Reflection

I changed as a person from this year in a lot of ways. I changed from eperiences at home and experiences at school. This past year has been very dificult on me and i've learned to change. Academically i always been smart and get good grade so that hasn't changed. This year i have been put in a 10th grad class and i am in 9th grade so sometimes that got changellenging. At the begining i had it good and it was just a regular class but at the ending i started to get careless about my grade and didn't apply myself as much. I don't want to act cocky or anything but the rest of my 9th grade classes are pretty easy, it's basically just turning in work and getting a good grade on tests.

Socially it's been okay, but i did change. i realized that not everybody is your friend and although they smile in your face and act like your friend behind your back they talk about you. But this is high school a lot of drama is going to stir up. I just think that everybody should be friends and get along and high school would be easier but there's always a trouble maker in the group. Nothing really happened to me as in drama but i still know people are talking about me. One minute you guys are friends, next minute you guys are enimies, thats high school.

I have met knew people and although it didnt come out as i wanted it to i still liked the experience in some situations. i met some good friends and some fake ones but it all ended in an learning experience about people. My opinions about people have changed this year because i learned about how people have different opinions and personalities and you have to learn them.

man eating another mans face

In miami a man named Rudy Eugene started to eat Ronald Poppo's face. Ronald poppo was homeless and defenseless. They found rudy on top of ronald eating his face in a beast like behavior. The cop told him to stop and Ronald roared at him and then the cop shot him and he died. They said Ronald was on drugs called bath salt. Bath salt makes you really crazy and in some states it is banned. He went on a LSD trip and they say it might be cocaine. LSD makes the body temperature rise and makes you want to take all your clothes of so that made Ronald take his clothes off. A lot of people think this is a Zombie apoclypse happenning and people are really scared.

I think this is really scary that people get so high to the fact they want to eat someone's face. When i heard this i was so shocked and i was confused. But i don't think this is a zombie problem because i dont believe in things like that. People just made up everything and people actually believe it. It is scary but the man was just on drugs really hard and he had lost control of his mind.

Tony Hawk said "I believe that people should take pride in what they do, even if it is scorned or misunderstood by the public at large."

I agree with tony hawk because people need to follow their dreams and do what they believe. The world out their scorns everything you do if your not normal, have a normal job, hang around normal people and listen to normal music. They want life to be so black and white but once you mix in a little color they talk about you or say its not good for you. If you believe and take their word you'll just regret doing it later on in life. Sometimes your better off doing what you want to do and following your dreams. For instance, Kanye West, My favorite artist. He is fashion designer and a musician. He has influence me and the world in abundance! Since that Taylor Swift incident, people hated him. If he would of stopped writing music he would have stop following his dreams. Despise all the words he has been called and how much he has been scorned by the world he still went for what he loved and thats making music.

No matter what people say to you or how much they look down at you, you should still follow what you believe in. Another example is your religion. If everybody hates your religion are you going to stop following what you believe in because of the rest of the world's opinions? I wouldn't. So i agree with tony hawk 100%.

whiteness

The article "Broadcasting a World of Whiteness" by Jon Carmanaica is about how on tv their a lot of white actors and less minorities. The article says that in a show called "Girls" there is only white young females looking for love but no race other than white. They also state that on big shows on ABC and CBS that their are not enough minorities that act as a main role. Also on a show called "The Bachelor" they denied to black men and they thought it had something to do with their race.

I think that there are not enough shows on television with diverse cast. Sometimes when there's a show about 4 guys finding love or any comedy thing there is usually 3 white guys and 1 black guy. Why couldn't it just be 3 black guys and 1 guy, then it would be called an african american movie and a lot of people wouldn't want to watch. It goes back to being a racial issue in america. Some producers would rather put white people in because thats what people are comfortable with and there is nothing wrong with producers trying to make a hit show but out of 10 people could at least 4 of them not be white? I have watch something that was racist but its so sad i just laugh it off. There's nothing I could do but watch but its funny of how pathetic it is.

Producers should make a diverse show with every kind of race and not make it a "Mexican show" or a "African American show" but just a "show".

gun fashion.'

The new fashion is now clothes that hides your gun and makes it more comfortable for you. A company called Woolrich made these clothes. They added front and back pockets to hide your gun, knife or flashlight. Some people like the clothes because it hides the gun and makes them look less sloppy or makes it more appealing. They want to have a gun but they also want to look good having one. Some people think it useless because they rather look like a regular guy with a gun and not so fashionable with a gun. The law allows this and in most states they allow you to walk around with a gun and a permit for it.

I think this clothing line is very absurd. What's the point to look fashionable with a gun? Why have a gun anyway? I think this lets a lot of people think its okay to have a gun. Also since it is easier to pull the gun out and easier to use they would probably want to pull out their gun and look cool doing it with their new clothes specially made for their gun. I think these clothes are very unnecessary because it doesnt really matter weather you look good with a gun or not. This doesn't really affect me because i dont have a gun and im not interest in having one. But some people really like these clothes and can't wait to be in style with their gun.

Abortion

On April 12th 2012, Shayira Farmer came in to talk to 9th  graders about Abortion. She showed them a poster board and a power point on how Abortion kills life and how that there are other options. There are 1.37  million abortions per year and about 3,700 abortions a day. She said that some reasons that women have abortions is that they are too young or they are just not ready for the responsibility. Also that some fathers aren't always there and women don't want to be a single mother. 52% of all abortions happen to women under the age of 25. She made the presentation for her 12th grade final project to graduate. Farmer said she chose that type to keep teenagers away from pregnancy and abortion and that she chose this because millions of women have abortion and it hurts them physically and mentally. Farmer said "There are other options like adoption, birth control and condoms. There are other options why not try it?

Farmer said she wants to attend Virginia State college. When students asked if she had got pregnant now, would she get an abortion and surprisingly she said yes. She stated that she is too young and she is not ready for a baby.

I think that abortions are absurd. Why would you want to take someones life? I believe that the life starts at the fetus. You can always have the baby but give it someone who can not have a baby. If you are old enough to have sex you are old enough to deal with the consequences.

kim and kanye

Kanye West has a recent crush on celebrity Kim Kardashian. There love been in magazines, articles and entertainment shows. Kanye West just released an song called Theraflu and is mostly about Kim. Kim recently just divorced her husband Kris Humpries and kanye wesr said in his song that kris humpries is lucky that he didnt get his close friend jay z kick him out the nets since jay z owns part of the nets. According to eonline.com kim kardashian's mother said "First of all, he's been a friend of the family for so long and so I love them both," Kris said. "But, you know, I stopped trying to make judgments on who they [her kids] go out with because I always get myself into trouble."


In huffingtonpost.com they say  "But sources tell TMZ it's nothing personal against the rapper; Jenner just wants Kardashian to proceed with caution and not rush into things after filing to divorcehusband of 72 days, Kris Humphries, in October 2011."


i think that it doesnt matter weather they date or not, its their lives. Although Kim is rushing into it because she just got out of an relationship that only lasted 3 months. Even if they proceed with this i think they wouldnt get far into it. Kanye west looks like he likes girls like Kim so he doesnt really have a bad affect of his part but im worried about Kim.

Trayvon Martin

On February 26, 2012 a 17 year old black male died in Florida which caused so much diversity in America. Trayvon Martin was walking home from the store one day with nothing but a bag of skittles and a bottle of ice tea. He was just going home to his father and that's when George Michael Zimmerman shot Martin and ended his life. Zimmerman is a Hispanic man that followed Martin saying he felt "threatened". Zimmerman is apart of a Neighborhood watch so he is liscened to have a gun. Martin was on the phone during the night he was walking back home, he was talking to his girlfriend. Martin had a hoodie on and people think that was the cause that he had got shot that night. Police say that they cannot arrest Zimmerman because they do not have enough evidence that it was not self defense. Both Martin and Zimmerman called the police that night and when they arrived the 17 year old boy was dead laying on the floor with only skittles and ice tea, with a bullet in his chest.

I think that this is so outrageous that this young man is dead. He did not deserve it all. Martin was unarmed and he is only a teenager, how is he suppose to harm a grown man and succeed with it? It is such a shame that this grown man can shoot an innocent teenager and not be sent to jail. People have been reporting this as a racial issue. Even though Zimmerman is a hispanic male he has traits of a white male and this is probably making him safe and not going to jail. If it were Martin alive right now and Zimmerman dead, Martin would be guilty until proven innocent but it is vice versa for Zimmerman. Some people say that because of his hoodie he had gotten shot because "thugs" were hoodies on their heads but as I learn more about it in research it was raining that night and if it is raining why wouldn't you make a quick run to the store with a hoodie? This is just another proven case that their is still racism out in America.

I hope the best for martin's family and i strongly hope that Zimmerman gets what he deserves which is to be in jail for manslaughter. RIP Trayvon Martin.

most births outside marriage

The article writen by Jason Deparle and Sabrina Tavernise is talking about how people have children without being married. Most women are having children before they are married. This is affecting the children that are born outside marriage in a bad way. The article says that usually people have children after they are married but now people are having children without being married. According to "The shift is affecting children's lives. Researchers have consistently found that children born outside marriage face elevated risks of falling into poverty, failing in school or suffering emotional and behavioral problems."

I think that you should get married before you have children because it is tradition. If you are married your child might come out better because they will have both their parents. When you are not married i think you are less committed and you will break up faster but if you are you will work things out because you are married with your partner. It would be better for the child to grow up living in the same house with their mother and father. I think people are not getting married before children because they are scared of commitment and scared of falling in love and getting married. I think i will get married before having a child unless it was an accident i would never abort my baby but i will try to get married while a the baby.

kony 2012

There is video that is getting millions of views on youtube about a guy named Joseph Kony. Kony is a man who takes children from there home and use them as sex slaves and force them to be a soldier and go into war. He also forces them to do labor. The video was about how to try to tell people about Kony and what he was doing. The United States now put a stop to this and they have captured Kony. Kony has been active since 2003 and people never knew about it until now. King5.com said "Kony is Joseph Kony, a mad warlord who's been leading a rebel army fighting the Ugandan government for decades. " Kony was on the top of the list for united states for them to capture him. He has killed millions of kids and put them through to much that a kid should not be going through.


I think this is bad. I watched the video and it was a very sad thing to watch. When the little boy cried about how he lost his brother i felt sad for him and all the other little kids that lost their family because of Kony. I don't understand why someone would want to do this to children. I am glad that Kony is arrested and he isn't doing what he was doing anymore. I think people should now raise awareness of what he was doing because it's said that the world didn't know about it till he is now captured. 

Facebook trouble?

In this article called "Facebook is using you" the author Lori Andrews talked about how Facebook is making money by advertising and that how people can look up what you do on the Internet and judge you by it. They talk about how you would get denied for something for the wrong thing you put on the Internet and what you talk about. You put a lot of personal information of yourself on the Internet and colleges, jobs and the IRS could deny you. The people you look you up are called "data aggregators". The article says "If I've googles "diabetes" for a friend or "date rape drugs" for a mystery story I'm writing, data aggregators assume those searchers reflect my own health and lifestyle.

I think that it is bad for people to look you up on the Internet and see what you are talking about. If you look up the wrong thing you could be denied of something and it could effect your life dramatically. After reading this i am more concerned about what i put online because if i write something weird it can affect me later in life, colleges might not accept me and jobs might not hire me. I think the main point of this article is that she wants to inform readers how people can search you u and how the Internet and what you look up can affect you. Also to tell you how you should use Facebook and other social networks carefully and be careful what you searched up.

back together.

Chris brown and Rihanna had a huge incident in 2008. Chris brown beat Rihanna in the car that day. After the incident Rihanna filed a restraining order against chris brown the same year. The news was filled with this news and everybody was so astonished that chris brown would do this.

Last year 2011, The restraining order was lifted and they called it off. Rihanna posted on twitter and asked her followers who should she have on her song "Birthday Cake", since the song was a half song. People said they want Chris Brown and it was done. Chris brown featured on the Birthday Cake remix song. After they declared that chris brown will be on the remix there were instant rumors that the old couple would get back together.

i think theres nothing wrong with them getting back together. if they can get over it, people should be able to get over it. There is no for sure answer if they are going to get back together so why is everyone even so hyped up about it. They just made 2 songs together and are now friends. They were at her birthday party and Hollywood Life said "At RiRi’s birthday party, it was pretty clear that she wanted Chris. 'Rihanna and Chris were very much together,' shares a witness. They arrived together around 1 am, and Chris stood by Rihanna as she cut into her birthday cake."

Criminal

In this article Michelle Alexander states that everyone is a criminal and that people who actually got caught commiting a crime get treated a different way than people who didn't get caught. She says "If everyone were forced to acknowledge their own criminality, maybe we, as a nation, would second-guess our apparent zeal for denying full citizenship to those branded felons." She that people who are labeled as criminals get treated bad and can't get their full rights back. Some can't vote, get jobs or even get in college. She gives an example and says that Obama admitted that he did illegal drugs in the past and isn't judged as a criminal because he hasn't went to jail for it but others are judged as a criminal because they got caught for it.

I think that she is right, people should have rights to do things after they get out of jail but i think it should be determined on what they did and how severe there crime was. For example if you still a shirt or maybe even driving drunk and you get caught they will send you to jail and judge you as a criminal and you maybe will not get your rights back but you should. As to if you rob a bank or kill someone you  should get some of your rights taken from you and should be labeled as a criminal. There are people who still candy from a store and there are people who robbed a bank and still get away with it, they are still criminals because what they did was against the law. There should be a scale or way to take the amount of rights from someone for the certain crime they did.

Photoshop.

This article is about how some celebrities photoshop themselves to make them look skinny and better looking then they actually are. Photoshop can take away pimples off your face and even make you skinny. It can change your appearance in amazing ways. Photoshop can make a unappealing person look gorgeous.  Dr. Farid and Eric Kee are proposing a software tool that will measure how much the photo have been altered or touched by photoshop, They are making the scale 1 to 5.

I think that altering a photo to make it look like women are perfect will definitely make other women self-esteem low, ex specially teenagers. If a teen looks at a picture of there role model or a picture of an actress that gets a lot of attention they would want to be like them and look like them. If the person there looking at in the picture looks flawless and super skinny the teenager would think their fat and would probably starve their selves or throw up. Teenager girls are very insecure and they want to look like girls that get a lot of attention so they would do whatever they can to reach that goal. If the actress they are looking at isn't even that skinny in person why would you want a child to think their fat or not appealing.

I think altered images should be labeled that it was altered in the magazines because teenagers would get depressed and insecure about themselves so if they know that the picture isn't real, they wouldn't really care.

Apple's problem

In the article "In chine, human costs are built into an iPad" they talk about problems that apple have been having. In the beginning they say how a employee, Lai Ziadong face blew up and his skin came off and shortly died after. The reason why he died is because the factory was having trouble with aluminum dust and they already knew that aluminum dust was hazardous but they still went along with it. In the factory they had bad conditions and the workers complained a lot but apple didn't care. Apple kept denying the fact that it was bad, they said " Conditions at foxxconn are anything but harsh", they also said "Foxxconn has a safety record."

After the explosion they improved ventilation and dust disposal, and adopted technologies to have safety for the workers, but it was too late someone had already died. Most people said that they like apple and don't find anything bad about it and a little bit of people said bad things about it. Most people don't know about this and they continue to buy apple products.

I think that it is bad that some apple factories do not have good safety for the workers and that they could die any time if something slips up. Apple products are very good but i stil think they should make the workers feel safety. I own a apple product and it works very good. Hopefully apple protects their employees and no more explosions happen in factories.

What teenagers really do on social networks

This is based off of a article called "Cracking teenagers' online codes". This article is about how Dr. Danah Boyd figures out what goes on with teenagers online. Dr. Danah is a social media worker, she researchers stuff about teenagers and how they act. Dr. Boyd also dresses like a teenager, so i think she relates to them more than other adults to actually figure out how teenagers feel.

Dr. Boys talked about how parents need to give teenagers more freedom so they can experience and explore more thing online. She said that most teenagers don't get the freedom to go outside because parents think it is more dangerous outside then it ever was before, but actually the decade we live in isn't the worst with murders, rapes, and other violence activities. She says that since teenagers don't get freedom, they like to go on the internet and talk to people and talk about things they would talk about if they were hanging out.  Dr. Boys also mentions that parents shouldn't worry so much, if they give their kids a little freedom, it would be okay.

I think Dr. Boyd is right, Parents should give teenagers more freedom. My mother never really lets me go out sometimes because she thinks its dangerous and not safe for me. Sometimes I understand that she wants me to be safe but you should let your child get some freedom to explore and have fun and their young days. Dr. Boys probably is one of the only adults that actually understands what teenagers go through, we want privacy like everyone else too.

Gay rights in New york, law passed

New York finally passed the law to let Same sex get married. The law was passed July 24th 2011. New york rejected same sex marriage on December 2nd 2009 with a vote on 38-24. Legalizing same sex marriage will gain over $210 million in the three years. Some people are scared that legalizing same sex will cause more people to get AIDS. New York is the sixth and largest state to legalize gay marriage.

I think that it is very great that they finally legalized. Gay people should have the rights to marry who they want. I do believe that people should be able to marry who they want and that they are born that way. If they like the same sex, that just what they like. Gay couples are going to exist either they get married or not, it doesn't hurt you so why should it matter? What would be your first argument anyway? Are you that evil to ban a human to be happy and marry another person? Just because you have the power to ban something doesn't mean you should. There's no bad things that will happen against gay marriage.

“I apologize for those who feel offended,” Mr. Grisanti said, adding, “I cannot deny a person, a human being, a taxpayer, a worker, the people of my district and across this state, the State of New York, and those people who make this the great state that it is the same rights that I have with my wife.” 


I think what Mr. Grisanti said was beautiful. He is telling the truth and i am glad that a man doesn't feel ashamed of saying that and agreeing that it is okay for gay people to get married. For all the people who voted for gay rights in New york to be approved and the law to be passed should be proud that they made such a big difference in someone's live. 

Teenagers relationships

Benoit Denizet-Lewis of the New York times made an article called "Teaching Kids How to break up nicely." Benoit researches how teenagers break up, and how it isn't so nice.

Teenagers like to break up with each other on "Facebook". After they change their relationship status to single and wait until their partner sees it and get a broken heart. They also will unfriend their partner. The article says that "racing to update your relationship status after a breakup is a healthy behavior."

I think that is unhealthy to have a "Facebook" based relationships. If you rush to break up with somebody on the internet that is very unhealthy and that seems like you never cared about this person, teenagers will still do the same thing because of the decade and time we live in.

I had a relationship which they guy put single as his status, but i hardly got into all the Facebook things. He was mad of out break up so the exact next second he changed his status. I think that it is very childish of anyone to do that.

This Article did kind of make me think about the topic. It makes me realize how childish teenagers are and how they should grow up and stop being petty about a break up. This article made me wonder why teenagers can't grow up sometimes. Nobody wants someone that cant handle a situation.

Biggest story of 2011.

The biggest news story of 2011 is the death of Osama bin Laden. Osama bin Laden is the founder of a terrorist group Al-Qaeda, which people think did the september 11 attack.

Osama bin Laden was born March 10th 1957 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He had 20 children and six wives. Osama was on the FBI's most wanted list and he was a major target for about 10 years. He was a very wanted man by the government.

Osama bin Laden was in hiding in a "safe house" for years. Barack Obama ordered a small group of navy seals to go into his safe house and find him. As soon as they saw a man that they thought was Osama they imediatley shot him in his head. Anybody that they saw in the safe house was shot and dead. They took his body to Afghanistan to identify his body and make sure that was him and then they buried him at sea. The government wouldn't tell what sea they buried him. 

America celebrated the Death of the Terrorist because he would no longer be able to harm anymore. I think that the government set all of this up, even 9/11. The things that i've researched just doesn't add up to me anymore. The way that the twin towers fell and doesn't make sense to me. The twin towers blew up to big and massive that its hard to believe. RIP OSAMA BIN LADEN.