Picture This (hey, that's a scioly event!)

For my choice memoir, I read Breaking Night by Elizabeth Murray. I chose this book because I was quite interested how a homeless person could go to Harvard.

But it turns out her journey to Harvard was a lot more than being homeless, and studying, and going to Harvard. Growing up, both her parents were addicted to coke and during their teenage years, been busted for being one of the main dealers in the Bronx. When Elizabeth's dad was arrested and jailed, her mom went clean to start a new life for herself and her children, Elizabeth and older sister Lisa.

Growing up was still tough. Elizabeth's mom was legally blind and could not work. Elizabeth's dad went to college for 2 years but dropped and doesn't have a job. Their family of four lives off a monthly welfare check, which was mostly spent on drugs. Growing up, her parents were usually to high to take care of the kids and Elizabeth got in a lot of trouble and cut school.

"...there was a sharp knock at the door. Immediately falling into the mode I devised for would-be social workers, I cautiously approached the door, tiptoeing, ready to peer out the peephole. To my horror, Ma--by this time not in her right mind, dressed only in an obviously filthy, extra long T-shirt--had gotten there first and was already unsnapping the locks" (Murray 82).

The symbolic picture I drew is an envelope from the government to Elizabeth. The envelope could contain anything, just like how life could throw anything at Elizabeth. It could be a monthly welfare check. It could be a warning from the school board that Elizabeth is cutting school. It could be the police, catching Elizabeth's parents for buying drugs. It is just like her life, anything could come.

And the only way she can figure out what will happen, is open the envelope, and keep living life.

First Quarter Poetry Journal Reflection

Welcome to my journal reflection where you will be crying tears of happiness pain because of how great bad my poems are. Don't say I didn't warn you...




Hallways

Late already
Knowing a detention waits you if you arrive tardy
Sprinting down the hallway
As if death himself were chasing you

Until a group of people
Walking single file
Across
The hallway, no way
                 Up
Left                            Right
            or Below

You walk behind
Cursing the whole time
Wondering why people can't be more aware
Wondering why the world can't be a place where people know the consequences of their actions

After the class, you meet up with a group of friends
You all are heading to lunch, no worries
Sam shows you a funny picture
You all laugh
As if there was no care in the world

Yet, what you don't know is
Curses that go around
Will always come around



BUT WAIT!
THE RIDE'S NOT OVER JUST YET!
KEEP GOING ONWARD....






Anaylsis of SAO

SAO

Sword Art Online

2nd most popular anime
In the US
What is anime?
No time to explain here

But Wikipedia always has time to explain

Good plot ideas
That work in theory
But not in practice
Teenagers stuck inside a video game
With no way out
Except to beat the game
Sounds good so far?
Keep reading!!

Main character, Kirito-kun
Your average over powered protagonist
Hides the fact that he is high leveled
To his low leveled friends
And gets them all killed
But don't worry,
He gets all the ladies too
Badly written romance
That goes and ends



  N
O
W
                                         H
       E
                       R
                 E

With too many pretty girls like Asuna

And so many more
I can't even remember their names

It’s not a harem, right?
Or is it?
?
Bad character development
Most characters get less than
Fifteen minutes of screen time
Ones who are lucky enough to get more screen time
Develop as characters when

Klein can eat his pizza

Which is never

Because Kirito will always be

The over powered protagonist

And Asuna will always always be

The over powered protagonists's wife

Creating the most cliche over powered couple

But it's all OK

Because Asuna and Kirito get married

And they have a kid

Well not really, they adopt one

And they kiss

But they're still an awkward couple

And they live happily ever after

Just kidding!

Because Kirito dies while fighting the boss

And if you die in the game, you die in real life

Just kidding!

Because Kirito overrides the death system

Because he's an overpowered protagonist 

And he can do whatever he wants

So he defeats the boss

And the game starts to fall apart

And they all die

Just kidding!

You can't end an anime after 14 episodes!

Psh! That's outrageous!

So Kirito wakes up in a hospital

But for some reason, when you're gone for 

Two years straight, you develop some

Family issues

And that's a problem 

Because Kirito needs to be an onii-chan!

But wait!

Where's Asuna?

Oh no, she's stuck in another video game!

What will Kirito do?

Guess you have to watch it to find out!

In recap

Drama queen ending

Too much crying

Too much kissing and cheap love

Too much fan service

Too much crap in general

Not enough plot

Not enough action

Not enough character development

I rate

10/10

Good watch!

No clue what I'm talking about? Try this link. Or don't. But proceed at your own risk. I warned you...




*Phew* We all survived that didn't we? Yeah, somehow we did.
OK, that second one got a little longer than I planned. I'm sorry, I have weird things I do in my free time. Don't judge.

Themes I chose for these poems were ones I really feel connected to. I chose the first one because it's something that I experience quite a lot, especially at a school with so many students such as Mason High School. When I originally wrote it, it started off as a rant, like I do sometimes in my journal. My revising process mainly involved taking an unorganized and random rant and (and removing a few bad words) putting all the thoughts into a condensed and organized "poem", if anything I write can be called poetry. One thing I really wanted to get across in the poem was the fact to make the fact that you're blocking someone else meaning get through, without explicitly saying it, although the first time my friends and I ticked somebody off in the hallway, the person said it quite explicitly.

Oh, boy, the second one. This is one I really wanted to write just because I had so much fun writing it. If you couldn't tell yet, I love having fun ranting about things I don't enjoy. The inspiration for the poem came from the "Analysis of Baseball" poem we read in class. The one thing I tried to do but couldn't figure out was how to set the formatting on Blogger into columns, so instead it's just a really, really long poem.  (geez formatting on Blogger is harder than sticking to a diet and exercise regime). Another reason I really wanted to publish this one was because a friend of mine (who shall remain unnamed but if have more than a brain of the person who made SAO, you probably know who) wrote the same piece as I did and this is all we write about we just both had so much fun writing it. I did not revise this piece all too much. I mostly pulled it straight out of my journal. I did add some lines (and of course the beautiful pictures) and did some rearranging but I feel like the way I wrote it originally got the point across pretty well, so I did not make any huge revisions.


Ok but I'm seriously sorry you had to sit through that, especially you Mrs.Leitsch. Judge me all you like!!!!!

First Quarter Independent Reading Reflection

I did not read many books this quarter, but everything I did read, I really did enjoy.
I completed a whopping total of 4 (technically a lot more if you count my manga reading, but just something tells me that doesn't count) books (WOW!!! So much I know, thank you) and am currently working on finishing a book. This is a LOT less than I would usually read but it's been tricky finding chunks of time set out for just reading.

The best book I read this quarter was A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park (DaVinci Code was good, but that was a re-read, so I won't count it). The story is about two different children in Sudan and their experiences getting to water. The reason why I chose this as my favorite is because I really liked how the book was structured and how the author laid out the plot so it was very engaging. My favorite part was definitely the ending, but I won't spoil it.

The difficulty of the books I chose this quarter ranged from pretty easy to just a little bit above my comfort level. I chose this difficulty because when I read for enjoyment, I try to choose books that I can read while relaxing or not really having to think too hard about the book, and to me the difficulty I can do this is the range from easy to slightly above comfort level.Types of books I've always liked was fiction (especially fantasy and realistic fiction) but I think now I'm discovering that memoirs are good reads (but not the type that are really boring and that your 15th century style English teacher makes you read. 

Personally, I did not feel any of my reading this quarter was "spiritual reading". I think the hardest thing for me to get into spiritual reading is the fact that most of the reading I did this quarter was in 5-10 minute chunks. For me, to really get into my book, I need to set aside a  fairly large portion of time (30+ minutes) and I couldn't really find time chunks this large for just reading this semester. I think to get to "spiritual reading", I need to find larger chunks of time to read, and being more relaxed while reading (like in my bed, eating my favorite food) and most of all, reading in a peaceful environment.

My goals for next quarter independent reading, is firstly  read more, read more, and read more. This quarter, I have set independent reading on the back burner, as an afterthought and my goal next quarter is to instead of picking up my phone, picking up a book. My next goal is to read in larger chunks. I think I could read more effectively if it wasn't divided up into 5-10 minute chunks.  

Maybe it would also help to read more actual novels, but I won't elaborate on that.

Personal Narrative Poetry Extension

See It Through

by Edgar Guest

When you're up against a trouble,

Meet it squarely, face to face;

Lift your chin and set your shoulders,

Plant your feet and take a brace.

When it's vain to try to dodge it,

Do the best that you can do;

You may fail, but you may conquer,

See it through!

Black may be the clouds about you

And your future may seem grim,

But don't let your nerve desert you;

Keep yourself in fighting trim.

If the worst is bound to happen,

Spite of all that you can do,

Running from it will not save you,

See it through!

Even hope may seem but futile,

When with troubles you're beset,

But remember you are facing

Just what other men have met.

You may fail, but fall still fighting;

Don't give up, whate'er you do;

Eyes front, head high to the finish.

See it through!

The theme of my narrative is persevere through the hardships in life, and eventually, you will reap the rewards. The first place in my narrative that describes the theme is when I had played what I thought what was a good move, but instead turned out to be a bad move. Afterwards, I lost control of all my thoughts, and all I could think of was losing, and I could have given (or in chess, resigned) right there, but instead I kept playing and persevering on. The second place in my narrative that describes the theme is when chess club already ended, and I was still in a losing endgame with Joey. In that situation, I also could have resigned and went home, but instead, I chose to persevere on and keep playing. The final place in my narrative that describes the theme is the end where I get my reward, the candy bar. Because I persevered through  the whole game, even when I was losing, I was rewarded, showing that persevering through the hard times in life will pay off later. 

The theme of the poem I chose is to see everything through to the end. The first place where the theme is mentioned in the poem is the last two lines of the first stanza where it says, "You may fail, or you may conquer, See it through!". This line shows, that you should always see through, or persevere through your hardships because in the end, you never know if you'll win or lose. The second place where the poem mentions the theme is in the second stanza: "spite of all you can do, running from it will not save you". This line shows that not persevering and running away does not help you solve the situation, so you would be better off persevering. The final place where the poem mentions the theme is in the last stanza: you may fail, but fall still fighting...eyes front, head high to finish." This line shows that even if you fail, at least if you persevere through, you will fall fighting, being defeated by someone else, not by defeating yourself. 

Kevin Zhu's Introductory Blog Post

Why Being Lazy Isn't the Worst Thing You Can Do With Your Life

"I will always choose a lazy person to do a difficult job because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it." -Bill Gates*

Seeing the quote, and knowing the kind the person I am, you might think this is just one of my distasteful jokes to sound slightly funny or to seem slightly interesting. However, I truly do believe that this quote shows one of the ways I view the world

If you ask anyone today a quality of a successful person today, one of the first things they might rattle off to you is "hardworking". On the flip side, if you ask for qualities of an unsuccessful person, I will guarantee, "lazy" is, if not the first, the second thing they will tell you. However, what exactly defines lazy? Is it a person who always sits on the couch watching TV? Or is it a person who never does homework, cuts class, and flunks all his exams? Or is it simply just someone who takes shortcuts on certain everyday tasks?

I believe, in today's society, the term lazy is quite misunderstood. When someone says the word lazy today, the first image that pops into many people's minds is a fat person lying down on a tattered, old couch, eating a slice of pizza, grease dripping down his 5 chins, watching The Biggest Loser on TV. This, to me is completely wrong. Lazy should not be such a derogative term. All I think that lazy should mean, is a one who is smart and skilled enough to know to cut a few corners and still get the same result.

For example, let's say you have a 10 page handwritten essay due the next day, and after binge watching Pretty Little Liars for the past 8 hours (oh, don't deny it, we all know you love that show), you realize you have not even gotten started on that assignment. Also, your crabby English teacher insists that you must cite all your sources in MLA format (which is enough writing in itself. Geez, why does MLA get to make all the rules?), and on top of that you must write the citations using the stupid algorithm she taught you in class. Of course, you don't care for using algorithms, so you decide to use easybib. Now, by taking this course of action, you may be called lazy or a cheater, but let's stop and question ourselves. Were you smart enough to cut a corner? Yes. Did you save a lot of time and effort? Yes. Did you get the same result? Yes. Did you hurt anybody in the process? No. (OK, let's be honest here. You aren't growing up in the 15th century like your English teacher did. Not knowing how to manually cite a source won't hinder you in your pursuit of academic success.)

So your friend who manually did all the citations got 100 on the paper, but you got an 100 also. You achieved your end result, and did less work than your friend did for it. In my corny example, all you save is a little time and a lot of sanity, but if this were in a big corporation, and someone finds an easier, or lazy way to do something, it could save the corporation millions or billions of dollars. Nobody called Henry Ford when he developed an easier and more efficient way to mass produce products, the assembly line, but everybody calls you lazy when you find an more efficient way to finish your English paper. Of course, Henry Ford's is on a much larger scale than yours, but essentially, both you and Ford are doing the same thing: finding an easier way to get something accomplished. 

I guess the point I'm trying to get across here is that cutting corners and being lazy should not be a bad thing. People are more innovative when they try to find a easier way to do something. If everybody just accepted the way we live, and not try to find ways to improve on it, then I would be writing this inside a cave, and hunting and gathering for my food. Technology was innovated so we could be lazier, and live life easier. So the next time you're faced with a daunting task, ask yourself, is this an appropriate time to cut corners and be lazy (washing the dishes, good time; building a house, not a good time). If so, don't be stupid, take the easier way out. Why do more more work when you don't have to?


Too Long Didn't Read? Or Couldn't Stand My Bad Jokes and Ranting?
It's not a bad thing to be lazy.


Background Information:

*The origin of this quote is actually not clear. Many people believe that Bill Gates was the one that said it, but there is not enough information to directly pinpoint the origin of this quote.

Bill Gates is an American business magnate, philanthropist, investor, computer programmer, and inventor. In 1975 Bill Gates co-founded Microsoft and served as CEO and chief software architect, and is the founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. Up until recently, Bill Gates had been the richest person in the world.

For more info on Bill Gates, click here. 

To hear someone else's opinion on laziness, click here.