I Am Thankful

Ahh... Thanksgiving.... turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and gravy, some of the best foods, and a great four day break is definitely something to be thankful about.  This holiday makes you really think about what is means to be American, and that you have so many things to be thankful for.  When you think about it each and every one of us is lucky to live in this country, where all over the world people have it much worse, and we should be thankful to go to Whitney Young.  Aanyway, in this class there are many students I am thankful for.  Emmet Drea, who I know from gradeschool is that kind of guy who can make the whole class funnier with just one comment, like one day when he decided to talk native american, and he can sometimes have these completely random deep philosophical statements that make you think.  Briana Hammons always knows whats going on with what we are doing in class and that can be very helpful in some situations, and she always has a funny sense of humor, and her argumentative attitude can be entertaining.  Lauren Jeon always has that nice cherry blossom hand cream, and she is also very funny. Overall this is one of my favorite classes and I am thankful to be in it.

Happy Thanksgiving Everybody!

I am a Plow?

Today when I woke up,  I was a plow (whats up with that?).  I was taken out of the barn and hooked up to some oxen and they started pulling me along rough dirt... talk about rugburn.  These oxen were going like 1 mile per hour and after five minutes I was bored out of my mind.  It's not like I could just get up and walk away, as I was now a plow.  When you are a large metal object, you finally realize how hot the sun could really be on a hot sunny day.  The oxen took a break to eat, and while they did that, I was put down under a tree by the farmers.  Little did they know I was a real person, and I realized that being a plow was not very fun at all.  Then I was grinding up the dirt for a few more hours, and put away at twilight.  The farmers then went on putting seeds where I just had plowed up the dirt, after all that work, they were just going to put some little things in the ground and bury it back up?!  They put me back in the barn and locked it up, which is probably unecessary, it's not like I can get up and walk away anymore.  After this long day I now see that it would probably suck to be anything other than a human, I didn't have any fun being a plow.  Anyway how am I even talking and thinking, aren't I an inanimate plow?

Classroom Improvements

Your (I'm talking to you Mr. McCarthy) classroom doesn't have that many problems. Maybe you could make the grading scale a little easier like 93-100 is an A and 92-82 is B etc, because the current grading scale is super crazy. We should definitley watch even more movies.  I think you should completely get rid of note taking when we have to read books, like House of the Seven Gables, and our Independent reading books, I'm pretty sure its unanimous that every student hates taking notes, but if we still have to take notes, you should at least let us use them on the tests, if we take notes and then don't use them for anything they are useless and a waste of time.  I think you shouldn't make us do Independent reading projects, it's no fun reading a book for fun if we have to to projects and work about them.  I like how you let us choose the House of the 7 Gables over the Scarlet Letter, and I think you should let us choose what books we read by a certain author, for example: Edgar Allen Poe: Book a, Book b, or Book c.  You should also give us less reading to do, 20-50 pages is crazy for one night I think 20-30 is better, some of us have other classes that also give large and unreasonable amounts of homework, and sometimes its hard to do it all.  Besides this, you have a great class, I have lots of fun in it, and I am happy to be in it.

Modern Day Slavery

Even though slavery is abolished  in all countries, it isn't really completely gone, as some people have "jobs" but they are practically working as slaves.  In countries like China, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, and many countries in Africa, people work in horrid conditions for little pay.  They work in sweatshops and receive practically no pay, and are doing hours of labor in bad conditions, and get no bonuses or Unions to back them up, they have to work for their families and to survive.  Another type of slavery is another grim aspect in impoverished countries, the problem of human trafficking.  In places like Mexico, people pay most of their earnings to be brought illegally to America, and once they are here they might be subjected to harsh working conditions by their "guides" or traffickers, with threatens of being deported.  Luckily though, these modern types of slavery are recognized and national and international organizations, like the United Nations, who are trying to work with national governments to put an end to these sweatshops and trafficking practices.  Although we like to think that slavery is not around in America anymore it still might be around in other parts of the world.

Crucible, House of the Seven Gables, Puritans, and Salem

Im going to start out with the history of Salem.  It was founded in 1626, and Puritans started coming in the Great Puritan Migration of 1629/30.  Puritans were very religious people who thought that all people were to an extant evil and sinners, and the only way to go to heaven was to repent and be very strict, religious people who used the bible as law.  In 1692 the Salem witch trials were started when many people thought that other were witches and many innocent people were killed because of these hangings.  During this time period is when Matthew Maule is executed for witchcraft, and Nathaniel Hawthorne's descendants are influential, his great-great-great- grandfather was a Puritan Judge who was known to give harsh sentences. Nathaniel Hawthorne's cousin owned the actual house for a period of time, as it was real but not built by the Pyncheons (who themselves were a real family and have a living descendant to this day) but built in 1668 by a Captain John Turner.  Hawthorne played in the house as a child, which inspired him to write the book, but he said it was complete fiction and based on no real facts.  This Puritan extremism which caused many people to die, can still be around today.  People that have extreme religious views, such as women having abortions should be unlawful (which is unconstitutional and crazy), or people who think that this country shouldn't have a separation of church and state.  These are very extreme views just like the Puritans, and I think that some of these views are not necessarily good and might not be good for the people of America

The Moment I Knew I was an American

The moment that I first realized I was an American was around the ages 3 or 4.  I learned in preschool about different countries and learned that I was American.  This was a general realization that I was an American.  I think the first time that I realized that I was an American, and that was something important or special, was about 5th or 6th grade when we were learning about illegal immigrants crossing the border in large numbers from Mexico and several other Central American countries.  I realized that if you weren't American and came into this country without legal documents, or the legal way to get here, that it was a federal offense, and you would be deported without a second thought.  I also realized that in America, could could be anything you wanted or aspired to be, and in many other countries you might not have those freedoms, and that being American was something even more special.  Also many people form other countries want to be American, and emigrate here legally, but in a way that is hard to explain they are not really American but technically they are, but they were born in a different country.  I realize that being American is something that I am proud of, and other Americans should be proud of too, and I am lucky to be an American, because many people around the world don't have the same rights and freedoms that I, and everybody else in America has.

Us vs. Them

In the Crucible all the witch trials are, are tools to get revenge or to gain something from somebody or something.  There were never any actual witches and the witchery was just a political tool.  On one "side" so to speak we have John Proctor, Rebecca Nurse, and Giles Corey, who in a way are the good guys of this story.  The three of them don't believe in witchery, and Proctor himself isn't even a religious man.  Rebecca Nurse who had a lot of knowledge in dealing with children, said at the beginning that all Betty was doing was fooling around pretending that she couldn't wake up.  Giles Corey was just a man who was trying to defend the commoners who were being accused of witchery because the Putnam's wanted their land.  In the end these three are all executed because the other "faction" so to speak twists and plays with the law to get what they want.  This other faction consists of the Putnams, the girls, Reverend Parris, and in a way the judge.  The Putnams want to aquire more land, the girls are all just doing what Abigail is telling them to do, and her motives are to kill Elizabeth Proctor so she can have John all to herself, and the Judge sort of has a crazy vibe that he likes condemning so many people and that killing the "witches" is the right thing to do.  In all all the accusations of witchcraft are just used by certain people to get what they want, and has nothing to do with actual witches or witch problems.