Ender's Game Response Part 3

“Ender’s Game”, by Orson Scott Card, is a really confusing book to read. The beginning was interesting, whereas the middle gets boring and then toward the end, it gets interesting. This whole book somewhat revolves around a typical school life of bullies and groups. Ender suffered being bullied and isolated due to his intelligence surpassing boys who are older than him. They were all sent to the battle school, ‘kidnapped’ from their families, in order to train and compete to be a future commander or hero. With everyone competing, everyone would hate the fact that there is someone younger than them who are more brilliant. So out of jealousy, the guys in the battle school will gang up in groups and attack him or harass him. Throughout the book, it only explained how Ender slowly understands technologies and learning new techniques. This is weird because only toward the end, that the book finally showed actions and showed a real battle which ended with a couple of pages.

My group discussed how most of the book drags on about Ender’s training and skimmed through his battle. One of my group members suggested that it was to help the readers understand the technologies because this story is set into the future. The things discussed in the book would be too confusing for us to understand if the author skims through battle school and just talked about Ender’s battle and the adventure afterward. We also discuss about how this book is somewhat amazing because the children in this story acted so mature that we had to constantly remind ourselves that the protagonist is an eleven year old boy. Overall, my group’s discussion revealed some things that I had never considered before such as revolving around a typical school life. It was interesting and the topics were things that I easily overlooked in this book.

            We also discuss about whether the buggers forgave humans or wants the humans to forgive them. Part of what I didn’t really mention in the discussion is that Ender is trying to help the buggers repopulate because he wanted to atone for his sins of killing an entire species.  The fact that he is somewhat like Peter still haunts him; he didn’t want to be a killer, didn’t want to be the person that he feared the most but he killed the buggers. He was afraid of becoming more vicious than Peter so he probably helped the buggers to compensate for what he had done to their species.

Response Post to Kristine

I found this in Kristine’s post, What Has Society Come To?:

“Whether someone is gay, lesbian, bisexual or anything else, they are still human beings. Nothing can change that. America is supposedly the country in which anyone is accepted and anyone has the same rights as everyone else. But look at where we are. Look at all the people around you anyone you know who has a different sexual orientation than the "norm" of society. They are not getting the rights they deserve. They fight and fight with everything they have in them and they are being neglected because they are different.”

I agree with this issue because America is where people go to start a new life or to find a better life but instead, they faced discrimination. America is the land of freedom from the Whites who ran away from England in order to seek new lives, but other than that, it isn’t freedom for anyone else. Many people are discriminated by their gender, race, religion, and many other things. Although America did change to how it is now, discrimination is still here. It’s like a new factor that makes America. Because America is a mix of cultures, people would compete to see who’s better. African American was once discriminated, and even when they still are, many other races are being discriminated against due to the prejudice.

            I think that people should stop putting others down because difference is the one factor that helped us survived as a species. We can’t help the fact that we are different because of geography. We have to change in order to adapt to the environment as us. We also couldn’t communicate with each other around the world before technologies existed so different thoughts are bound to happen. We are all individuals who may think alike with some group of people but also think differently with other groups of people. I think that we should all just accept the difference and deal with it. It’s not like we are a different species just because we act, think, or dress differently. We have different perspectives and it is an advantage in some situations.

Response post to Nawara

This is a response to Nawara's post, You're Beautiful, Know Matter What They Say, which I found interesting and is actually true:

“I don’t know why people assume it's fine to critize people's appearance to they world, why do they think it's okay? … Back where my parents are from, Eritrea, there are two types of people: Adults and Kids. I believe this "teenage" generation is just all in our heads. American's psychotically made this up. These “teenage” groups of people were created to increase America's wealth, economically. That is all.”

          I agree with Nawara. Due to greed, we put others down. In television and internet, we show images of skinny people, saying that by purchasing some products, we can be like them. We all want to be pretty so we can get someone to like us but being pretty on the outside won't help if we aren't pretty on the inside. Everyone is beautiful, no one is ugly. Those who thinks that someone is ugly is ugly themselves. Prettiness is just a term, like a cage, that we put around ourselves. The meaning of beautiful and pretty varies from people to people. In some cultures, fat is defined as beauty.

          I think that companies used us to help them profit. They only care about money. They don't care about their customers' health; they only care whether or not they will buy it. Having these impossible images as our goal, we began to do what others do and act like how others act. We are individuals for a reason and that is not to copy others like monkey see monkey do. I think that we all try hard to be someone else. Everyone is pretty no matter what others say. I think that we should spend our time and money on perfecting ourselves instead of copying others. No one is ugly in this world. Pretty clothes, pretty style pretty skin, it doesn't define who we are. What we do and our decisions define us. Our identities aren't always necessarily about looks. I know it's repetitive, but our identities are who we are inside, not what we look like. We are all humans so of course, we will look the same. We don't need to be so skinny that our health would be at risk. 

Ender's Game Response Part 2

           In our discussion, we discussed about “Ender's Game” Orson Scott Card, and about the monitor in that the government installed in Ender's neck. We debated about how the I.F., or International Fleet, was able to hear about the fight and went to Ender's house even though they took the monitor away from Ender. A brief summary of this book is that it takes place in the future where many technologies have greatly evolved. Kids have monitor in them when they were born. The monitor connects to the brain, so that the government can observe how they think and their view. If the government thinks that they were capable enough, they will be sent to space in a battle school, to train to be a future commander. This is what happened to Ender. His older siblings, Peter, the oldest, and Valentine, the second oldest, had monitors on them and they showed great potentials. Having more than two kids is breaking the law, but because Peter and Valentine showed great potentials, the government allowed that family to have a third child. Ender was the third child and he was nicknamed Third. His classmates doesn't like him and even Peter, his own sibling, doesn't like Ender.

           Ender grew up isolated and only receiving love from his sister, Valentine. Valentine became so precious to him. After his monitor was taken off from him, Ender didn't have the government's protection anymore because they won't see what will happen to him. He went to school as a normal kid, but the other kids hate him. Hate, will of course lead to bullying. Ender, when he was finally able to go to school, encountered some bullying. He attacked Stilson and continue to attack for self defense and also to prevent future bullying. With no monitor on Ender, the government doesn't know if the kids bullied Ender and if Ender beat them up. But the thing that was in question for our discussion was whether they took the monitor off him or not. If the government really did take it all off, then they wouldn't know about the fight. A normal fight at school will be dealt with from the school but having the I.F. Going to Ender's house was really suspicious.

Ender's Game Response Part 1

“Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card, is a story about a futuristic life where aliens have invaded Earth and due to the fear that they might come back, the I.F. scouted boys to be part of a ‘game’. The boys will be monitored when they are three and if they have the qualities to become a commander, they will go to space where they train. Their training is a game where competition is the only thing. Ender is a young boy, six years old, who went to space to train and the book talks about his experience.

            In my group discussion, we mainly focused on government and Peter. The government is recruiting children who are six years old. This is cruel because they should be playing around, trying to discover their identities rather than being sent up to space, secluded from Earth and their families. I think that the government in this book doesn’t see their people as humans but as tools that they can easily use and throw away. From how I see it, the government used the invasion to get people to fear and be paranoid and use that to train an army of abnormally talented kids.

            Peter is Ender’s older brother and the eldest of the three children. He is considered dangerous and he despises Ender. He would beat Ender and torture him. He has nothing nice to say about Ender or to Ender. Peter invited Ender to a game, and the result was that, “He lifted his foot, took a step, and then knelt on Ender, his knee pressing into Ender’s belly just below the breastbone,” (12).  Peter didn’t hesitate to fight Ender and he attacked Ender as if they were truly enemies. Peter is a murderer and he is willing to show it. While reading, I thought that Peter is fifteen, but he is actually ten at that time. It surprised me how he is smart enough to deceive adults and to have such murderous intent. But the reason why we discuss about Peter is because of what he told to the pretend sleeping Ender, “‘Ender, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I know how it feels, I’m sorry, I’m your brother, I love you,’”(15). This part is surprising to me yet I knew that it will happen. My group members said that even if a person hates their siblings and wants to kill them, they would still love their siblings. We all agree that our sisters or brothers can be a pain in the ass and would make us go crazy, but despite that, we still love them a lot. I think that Peter is proud of his brother, but at the same time he is jealous. He’s the oldest and it is an embarrassment if the youngest is better than the oldest. Ender is the living proof of what Peter can’t become. I think that Peter is proud so he acts mean toward Ender out of jealousy but is trying to help Ender as well. Peter is intelligent so he must understand Ender’s position. He might be trying to protect Ender by being the cruelest person so that Ender is prepares for any kind of obstacle. I think that this is how Peter shows his love toward Ender, his little brother.

Response to Shiyun's "Future"

I found something on Shiyun’s blog and I feel that this relates to me and other people as well:

“I think the meaning of life is to experience failure at one point and learn from it. Nothing can stop you if you once failed, you can always stand back up and start a new day and be successful. That's what make life great. If you failed, it doesn't mean that your future will be bad, it will just mean that you need to try harder. Nothing can be decided right now, we will just have to wait till the time comes.”

I agree with Shiyun about mistakes. None of us were born super perfect. We are only perfect if we perfected ourselves through experience. If we were all perfect to begin with, the world would be super boring and I would die from being too crazy. Failure is an experience that we all need to be better. If we are all perfect, we would try to be more perfect than another. There is no real meaning to perfection and failing once won’t mark a person as stupid. Everyone failed at every single new experience. When they are doing something such as skiing, they won’t be a pro at it. They have to fail and get injured many times to master a move. They need to get use to it until they can do it while multitasking. It gets us to try new things and be content with it because we worked hard for it. The future is an unknown path to us, even if we already decide the future. Many things can change it or something can go wrong. Our future can be determined by our society and by ourselves. Nothing is decided. We have to decide for ourselves.

I make mistakes every single day despite practicing and working hard. There are mistakes that I regret but I felt that I am also happy about making those mistakes. Each of them taught me a lesson and showed me what I can improve on. Even when I tried every single day on one thing, I still make mistakes. This shows that even if we are good at something, it doesn’t mean that we can change it. We can make it more perfect and much better than it can. I think that living the best of the best through hard work is always the satisfying life.

the Garcia girls

- Pick a character that interested you and write about them in depth. You can also analyze relationship between two different characters.

- How would you describe the author’s style of writing? What’s your opinion of the style?

Moving to new places always need adjustments. A new culture must be adapted while struggling to maintain their own. In How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez describes the story of how the four girls and their parents moved from the Dominican Republic to the United States. The youngest Garcia Girl, Sofia, easily embraced a new culture due to her limited amount of time in the Dominican Republic.

Out of four girls in the Garcia family, Sofia (Fifi), the youngest, have vague memories of the Dominican Republic. The family left the island to America when she was young. Her accent was the only memory that she have left of their homeland; it was what’s left of her true self before she began to change. Because she is a kid, she will forget easily, not knowing what’s important. herr innocence is still undisturbed because she doesn’t know the many problems adults face. As a child, she possesses huge amount of innocence, “Baby sister Fifi and my sweet-natured cousin Carmencita were everyone’s favorites, a helpful little pair, good for errands, turning jump ropes,”(225). When Fifi is still a child, she was obedient because she doesn’t have the knowledge that can help her decide for herself. As a child, the only thing that occupies her mind are playing and receiving love from adults. It never occurred to her that the adults were making sure that she isn’t doing something that will break the tradition and taking advantage of her with the helping. She grew up in the Dominican Republic in a life where she is the adorable child love by everyone because of her obedience.

As she grows older in America, she becomes more of a rebellious kid. During their vacation, the sisters would act like innocent kids in front of their parents. At night, however, they        discuss the bad things they did, “We took turns being the wildest. First one, then another of us would confess our sins on vacation night … Baby sister Fifi held the title the longest, though Sandi, with her good looks and many opportunities, gave her some competition,” (86). They soon adapted to the custom of sneaking behind their parents’ back and doing many things that was forbidden to them. Fifi, as described by one of her sisters, was the “bad child” because she did things that were worst than her sisters.

It is shown at the beginning of the story that Fifi ran away from home. This was when she got used to the American life. Dating without a parent knowing about it was considered misbehavior because of the traditional life that Carlos, their father, had lived. When he found out that Fif is sending letters to a guy, he, “then wrapped it round and round in a mad effort to contain his youngest daughter’s misbehavior,” (29). Fifi didn’ really know the tradition of her family since she left her country when she was young. Being a child growing up learning new things, she can easily embrace the American culture. Her behavior in doing stuff behind her parents’ back even though she is the youngest out of the four daughters shows that the American culture is part of her identity. In a new place, people needs to adjust and try their best to fit in. her other sisters had a hard time changing because their Spanish culture is already part of their identity and they need to change it. Fifi, on the other hand, was still trying to find her identity when they move to America. She began to mature and took the American culture as part of her identity because she is trying to fit in with everyone.

            These changes are seen through the unique style of writing that Alvarez uses. By using the reverse chronological style of writing, Alvarez recreates the memory of the Garcia Girls’ experience of moving to a new environment and adapting a new culture. She divides the book into three sections: the first being their lives in America and their different experience with men, the second about their experience moving to a new place and the third about their childhood in the Dominican Republic. She divided to three sections to guide the readers and to show the vivid memory in the beginning of the book hinting that it is recent and the blurred memory near the end of the book hinting that it was a long time ago so details will be forgotten.

            In my opinion, I think that this style is confusing to follow at first but is very effective. Reading the book in the beginning was confusing because it is in the present time in the book. Many things were thrown out at once and it was hard to follow with so many events happening. It was hard to grasp all the details but it was interesting. There was a rush for me to continue reading it due to having so much information in the book. I didn’t understand much of what I read at first but the amount of events makes me want to continue reading till the end. Later in the book, much of the events were later explained by going to the past. We get to see why each of the girls turned out to be the way they are. I think that if the book was written in chronological order, it would be boring and it would be hard to show the girls’ memories.

            This is an interesting book to read because I was able to relate to the immigration life that the Garcia girls faced. I was able to understand the hardship that the girls had to experience and adapting to a new culture. American life is different from the Dominican life because of the difference in culture and of the sex rules. In the Dominican Republic, the adults were always strict about a female staying alone with a male without a supervisor. In contrast, in America, both genders can stay with whoever they want because of the mixed cultures in the country.

            While reading, many questions came up. Because of this reverse chronological style of writing, looking in the current life the girls are living in, I ask many questions such as how did they become like this and what happened before. These questions increased my interest for the book. Overall, this book may be confusing but the reverse chronological order shows the transformation the four girls experienced and it was a very interesting book to read.

Garcia Girls Part 3

After reading How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, by Julia Alvarez, I have to admit, I am still confused. Part one was easy to understand but then part two got a bit confusing and in part three, it was really hard to interpret what happened and understand the story. The reverse chronological order isn’t confusing anymore but in part three, there were many new characters introduced and the events that happened were so hard to remember.

            In our group discussion, we talked about how it was much clearly in the beginning because the author purposely wrote it in the way how the girls remember their memories. Since the one closer to the presents were more vivid, the beginning of the book was easy to understand. And the closer the events were toward the end of the book, the more blurry the details are due to the memories, which might be the cause of its confusion.

            The father really left a bad impression on me. He was suppose to protect and support the family, but when guard came, all he did was hid while his daughters and wife had to deal with the guard carrying guns. I think that he could’ve done something else rather than hiding to show his protection to his family.

            The ending was really disappointing to me because the part about the cat didn’t really show up at the beginning of the book to show the impact of the nightmare and the cat doesn’t really symbolize anything. I feel that it is irrelevant because the guy with the gun and the dog and crazily shooting doesn’t really symbolize anything and his words didn’t really affect Yoyo’s future. The mother cat chasing Yoyo and the baby cat’s unfortunate fate plays no role either. I think that vignette really is redundant and useless because it made the book more confusing and it ended badly.

            The beginning of the book was interesting and it slowly got boring near the end to me. I felt that the author could’ve written a much better ending. I thought that the book was going to end with the family event, not just focusing on one daughter. It was really a disappointment and didn’t really end with something that would be memorable to the reader. 

Response: Winter

Summer came and went, and now autumn is about to leave. My favorite time of the year is winter. Crystal love winter too and my reasons are the same as her:

“I prefer cold weather as opposed to hot weather. Another reason is that this season brings an unexplainable feeling of warmth and joy…Winter symbolizes the end of the year and an opportunity to start afresh. This can correspond to how the leaves fall off of the trees in the winter, waiting until spring to blossom again…In addition, the scenery of winter truly emits a feeling of tranquility and peace. For instance when we view a photo of a snowy landscape, though there aren't any vibrant colors, it is the plainness of the landscape that sends the message of peace.”

Winter gives off such a relaxing feeling, the cold rainy weather and the warm of the house. Staying in my bed all day long would be heaven for me but I prefer sitting on a chair just staring outside at my yard along with the rainy scenery. It feels so peaceful that my mind is free of stress and I feel so happy. Relaxing and the cold makes everyone comfortable and wanting to be with others for warmth.

            There are rare chances during winter as well. When it stops raining and when we can see the blue in the sky, that’s when the sky is most beautiful. I do prefer snow and the amazing scenery it makes but the result of the sky after raining is also beautiful. It’s amazing how beautiful nature is, despite the competition and killing from it.

            As Crystal has also said, it is also a new beginning. It is the end of a year and marks the beginning of a new year. It helps students relax and prepares them for school in January. It is where families get to laugh with each other and spends their precious time together. Winter holds many symbols. The rainy weather helps clean the outside house, refreshing the house, and helps wash the car. It gives life to many plants and since spring is next, it’s the beginning of new lives for plants.

Jaejoong

     Due to the events that were supposed to happen this month, I will dedicate my post to a korean idol that I have been stalking a few year ago: Kim Jaejoong. he is also known as Hero, Youngwoong, or Jejung. I prefer Jaejoong and Hero because it suits him. He is the idol that I have been stalking because his band's music video had caught my attention while I was flipping the channels to watch something. Of course, my first impression of him was mean but I thought that he looked too much like a girl and I disliked him at first. Those changed dramatically when I watched variety shows of his band and watch their live concerts in youtube.
     He has a big humor and he was the lead singer in his band, Dong Bang Shin Ki, meaning the Rising Gods of the East. For the first time, I actually agreed with their name because they were rising rapidly and had the biggest fanbase in Asia. he loves singing and due to his childhood experiences, Hero's band member were his family and DBSK is his life. His voice is heavenly although there are some songs that I felt that he shouldn't sing.
     Going back to his humor, on one of the variety show, he is the best Mc because of his way in keeping the audiences' interests. one of his comment on a variety show when he describes how a real man cry on the inside and that a real man must cry three times in his life. His humor caught me laughing hard on my stomach because his demonstration of a man crying inside was a sleeping post and his explanation on the three time that a man must cry was: when they were born, when the girlfriend broke up with them, and when their managers don't feed them. I laughed from the last comment because I thought that it would be something serious.
     He pays attention to his fans and I think that it was nice of him. At the beginning of his singing career, he continued to focus on the camera even if it captures ugly images of him. He wanted to see all his fans and so he wasn't mindful of the camera but to his fans. It was so nice of him to do that. Also with the recent concert in U. S., he and his recent group was so nice to show commitment to fans and helping them pay for all their tickets.

Garcia Girls Part Two

Part two of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents was somewhat boring to me. The first part was interesting although confusing. I finally understood how the book works and the second part is boring me. The second part doesn’t have as much drama as the first part. The first part was throwing all these events that happened quickly and it was really intense; I hope the third part isn’t as boring as the second part.

            After discussing in my group about this story, I realized how the mother’s role in this book affects the girls. When they moved to America, the mother was trying to break free of the cage that limits her life. In the Dominican Republic, the mother was forced to be only a housewife and a mother. She was only a wife and wasn’t acknowledged for other things. Only the men were dominant back in the Island. The daughters think that the mother failed as a mom but by the way I see it, I think the mother is trying to make their daughters proud by trying to be someone who’s not just a mother. She wants to be somebody in America due to her caged life but she tried at the wrong time. She picked the wrong time to be someone else because that’s when the daughters need support from a mother. The role of mother changes depending on the situation and I think that the daughters just want encouraging words from their mother but couldn’t.

            This also relates to how the females of the house were able to embrace American Cultures but the father was the only one who couldn’t. The father is really traditional and he likes the system where the males were dominant figure of the house and the females must obey him. Whereas, the women of the house, like the American Culture because they have power and can use the excuse of culture to rebel against the dominant male. They are able to be independent and since the American Culture allows women to have more freedom, the girls embraced the culture more easily than the father. Even the mother was able to adapt to the American life because she got a sense of identity in America.

Response to Shiyun's blog on appearance

     I think that appearance does matter. It is part of the factor that will create a first impression from people. Image is not everything but it is something that many people will judge you on. Although this is something that cannot change, i agree with Shiyun's comment on appearances: 

  "Out community is filled with people that think about this everyday. They would either look at the mirror and say they they are "ugly" or "fat" about themselves even though they are already gorgeous. To me I don't think that appearance matters a lot to me and I would not judge someone without getting to know them first. I don't think people like you just because you are skinny, but rather it is your personality that really matters. Everyone is beautiful in their own way. [...] I want to tell them that you look fine the way you are."

     I do agree that many people put themselves down but that is only because they saw someone who they is super pretty than them. The media is the reason why people care so much about appearances. The media create standards of a certain image of beauty and those people not in that standard are ugly. The magazines and advertisements are also at fault too. They create a standard of beauty that is impossible to follow and brain wash people to make the people believe that they can also be at that standard of beauty by using the company's products.
     These selfish desires for money are killing our society because the continuous increase of the impossible standard of beauty makes everyone so obsess with their image. Americans wouldn't be so obsessed with image if no one would come out looking underweight saying that they are the definition of beauty. Shiyun mentioned it on her post about there is no true definition of beauty and I agree with it. Beauty is defined through perspective. A person can be ugly to one's perspective but an angel in another's perspective. Skinny is not the definition for beauty. It is the definition for anorexia and can lead to death. It is not a race to be as skinny as possible so that they can look like a skeleton.

Freewrite: ShiYun's evilness

            This blog is dedicated to Shi Yun. Of course, you would think that I would say how nice she is and how friendly she is but I’m going to say the opposite: I’m writing about how EVIL she is (with her permission). Not to be mean, but everyone must be aware of her. She may look innocent and quiet, but that is only to hide her evil side. Her evilness started last year, where she slips with her “innocent” image. She began to show her evil thoughts toward her friends. She also began to develop many contagious “diseases”.

            Her first disease was the Typo Disease. Many people would have thought that it is not a disease since it’s common to have typos, but they are wrong. Shi Yun would chat with me on yahoo. During the chat, every single one of her message had a typo. Her typos increased that every sentence has typos in them. From science, we learned about adaptation. Me and crystal adapted to it and started having as many typos as Shi Yun.

            Her second disease is the Mispronunciation Disease. It wouldn’t be called a disease if she only mispronounced some words while reading, but she does it consistently while talking. Brain cells would turn into head cells, here would be hair, sudoku would be suduku, sodoko, soduko, etc. as her evil friends, I would make fun of it sometimes but I found out that I, too, start mispronouncing it or using those words in sentences.

            Her third disease is the Sighing Disease. It was weird because she would start sighing and then another person would follow and another. This was weird because it’s like sighing is another language. We sighed so much that it’s as common as the word “like” or “um”.

            After spreading these incurable diseases, she wants to create more. She and her evil thoughts began to take actions this year. During the black out, she called me and the first thing she told me was that a person can rob a bank during a black out. She continued to show more evilness in her thoughts. Just this Thursday, Amber Chan told me that Shi Yun stole her electronics without her knowing it during Mr. Sutherland’s class.

            Other than thoughts, her actions seem to show evilness too. When she’s “hyper”, she would hit people’s head and act childish and evil. She is at her most evil form when she’s hyper. She randomly attacks people and as her friend, I consider it torture.

            So….. my main point is that everyone in ASTI should be beware of Shi Yun because she is so evil, that her evilness spreads. She cannot hide her innocent image for long to those she talks to a lot. One random comment I would make is that she and Amber can lead the world to destruction when they are together, and sadly, they do sit next to each other in history. 

            Sorry to Jandi if I wrote your name wrong. I know I am a bad friend.

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents

The weakness of In How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, by Julia Alvarez, was the different events regarding the daughter and the time of the book.

            The book was reverse chronologically meaning that it goes from the future to the past. This kind of time is really confusing because I have to keep reminding myself that a certain event is before and not after the last chapter. Time was harder to keep track of in this book and there were so many times that I had to reread something and remind myself that the book is from the future to the past. Events were mixed up with one another and rereading was common for me in this book than any other book.

            Many of the events were confusing as well because of all the information about the daughters and their husband. The story would talk about one daughter and their husband and later talk about another daughter. This is so confusing because it’s hard to remember specific details. The detail about the husband’s job was hard to remember too. I would get myself mixed up with which daughter is the oldest and which one is the youngest. It was hard for me to remember some of their names because the first part of the book is mostly about the third oldest and the youngest daughter.

            So far, the story is a little interesting but there’s a bit too much information on certain stuff. When I first found out that we were going to read this book, I immediately gave this book a bad impression because the colors were dull, the title wasn’t really interesting, and I didn’t vote for this book.  I thought that this book would make me fall asleep and I dreaded reading this book. While reading the first three vignettes, my impression changed. I like the book a little because it was interesting. The book was very detail written, although I wanted some parts to not have as many details as they have. Even though the book was confusing, I always have this feeling that I want to continue to finish the vignette.

reflective essay

During this quarter, I have written many blog posts. There were many available ways for writing it, yet thinking of ideas and what the blog posts lead to writer’s block. Writer’s block is so common among students and it can be frustrating. My struggles with writer’s block are an inspiration to help get new ideas for my blog posts.

In the beginning of writing my posts, many ideas come to me. It was so hard trying to organize these ideas and trying to make sure it is written on paper just in case I forget it. Writer’s block can happen at any moment without warning and it sucks because it makes me lose my motivation to write and my mind goes blank. Writer’s block is defined as a usually temporary condition in which a writer finds it impossible to proceed with the writing of a novel, play, or other work by dictionary.com. It is the most frustrating moment in writing because it makes me want to rewrite everything and makes me think that my ideas are stupid.

I have writer’s block every time I try to type all my ideas down too quick. I would forget some of my ideas and my ideas get mixed up with one another that it got too confusing to me. My mistake that got me stuck while typing is rushing. Rushing got me stuck on my ideas and

One pattern that I realize about my writer’s block is that I have the feeling that I need to write the blog immediately without revision. This leads to forgetting my ideas and creating confusion. Once I forgot even one of my ideas, my whole mind went blank, making me forgetting more and more. This was the beginning of my writer’s block where my mind goes completely blank and I had no idea what I’m writing and the purpose of writing it.

            Writer’s block helps me think of new ideas. My response posts are all agreements and disagreement on other people’s posts. This led me to writer’s block because it repeats ideas and my blog would become a repetitive blog with almost the same ideas as the post that I am trying to respond to. An example would be my response to Amber Chan’s post:

"This is basically the definition for asking questions in class. Asking questions in class means clarification as well as helping classmates clear their confusion. It is also another way to practice talking in a group of people except not in front of them. It builds confidence in talking and it benefits the person who's asking because it means that they will do well with whatever they asked a question about."

This is one of the many struggles I had with writer’s block. I was basically agreeing with Amber and rewording some ideas and adding only a few ideas in. This builds my frustration and when I don’t want to look at my post over, I would give up to writer’s block and wait a while before continuing my post. This gets annoying sometimes because I wanted to immediately finish my post and do something else. Rushing, in the end, made my blog post repetitive and very confusing for people to understand while reading.

            One way to rid myself of writer’s block is to reread what I have typed. This gives me new ideas because not all of my blogs are response posts. Revising my blogs, even if I am not finished with it, it gives me a sense of what my ideas are, what I forgot, and add new ideas that I have never thought of before. It wasn’t so hard forming new ideas because while reading the sentence, there’s always an idea that links to another topic and this helps me continue writing and getting past writer’s block.

            One example would be the video game response. I was planning on disagreeing with the movie but then I had writer’s block and ended up writing about the obstacles that the games create will face:

"Moreover, because Mr. Sutherland explained one of the games from the video, I have an understanding that the game only requires focus rather than moving the mouse or clicking which doesn't sound really fun. The only result from the game was our experience from pretending a scenario. The prime factor that causes gamers to continue playing games is the fighting or challenge in the games. In video games, we would become motivated to finish playing a part of it because of the challenge to defeat an opponent or to finish a quest. From how I see it, the game's challenge is to only continue living in the given scenario in real life."

            This has some opinions and it doesn’t go the normal format as “I agree” and then rewording main ideas. It brings in bigger issues and relates to what the majority of people’s perspective on video games.

To improve myself as a writer, I will organize my ideas first my jotting down my ideas on a piece of paper and trying to not get new ideas every time I wrote one down. While writing down ideas, new ideas would mix into the one I am writing down which cause weird sentence to form and confusion in my ideas. After writing down my ideas, I can take notes on the description and organization I might use for the blogs. Being more organize can help me prevent writer’s block because I won’t have any rushing feeling and I would be able to think straight.

My goals for next semester it to revise my blogs more and for my response post, I want to get an idea and then link it to a really unexpected idea. This would stop the repetitiveness and create new ideas for me to write. Although overcoming writer’s block can help me get new ideas, I want to be able to write without having to experience writer’s block. It would be so helpful for me because I wouldn’t have to delete two paragraphs to write a blog post on my new idea.

Night essay

When one suddenly faces reality, one’s belief would waver. Night by Elie Wiesel is a memoir which describes Eliezer’s experience during the holocaust and his meeting with reality. Eliezer is mainly conflicted between believing his God and blaming God due to his cowardice.

            Praying to God as a kid was his everyday life. As a Jews, he believed in God without knowing why. He was influenced by his parents who were also Jews. He describes his childhood daily life as: “During the day I studied the Talmud, and at night I ran to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the Temple” (1). He was a religious as kid and he always wanted to learn more about his religion and about God. He didn’t have to worry a lot during his childhood so he was able to learn and spend his life peacefully. During his talk to Moshe the Beadle, he starts to think about stuff that he hasn’t thought about before:  “Why did I pray? A strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe?”(2). His faith in God was something that he did without knowing any of the reasons to. Praying to God is a habit that he can easily do everyday just like breathing and living. He had no explanations for it. This shows his loyalty to God and his religious belief.

            While moving from camp to camp, Eliezer’s God slowly died as he began to see the muders and deaths in front of him. While he and his father were walking toward death, Eliezer heard his father recited a prayer. In the moments of death, the feeling of anger engulfed Eliezer: “For the first time, I felt revolt rise up in me. Why should I bless His name? ... Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God” (31-32). Eliezer believes that his God is dead because He never helped them during their moments of sufferings. His frustration from people still having full faith in God caused him to develop a negative feeling for God. He thought that this feeling was the feeling of his God dying but instead, it holds a much deeper meaning. After living in Auschwitz for a while, his feeling started growing more. He still acknowledge God but in a different way:  “I did not deny God’s existence, but I doubted His absolute justice” (42). God’s existence had not disappeared from Eliezer but he began to doubt God. When he didn’t know much stuff, he believes his God died, in contrast to him after while in the camp, his God never died. He doesn’t believe in God; his hatred slowly increases as he sees more suffering.

            Facing crueler events, Eliezer’s hatred changes into anger meant to blame God. He released his anger in his mind whenever he thinks that God doesn’t deserve people’s faith in him. Facing death and fear everyday, Eliezer’s anger rose and vents it on God: “The Eternal, Lord of the Universe, the All-powerful and Terrible, was silent. What had I to thank Him for?”(31). Eliezer’s faith in God was wilting away and doesn’t believe that God deserves anything when He lets all the Jews suffer and die. Every time he hears someone bless God or pray for God, his hatred took over his thought: “‘Blessed art Thou, Eternal, Master of the Universe, Who chose us from among the races to be tortured day and night, to see our fathers, our mothers, our brothers, end in the crematory?’” (64). After seeing so many deaths, his eyes opened to the real world and his reliance upon God had disappear. Even though it is gone, he used God as another way to vent his anger on the life he had to live through. Elie’s denial in God’s power led to his hatred and his cowardice for blaming God.

            Facing the cruelest of reality during wartime, Eliezer faith turned into another use of venting anger. He knew deep inside that there is no use venting it on a person so he blamed God on everything. 

ShiYun's blog response

Well, after reading from Shi Yun's blog about Jealousy, I began to think of the questions that she posted. She describes being jealous as a bad thing because it makes us do the things that we would not do and create a wall between us and that person:

 "Being jealous at someone is not a very good feeling. I felt very bad and trapped inside like I could not do anything else. When this happened, I started to develop the feeling of hatred and started to hate he/she. Jealousy just does not lead to good things and I think that we should be happy of what we have. We don't all have to have things sufficient to what others have. Having the feeling of jealousy just makes you look down at yourself and think that you are not as good."

 I agree with the fact that being jealous tends to create hatred. We envy people and jealousy develops. Jealousy is a common thing since everyone possess different things. We can look at someone's clothes and get jealous of that person. However, there are different levels of jealousy. If it's a friend jealousy, we can't completely hate them. It also depends on the person that we are jealous of. If we are jealous about some of their possession, and they kept on bragging about it and is acting very annoying in front of you even if they knew that you are jealous, of course extreme hatred can be developed.
          Most jealousy are more like a 5 minute jealousy. It doesn't lead to hatred unless the person is really unfortunate and is jealous of an extreme rich person. Another thing that ShiYun said was:

"I think we should just feel happy for what they have. Everyone is different and there are other problems that we have to worry about in life. We can't always face with these little problems that we have because if we don't learn how to over come them we can not face life problems that we have in life later on. We can not let the feeling of jealousy take over our minds and bother our everyday lives."

 I disagree with what she said right here. We are jealous because we aren't satisfied with what we have. Also, no one lets jealousy bother their daily life. They probably would say "I'm so jealous...." and then move on with their lives. That is what I usually do. Jealousy doesn't really take over our minds unless it cause us to steal things.

Freewrite: Evil

          Since this topic of being evil had been the topic of discussion between my friends, I decided to write about it and Amber agreed.
          So, the topic of evil and the core of it had been argued between me and Amber. It all started when one of us started poking the other. It became a war and Kim, Shi Yun, Crystal, Kristine, and Tiffany was caught in it. We would poke each other and then suddenly, one day, it was divided into two groups and sometimes we gang up on one person and started poking them. The reason I brought this up was because the word 'evil' was involved in it. We call those who poked us evil yet we don't know who the real evil person is.
          To start of, the definition of evil (which I got from Dictionary.com) is harm; mischief; misfortune; the wicked or immoral part of someone or something; the force in nature that governs and gives rise to wickedness and sin. In my definition, the word evil in a person is similar to that of a sadist. Within  my friends, evil is when we poke each other.
          In one of my comment with Amber Chan, since she poked me the day before, I called her evil:

Sure.... U just poked me today. EVIL!!!!!!

          Of course we were messing around with each other but the topic of who's evil was debated for so long that we started saying that it was contagious and that the aura around the person made others evil. After the debate, Kim was brought up into the topic. She was the source of our evil debate and the source of everyone turning evil.
          I told her that on Thursday and she actually agreed to it. She, the source of evil, admitted that she was evil. I also found another way to prove her evil as well: today, during history, Julie Law was giving us our family color, and Kim just so happen to have the color black. When we were told to get our notebook out to take notes, Kim 'coincidentally' have a black notebook. This proves her evil because her aura turned everything evil around her.
          I'm not writing this to make Kim feel bad, but as a warning to everyone to be beware of Kim. You need to be cautious around her. She is so evil that Amber said that there's no way to turn her nice. This whole blog may be confusing because my ideas are jumping around too much. Hopefully, I THINK those who are involved in this might be able to understand a bit of what I'm talking about.

Response to Amber's Post

          I really agree with what Amber said. Although I'm not a person who was told the things Amber was told, I can still understand Amber's frustration.

 "By asking more questions, I started to finally understand the things that I didn’t understand before, and was able to use that new knowledge for other things that were influenced by it." 

          This is basically the definition for asking questions in class. Asking questions in class means clarification as well as helping classmates clear their confusion. It is also another way to practice talking in a group of people except not in front of them. It builds confidence in talking and it benefits the person who's asking because it means that they will do well with whatever they asked a question about. Furthermore, when a student ask question, teachers shouldn't even question why such as what happened with Amber:

"He/she responded by saying to me 'I don’t even know why you asked that question.' It was seriously insulting to hear a teacher say that to me."

          This is really offensive because it's like saying "Are you stupid?" Not only does it makes students feel like they shouldn't ask questions anymore in that certain class, it also make them feel as if all the questions they ask in class are stupid. Asking questions aren't stupid unless the student asked the same question that another student had asked due to not paying attention. Also, a question is not stupid if a student is seriously confused about it:

 "I was honestly confused and unsure about how to answer the question he/she put up.  I wasn’t the only person who didn’t understand it either.  I asked the classmates around me if they understood, and the people around me did not."

          Amber asked students around her if they understand the problem or not. She and those around her were confused so she stepped up and asked. She was helping her classmates and herself. There are no reasons for a teacher to question student's confusion. A teacher's job is to help students learn without having them confused. It is not right for a teacher to insult a student in front of the class.

video game response

          So during sixth period, we were given a quick write about video games. My first response was that I didn't feel like writing since I have no interest in it. It was also a vague topic because there are various video games. There are educational games in which it educate its gamers whereas the games involved violence can hurt its gamers mentally. When the quick write was finally over, we had to watch a video of a woman talking about how playing video games can save the world.
        
          She was talking about how we play 3 billion hours and that we need to increase it. The moment she said that by increasing the time playing video games can save the world, I immediately disagree with her. Playing video games use too much energy. The television and the lights (to keep the room bright) require electricity. It also damages the gamers' eyes. If we expand our time of playing games, we would be in a century with every single one of us either wearing glasses or contacts. It would then be rare for people to have 20/20 vision.
        
         Prior to our vision getting worse, the games that she introduced in the video aren't really attractive. No one would want to play a video game that requires it to be part of a daily life habit and have to post a blog about it later on. It sounds more like homework than a game for people to play. Moreover, because Mr. Sutherland explained one of the games from the video, I have an understanding that the game only requires focus rather than moving the mouse or clicking which doesn't sound really fun. The only result from the game was our experience from pretending a scenario.
        
         The prime factor that causes gamers to continue playing games is the fighting or challenge in the games. In video games, we would become motivated to finish playing a part of it because of the challenge to defeat an opponent or to finish a quest. From how I see it, the game's challenge is to only continue living in the given scenario in real life. It doesn't really sound like fun to me.

Final Draft

In “The Dinosaurs”, by Italo Calvino, Qfwfq’s transformed from being someone who is ashamed and hating himself into a character with prideful arrogance.

            At the beginning, “Q” was always trying not to stand out as much from the New Ones. He is a character who always hides behind the bushes and run away whenever a New One saw him. “The first time I [Q] glimpsed some living beings, I hid” (Calvino 98). He was anxious of having his identity of a dinosaur exposed to the New Ones. He tries to hide or run away whenever a New One goes near the area he is in. He may be the last dinosaur left so it’s hard for him blend in with the New Ones. Furthermore, when he inevitably encounters a New One, he, “as one does, when one doesn’t want to be observed, I[Q] kept my eyes lowered and coiled my tail, as if to hide it”(Calvino 99). He shows a bit of low self esteem because he acts as if he’s lower than the New Ones in order to not stand out. He became lower specie trying to hide all the time in order to continue living the way he is at the moment.

            After hearing the rumors of the reign of terror of the dinosaurs, Q began to hate his kind as well as the attitude of the New Ones. He was starting to find pride without realizing it. He starts to understand the oblivious minds of the New Ones and their ways of thinking due to the fear their ancestors had to put up with, “I [Q] realized I had never thought about how we [dinosaurs] appeared to others. … the more I learned how we had made others tremble, the more I trembled myself” (Calvino 100). He thought that the dinosaurs endured the most hardships to survive but he starts to get a clear image of what a “dinosaur” is to the New Ones. Once he got a sense, he trembles since he is able to understand the terror. The more he hears rumors of the dinosaurs from the New Ones, the clearer his mind is. His indecisive personality caused him to go back and forth between the New Ones and the dinosaurs, but the rumors helped him choose his kind.

            Q realization of the New Ones’ foolishness caused him to be proud of his kind. After the rhinoceroses incident, the New Ones began to make a mockery of the dinosaurs. Q thinks that the extinction of dinosaurs were a good thing, “Now I recognized the greatness of spirit that had made us choose to disappear rather than live in a world no longer suited to us”(Calvino 107). He believed that the dinosaur being extinct wasn’t forced on them, but they were willing to go extinct. He got his sense of pride after the incident because he thinks that the dinosaur still dominate the world with fear but the New Ones are foolishly trying to get rid of it. He continued thinking that it was a grand thing after he saw a skeleton of another dinosaur, “If ever a species had had a rich, full evolution, a long and happy reign, the species was ours. Our extinction had been a grandiose epilogue, worthy of our past”(Calvino 109). He believe that the extinction was meant to be and that there were no regrets since the dinosaurs lived a happy reign of giving terror to others. He didn’t think that the dinosaurs need pity from the New Ones who are oblivious of the happy times that dinosaurs had. 

Free Write: My "Best Friend"

          I have notice how much bad luck I have been getting these few days. My three "best friends" are The Sun, Plants, and Bad Luck. These past days, they were very attached to me, especially bad luck. I tried to avoid them but it's inevitable. We are magnets stuck together which is sad for me.

          The first friend is The Sun. It is very mean to me because whenever I want it to be sunny, he (because I don't want to call it an it) always have to hide behind the cloud. Whenever I want the day to be cloudy, he always come out and shines one hundred times more so I am always dead by the end of the day. Those who know me know that I don't like the sun due to my head hurting every time I'm out in the sunlight a lot. Although I he's not really my friend, he is acquainted to Bad Luck.

          Plants, the one I physically like to avoid. I don't go near him so much and yet his function is to get me sneezing and dying because of his pollen. As I have said before, I avoid him as much as I can, but for some reason, I always get pollen on me. How do I know this? It's because bees have been following me around these days. Although they don't follow me at school, on my way home (When I'm exhausted) a bunch of them chased after me so (because of my fantasy of how painful their stings are) I ran as if my life was on the line. 

          Bad Luck has the commission to tell The Sun and Plants to torture me. Bad Luck, so far, had been with me every minute for the past few weeks. The first time I found out I have a friend who would be hanging around next to me for a while was when a squirrel was about to attack me, I tripped when there's nothing on the floor, I bumped into a pole that wasn't there the previous day, things spilling on me, and all the technologies crashing on me but was working perfectly fine when my sisters used it. It all happened on the same day three weeks ago. After that day, more things happened to me or near me. 

          These three tend to work together and create my life of torture. Two of them seem "normal" to most people, but beware, every pretty thing/being have a darker side that they don't reveal. I am now trying to ignore them although it failed because the more I try to ignore them, the more they come to me.

This is From Jandi's Blog of Rich And Poor Post:

"Since they can take care of themselves and don't really need their parents, they can live alone and be independent. Rich people on the contrary really need their parents ... easy for them because their parents would have all the money to do everything, the child don't learn how to live by themselves without support of their parents. ... I seem to discover that bring rich isn't really wonderful, but being poor will make u successful. Their similarities will depend who they want to be. The world is rally unpredictable and it depends on your hard work and personalities."

           While reading this post, I have started to agree and disagree with what Shi Yun had said. When she described the rich's attitude, I started asking myself some questions:
- To what extend are the rich and the poor?
- Is she observing this from her view or did she read from things and hear things until she came to this conclusion?
- Are they a billionaire rich and poverty poor?
          These question came up because when she talked about the poor, she made it seem like there are only two class of people: the super rich and the super poor. when she describe those two types of people, the image I got from her writing is that a person can either be rich or poor but cannot be somewhere in the middle.
          Furthermore, I agree with what Shi Yun had said. Living as a poor person is better than living as a rich person. That is because when we are poor, we endure more hardships. We were force to depend on ourselves more because of the lack of money. We also have a closer family bond. Since we are going through the same hardship together, it's better to support each other.
          On the contrary, the rich people always depend on their parents giving them money. They don't work nor do they understand the harsh world that they will have to face in the future. They will complain about every single little things in which other people will find annoying. They will have to alter their behavior and attitude if they want to work in this world and if they don't want any haters. Rich people are always protected in in fantasy world that their parents made for them. Their family relationship isn't so good as well. Yes, the parents might give their child everything they want, but that isn't love. The parents might just give it to the child to make their kids get away from them. It's like bribing their child to be on their own and play with themselves.
          We all have a notion of what the image of rich and poor are and we also know that there are differences between those two life.

Quickwrite: video

           After watching the video on the woman who can change her leg into whatever she wanted, I started to think that she relied too much on to technologies. Yes, it is cool when we can change our legs and make it do anything we want but doesn't that mean we are replacing a part of ourself? Because we are humans, we have limits. To make our life fun, we work our hardest to exceed those limits and create new limits for us to continue exceeding. If we rely on technologies all the time, doesn't that make us cowards who doesn't like ourselves so we change it? 
          Let's say that all of us had the same model for a leg, who's better than the other then? When we are using the same thing? The only time that we are able to see that one is better than the other is if a person have a newer version of it. Half-way watching the video, at the part when they showed the leopard/cheetah legs, a thought came into mind: are we desperate to have the potentials of other animals and are we embarrassed of our own potentials? It's cool to run fast and all, but if we were able to run fast because of a technology, then are we even running? We aren't even trying, the technologies are doing the work for us. I don't think that the human species have evolved just to become a coward that relies on things. we evolve and became intelligent but when we rely too much on something, we won't be able to accomplish anything unless we rely on it again.
          I would not want to upgrade any part of my body. I am happy with what I have and I think that being non-perfect is good. We have something to aim toward and we will use our own strength. We can always challenge ourself and when we are imperfect, we can give challenges to ourself as to what we want to change. If we are completely perfect, then there won't be any challenges; we have nothing we want to improve on.

Response to Kaila's Post:

"When people do not think about what they are going to say before they say it, sometimes it can come across as insulting or hurtful.  Some comments are just better left unsaid.  Everything that comes to your mind does not have to spoken; especially if the comment is cruel."

           When she gave a more descriptive explanation for the amendment, think before you speak, I agree with it. Sometimes, thing are better left unsaid. It's not like it's going to be the end of the world when we can't say all of our thoughts. It's crueler if we said something offensive or mean in front of the person we are talking about. They would feel insulted and i don't think that anyone want to hear  insults in front of them. I'm not saying that it's okay to talk behind people's back. Talking badly about a person in front of them makes that person lose self confident. There are more mental damage if we talk in front of them. Talking when they are away is also bad. We don't like having people talk about us so we should do the same thing. If we want respect, we must give respect.
           We need to think carefully before we say anything. Of course, we might sometimes make mistakes but we are smart people. We can be careful; we are smart enough to know which line to cross and where we have to stop. Even if some of the stuffs we said were meant as a joke, other people might take it seriously. We each think differently, so some jokes are insults to people.
           Even though this is part of the ASTI constitution, I think that we should apply this to our life as well. Karma exists, so when we talk badly about people, they talk badly about us. if the people we insulted starts to gang up on us, a bigger problem will come. Saying the wrong things can turn us into bullies or we get bullied. We may think that it's not harmful but it is. It's better to think before we speak rather than learning to hard way: when the issue becomes big or when a person or yourself gets hurt in the process.

Vocabulary Words

1. Function
2. Acquisition
3. Commission
4. Cultural
5. Normal
6. Framework
7. Attitude
8. Entity
9. Notion
10. Alter

Pro Death Penalty Rebuttal

Crystal Lau and Phuong Ha
Pro-Death Penalty Rebuttal

In the opening statement of our opposing team, Alyssa Li and Camal Saleh, they had claimed:

“There are endless sentences that could be put forth instead of the death penalty. If those who support the death penalty do so because they fear the suspect will be free again, why not agree to a sentence of life imprisonment without parole?”

When they had made this claim, they had failed to mention the cost of maintaining an inmate in prison. According to sources, the cost of keeping a prisoner in life without parole is roughly $50-60,000 per year with a 2% increase each consecutive year whereas the cost of executing a criminal is about $15 if we use a firing squad and $86 if we use lethal injections.

As their opening statement continues, the opposing side makes another faulty statement:

“The execution of a murderer brings back the principle of an ‘Eye for an Eye’ in which the great Ghandi once stated, ‘an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind’.”

According to this claim, they are making the assumption that everyone is committing a crime, which is obviously not the case. Therefore, how is it possible that it leaves everyone blind.

Moreover, they carry on with:

“ What if the supposed suspect is Innocent and is executed due to a death sentence? There is no way you can take back that mistake, a mistake you cannot fix once done?”

Once again the con side raises doubt without looking at the statistics. Based on the Death Penalty Information Center website, a total of 138 inmates have been exonerated from the death row since 1973. Out of these 138 cases, 17 of them were proven innocent through the DNA tests which is undeniable and solid evidence.

It remains clear that the opposing side makes baseless and faulty claims and fails to support their statements with solid proof. Everything that they propose is a philosophical “WHAT IF” and reality is not based upon doubts and questions but hard-core statistics. Due to the fact that simply their opening statement is full of flaws, it becomes apparent that their further arguments concerning the topic of capital punishment is also faulty. Consequently, it exemplifies that the death penalty should indeed be implemented as stated in our opening statement.

Classmate response blog

This quote is from Grizzell's blog:

"One was to help the girl that was being bullied by the other students, and the second choice was to ignore what was going on and do not tell the teachers. I decided to choose the second choice because I did not want to get bullied if I told on them to the teachers. I regret what was my choice and now I want to explain why people bully each other. People or students bully each other because they think they are superior compared to others in their work or in school. They do this because they want attention from students, teachers, or co-workers."

          What Grizzell said about how bullies think they are superior and wants attention is true. The bullies have pride in themselves and they always think that they are better than the rest. Bullies harass others because they refuse to see the bullied as their equals. Bullies also want attention. They want everyone to know that they are the best. Their want of attention might be because of the lack of attention that they didn't receive from their parents or others. I agree with what Grizzell said on the second half of the paragraph. Bullies have many reasons and one reason might be because they want attention. Everyone needs attention or they will feel left out. Bullies are lonely because no one wants to be near them. They think that they gain attention but it makes people avoid them more. This is the reason why bullies continue to bully.
          I think that this relates to the ASTI constitution because of her regret that she mentioned. One of what the ASTI constitution said was, "Take responsibility for your actions and words." Grizzell regretted her decision of not helping the bullied girl. she could've helped her but she chose not to. She chose to walk away and ignore it. Grizzell felt responsible and thus her regretful feeling came to her. She felt bad for her decision and i think this relates because Grizzell might want to take the first choice if she ever did witness someone bullying others.

Phuong Ha: Reflection #13

‘Just Kidding’ and ‘Ganging Up’ from Odd Girl Out by Rachel Simmons

            I am usually a person who witness people getting bullied from afar. I felt bad for that person because the bullies were saying such harsh things to the bullied. Although most of the times, the bullies only use words to attack the bullied, I witnessed a few bullying in which the bullies actually hit the bullied. My options in the situation in which I see someone getting bullied is that I can walk away, help the bullies, or help the bullied. To walk away would mean that I pretend not to see anything. This sounds cruel but I won’t be involved with it. I can help the bullies but that is an option no one would even want to choose. To help the bullied, I might also be bullied later on. This will cause me trouble because I might be another victim. If I do want to help the bullied, the best way is to get a group of friends to help as well. This way, the bullies might get intimidated.

            I think that people bully others because they think they are better than the others. I think that they are too stubborn to understand the fact that they are the same as others. With the pride they gathered up, they bully others to show it and to gather more pride. They bully because they want to show that they are stronger than the rest of the people. The reason why they want to hurt their peers might be because of jealousy, anger or frustration. They might be jealous of one of their peers with something so they want to hurt their peers. It might be from anger because bullies can hate someone and bully that someone. They might bully their peers to vent their frustrations out to people.