Semester Final.

Choose one of your posts. (Your favorite? Your least favorite? The one that surprises you the most when you reread it? Any one you want to pick.) Analyze it in detail, with quotes etc.

The post I'm going to choose is my post Dear John monthly review. I chose this blog post because I think this is the the post where I actually went in depth about what I am talking and writing about. This is my second monthly book review that I had done for English. This book had questions that were actually at the end of this book. It makes you go in depth about the book and makes you look at things in a different perspective.

This is the second blog that I actually used a quote from the book. Well, the first uses of quotes were for this book too, but the lit circle letter.

The thing that surprised me when I read this was that I didn't sound so childish. I didn't so like a professor either, but I like how this post actually turned out. I think the reason I did so well on this post was that the book was a romance novel. I really like romance novels. No matter what, romance novels are so much easier to read for me, as opposed to the books I read later on, and before Dear John. Bastard Out of Carolina was a very disturbing and depressing book. Ending Slavery was a shocking book. I liked those book, but not as much as I liked Dear John itself.



How do you like having a blog? How has blogging changed the way you write, the way you think, or the way you think about writing?


Having a blog was definately different. I had to write every week. But I like it. It helps me with my writing. Blogging has changed the way I write now, and the way I type. I remember, I used to not capitalize my "I's" and used the word in the wrong places. I wrote how I usually write when I'm talking to a friend, or something. Now, I have been watching how I write. I actually capitalize my "I's" and know the difference between "you're" and "your."

The things I read has influence the way I write in many ways. If i see someone write really really good, it makes me want to write just as good as them, but if they haven't written really carefully, then it makes me write carelessly too. Over times, I have often thought that my writings were not good enough. I have always thought my posts sounds so childish, as if, some kid from elementary school was writing this. It was not a great feeling. As time went on, I started noticing changes. I'm not sure if it was that I was actually improving or that I was just viewing my writing in a different approach.

I know that most of the times, I don't know what to write, but once I have something to talk about, I think that I could write about it forever. But unless it is a really good topic, I wont even think about writing about it. That is one of the problems I have.

I think I might be writing more on the blog in the future. Next year, it's going to be so weird, because this year, we did most of our works of the computer. Next year, we are going to have to start doing our work by hand again. Hopefully we start doing our homework and everything more often. I don't think our teacher would be as chill as Sutherland is now.

Explain one or two ways your writing has improved (or not) over the semester. Include a few examples from your posts over time, with analysis and links to the original posts, to illustrate how the improvement(s) happened.
For the second semester only: If you want, you can reflect on improvements you've noticed over just the second semester, the entire year, or even multiple years if you have examples of your writing from the more distant past.

One of the ways that my writing has improved is that last year, my English teacher, Ms. Rudd, had helped us write our essays. Well, more like she basically wrote our essays. She gave us most of the sentences and our thesis to write about our papers. Then she would tell us how to write essays. She lets you try it out first, checks if we have done it right. If not, she helps us out, and tells us how to make it better. I think having her class last year has helped me do much better this year all together.

I remember our essays, she basically did them for us. But there were some parts that we had to do them. She gave us topics to write on, then she told us to write a two sentence summary that summarizes the whole story but not detailed. When we didnt do them right, she gives us one.

We did a lot of annotating in that class too. We had lots of pages from the book Romeo and Juliet to read, then she helped us annotate what they were talking about and how they were feeling at the moment. It helped us understand the book more.

There were lots of changes in the way I write, also. For example, this year, I had to start breaking paragraph up at places. Last year, she told us where we were supposed to break our paragraph. On Ms. Rudd's essays, she gave us specific details to write and talk about. She told us what goes on each paragraphs. This year, I had to actually think about where the paragraph should be. If you look at some of my blog posts from the beginning of the school year, you will see that I wrote the whole blog in one big paragraph. For example, Statement Of Purpose, this post about lying, rain, and my phone. Now, I'm starting to separate my posts.

Monthly review: Ending Slavery

Ending Slavery: How We Free Today's Slaves by Kevin Bales is a book about the modern slavery happening around the world and how we can end slavery.

Kevin Bales's purpose in writing things book is to reach out to people that are still so ignorant about slavery and the ones that think that slavery isn't happening anymore. He wants to end slavery, We all do. He tells us that one alone can help. He also explains how there are antislavery movements around the world. He wants us to really think about how slavery is affecting the world. The things we have bought might have came from slaves' work. They don't get paid with anything, but we pay their slaveholders tons of money for those products

There are people around the world who are helping free slaves. Some of them are even former slaves. They have been through the slavery and don't want to see others suffer the way they did.

There are lots of ways that even we can help. We can donate. This website Shows you how much it costs for what. You can also donate throught this site. The lowest is $14, which is for school books, a uniform, and a satchel. This money could pay for a former slave to go to school. We spend at least $14 every week anyways, why not give it up for a good cause. Who said you had to do it all by yourself? You can split it or even ask around, like we did for Haiti. If every kid donates at least a dollar, we probably could have more than 2,000 dollars. That could help in lots of ways.

Without the wasting moral disease of slavery, our ethical dilemas diminish as well. Today many of us are troubled by the ugly fact of slavery in our lives. But imagine never haing that pang of doubt when you buy something you like, never having to wonder "whose freedom was stolen to make this?" Imagine never having to spoil the enjoyment of that selicious truffle in your mouth with the thought of slave chile who harvested cocoa for your treat. Ending slavery won't end crime, but it will mean things will be stiolen, not lives.

My friend doesnt eat anything made by Hershey's because she told me that there were child labor. But there are people that don't care if there is child labor going on. They don't give a shit and not thin twice about it. I think that if enough people try to stand up for this, maybe a huge number of people don't buy hershey's, then maybe they are going to have to do something about it.

In lots of places, young girls are tricked into sex slavery. In places like Nepal and India. In Nepal, since there are families living in poverty, if a person comes and offers a kid a job to their parents, lying about working in the city. If one person can work in a family, then that could mean that they can have a little more money, which means have food or even have an education. Before leaving, the slave trafficker might give the family a little money, making up excuses about how they pay you in the beginning of their working period then more later. Then, before you know it. they have just sold their child into slavery.

Bales states that lack of education and poverty is one of the main causes of slavery. It is becuase if you are very poor and living in poverty, you cannot send your child to school, therefore they will not be educated. If they arent educated, they will not understand that there are people out there that do things like human trafficking. When you are in poverty, you don't have anything of your own. When you are a slave, you have protection, and you get to eat a little to survive, so many slaves that were freed went back to their slave masters.

There are lots of good in the world, too. There are people helping slaves out, and freeing them. There has always been good guys from the start. There was the Underground Railroad, where slaves escaped from.

Yesterday, when I was doing my research paper for my history, when I can came across this website. The title was the first thing that caught my eyes. As I read this, I realized Anuradha Koirala a true hero. She is helping out so many girls and she never says no to anyone. They have their own website.

She and a bunch of other survivors have loads to do in their parts. They go around villages to villages to educate the villagers about sex trafficking. They have lots of people on the border of Nepali/India. They are patroling and they rescue on average of 4 nepali girls a day. Four girls a day! That means they save on average of 1460 a whole year! Every life is precious.

Kevin Bales is lives Washington DC. Kevin Bales is President of Free the Slaves, the US sister organization of Anti-Slavery International (the world’s oldest human rights organization), and Professor of Sociology at Roehampton University in London. I got this information from here. He wrote this book after he wrote Disposable People , which is also about mordern slavery. That book is about the slavery happening, while this book is about how we can end slavery once and for all.

This book is amazing. It gives you the inside story first-hand. There are stories about the slaves and even the Ashrams. Around the world, There are millions of slavery still hapening. We need to free those slaves. No one should be held against their will. No one should have to suffer. Some parts of the slavery I am familiar with, like girls sold into prostitute, and sex slavery, becuase growing up, everywhere, we were warned about this. There were tv shows and movies telling us not to leave with a stranger and stuff.

John Locke

Background:
I, John Locke, was born in the year 1632. I was born in Bristle, England to a Puritan family. My father was an attorney. He was part of the parliamentary army in the fight against the monarch during the English Civil War. I am a protestant. My father wanted me to become a minister, but instead, I studied medicines. I was a student at Oxford University. John Owen was the first to introduce me to the idea of freedom of religion. French Philosopher and Mathematician, Rene Descartes' writing influenced me truly. He proclaimed that all men can reason. I escaped to Holland in 1682 due to my ideas threatening the king's authority. I returned after the parliament’s authority had been respected and the Bill Of Rights had been accepted. Then I die in 1704.
Views On Human Nature & Society
I believe that people have the ability to reason. I write, "The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which [treats] everyone [equally]. Reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind...that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, or possessions." I believe that people have what it takes to govern themselves and to look after others. People should have the freedom of religion and the rights to citizens.
Views On Government
I support the monarch. I do not believe that God chose a bunch of people to rule the countries. They key job of the government is to protect the right to life, the right to freedom, and the right to property. These rights belong to all people, which is absolute. I believe there should be three equal branches of governments, so that one branch doesn't try to have all the power. I think if any of these governments abuse their power, the people have the right to rebel and form a new government. My idea inspired the founders of new democracy, which we know as the United States Constitution.
Answer the Debate Qs
1)I believe humans are naturally good and rational. They have the one absolute important thing, reason. They can compromise, settle their differences, and eventually come up with a solution. Naturally, no one is bad. For example, if you are having an argument with someone, and you use reasoning to settle that argument, it will most likely work because if you reason with them, then you can hear both sides of the story and come up with a compromise that benefits both you and that other person.
6) I believe humans can process . They can improve themselves and their societies. Through compromising and reasoning, they can learn a lot more about other things and people They have the ability to understand each other, which makes communication a lot easier.
7) Yes, humans can be trusted to govern themselves because of their natural abilities to reason and they can settle their differences by seeking a middle ground and compromising. Humans can be trusted to look after one another. They can take care of someone else other than themselves too. That gives a reason that humans can be trusted o govern themselves, they can take care of others.
8) The best type of government is the monarch because it is ruled my a king or a queen whose powers are limited and the rights of the people are respected. It isn’t all about the kings and the queens, it gives the people some freedoms and it isn’t al about the people either. It has limits on both sides.

Lit Circle letter 3

Its amazing how its so easy to point fingers at others, but when it comes to you, you just cant do it. This book talks about how much there are slavery going on everwhere. When we read it, its so easy to say "Oh, it's not our problem, its not happenning near me, its not affecting me." But we are so ignorant of what is actually happenning right under our noses.

With a case like Reina's, the community of San Diego knew they had a problem.
Like citizens of many American cities, San Diegans had a hard time saying,
"There is slavery in our town."

No one wants something like this to happen. But I'm sure that slavery is happenning around us. There is a possibility that even in Alameda, or the Bay Area, there are slavery happenning. As much as no one wants to admit this, we all have to admit it. It is the first step to ending slavery.

"After the shock of finding that they had slavery in the prduct chain of
their cocoa, the chocolate compinies scrambled for answers. Forward movement
showed, however, by the fact that the biggest of these companies, Hershey, Mars,
and Nestle, are fiecely competitive. Because they control so much market, they
are also nervous about ever being accusedof price-fixing or violating antitrust
laws. Some of these companies actually had rules that none of their employees
should ever be in a room alone with a person from another company."

It's crazy how much trouble people will put up with just so that others wont find out what they have been doing. I'm sure it is the same thing with slave owners. Do they make it seem like everything is alright? How do they do that? Like this rule above, wouldn't it sound or look suspicious?

This book is really really good. I can't believe this is the last Lit Circle Letter for the school year.

Rules of Love

There aren't much rules in relationships today. Some of the most important "rule" is to not lie or cheat. Both of the partners should be committed in the relationship. As opposed to the video we watched, if a guy/girl asks you out, it most likely means be their girlfriend/boyfriend. It doesn't necessarily mean go out on dates with one guy one day and then go out with another guy another day. It basically means go "steady" with one guy. There are some cultural rules of love out here though. In some cultural, you can't have sex before marriage, girls can't have boyfriends, can't date anyone outside your religion, or even in some countries, you can marry more than one person at a time. In the United States, you can't have more than one husband/wife at a time.

Back in the days, guys were the ones that asked girls out. They were the ones that had to pay for everything. Now whoever wants to pay, pays. It doesnt matter. You can even share it. You could pay seperatly if you wanted to. Back than, guys would have to go and pick up the girl at her house, then meet her parents. Now, thats not really how it goes. You can decide to go somewhere and meet up there.

Well, "nice guys" are expected to be very respectful towards the girl, and not try to take advantage of them. "Nice girls" are not supposed to cheat or lie. They are supposed to be very kind or something. They arent supposed to have many boyfriends.

As far as consequences go, I think that the girl would probably get bitched at or have people talk shit. She would be called a slut or something. But when it comes to guys, if a guy fucks a girl, its seen as a good thing. But if a girl loses it, she is seen as a slut.

Oh Dear!

Lit circle letter 2

Slaves today are treated like cheap plastic ballpoint pens, the kinds we all
have in our desk drawers or pockets. No one worries about the care and
maintenance of these pens or about keeping a careful record of their
whereabouts. These pens are disposable and because they are cheap, so are
slaves.

blaaahhhhh.

This week, I am going to be working on Friday, Saturday, and SUnday. I am going to be working on mother's day. My mom doesn't have to though. Since I can't do anything in the afternoon, my mom and I decided to go to the mall after I get off work. Usually if she is working, she would be really tired, but since she's not, it would be perfect. I can get her something nice for mother's day, buy myself something. My dad was asking me what my mom would like to recive for mother's day. I think he was either thinking about my brother giving it to her or himself. Either way, it was a nice gesture.

Today after school, my dad dropped me off at work. It was my last day training. Starting tomorrow, I am going to have to work by my self. I hope I can do it.

In spanish, we watched a movie called Goal. It was about soccer. It was about a mexican guy who is really good at soccer, he is discovered by an English man. He gets to go the London and try out for the team there. He had some troubles with the teams and some rough times, but he made it. I don't think I was watching the movie much though. I was too busy worring about my ipod. I broke it. The chargina part broke. It can still play music, but it wont charge. If it wont or cant charge, I can't play it much. If I can't play it much, then I will be one bored ass person in classes. I love music, I don't think I can go a few hours of school without music.

In History, we have this huge project thing we are doing. It is this research paper. There are steps to it. If you don't complete everything else that was due of the project, you can't turn in the final paper. Ms. Casper isn't going to accept it. She has specific ways to do everything, too. You have to do it her way, or you don't get a good grade. I guess it's a good thing, in a way, because she is preparing us for 11th and 12th grade in high school, then in college. The whole thing is due next month. Today, our topic description was due. I am writing about India and Pakistan, nuclear weapon competition. For this project, I am going to try my best to get all my work done on time and turn in everything on time.

when i was little, my family had always wanted me to become a doctor or something. i guess i did wanna be a doctor back then too. but then in 8th grade, i really wanted to be a psychiatrist (sp?). my family was pretty happy with it too. but now, i really dont know anymore. i mean, whats my motivation? whats the point? i do wanna help people out but how can i help others with their problems when i cant even fix my own problems?

Lit circle letter 1

This month, my book is called Ending Slavery by Kevin Bales. This book is about slavery happening around the world today. I picked this book because I have been wanting to read this book since the beginning of the school year. But I never actually got the chance to. I had a pretty good idea about what the book was about. When we watched the video on the TED talk from Kevin Bales himself about slaves around the world today, I really wanted to read it.

"If you could buy a fully equipped, brand new car for $40, do you think your relationship to your car would change? If your car were that cheap, you would begin to treat it as something to be used and discarded. Why even fix a flat tire if the whole car costs less than the repair? Most slaveholders feel that way about slaves today."

This quote gives you a good idea about how slaves are viewed today in this world. That people can just replace them. That they aren't worth anything. Or hardly anything at all. Kevin compares a brand new car with a cheap price to a slave. Just like brand new cars, slaves are able to work and do all kinds of stuff their "master" wants them to do. He talks about how slaves back in the days were expensive because the population wasn't that high. But now that the population is so much higher, it is easier to find slaves.

He also talks about where slaves come from. Its the families that aren't modernized. The ones that are living on poverty. The ones with children who can't go to school because they can't afford it. Then some fancy looking person comes along and tells them about how the children will be working some place far away from there and supporting their families, making them want to go. Only after they leave and have no idea where they are and how to get back home, they realize what they had gotten into. I don't find it very shocking that there are many slavery going on in the world. In fact, I have already known that. I am pretty sure a lot of people have or had already known this too. But none of us are really doing anything about it.

Almost all of us are just going "oh it will never happen to me, so I don't have to worry about it." Maybe you aren't in slavery, but someone you know might be. And you wouldn't be able to help that person get out of it if you are just sitting there doing nothing about it.

Reading the stories of these children in this book was extremely sad and heartfelt. This book really god so far. I think that I am going to really enjoy this book till the very end.