him long to realize that he was in a hospital. He touched his face and felt his grown facial hair all over. His eyes felt tired and heavy. He looked towards the digital clock. He noticed something strange. The date was 3 years after prom. Everything in between that and now was all just a blank. He was about to gasp in shock, but pain all of sudden shot through his entire mouth. He looked in a mirror next to him and saw that something was clamping him jaw down so much that he couldn’t speak. He thought while in pain, I shouldn’t have tried to run over the pig. I shouldn’t have lost control like that. In half an hour, some surgeons came in to check and fix whatever was clamping down on his jaw. As they were fixing it, he felt jolts of pain that felt like needles being poked into his gums and being twisted. When they were done, one of the surgeons got a mirror and asked him what he thought. There were two thoughts that went through his mind: (1) He was astounded at his reflection; he had hideous scars all over him. His face was unrecognizable. (2) The voice that spoke to him was extremely familiar. Paul was frustrated that he couldn’t figure out whose voice that was.     

            When all the other surgeons left, the one whose voice sounded familiar stayed behind. She cleaned up the rest of the tools and put them on a cart so she could take them back. She took off her surgical mask and then someone else called her. Abbey. She said she would be right there after she put the equipment away. When she turned around to take the cart, Paul caught a glimpse of her face. That glimpse was all he need. Everything that happened after the prom came to him: Abbey cheating on him, driving away in anger, crashing into the boulder, and the most memorable flashback, the man with the pig tattoo. He must have looked like he had a fearful expression on his face, because Abbey told him, “Don’t worry, Sir. You’ll get those scars fixed in no time. Good-bye”.

As she left He saw the man that called that had the clear tattoo of a pig, and an engagement ring brighter than the sun than had engravings on it. Paul shook with fury on his bed when he noticed these two things. If he didn’t have the thing on his jaw, then the entire hospital would have heard his scream. They were the screams of revenge.

                        *                                          *                                               *

            Abbey came in and closed the door. He decided that if he wanted revenge, then there was only one thing he could do. Ignoring every pain in his body, he grabbed Abbey by her collar and took a pen out of her pocket. He looked at Abbey, and his brown eyes, full of rage and hatred, met Abbey’s grey eyes, full of shock and plea. Fighting the pain of his jaw, he said to her, “Abbey.” Paul grabbed her wrist and stabbed it with the pen, cutting it open. She opened her mouth in preparation for a scream, but Paul swiftly covered her mouth. “Be quiet”, he said in a murderous tone. He caressed her face and held the pen up to her neck as she slowly started to lose consciousness. He remembered that horrible heartbreaking day when she cheated on him and caused him to get in a crash. He wanted to make her suffer for what she did to him. The last time he saw her, she was looking at him, deviously giggling. She was different now. Ugly, he thought, that pig man made her ugly, the way she smiled at him, and she never smiled like that at me. She could very well be dead to me. I want her dead; if I can’t have her, neither can that pig man. He then said to Abbey the last words she would ever hear.

“Pearls before swine, Abbey.”

 He took a deep breath, and jammed the pen into Abbey’s soft neck. Her eyes flickered and she was no longer. His hands were soon soaked with Abbey’s crimson blood. He dropped her and wiped his hands on his hospital gown. Paul looked over her dead body on the floor, dropped the pen and limped to the door. It creaked as he opened it slowly. Once he was outside, he looked both ways down the hall and dashed. Running down the white halls, memories of the good times flashed back into his head and he snickered bitterly. He could see the security guards running towards him, they had heard the beginning of her desperate cry. Paul had not covered Abbey’s mouth quick enough. He realized that the guards had him in checkmate. He went with them quietly. He was not only going to prison, but he was going to Hell.

Corbally's Essay

           As Paul drives his tractor in anger, his mind is still on Abbey and how he witnessed her cheating on him. He starts to boil with anger inside. Abbey's pig tatoo was still fresh in his mind. At the same time, he spots a pig, and hatred bursts inside him. When he sees the pig, he immediatly thinks of Abbey, and the pain she caused him. Then, on impulse, he makes his tractor go as fast as it can possibly go. As he gets closer to the pig, with Abbey still in his mind, he can't find the pig any more. He realizes too late, the pig was merely a hallucination. One of the wheels hits a bopulder, and both Paul and the tractor are sent flying in the air.
           When he regains conscienceness, he sees a white-walled room. The next thing he notices is a numerous amount of tubes attached to him. It does not take him very long to realize that he is in a hospital. He's about to gasp, but something stops him. Something clamps his jaw shut so that he can't speak. He thinks to himself that he shouldn't have tried to run over the "pig". He shouldn't have lost con trol like that. In about half an hour, some surgeons come in to fix whatever is clamping down on his jaw. He sees some of them using screws on his teeth. He feels a sudden pain, but it goes away in seconds. One of the surgeons gets a mirror and asks him what he thinks. He sees himself and is shocked. His face is covered in scars. He doesn't even recognize himself. At that moment, the surgeon that showed him the mirror, and Paul realizes that the surgeon is Abbey. Abbey, apparently not recognizing who he is, tells him not to be so scared, and that the scars will go away once he gets plastic surgery by the plastic surgeons. Paul tries to tell her who he is, but he is unable to speak. Abbey doesn't notice that he is struggling to say something, so she leaves without another word. Paul watches her leave, and as he does, he discovers something glistening like the sun om her hand. He shakes with fury on his bed, and the entire hospital would have heard him, if only it weren't for the thing on his jaw. The shiny object on her finger was an engagement ring, with words engraved on it. And Paul knows that it wasn't him that gave it to her.

Response to Colin's iPad post

I decided to respond to Colin's post on the iPad.

 Why choose Ipad? It does the same thing (sometimes less) as many other tablets just for a higher price for the brand name. The blackberry playbook has live video chat, flash payer built in (which the IPAD does not have), youtube, blackberry compatibility, and any more features. I am responding to this because I wanted to show that there are other things you can get that do more than the Ipad but they aren't advertised for as much.

I'm making this response post to say why a lot of people buy the iPad even though other cell phones can do the same thing. People probably expect more from the Apple company because of all the iPhones and iPods and iTouches and how cool they are. Now the Apple company must be running out of ideas for new technology, and therefore they try to get a lot of money and scam people by taking the ideas of some other company's ideas. Then they take, as Colin said, blackberry's video chat and put it in the iPad. They must have not known that the blackberry has a flash player, or they would have put that in as well. Since the economy is bad, they need more money, so they just steal ideas and put it into something. Sooner or later next year, they'll probably have taken more ideas from other companies and put it into something else. This is assuming of course that they don't come up with anything new by themselves. I actually would be surprised if they were experimenting for new technology, but while they were, and in case their ideas didn't work, then they had some back-up blueprints for something else. Therefore, the Apple company must have been trying to get somethig and put it into something else, but failed to accomplish it. Then, they were stating to lose money, so they decided to create their back-up plan, which was the iPad. Since people had high expectations from the company, a lot of people bought iPads in hope of getting something really cool. But there were mostly ideas from other devices, so the Apple company got a lot of money, maybe so they could use the money to experiment more to invent something better. But that remains to be seen.

Unwind Blog Post #1

             During my group's lit circle discussion, we talked about many things that happened in the book Unwind so far. We talked about what we thought of some of the characters, what they would do later in the book, and why they acted the way they did. One of these characters that we talked about was Lev's parents. We pondered if they really wanted to have Lev be unwound, or if they were just getting him unwound because it was their religion. We ended up mostly agreeing that they just gave up Lev to be unwound because their religion had said that they needed to give 10 percent of their possessions to the Church, and they figured that Lev had to be part of that 10 percent. We said that they probably thought that they wouldn't be accepted into heaven if they didn't give up Lev, and that instead they would be sent to Hell. So they convinced Lev that he would be blessed once he was unwound, and that was his purpose: to save lives by giving away his body parts. This made Lev feel slightly better about himself, because he thought it was his purpose. This probably makes the parents feel better, so they keep enforcing this idea.
             After this discussion, our group talked about Lev. We said that he was a jerk for betraying Conner and Risa's trust, and then expecting them to let him tag along with them again. Now that I think about it, I don't even know what the purpose of going to the office to tell them what was going on. All he did was call his friend Pastor Dan, and he could have done that without telling them who he was at all. He told the office person to tell the police not to hurt Conner ans Risa. What did he expect? They were both Unwinds on the run, so if they were caught by anyone, they would be unwound. He deserved to have felt guilty for leaving them and then being alone.

Book Review for Kite Runner

1.         In the one of my posts, I said that I thought the book would be about remorse. Some of it turned out to be that way. However, now that I've read the entire book, I know that there's more to it than just remorse. It gives the reader feelings of hope, loyalty, redemption, and the price of making very wrong decisions. Since I already talked about why this book has remorse, I will explain why and how there is all the other feelings that I stated earlier.
         I said that there was hope in this novel. This is depicted when Amir begins his search for Hassan, then later searching for Hassan's son, Sohrab. Amir assumes that getting him out of Kabul will be easy, but then realizes little by little that he could fail his task. Even after he rescues Sohrab from Kabul, he finds Sohrab lying unconscious, and bleeding to death.

"There is no God but Allah and Muhammad his messenger. I pray. I pray that my sins have not caught up with me the way I always feared they would."(p346)

This is where Amir has a spiritual awakening and prays that if there is a God, then he will keep Sohrab alive, and in return, Amir will be Muslim and pray daily. Since Sohrab is alive, Amir keeps his promise and prays everyday, does namaz, and all the other requirements of a Muslim.
        The part where loyalty comes in is with Hassan. He was forever loyal and shared a strong bond with Amir, even when Amir watched him get raped by Assef. Hassan knew that Amir had done this, yet he still forgave him and considered them to still be great friends with the same bond. Evidence in this is written in a letter that Hassan writes to him.

"If you do, you will find an old faithful friend waiting for you."(p218)

Whether it was because Hassan was their servant or because of the friendship that he and Amir had, Hassan was always a great friend to Amir.
          Despite this loyalty however, Amir could never forgive himself for what he did. He thought of himself a sinner, and desperately wanted to be punished for the bad things that he did.

"I wished he would. I wished he would give me the punishment I craved, so maybe I'd finally sleep at night."(p92)

           Shortly after the event took place, Amir and Hassan both went to their favorite tree and stayed there a while. Amir then threw a pomegranite at Hassan, and when Amir told Hassan to punish him, Hassan only took another one and squished it against his head, and made a reply that made Amir feel even worse.

"Are you satisfied? Do you feel better?" (p 93)

         Amir was then haunted by everything he did to Hassan. He became an insomniac, and couldn't bear to even think about Hassan. He finally feels that he gets some punishment that he deserves when he crosses paths with Assef, and he gets beaten up by him. Then he ends up in the hospital.

"The impact had cut your upper lip in two, he said, clean down the middle. Clean down the middle. Like a harelip."(p297)

         Amir soon starts to think that every bad thing that happens to him is punishment for what he did. When he thinks this, he thinks that now he has a harelip like Hassan did. He thinks that he is going to go through everything that Hassan went through, starting with the harelip. Another example of this is when Amir and Soraya try to have a baby, but they can't.

"Maybe this was my punishment, and perhaps justly so. It wasn't meant to be, Khala Jamila had said. Or, maybe, it was meant not to be."(p 188)

        After the sins that Amir commited, he feels extremely guilty and fears that his sins will catch up to him and he will lose many things: He fears that he will die in Kabul and fail Hassan, he fears he will lose Sohrab, he fears that Soraya will never be happy because they can't have a baby, and he fears that he won't know what to do when Baba dies.
        All of these feelings that are presented in the book are meant to teach children to make good choices, otherwise they'll either wish almost all the time that they could take it back or they'll be distraught from remorse of something they did. This may have happened to Khaled Hosseni, as I stated in one of my posts on The Kite Runnner.

It is possible that something like this happened to Hosseni. Not all of this word for word, but maybe he did something small that he would never forgive himself for. Then he could have exaggerated greatly the amount of regret he felt and made it into a much bigger problem. Also, he may have based Amir on himself, maybe on the decisions he would have made as a kid: trying anything to please his father, being scared of bullies like Assef, and even making some decisions that may have seemed good at first, but later he realized that was the wrong choice. Then these may have affected his life. He may have even gone a long time in his life haunted by something he did, and every day wishing he could take it back.

       In the end, Amir has to make it up to Sohrab because he broke a promise to Sohrab. He then teaches Sohrab how to be a kite-runner like Hassan. Sohrab still doesn't forgive Amir for the promise that he broke, but he smiles when Amir performs tricks that his father did. It was, as Hosseni put it, the first snowflake melting. So Amir is close to making up for his sins by regaining Sohrab's trust and taking care of him. 
        To summarize it all, the purpose of this book can be viewed from many perspectives: teaching children to stick up for their friends, to teach them to have hope and faith, or even so Hosseni can feel that making the book (and trying to teach children about all the feelings that I talked about) is making up for whatever sins he did and he went through all the guilt that Amir went through.

General Sahib

         In the novel The Kite Runner, General Sahib is Amir's father-in-law. He is also a good friend of Baba's, so there must be some kind of relation between them. It is possible, but not likely, that he may have know how Baba also had Hassan as his son. At the end of the book, the general refers to Sohrab as "the Hazara boy". It is possible that he too, like many others in Kabul, had a certain kind of dislike or discrimination against Hazaras. One piece of evidence that is given on this theory is when he walks in and sees Sohrab.

"'Hello, young man,' was all the general said, leaning with both hands on his cane, looking at Sohrab the way one might stud a bizarre decorative item at someone's house."

       It is obvious here that the general has a kind of racism against Hazaras.That much is clear. But it's what's in between the lines that is interesting. When I said that General Sahib might have known that Baba was Hassan's father, this may also lead to the general somehow knowing that Hassan had Sohrab. It is possible that Rahim Khan had talked to the general many times, and had also talked about Sohrab and how he was hoping to get Amir to take care of him. Therefore, when Amir and Soraya told him that they were going to adopt someone, the general assumed that it would be Sohrab. He then made up excuses for reasons to not adopt, because he didn't want a "Hazara" in his family. So when Amir came back with Sohrab, the general had no idea and assumed that Amir wouldn't adopt him. That is why he asked about Sohrab and why Amir brought him.
         Another part at the end was that the general had been summoned to Afghanistan. However, it could have been just a lie so that he could get away from Sohrab for a while. Or he was too embarrassed to be seen around him. Either way, the "summons" was probably a lie. My last assumption was that General Sahib was a Taliban. He may have hired Assef to kidnap Sohrab and make sure that Amir would not take him to America. He knew, or thought he knew, that Assef would not fail him, so the "summons" was to find Assef, and punish him for his failure.

Response to Meriam's story

    I was looking at Meriam’s post and I saw that she made a post called Story Time. Here’s what she wrote at the end.

Also, the toddler became ill however the step mom believed it was just a regular flu and payed no special attention to him. The brother would escape to the family friend's home trying to escape his own problems. After a month or so the toddlers illness resulted in death and a month later the father had died in war.

       This post I will write is just kudos and some advice. First off, you should probably give names to the people. That would make it easier to understand what’s going on in the story. I understood what happened, but I had to read it 2-3 times to know what was going on. Then you should also make this an actual post and divide it into chapters. Then, if you made at least 15 chapters, you could even make it a book. That could be very nice reading.
    Another thing you could do is just organize it into paragraphs. Some dialogue could be nice too. Also, just as you said in the first paragraph, you should put it through the oldest son’s perspective. And if Corbally ever assigns an essay or something this year or next year, you could use this story for an essay or something. Two birds with one stone.
    All in all, I think that if you really put some time into the story, it would turn out really good. You should consider what I said about making this story into chapters earlier in he post.

Vic's blog is awesome!!!

            I looked at Vic's blog and saw the awesome fish tank he had. When I looked at it, I added a bunch of other fishes in the tank. I even added so many that all the fish were cramped up in the tank and could barely move. I thought that was kinda funny. So I took away a few fish and changed the settings on them. I changed the movement and put their speed and fast, so all the fish were swimming all around the tank in different directions like they were hyper. I recommend putting either the swordfish (cause they're awesome) or the tropical fish so they can make a bunch of colors around the tank.
            Anyone who reads this and wants to look at Vic's fish tank, I would appreciate it if they responded to these questions. My first question is there is a little search box above the tank that says something about searching other fish from other websites and adding them to the tank. I haven't tried it out yet, but I don't know whether or not you can actually get other fish or if you have to go through a bunch of stupid downloading crap and pay for the fish. Anyone who tries it out before I do, could you post a comment on either my blog or Vic's blog saying if you can or can't. If you can, then I would put a bunch of cool fish. One that I would love to put is an octopus, or a poisonous sea snake. Maybe even a penguin, even though that's not a fish, but a fish-eater. But I'd put that if it were possible. Then I'd make the octopus try to eat the puffer fish, and it could die. That would be fun to watch.
           Also if anyone reads this, I'd love to know if you can give them their own names. Then I'd give them a bunch of funny names. I'd name the blonde female-looking one Justin Beiber and the fish that keeps following it Sam. (I hope you're reading this Sam).

Punishment for Baba or for Amir?

              In the novel The Kite Runner, Amir and Baba have both done terrible things and their life changed because of the decisions they made. When Baba was dying, Amir was in greif. He began to cry a lot and worry about what he would do when Baba died. Since Amir left Hassan to be a victim of Assef's and allowed him to be raped, this could be punishment for his sins. Baba dying and not being able to be with Amir could be part of what he deserves for what he did to Hassan. Amir didn't do anything to make up for what he did, except for sending him out of Kabul. But even that didn't help since the Taliban came and made things bad for Hazaras. Baba's death could have been the first punishment he gets for abandoning Hassan.
               Though Baba doesn't show it, he seems unprepared to die so soon. Possibly he too wants to make up for his sins and is not ready to die because he wants to do more. The only things that he really did to make up for them are to give the poor some money and give money to orphanages. He may also have wanted to live to see Amir's grandchildren or to see him be successful, or maybe the same for Hassan, but if he did, then he never showed it. On the other hand, it could also just be his time. Perhaps, as said in the paragraph above, that Baba's death could be punishment for Amir. Fate could have given Baba what he deserved. This could be when Hassan left and was out of Baba's life forever. That could be the last punishment for him.

Response to Sam's Response

I was looking at Google Reader to find some inspiration for a response, and I found this on Sam's Blog.

The reason Amir didn’t interact with Hassan after he was raped was that he was Jealous of Hassan.  Throughout the whole story Baba makes an effort to make sure that whenever he and Amir can have a moment alone Hassan is there or has been invited.  This leads Amir to believe that Baba loves the child of their servant as much, or possibly even more then his own child.  Also when Amir and Hassan were approached by Assef on the hill, Hassan had the courage to stand up to Assef and cause him to stop bullying Amir.  Amirs lack of this kind of courage is shown when he witnesses Hassan getting raped.  Although no one knows that Amir is watching the brutal act, he still chooses not to get help because he is a coward.    After, that is when Amir can’t talk to Hassan because he is angry at him for being stronger.  This situation gets even worse when Hassan is able to heal from the incident even faster then Amir.  They were no longer able to be friends because they were simply different.

        I highly disagree with what Sam says about Amir not talking to Hassan because he's angry. Amir is ashamed of what he did, which is why he always feels short of breath when Hassan is around. If you want evidence Sam, then there is a part in the Kite Runner where Rahim Khan says that he was in love with a Hazara, but they were separted and decided to not marry because she would have been treated badly by his family. This is symbolizing how Amir and Hassan are friends and want to stay with each other, but Assef is always taunting them and and even threatened to beat both of them up with brass knuckles. And another piece of evidence is where Amir is about to frame Hassan, he says that he remembers what Rahim had said to him about the Hazara he fell in love with, and it was for the best, otherwise she would have suffered. Amir takes this idea from Rahim and frames Hassan so that he and his father can be safe without being taunted for being a Hazara, and especially for being safe from Assef. Amir may have been jealous that Hassan got better treatment from his dad at some points, but that's not why he sent them away. He was doing it to protect them. He also pretended that he didn't see what happened, even in front of Hassan because if he didn't know and Amir told him, then they would never be friends, and he would never be forgiven.

Remorse

                    When Khaled Hosseni wrote the book The Kite Runner, he most likely intended it to show what remorse and regret really mean. This can be shown when Amir says,

" In the end I ran. I ran because I was a coward." (pg 77)

                     There are many other small parts in the book where Amir states that he is ashamed that he left Hassen to be tortured by Assef. Usually when we think of regret, we may think of regretting a decision, like wishing you hadn't made a bet, or wishing that you should have started your homework earlier. When we think of remorse, we think of small things, like not fighting with a younger sibling or feeling guilty that you lied and they easily believed you. Amir's constant feelings of regret and remorse are much bigger reasons than any other person may feel. Amir feels he betrayed Hassan, the brother he never had. Hassan had always stuck up for Amir and helped him whenever he needed it most, and during Hassan's greatest moment of need, Amir ran and pretended that he never saw what happened. Even when Amir saves him from any more harm from Assef, he still is haunted by his decision to run instead of trying to protect Hassan. He knows that he could never do anything to be able to forgive himself for what he did, even if Hassen did.
                     It is possible that something like this happened to Hosseni. Not all of this word for word, but maybe he did something small that he would never forgive himself for. Then he could have exaggerated greatly the amount of regret he felt and made it into a much bigger problem. Also, he may have based Amir on himself, maybe on the decisions he would have made as a kid: trying anything to please his father, being scared of bullies like Assef, and even making some decisions that may have seemed good at first, but later he realized that was the wrong choice. Then these may have affected his life. He may have even gone a long time in his life haunted by something he did, and every day wishing he could take it back.

The Way the World Works

          I was just looking at all my blog posts on my blog that I did the whole school year so far. I actually noticed something that may be a coincidence, but that's for readers to decide. All my blogs are basically about the sad or bad things of the world. I didn’t mean to make my posts into a category like this or make them all connect into one subject purposely, but it seems that they all do relate to negative things. The more I read them, the more it makes me wonder if I will accidentally make all my posts connect into one subject again during this quarter. These are my posts that I think relate to negative things in the world.
          The first blog post was about bullying. That relates to a bad thing because it shows that many people have either been bullied or bullies, and that proves how some people may start bullying and enjoy bullying enough to keep bullying enough to do it for the rest of their lives. It could also teach victims to be afraid of someone else if they start to get bullied, and be victims for the rest of their lives.
           My second post was a response to Sam's post on bullying. He states that bullying is caused by people who don't have any friends are think that anyone who is different from them is funny or stupid. This also is relates to bad thing the same way my blog post did.
          My third blog post was a debate on illegal immigration. Even though I was only being on the con side for the debate, and not morally for it, I still was able to use facts and opinons that I found out on sites and sources on how there were some government senators, etc. that wanted to put border patrol around America to stop immigrants from illegally entering America. They would even be allowed to use force to stop them from entering. This shows how much other people would love to live in America for dreams of less problems, but right now America can't let those people in. (My fourth blog was basically a rebuttal to the opponents, so that had the same reasons for being a downside blog post as the previous one.)
          The fifth was on marijuana and how some people get prescribed to it for medical uses. I responded to it and said that some people could forge the subscription the get marijuana, or somehow get it but lie and say it's a medical purpose. This shows how people have addictions on things and won't think twice to end the addiction.
          The sixth was a bit random, and was about pizza, but it did have some downsides and moral in it. This post talked a bit about scamming for money and trying to get people to come to their restaurant. So it had a bit to do with some bad things in this world.
           The next post was a bit random too, but it does show that Disney had to take some very sad stories and "stretch" the truth out quite a bit to make it fit to be a children's movie. That proves that there were probably sad times when the stories were first created.
           (Just forget about the one directly before this one I'm going to talk about, it doesn't relate to anything but Sam's personal health and mind.) The last one, the Lennie essay, was the saddest. You can think of it being sad for many different reasons, but it will always be sad. I think of it as Lennie seeing everything as a nice world, and so people just want to get through life or don't care. Lennie just wants to live life and have fun, and since this is very unique to most people, Lennie is given crazy looks and appears to have a mental problem. George is a bit like some of these people, so sometimes he gets mad and annoyed at Lennie, causing him to feel mad at himself for making George mad.

I have many goals planned for my Second Quarter as a freshman at ASTI. One of these goals includes planning ahead and not procrastinating. I find that I procrastinate a lot. Sometimes I even don’t have enough time some assignments, so I just barely finish working on the ones I haven’t done in the morning. Usually this is because I have left some long and time-consuming assignments for the last minute. I really should change that about myself, especially since there may be more homework in a new quarter.

            I will also achieve another one of my goals during the second quarter, organization. All the time in the beginning of the school year, I promise myself that I will put all my papers in a folder. However, by the second week of school, I have tons of papers, important and unimportant, scattered and crumpled in the bottom of my backpack. I promise myself, hopefully for the last time, that I will always buy a folder to put every paper inside. They will all be labeled with the name of the class/subject from where the papers are from. This way, I will have more space in my backpack and it will be easier to clean out old papers.
            One of the last remaining goals I have set for this new quarter is focus. I find that a lot of times I do my homework, I got distracted from it to do something else. Sometimes I get tempted to watch TV, and when I don’t watch it, I wonder what’s happening on my favorite shows. I also start to daydream about things that I can do if I finish my homework in time. I sometimes use it so I can be motivated to get my homework done faster. However, I get too distracted and spend a while just thinking. I plan to change this by just doing my homework and not thinking about anything else. This way, I can finish my homework on time and relax. I hope these goals will help me in my Second Quarter, and that I will write even better blog posts.

Lennie v.s. himself; Of Mice and Men

Character v.s. Self

In the novel Of Mice and Men, written by John Steinbeck, the main character is Lennie. Lennie is very strong and loyal to his best friend George, as well as kind to other people he meets. Despite these friendly traits that he has, George is always frustrated with Lennie because he always make them lose their jobs and then they have to run and hide. George then starts to talk about how life could be so much easier for him if it weren’t for Lennie. Lennie is then ashamed and angry at himself for making George feel that way, and would even leave him to ensure George’s happiness and dreams. Lennie has high hopes of being able to tend to rabbits, but this means that he has to listen to George and stay away from any kind of trouble, especially Curley and his wife. George knows that if Lennie gets too involved with anyone, then soon Lennie will hurt them, just as he did with all the mice. Not getting involved proves very hard to do because both of these characters attempt to make Lennie take their bait. Curley tries to start a fight with Lennie to prove that he is still the ‘alpha lion’, but he learns far too late that he is no match for Lennie. The same destiny awaits his wife. She tries to cheat on Curley with various people, like Slim. When she finds out that Lennie is stronger than Curley, she wants to cheat on Curley and be with him instead. Lennie however, having always taken orders from George and never making decisions on his own, is at loss for what to do, and kills Curley’s wife.

    The first piece of evidence that proves the central conflict is Lennie v.s. self is when Lennie kills his puppy. “Now I won’t get to tend the rabbits. Now he won’t let me.” Lennie knows that George will be less sure that Lennie should tend if he will only kill them, even if Lennie only kills them by accident. Lennie is angry at the dog for being so easy to die, and then is angry at himself for always doing bad things and causing trouble.
    The next quote we see is after Lennie kills Curley’s wife and is angry at himself again. “I shouldn’t of did that. I’ve done a real bad thing.” After Lennie realizes he killed Curley’s wife, he is sure that George will want him to go away. So Lennie waits by the bush as George instructed him, but he later realizes that he should leave George so he can be happy and not be burdened with Lennie. To make matters worse, he gets hallucinations of a rabbit and Lennie’s Aunt Clara that both tell him that he should leave George if he cares about him at all and is crazy if he thinks George will come looking for him or expects him to take him back. He then struggles with himself, no longer needing hallucinations, for the seeds of doubt have been planted and grow rapidly within George’s mind, and is torn between what he wants and what he wants for George.
    A quote that explains this conflict is when Lennie begins to hallucinate, and what he feared in his mind came as false images and told him terrible things:”He gonna leave you all alone.””He ain’t I tell ya he ain’t. Oh! George--George--George!” When Lennie hallucinates, he sees his Aunt Clara and a rabbit. Both of them tell him that George would be better off without Lennie, and all Lennie ever did to him was burden him, even though George was always looking out for him and taking care of him. Lennie tries not to believe this, but the hallucinations keep growing stronger and louder. Then Lennie is so overwhelmed by them that soon he is shouting and pleading for George to come and forgive him.
    Even when George does come, Lennie can’t help but wonder whether George will leave him or be better off without him. He remembers all the times when George would say that he could be rich, or successful or just a simple life if he didn’t have to drag Lennie along with him. Finally this ongoing thought overwhelms Lennie so that he can’t stand not knowing whether it’s true or not, so that he states what had been in his mind for a while. “Well, I can go away. I’ll go right off in the hills an’ fin’ a cave if you don’ want me.” Lennie says that he will to this for George because he wants to know the truth: if George really doesn’t want Lennie to travel with him any more, or if he really does want Lennie to travel with him and someday “live off the fatta the lan”.
    Every incident and disaster that is caused by Lennie in one way or another is not exactly his fault. The only reason they occur is because Lennie doesn’t know his own strength or is at loss for what to do. The dog looked like he was going to bite Lennie, so he hit the dog on the head to hard. Curley’s wife panicked when Lennie was stroking her hair, so Lennie just kept holding on tighter. He then gets the visions and hallucinations from guilt of always messing things up for George and from doubt that George will come to look for Lennie and travel with him again. Even when George does come for him, Lennie asks George if he would rather Lennie and him part ways, because he doesn’t want to be a nuisance to him and keep giving George trouble. Lennie realizes that he has a character v.s. self conflict, which is the reason to why Lennie asks George this. He dies thinking of him and George on the farm and him tending rabbits, for George knows that Lennie will be at piece thinking that he doesn’t have a character v.s. self conflict.

Response to Sam's... interesting post

I was looking through the google reader, and I found this...interesting comment about Justin Bieber that was on Sam's blog.

If you grow up hating everyone who is a little different then you, then you will be a very lonely adult.

I want to point something out to Sam(and Billy). I think you guys will both be very lonely if you keep trying to singing Justin Bieber's songs, because if you do then (one) you will be devastated and live a pessimistic life when he dies and (two) you'll probably want to sing his songs for a living or something, but you would barely get any money and end up as a hobo on the street. ASTI probably accepted you to cure you from singing those songs all the time. You really need to rethink your life. I hope that when you had your appointment with Ms. Ahn that you didn't say "I want to be like Justin Bieber when I grow up". I'm not saying you can't be a singer, but you can't be so attached to these things. I know music is great to listen to, but I think you're going a little overboard. You need to listen to a new singer or something because you have been singing Justin Bieber for over a month. So consider this paragraph.
Another thing that I noticed was you put Justin Bieber's Baby lyrics on your blog, and I looked at them and Irealized you really do know the lyrics by heart, because you sing them everyday. In fact, if it weren't for the link to it, I'd say you typed in the words yourself but in a different color for some reason. You should give up Justin Beiber for Lent. It would be good and everyone in Mr. Sutherland's first period class needs a break from you singing. It will only be forty days. I will give you a sticker if you do. You could also put that on any future job resumes.
That means please give me a break.

Calvino Essay

                                                               Pride and Shame
    Q often goes back and forth between pride and shame. First, we see Q’s reaction to his fiance’s abandonment. “It was a hard blow for me. But, after all, what could I do about it?” Q was greatly looking forward to getting married to Lll, but had his worries about her meeting his uncle, Nba Nga. His fears were nothing compared to what happened later. After meeting with the uncle a few times, Lll decides to live with him and marry him. Q then goes from joy to depression and shame. He cannot believe that Lll chooses a fish’s live with Nba Nga over a reptile’s life with Q.
    Next we see Q after he gets a place in the pack of non-dinosaurs, he has to make a choice on whether to leave the non-dinosaur pack and join his brothers, or stay with the pack and his new brothers. “Now, here in the village, I had achieved a new kind of tranquility and I was sorry to lose it.” This takes place when a Q receives news that there are other dinosaurs, and he is not the last one. He had made a bond of brotherhood with the new pack he was in, but knowing that he still had family somewhere else put a fork in his road of destiny. He had to make a hard choice on who to live with.
    Finally, we see that Q is left alone by the rest of his pack, because they turn their backs on him. “But we have understood that you were not here.” After Q tries to explain that the coming herd is a group of rhinoceroses, not dinosaurs, he is turned away by his pack, feeling more alone than ever from the fact that there are no dinosaurs, and now no pack to stay with.

Response to Meriam's post

I saw this post from Meriam's blog and I think that it's FUNNY!

A clear example of this would be The Little Mermaid. The little Mermaid was written by Hans Christian Anderson was definitly not about a mermaid who lived happily ever after with a prince. In fact the adaption was the same up until Ariel came to the surface. Ariel had trouble communicating with the prince and therefore he never loved her and married another lady. In order to return to see she had to kill the prince, but out of guilt of commiting such a horrific act she killed herself. Crazy right!

           I have three younger siblings who watch nothing but these kind of movies, so 90% of the time the tv is playing these movies. They have been watching these movies for 5 years now, so you can imagine how bored I am of seeing and listening to that movie, or any of those kind of movies in general, so I try to humor myself during some of the parts. Next time they're watching it, I'm going to think about Ariel literally being a backstabber. Hehehe.
           Another similar thing to this is in Pochohantas. I learned this in 5th grade history, she was about 12, and that blonde guy was 30 ish. She would have married him too! But then that retard got shot and died, and she married some other guy.I don't think she even knew that blonde guy was dead. It was a guy named Oglethorpe, I think. (Who names their son that?!) In the movie, I think the blonde guy lived and he and Pochohantas had the whole happily ever after...thing.
          I think Aladdin was originally a book. I read one that was made before the mivie and instead of him having only 3 wishes, he had an infinite amount. How cool is that? So in the beginning of the story, this hobo pretended to be his uncle and tried to get the lamp, but somehow Aladdin got it, and the first few months he had the lamp, he asked for food. If I had infintie wishes, I would wish for my favorite foods everyday.

Pizza

           Well. I don’t really know what to write about or what to take about, so I’ll just make it up as I go along. My sister said I should write about pizza(that’s real specific, couldn’t get better details). So maybe I’ll do that. I think one of the best pizza places I’ve ever been to is Amici’s so if you see it, immediately plan a time to go there, cause their pizza is awesome! The pepperoni they put on the pizza kind of resembles a cup, and you can sprinkle Parmesan cheese or pepper and it tastes so good. So go there.

I think the worst is Linguini’s. It’s down by the Alameda Theater, so if you see it, don’t go there. Don’t say “Ooh let’s go to that pizza place, I’ve never been there before!”, because you’ll only be disappointed. The only thing that I ever will like is the arcade the they have [but last time I checked half of the games were out of order (big surprise)], because I won a something in the claw machine. A bunch of other times I got tricked in a way from the machine because I kept putting coins inside it, but the game wouldn’t start. It was always after I put the coins in that I asked someone and they said it was out of order, but they never got around to putting an out of order sign on it (yeah, they just never had the time).

The main reason I hate it is because they always put something in the tomato sauce or whatever that always made me really sick (found that out the hard way). I couldn’t eat it at all. Even when I got a little mini pizza, after the first piece, I pushed my plate forward and stuck with my soda. Later on, when I got really smart (my sister was always finding ways to trick me into doing something, I learned from my mistakes) I figured out a little strategy where I would drink all my soda and eat lots of garlic bread, so I only ate one piece, which wasn’t that bad, and that satisfied me and my appetite. So don’t go to Linguini’s, go to Amici’s.

Thoughts on Vic's Debate Statement

So. This is Vic's opening statement on medical marijuana. And I disagree with it...for the most part anyway.

We believe marijuana should be a medial option for “medical reasons”. We believe con is wrong and can’t beat us because people with medical problems need it to treat the pain. Joycelyn Elders, MD, former US Surgeon General, wrote that medical marijuana can relieve certain types of pain, nausea, and the “symptoms caused by such illnesses as multiple sclerosis, cancer and AIDS -- or by the harsh drugs sometimes used to treat them. And it can do so with remarkable safety. Indeed, marijuana is less toxic than many of the drugs that physicians prescribe every day.” We believe that if medical people need the drugs to feel better or normal then they are able to recover with it, though it may be just a little addicting. If taken too much.this stuff can relieve many symptoms of stress and pain and can  be beneficial in many lives. Should Terminally ill people suffer if they are about to die, or should they be allowed comfort? you decide.

One thing that I disagree with is that when Vic says ‘though it may just be a little addicting’. It is very addicting and sometimes people get arrested for taking marijuana, die from overdose or die from getting in a cause-and-effect chain reaction from the overdose. The ultimate cause of this is addiction to it. If it weren’t so addicting, then half of the people who died from the cause of it would just stop taking the marijuana and not die. The other half would probably keep taking it for whatever other reason, probably out of being bored or not caring. Or people who are suicidal. Anyway, it is addicting, so people keep taking it, and they die from it.

    Another point I disagree with is the part about letting people get the “sick bed” wish of taking marijuana. Well what if they could live, but they have to take a different medication, and taking marijuana would kill your body? Should the doctor/physician give it to them now? Better safe than sorry, there’s still the chance that taking the painful or disgusting medicine will save you, unlike the untrustworthy marijuana. It could be a decision between life and death. Wouldn’t it be better to die knowing that you tried, but the other medication didn’t work than not knowing whether you could have lived or not by not taking the marijuana?

Vic also says that marijuana is less toxic than most drugs that physicians prescribe. This ties back into the whole addiction thing in the first paragraph. It may be less toxic than something else. Marijuana may be, for example, 30% toxic and some other thing, which isn’t addicting at all, is 40% toxic. If you take it just one time on one day, then yes by the end of the day, you be better off with the marijuana. But what happens if you take the marijuana 7 times in a week, when you’re only supposed to take it once a week? Which medication are you better of with now?

    Food for thought.

Illegal Immigration Rebuttal

I looked at this quote from Devin's point of view about the Illegal Immigration Debate

Illegal immigrants do not pose a threat to the American government. They help support it by paying taxes and thus, keeping the economy healthy. They also take jobs that the American people don’t want.

 This statement is not true for many reasons. Illegal immigrants don't take jobs that Americans don't want, they take the only jobs that America can offer. The number of jobs greatly outnumber the amount of people in the United States. We already have enough homeless people without illegal immigrants coming in and stealing them. People are trying to get jobs so they can take care of themselves and, if they have one, support their family. They won't care if they like that job or now. What matters is the money they get for working so they won't die of hunger, thirst, or lack of health.
Another thing wrong with this thought is that Devin said illegal immigrants would help support America by paying taxes and benefiting the economy. The opposing debaters might not be aware of this, but some employees of different jobs are getting paid less than they usually get. Some workers have even gotten their payments cut in half. Just because they pay taxes doesn't mean that the taxes will automatically make America rich and give it the greatest economy ever. People would have to keep working to get more money to pay for taxes and keep paying for them. This is why illegal immigration must cease.