Quotations

"It's like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder

How I keep from going under"

This verse comes from the song "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash. I think that this verse relates back to the book A Long Way Gone because it is like a jungle where he is and it makes me wonder how i keep from going under would be true because so many people died back then.

"I can't take the smell, I can't take the noise no more

Got no money to move out, I guess I got no choice"

This is another verse that comes from the song "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash. This relates to the book very good because the smell in the air was probably nasty cause of all the dead corpses and what not. The noise would be lots of gun fire and people screaming so not being able to take the gunfire anymore. It's hard enough for them to even get food so they definitely don't have any money and they have no choice on what to do and what comes next for them.

RUF Sierra Leone

RUF stands for Revolutionary United Front. The RUF was also considered the death squad. The RUF was a rebel army that fought a 11 year war in Sierra Leone. There goal was to overthrow the government of Sierra Leone. They were fighting for control and freedom. They are still trying people for the holocaust and some of the people from the RUF were convicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Hip-Hop Growth

I’ve noticed myself that technology has probably played a major role in the growth of hip-hop. Also another big thing is the beats, the lyrics and clothing and what not. The environment that the rappers have been born into is also a really big thing with the changing of hip-hop. In old school hip-hop there was a lot more record scratching in the beat so it gave it a lot more of a jump around effect. The artists back then would wear more of a throwback retro look. Back then people would just write there rhymes around things that they actually have gone through or witnessed but now a days people just write there lyrics in a way so they rhyme, not things that has legit happened to them or that they have witnessed.

Book Review: Hole In My Life

Author: Jack Gantos

I read the book Hole In My Life by Jack Gantos. I thought that it was a really good book. It was just pretty much about a teenager who makes a choice of crime to escape his home life. So he ends up sailing a boat that is full of hash from St. Croix to New York City and tells about his life after being busted and put into a federal prison. I think personally that this book relates to a lot of teenagers cause a lot of teenagers make bad choices when they were young that affect them the rest of there life.

Blogging

I love the fact that now we basically do all our work through blogging. I like this a lot because I am horrible at writing and on this all we have to do is type it up on our blog hit post and you just go there and give us grades. I think that starting the whole blogging was probably your smartest idea ever. It is so much more convenient to do the work on the blog then the paper. Thank you so much for making it easier on me, I hope you like it just as much as I like it.

Giving Back

When I make it in life and hit the jackpot and am loaded with cash I want to make a gym. I want to make a gym that is free for anybody and is open 24/7. I want to do this because I don't see why people should have to pay to work out and lose weight. I would make it so you just go there and start a membership that is completely free. When your done your membership you just get a pass and that opens the doors for you the you can go whenever you want.

Strength

Symbolizes unconscious powers
Terrifying Strength
Raw physical strength
Emotions will be set free
Never back down
Given strengths
Tough and indomitable
Hot passion

From Pieces To Weight

I read the book From Pieces To Weight by 50 cent. This book is about Curtis who grows up in Queens, who's mother is a drug dealer and has been a drug dealer for a while. It does not take Curtis long at all to realize that his mother is selling drugs. Curtis has a passion with rapping since he was a kid. This slowed him down on everything he did though when his mother was killed. He then started to take after his mother in the selling drugs game. Before you know it he gets kicked out of school cause he went to school with the wrong shoes which had crack in them. He sells drugs for a while, but when he gets older he ends up becoming a rapper. This book basically just shows from when he was a kid and how he aged and what choices he made during his life. I loved this book so much, this is the only book I actually enjoyed reading and would read on my free time. The length is not to long and not to short, basically it is perfect. I recommend this book to people who like hip-hop music and the culture around hip-hop music.

Tatted Up

The ink on my body,
Runs deeper than the blood in my veins.
Defined lines & shading,
Describes my birth month.
Each curve & line,
Make perfection on my skin.
September 5th celebrates my birth,
Virgo is my sign.

Born Distracted

Sitting in class with my friends talking and trying to have fun. Teacher is explaining the assignment for the day and i'm just talking away with my friends not paying attention. The teacher thinks i'm paying attention cause we are good at covering it up. Teacher finally finds out were talking and tells me to stop talking cause im distracting the class so I stopped... I am just sitting there now off in my own world, shaking my leg. Trying to concentrate but I can't sit still. I was just naturally born distracted. I blame it on the ADHD though. That's my excuse every single time someone says something about me not being able to concentrate. The teacher gets done explaining the assignment and sends us off doing our own thing and i'm just completely lost and have no clue what to do. That is basically the story of my life rite there.

Sandra Cisneros bio poem

Sandra
Who is an American writer born in Chicago
Who writes about her life
Who loves working with high school dropouts
Who feels colors make her happy and she loves creatures
Who says revenge only engenders violence, not clarity and true peace
Who gives stories to read, gives her time to work with school dropouts
Who is known for writing The House On Mango Street
Who has worked as a teacher and worked with high school dropouts
Whose parents are Mexican and Chicana
Who is un escritor norteamericano nacido en Chicago
Who is a resident of Chicago
Cisneros

Soliloquy-Macbeth

"If it were done, when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly:"
A soliloquy is suppose to let the audience know the characters feelings and thoughts. So Macbeth is showing that if he is going to kill him that he should do it now and get it over with. But he is not sure if that is the rite thing to do or not.

Haiti Disaster

A massive earthquake struck Haiti on January 12th about 10 miles south of Port-au-Prince. This earthquake was the worst quake in the region in over 200 years. Witnesses have said that this earthquake could be felt strongly in eastern Cuba more than 200 miles away. There has been estimates anywhere from 50,000 fatalities to 200,000 deaths. There was more than 30 significant aftershocks of a 4.5 magnitude or higher that rattled Haiti through the night of the 12th and into the early morning.

My blog

I think that getting our own blogs was a really cool thing to do. I like it a lot because I have really bad handwriting and now that we are doing most of our stuff on here I don't have to worry about writing. Another thing that is really cool about this is the cluster maps. I think that it is really cool that they can just tell where the people are from that are viewing your blog. My goal for the year on my blog is to have over 100 people view my blog.

The Brooklyn Nine

The Brooklyn Nine By Alan Gratz is based on a 9 inning baseball game. This baseball gets passed on all through the book. Louis Schneider who carries his father's souvenir baseball into battle during the Civil War and ends up trading it to a wounded rebel for a Louisville Slugger baseball bat. In 1845 there is a ten year old German Jewish immigrant who meets Alexander Cartwright and The New York Knickerbockers. In 2002 his 14 year old grandson has this bat and this bat has a long history too it. I don't even care for baseball that much and I really liked this book.
I think that this book would appeal to boys a lot more than to girls unless the girl likes sports a lot. I think that this book doesn't just appeal to teens but could appeal to adults too. I didn't think that this book was to long for me it was a perfect amount of pages. This book also has a lot to do with modern history.

What happens when a teen is found guilty?

Does it hurt
like getting punched in the face?
Or loosing somebody who's close--
And then cry?
Does it stink like rotten eggs?
Or crust and crumble--
like a piece of bread?

Maybe it just hangs
like a necklace.

Or does it break?