The Boy In The Striped Pajamas

The book is called, The Boy In The Striped Pajamas written by John Boyne. This amazing Historical fiction story will make you go through grief and happiness. Bruno and his family lived in a huge house in Berlin. It’s 1943 and its World War II. But then his parents initiated moving day. Bruno wakes up one morning with his stuff being packed and in a blink of an eye was now living in a new house. While over there he wanders in the woods and met a boy. Him and his new friend have adventures but is unaware what is really happening. My favorite part in the book is at the end so I can’t say without spoiling it.

Bruno doesn’t like things changing and wants everything to go back to normal. He is ignorant about what is happening around him until he meets someone like the Boy. You know he wasn’t aware because all he was doing was complaining about his new house when there are Jews that don’t even have their own room. They are forced into concentration camp.

I liked the book because it talks about the holocaust and how the Jews had to live in concentration camps. I recommend this to a friend because it has excellent storyline and it interest people who want to learn about the Holocaust. The theme is about friendship and despite being from different backgrounds, Bruno and the Boy became best friends.

Confection Perfection

The perfect gummy worm will by a sour one for sure. It will be 10 feet long and a sour coating all around it. I also want the sour infused into the gummy itself. I can take so much sour I eat lemons by itself as a snack. When its it a gummy worm however my mouth would just water every time I look at it. Being near it will give me the temptation of biting into that chewy worm. Savoring with every taste bud I have. The sour overflowing in my mouth as I pucker only a little bit, but enough for me to call it sour. I will keep chewing it until it dissolves into my mouth and runs down my throat. Suprisingly there is a gummy worm that’s isn’t ten feet long but only 2 feet. Either way it has sour all over that bad boy and inside the gummy. That not only will be the most perfect gummy worm, but the perfect present.

How I Almost Broke My Collar Bone

I almost broke my collar bone yesterday. Here’s the story, I was playing basketball for recess like always. But when I was running I was tripped! My initial reaction was to slide on my back since I get tripped very often since its very crowded. So when I went to turn my body I hit the ground and landed right on my collar bone. I heard and felt like 30 cracks and immediately went to check and see if its broken. It was very painful but it didn’t feel broken. After recess I went to the nurse still in pain, she said it wasn’t broken but that I strained the muscle on my neck and shoulder. I survived another fall but in pain.

The Girl Who Loved To Gordon

The book The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is a fantastic book written by the legendary Stephen King. This book is about a girl named Trisha, she is nine years old and some unfortunate events lead to this conflict. She goes on a hike with her family but her mother and brother keep arguing. Being sick of listening to them she wanders off getting lost in the woods. This book is gut wrenching and you feel like you’re in the book in some cases. So why read this book? It can relate to you at any age if you recall back to your child years. For me it related to me by getting lost in a big store as a little kid. Not only that but it gives you a new perspective of a nine year old getting lost but it makes you think if you can survive in the woods with little material and experience. Finally, here are some of my favorite quotes from the book,”The world had teeth and it could bite you with them anytime it wanted.” and “There is a point at which people who are cast upon their own resources stop living and begin merely surviving.”

My Identity

Everyone has a different finger print, that's what identifies you. But it is much more than that. My identity was shaped over time because of expierences. To start off, my name is Brandon, I'm 13 and I have a older sister, older brother and a younger twin sister. Everyone assumes I'm younger than my twin because of my height compared to my sister. People widely know me as the "kid with the extremely puffy hair" or what they like to call me "wolverine." My intelligence is also something that separates me from the rest of my family. I'm always the one who learns first and everyone gets mad because it takes them longer to figure it out. Everything is a competition for me, especially when it comes to sports. I hate to lose and get mad really easily, but when I do get angry I tend to do better.

That was all of the traits that I am now, but I wasn't always like that. During my childhood my parents has some problems. There was always a fight, to make matters worse my sister moved away when she was 16 and had her first kid. I was only 5 and was an uncle. Then Christmas came and my parents had another fight. This time it was worse because they started to get physical. He went to jail for a couple months. I have seen both of my parents in hand cuffs before. Last summer my dad was arrested and we filed a restraining order. Only last month he came back. But because of that I value what I have and think about kids who don't have an opportunity to ever meet their parents. That is my identity

Everyone has an identity, even if you don't value it. Everybody is unique and there is no shame for being different. Remember, no one is the same, like a fingerprint.

10 years from now

In ten years, I hope I still have my family. To me family is everything, living without them would be a nightmare for me. Without them I wouldn't be the person I am today. Next because of those changes my family made to me, I hope I'm successful and have a really good job. My dream job is being in the Nba so I hope I'm there. If not I could take a more realistic approach and be a meteorologist. I always loved weather and maybe I can get a position so I can get my dream cars. The dream car I want is Ferrari or a Lamborghini. Those a really expensive cars so I know its most likely not going to happen. So I want a Mustang GT. I fell in love with mustangs ever since my brother in law got one. So I hope I have one in 10 years. With that car I want to move in a house with my friends. It wont be permanent but ill stay there for a couple of years until I get a family. Since its so far in the future Mickey is most likely dead. So I want 2 dogs. I want and husky for my first one, and then a wiener dog mixed with a chihuahua. I hope it will fill the hole in my heart when Mickey dies. So that's about what I want to do in 10 years and maybe most of it will come true. The possibilities are endless so choosing the right one is important. I hope I didn't chose wrong.

Adrenaline Junkie

It was early morning on the 8th of July, 2016. My family had just woken up and immediately started packing the van. When we were done with packing my family and my sisters family were starting to get situated in the van. The last one to board was my mom who was bringing my dog. We were soon on the road to Wisconsin. The car ride was extremely long, and everybody was getting restless. My dog started to get hot but there wasn't much to do about it. Soon I was fast asleep by the sound of the endless road. What seemed like seconds everyone started to yell, "WELCOME TO WISCONSIN!" 30 minutes later we saw Wisconsin Dells in the distance.

A day and a half goes by and we enter a park called Mount Olympus Water and Theme Park. We went there for 2 days straight mostly going for the water park. But on the last day we went, we decided to go to the theme park side. We decided to ride saw much as we can, then I decided to face my fear and ride the HADES 360. The hades 360 is a wooden coaster that was recently remodeled. The people who did it added a 360 barrel roll loop which made it really intimidating. But I went for it, little did I know I was going to regret this insane decision. 

It was getting really dark and the park was going close in an hour or so. I was hoping I would be able to ride it, but halfway through the line I realized I made a huge mistake. Just above me you can feel the train car rumbling to the station. Everytime it happens I start shaking more violently, it was at a point I was just going to bail out. But thankfully there were some very brave people in the line and they started to calm me down. They were telling different stories about the ride and how it was so worth the fear. I even saw a 7 year old waiting in line to ride it! So I stayed in the line, soon enough I boarded on. Once boarded everything that people said to me slipped my mind and I started screaming. Then I saw the operator press go... I prayed for my life.

The train zoomed to the chain lift. It pulled the car with force as im flung back into my seat. The car was slowly climbing the 160 feet of wood. While going up you can hear the wood creaking and swaying, then we reached the top. The without warning we go down at skull rattiling speed through a tunnel and out. We do a 360 barrel roll, for almost milliseconds I could feel the blood rush to my head. Then we head into the tunnel again. I was being thrown around from left to right in pitch black darkness screaming for my life. Before I could catch my breath the ride was over. We reached the station and I took of my safety bar and got off.

I struggled to stand up due to my legs still looking for the ground. Going down the stairs I was so happy but also trying not to fall. The people in line were right. I'm so glad I rode it because it is a once in a lifetime ride. If I ever do come back to the park, the first thing I'm going to ride is the HADES 360.

Morrie Aphorism Project

  The aphorism that Morrie shares with Mitch is, "...if you really want it, then you'll make your dream happen." (Page 47). It tells that giving up isn't going to get you anywhere in life. You keep going and you keep working hard to achieve the dream you always wanted. Every successful person in the world got there from never giving up and never just payed there thinking their life will always be the same. This is not true, everyone has a purpose in life and it isn't just going to be handed to you like you think. This is what Morrie believes in when he explains to his students that any career or thing in life will be achievable if you just keep going. That is the strongest message of them all.

  It may sound corny or even cliche but it happens a lot and it may even happen to you. In movies or documentaries that depict the life of a successful person, for example Steve jobs. In that movie it shows Steve in is garage with friends making computers. After countless fails and rejections from companies he never stoped trying to revolutionize technology. He eventually started his companies and it grew to something you see today. Despite the huge bumps on the way he was able to complete hi dream through had work and never giving up. This sort of thing happened to me except not computers. All my life I've wanted to play basketball, I started when I was five and I was using a neighbors hoop and a soccer ball. After countless hours of practicing I was finnally able to find a form I can use to make shots. I soon was able to play against people way older than me. But it isn't that easy, so many times I've lost and made fun of because I was always "bigger" than other kids my age. It brought me down but I kept going and was able to become a role model for some people.

I believe that this aphorism is true and it really is a huge part of a great life. In everybody there is something that they want and it is almost always not going to be handed to them like that. You know you want it when you don't give up on it and you keep going. This is what the first part of the aphorism shows, "...if you really want wat it...". The second part comes in when you have the dream and finally achieve it with a boost of confident that anything is possible. That is why I agree with this aphorism and is a great message to show to anybody having a very hard time not being able to compel themselves to achieve their dream.

If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living. 

Socratic Seminar Morrie Reflection

The Socratic seminars have made me think more about why Morrie was so open with death and how he was able to share what he feels with the world and not in his house mourning his death. The seminar let me find out that Morrie was never afraid of death and he embraced it by being with loved ones and not letting any emotions take full control of him. Doing this it gave me more of an understanding of the message the book is trying to reach for the reader. Not only did the seminar helped with the book but it made me think about my daily life. What would I do if I was slowly dying  because of a disease. All of these questions start going through my mind and makes me realize the little things in life. It gave me a veiw on today's society that everyone is just trying to spread negativity in the world.

Through the seminar I noticed that I always had one goal, and that is to start a conversation about a topic in the book. It never came to be yet I still tried to participate for me to understand other peoples view. On every seminar I would listen because of love hearing what people have to day about their opinion. But the more we did it the more my goals began to change. I wanted to say at least one thing at every talk but then I made it 2 or 3. The more I listen the more I had to say and I was able to start a conversation. I personally think it was a good idea to do the seminars and im kinda sad that that was out last one.

Everyone in who participated in the seminar everyone liked to make connnection about their personal lives. It usually revolves around death since that was a majority topic since the book is talking about death. We all pitched in to the conversation and we would laugh about it. It is great to listen to each other and we listen respectfully. There are times where we interrupt each other by acccident and it happens more than you think. That usually what happens in our seminars and it's a great way to learn. I wish I will be able to do this in the future.

The Perfect Day

The days have gone by in my life that aren't always the best. But, there are some days were I never want it to end and enjoy it. I would wake up an hour after dawn fully refreshed and energized for the day. Enjoying the sunlight peeking through my window and the gentle sound of the trees swaying outside in the morning. I go and get breakfast with pancakes, french toast, and any other breakfast meals. Once done and really full as if I was going to rupture I would relax on my bed again watching a couple videos until the food in my stomach went down. I would lay for an hour just thinking and relaxing while my family is doing the same. There was no yelling, no work, and no stress.

After laying for a couple hours me and my family start packing for our bike trip in a trail that goes through the forest and across rivers. Once outside we soak up the sunlight and mild temperatures as we head into the car with our bikes. When we arrived everyone was full and energy and ready to race with our bikes down the trail. My parents are behind us looking at the river while me and my sibling head out to the tail where we rode our hearts out. We enjoyed the scenery with green everywhere and birds chirping in the distance. We see animals in the forest and stop to watch them for minutes at a time. After we finished the trail and everyone exhausted from the ride we get put the bikes back in the car and leave.

We arrived and every one had an appetite after all biking we set up the grill and start cooking. Me and my sibling waiting impatiently out side in the back yard setting up tables and chairs. While setting up we smell the delicious food cooking and we pick up the pace. Now done with the work my whole family grab a basketball and play a game.  Everyone was sweaty after that so we start getting buckets of water and we throw it onto each other. All of us laughing we check the food and it is finished. We all dry off as much as we can and we all sit down together. We eat and our neighbors join in with us and we all have a blast playing basketball and talking.

At dusk everyone was full and tired we grab another grill and start a bonfire. We grab marsh mellows and Hershey chocolates. Everyone enjoyed their goey dessert as we all stayed out their for hours until we all were falling asleep. We put out the fire and everyone goes inside getting ready for bed. I took a shower and put on my pjs and laid in my bed covering myself and dirfiting to sleep. This is a perfect day.

Tuesday With Morrie Bucket List Blog

When I started reading the book it seemed very sweet. It described a life of a professor and I thought he just did not care about what other people think and he had fun like he wants to. As I got further into the book it made me very sad that he was getting older and with a new chronic disease he gets called ALS it kept him from doing the things he loved. I was feeling better when family members were by his side helping him. When they depicted him getting weaker and not being able to do anything I just couldn't believe he could live any longer than that. I wouldv'e liked to die already if I was in a state when I'm not able to do anything at all but sit there and do nothing. Yet he never was depressed or mad he just kept on living life and I find that very inspirational. I wasn't that far into the book and it already makes me think about death and how I should live life to the fullest.

Many people have goals in which they want to complete but not many people are able to achieve everything. There are many sad cases where they die quicker than they wanted to. I personally have goals that I hope I can complete in my lifetime. Many of them are when I'm an adult and I want to have a successful life with an amazing family. I still will have death in my mind so my job is to keep that though from overtaking my life.

Bucket List:
- Graduate school
- Have a successful job
- Have a family
- Be able to help my family
- Have a healthy lifestyle
- Help in with the community
- Help other people who need it
- Start or fund a charity
- Grow old
- Have a living funeral
- End my life peacefully

3rd Quater Reflection

The TIQA format was the best stragedy I learned in this class. This type of organization let me understand what I needed to fix or insert in my writing. It has made my writing easier because when you look over my blogs at the beginning of the year you can notice that my writing is all over the place. When I learned the stragedy I was able to put everything in order and not confuse the reader. It gave me the ability to create thorough writing. There is another stragedy that is like the TIQA, it is called ANT. The TIQA format gave organization to the body paragraphs and not the introduction. Normally before I learned that I just wrote something that seemed like an introduction. Both of those stragedy's overall have helped me a lot with writing making a little bit easier to cope with the amount of writing I have to do.

Besides writing I have been reading a lot more. My 15 book challenge has been doing quite well but their is always more I can read. That is why I joined battle of the books, I thought it will give me a really good boost in my challenge. Joining that event has made me realize that books aren't all that boring because the truth is I never really enjoyed reading. I always thought that reading was a waste of time and I never found any joy of doing it. Then I came across a few books that I have really enjoyed, for example Shark Girl. This book combined poetry with the story and I found it very intesting. The book gave a great story and also encorprated poems to help the reader understand what the character was feeling. That is why It might be one of my favorite books.

The 3rd quater was one of the hardest things to deal with in my life. The work wasn't that much of the problom although that's what made it tough. During the 3rd quater I entered the most time consuming stress ever. Since there are now 10 plus people in my house things started to get really hectic. Before my sister will be at work and right when I come home her kids are here, all 4 of them and they are all 7 years and younger. So I usually have to take them in and put them where they usually are. I worry about that until my mom gets home at around 5:30 or 6. Now that was decently easy I usually start working around five. During that time I get distracted a lot, sometimes my fault but other times its about siblings are something else. There are some fights between my family members and I was involved and my siblings so I'm kinda always thinking or sometimes stressed out. Hopefully since my sister is leaving with her kids that I would be back to normal and finally be able to improve in the following next quarter.  

NIght Blog

Elizer was a Jew in Transylvania, he was very religious and he loved it. One day while he was practicing his studies he was told about the war, although everyone was very optimistic no one seen it coming.Throughout the Holocaust it changes a lot of peoples thought on everything. Some things could be religion, faith, humane. For Elizer he was luckily placed with his father but had no idea if they would die or not. This has changed Elizers faith as he almost jumped into the electric fence, killing him before he was burned alive,  "I gathered all that remained of my strength in order to break rank and throw myself onto the barbed wire." The hope he had of living seemed slimmed and he just wanted to die fast instead of being burned alive in a slow and painful death. The only thing that kept him from breaking through was his father. Thankfully he was able to catch his breath when the "angle of death" let both him and his father go to the barracks.

Throughout the Holocaust people have forgotten how to care for other people in the camp. The reason for that is because they consider it "Everyman for themselves" for a better chance of survival, " listen to me kid. Don't forget that this is a concentration camp. In this place it's Everyman for himself, and you cannot think of other. Not even your father." They wouldn't care if they beat up their own family members for food. There are many cases that people have killed their owppn father for food. Elizer didn't know why people should do that because he will never beat or kill his own father, Elizer was one of the only one with human emotions. Elizer soon relized why people did that when his father became terribly ill and all he can do is try to give him his food since they didn't give any to his father. Other Jews will say, " Stop giving your ration of bread and soup to your old father." They told his this bet Elizer didn't fall in and he helped his father until he died.

As if it was a miracle to Elizer he has been given news that the war about to end but he soon finds out that Hitler is still keeping his promise. He will murder every single Jew, he was mildly successful. The camp had hundreds of thousands of people and by the end their were only a few thousand left. Despite that Elizer managed to stay alive until the resistance reached them and he finally saw something that wasn't from the nazis. He felt as if he had never seen the world with other people besides SS officers or other Jews. He had felt freedom, " Our first act as free men was to throw ourselves into the provisions." Through the whole expierence Elizer was able to be a free man again.

The whole book shares his expierence and it really must've changed him through the whole novel. He has learned ho to make his own descisions and to know what somebody else might feel. He has learned how to keep his faith and keep going. That is one of the reasons he was able to survive. It wasn't to beat or kill everyone you see survival, it was to help yourself and someone you care about because that person might keep you alive at the end. 

Argumentative Articles (AOW)

                                         The Most Pressing Argument 

While reading many articles, there were arguments that made me think of which side I was on. The one that really pressed against me was the article about Snowden. I think it was really dangerous for Edward Snowden to expose the government because anybody can see it. This includes terrorist, enemy countries, etc... This puts many Americans in danger but all he had to do to prevent it was to let the government do its thing. Even though it let Americans know about there privacy being invaded. No one wants the government to easdrop on your conversation. Exposing it let people know about it so they can stop the invasion of privacy. Imagine talking about something personal while the government was listening. You wouldn't want it anyone listening either.

                                       Which Article Effect Me More?

Although that article about Snowden compelled me to think more about the argument it doesn't effect me too much. The article that really effects me and other people is the argument about eating less meat to help climate change. Doing this changes most of my diet and by doing this change so rapidly it can really anger some people, especially if its a religious meal they eat that contains meat. Me personally, I eat a lot of meat in my diet and me having to go almost vegan would make me avoid food almost completely.

Although not being able to consume meat anymore it at least helps the environment. Many people who give up meat so we can live on the earth without any type of disaster happening. Saving the earth is one of the things we have struggled on for decades. No one wants to give up their cars or companies but changing your diet will decrease more than 51% of green house gasses released into the air.

Berlin Memorial Blog

During this activity there was a lot of information givin to me. I have learned many new things about what happened to the Jews. Adolf Hitler was behind it all, he has made laws to take down the Jews. Prohibiting the jews for doing types of jobs was one of the first, for example writing was prohibited for Jewish writers. As the years went by he has also made the jews become people who everyone looks down upon. They went as far to banning names and naming anyone married to a jew will be considered a Jew. They banned very food items like eggs, milk, candy, etc...

I think they made the memorial to educate people on different events that happened. It also shows that Germany cares about all the people who lost their family. It can educate people by showing them the different locations and reading the cards on the poles to get information. They also is a landmark in Germany so they cards are their to let people know which landmark it is. It is a memorial to show that the country still thinks about the wrong doings of nazis.

What I noticed about the laws over the years was that they slowly took things away from Jews. They started out slow about the laws so they can not by noticed by other countries. Once they gained enough power they started to create many laws taking any Jews human rights. Once they were able to expand they would create more laws knowing that they are too big to be defeated. When they invaded Poland they knew that there were a lot of Jews in that country so he tried to make them as miserable as possible.

 The restriction that would be the hardest to deal with if I was a Jew in World War 2 is no eggs, meat, milk, etc... this would be hard because I usually eat any of those things every day and when someone just takes the source of food you eat every day your not going to like it. The the food they took away are everyday ingredients to cook and without them we would starve. Only eating one thing would get me really sick of it pretty fast since that is what we will eat for the next 5 years are so. The bread might not even be fresh so it makes it worse for Jews.

Quater 2 Reflection

Quater 2 has been an expierence to me and really tested how much I could handle. I have learned alot for the past couple of months and I expect to learn much more after that. The area I have learned the most out of is writing. Back in Quater 1 I didn't understand the whole concept of the T.I.Q.A format until now. Writing has become easier using formats I never seen before. Right now I learned something else as well, I learned the A.N.T format. Writing about what I read got better making me more confident. Confident enough to join battle of the books for the first time! This has setup  a new goal for this quater and for the rest of the year.

In 2017 I have personal goals for this class. Although this year so far has been fairly boring, nothing has happened that is actually interesting. The only thing that has happened this year is I signed up for battle of the books. I think this is a huge accomplishment for me personally because I never thought I was a very good reader. Since I never really had anything that big happened yet I still have goals. Finishing the 20 book challenge will be one of them. Trying to improve my writing skills has also been on my mind this year.

The most difficult part about this quater was me not finishing work at home. I never really like doing work at home and I want my free time. But I tried to help this problem by not being so distracted by the littlest thing. Although I don't haave ADHD or anything it's just that when I don't enjoy something I never really pay attention to it. This year I hope that I will be able to concentrate more on work and less about free time. It may seem easy to some people but for me I like with more than 10 people in my house and about fifty percent of them are under the age of 8 years old. So having my own free time is pretty hard, especially when all the adults are at work until five thirty to six at night. This year will be different but it may be a long process but it's worth it when I don't have to worry so much about work.

The quater many have flown by but I have 2 more quarters left for this year. The 3rd quater would have changes and improvements. It's time to have new start, and mind set for this quater and work like I've never had before.

Comparative Tkam Blog

One really important difference is that the punishment that Jem goes through with Mrs. Dubose is not there. Mrs. Dubose was really important because it really showed a lot of impact on Jem and is maturity. When he destroyed those flowers atticus gave him advice that would help him control his anger. Withought it in the movie you never knew what made him change. In one of the plots in the film was racism and also disagreements about atticus taking the job to protect Tom. In the book it reflects a lot of that to Mrs. dubose and her commments about it. In the film it isn't as noticeable besides Mr. Ewell saying some racist comments.

I disapprove the film because it skips over many events that happened to Jem and Scout. Some of those events also bring a strong message but was never shown in the film. The events that were skipped were also part of the plot in the book. There are times when it just went to fast for some people to understand. They never explained who Boo Radley is exactly and how the kids were playing Boo Radley. If you never read the book Boo Radley will just be confusing. The presents that Boo gives them is also a blur since it only depicts only one time Jem gets something from the tree.

TKAM Quotes Poem

       In this country in which all men are created equal

         There's a lot of ugly things in this world

         Nigger lover is just one of those terms that don't mean anything
         An ugly term to label somebody        
         As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men.
         White man's word against a black man's, the white man always wins.   
         White mans who'll take advantage of a negro
         There's nothing more sickening to me 
         Some negroes lie
         Some negroes immoral 
         Some negroe men are not trusted 
         I do my best to love everybody
         You never really understand a person,
       Until you consider things from his point of view