Laser Tag

Amidst all the boredom of summer, there are some days where I actually can do something fun! LASER TAG!!!!!!! As you might have guessed, I really like it. It's kind of like paintball, with an arena and obstacles and stuff, but it doesn't hurt! You run around so much (which is technically against the rules), but you don't even really notice! If you haven't tried it, you HAVE to!

Driving

Well, I got my permit yesterday! It's kind of exciting to finally be driving, although to tell the truth I'm not nearly as excited as people are telling me I should be. Anyway, I got to drive around a church parking lot for a little while yesterday and I'm going to be learning the ways of the stick shift today! Hope you're all doing well!

The Parting of Ways

Isn't it ironic that every ray of sunshine has a shadow to counter it? This year has been my favorite year in school. I learned how to focus better in school so I'd do well, I made way more friends, and had relatively good classes and teachers (with a few exceptions). This has also been my least favorite school year. A lot of my friends (including my best friend) are going to go to Layton HS next year, while I go to Davis. Also, I've now got an overloaded 10th grade year to look forward to next year! Still, I wouldn't do 9th grade over again, as it was as close to a perfect year as I'll ever get. And anyway, if all goes as planned, I'll stay in contact with my friends and we'll get together frequently over the next few years.

Because it was my last year in Jr. High, my parents bought me a yearbook this year! At the signing, I was kind of shocked at how many people I knew! I spent forever getting all my friends and favorite teachers to sign my yearbook. Thank you everyone for signing! You're all amazing people! Keep reading my blogs!

Letter From Mr. T

This is my letter from Mr. T written by myself. The assignment was to write a letter from Mr. T's perspective and give yourself an analysis on how you did in the course. I personally think that this letter is not all that far off from the truth and I'm sure Mr. T agrees as well!

Dear Moe,
Bravo! There is nothing that I like more in a student, especially when in honors, than having a student who will stick it through to the very end. In your case, what makes sticking it through even more incredible, is you posted everything on time for both your blog and your forum. You also did every writing contest and essay on time, too! This is not something that I can say about every student, which makes the praise that much more special. The only problem that I have to admonish you on is that while you did everything on time, occasionally it wasn't your VERY best work. I would imagine that this would be a result of procrastination and encourage you to change such behavior as you move on to a less forgiving high school. Overall, however, I believe that you deserve an "A" for the class for on time, relatively creative blogs and forum posts. I could tell that as the year passed, your posts become a lot more organized and the errors in them lessened. Once again, Bravo!

Sincerely,
Mr. T

"So Long And Thanks For All The Fish"!

Well, since this is probably among the last posts I'll ever make on my blog, I'll take this chance to say good-bye to all the friends and family who ever bothered to read what I wrote. I'd also like to wish the worst of luck to anyone who didn' t read what I wrote! OK, I'm just kidding there! I'll probably still post on my blog every once and a while, but I doubt I'll ever write a 500 word post again! Phew!

Literary Comparison

Literary Comparison: To Kill A Mockingbird and Walk Two Moons

Scout and Salamanca are two very interesting, girl characters from two different books. Scout is the main character from To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Salamanca is the main character from Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech. Both girls, however, have lots of similarities and differences between them. Both characters are brave, but while Scout is a tomboy and close to her father, Salamanca is a normal girl who is distanced from her father.

One of the ways in which the two characters are different is in their views of their fathers. In To Kill A Mockingbird, Atticus, the father, is someone who Scout admires a lot. This is a quote that I thought brought this point together really well. “It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.”(Scout’s thoughts from Chapter 11, pg. 105). In this passage, Scout is admiring her father because he acted nobly in shooting the rabid dog. Salamanca, from Walk Two Moons, on the other hand, seemed to think that her dad was good, but not the best. This is done more with a regretful tone rather than outrightly stating it. A quote that sort of shows this is as follows. “I wish my father had not been such a good man so I could have had someone to blame for my mother’s leaving.” (Salamanca’s thoughts from chapter 18, pg. 113). All throughout the chapter, you get hints such as this one which pretty much say that Salamanca thinks he’s a respectable guy, but not an outstanding character. As you can see, Scout worships her father, while Salamanca only respects hers.

Another difference between the two characters, Scout and Salamanca, is their upbringing. Scout was raised as a tomboy. She beat up people she didn’t like, wore overalls, and hated dresses. A quote that illustrates this from To Kill aA Mockingbird states, “She seemed glad to see me when I appeared in the kitchen, and by watching her I began to think there was some skill involved in being a girl.” (Scout’s thoughts from Chapter 12, pg. 124) Scout knows that she is a girl, but she hasn’t been brought up to act like it. Salamanca, on the other hand, never had that problem and grew up as a normal girl. Sal has long hair, so in Walk Two Moons, Salamanca thought, “Everyone kept touching my hair...”(Salamanca’s thoughts from Chapter 3, pg. 12) If Sal had been like Scout, she would never have tolerated that.

These two different characters do have some similarities though. For example, both were were expected to be brave. Scout was expected to be brave by her family. In To Kill A Mockingbird, Scout’s father said, "It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do." (Atticus from Chapter 11, pg. 106) In this excerpt, Atticus is telling Scout that sometimes you have to be brave and do dangerous things. Likewise, for Salamanca, everybody seemed to look to her for bravery. A quote that illustrates this from Walk Two Moons follows. “All around the room, people were acting as if I had single-handedly taken on a fire-breathing dragon.” (Salamanca’s thought’s from Chapter 3, pg. 14) In this passage, Salamanca takes care of a bug that is terrorizing the class. Salamanca doesn’t let fear get in the way of common sense, which makes her brave. Both Scout and Salamanca are very brave characters.


While both Scout and Salamanca are brave, both of these characters have their differences. Scout and Salamanca are different in how they feel about their fathers and in the style of their upbringing as girls. Even though they are different, they are still both really strong, stoic girls raised by their fathers. I liked the books, Walk Two Moons and To Kill A Mockingbird.

Factory Teens: The Thinking Dilemma

Most of us have by now heard the opinion that the current generation of kids are becoming a mindless generation. We act and think like we're off an assembly line. We all do virtually the same types of things, eat the same types of food, wear the same types of clothes, etc. But what about the people responsible for the creation of these factory-kids? In today's factories (in the U.S.), who is it that usually makes the goods? Normally, it's a machine, programmed to do only a couple of things. In fact, the number of machines in a factory usually outnumber the human beings by a vast majority. This is the world that adults have created for us. So lets, as factory teens, take a good look at our creators...the robot adults. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be disrespectful to adults, I'm just simply pointing out that the reason that we aren't being individual is because the adults in our lives aren't acting any differently. Recently at school, with all the End Of Level testing going on, I'm seeing more and more examples to support this theory. For example, this year in my English class, we have just started the Romeo and Juliet unit. As a part of the unit, we were supposed to learn a dance. It was a dance that was actually created a couple hundred years AFTER Shakespeare's time. While we were in the circle learning the dance, I asked the teacher,"Why are we doing this? Is there any point behind it?" My teacher then rounds on me and says curtly,"I don't know, just do it." I doubt very much that my teacher even thought for a couple of seconds about what to say to me when I asked her that, and that is exactly the problem that I have with adults these days. I'm not even going to pretend to have an idea on how the adults ended up this way, but it has happened.

You don't believe me that adults are responsible for the mindless teen generation? Well, take a look outside and tell me how many kids over the age of 5-6 you see actually playing. Think back to the stories that all the senior citizens tell you about how when they were 9 years old, they'd build tree houses and act out Robin Hood or something else like that. Now you don't even see very many 9 year olds doing that kind of thing, let alone teens. The reason that kids are like this is because adults are like this. With mass media and instant communication, impressionable kids are given the example of how to go through life like a mindless drone. Kids try to mimic the adult world of being overscheduled and no time to think for themselves. It's a well known fact that kids try to do the things their parents do, and if you're a mindless drone, chances are the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

In my geography class, we are learning about South Africa and the Apartheid. We recently watched and learned about Stephen Biko, a revolutionary black man who helped changed South Africa. While watching a the movie called Cry Freedom, a quote that Steve Biko said jumped out at me. It was,"Change the way people think and things will never be the same." This bit of wisdom is like a two-edged sword; it can move to cut down your enemies, or it can cut you down. If you change the way people think, which in this case is by turning people into mindless drones, then you come out with a braindead population and a easily manipulated society. Is this what we, as Americans, want?