The Road Not Taken response

I think "The Road Not Taken" gives great advice for life. It shows that people can take different routs in life, and either way you take you will end up fine. Also, it says that you should be your own person and don't do what people want you to do. If you want to do something and someone else wants to do another, then go down the other road.

Artie the Aligator

Artie the Alligator had a boring life. Every day he drove to work, drove home, and slept. Simple as that. But one day, his boring day turned into an extra-ordinary day. While he was on his drive to work at the office, he was rolling down the road, not caring whats happening. But the worst thing of all......HE FORGOT TO PUT ON HIS SEAT BELT! :O He didn't care, though. Never has he once put on a seat belt. And before he knew it, BOOM! The mail truck hit him. Artie's car flew all the way across to the other side of the road, hitting everything in his path. That day, Artie died. Because he wasn't wearing a seatbelt, he flew through the windshield and glass went right through him. this is a lesson to all you boys and girls to always wear your seat belt.

The Lottery

In the short story, "The Lottery",  there are many themes. I think the most important one is desperation. All of the women are desperate for power, or being able to be equal to men. In the story, women complain that they don't really belong with their other family anymore. It's mostly them, their husband, their kids, and their husbands family. When their husbands pick the slips, they should have a chance, too. There's no reason they should be treated worse then men. One person was late for the Lottery because  she was washing dishes. Her husband should've been the one doing that, not her. And, of course, she was the one that ended up.

Devin the Lost Child

September, 2001 was the worst experience I’ve ever had. There I was, eating my peanut butter and jelly sandwich, when I look out the window and everyone’s running. I didn’t know what to do, what to say. But my first reaction was to call my mom; she would know what’s going on. I dialed her number, waited for her to answer, but she never did. I was scared, real scared. “She’s okay, Devin.” I told myself. “She’s all right. She’ll be home in a little bit; she’s just in a meeting. That’s all.” Next I tried my dad. He answered all right, but not on purpose. I heard people screaming in the background. I heard all the cries coming from the people next to him. I heard him moaning. I could tell it was him, because he has such a deep voice. Then I heard the old lady that might have been helping him. “No, Johnny, no!” Johnny was my father’s name. 

The first thing that popped into my mind was to sprint. Sprint as fast as I can to my mother’s work building; the one right next to my dad’s. I wanted to tell her my father is probably dead, and I wanted to make sure she was okay. By the time I got to the building, it was gone, and so was my mom. I sank my knees to the ground, and sat there, crying for hours. I just lost the two most important people in my life, and no one will ever replace them.

Delicious, But Not Nutritious!

Many kids spend their nights sitting on the couch and watching some television. What do they do while they’re doing this? Well, they eat all the food they can until they feel sick. I bet you’re wondering why this happens. Every night these kids get hungry, and why is that? Because of the food commercials! These commercials are making the people in our nation obese. They get no physical activity whatsoever! Unless they lose the remote and they have to get up to change the channel. These food commercials are making us not care about our bodies anymore, and we need to put a stop to it!

 Have you ever wondered how McDonald’s became so popular? Well, they have done this by making ads. Their ads make their burgers, fries, and other foods look delicious, and I’m not saying they aren’t. But even though their delicious, doesn’t mean they’re nutritious! They are very unhealthy and make us gain a few every time you take a bit. McDonald’s is one of the fast food companies that have their commercials play the most. Once a week eighty-four percent of parents take their kids to a fast food restaurant. But sixty-six of that percent of parents take their kids to McDonald's, which is one of the unhealthiest restaurants. Any parent can take their kid out to a fast food place, but once in a while, maybe they could consider a healthy one.

 Next to McDonald’s, Subway looks really bad to kids. It seems as if Subway isn’t as delicious, because it’s not as greasy. Subway is way healthier for you. Usually when you eat there you order a sub, and that’s it. That sub could fill you up as much as a hamburger, large fries, large soda, and two apple pies from McDonald’s all put in one! That’s more than two thousand calories less (depending on which sub you get). Maybe, if food ads are less shown, people will realize Subway is the better deal, and maybe kids will start eating more healthy because of it.

Food commercials are one of the reasons the people in our country aren’t the skinniest. You might be getting a salad or something ready to eat, and then you see an ad, and get a craving. It might be cheap, but that’s not an excuse for all of us to be fat…..get your act together, or you’ll be joining the club. The U.S is described in one word to other countries: obese. We don’t want to keep this name forever! Let’s change this around and be healthier! Or soon we will have to take turns rolling each other around like bowling balls because we can’t keep ourselves up.

Seeing Double!

Pieces of popcorn are like the human race; no two people are exactly alike. Some might have the same laugh, or walk similarly, but no one has the same personality as another person. This is why cloning is pointless. We want our world to be unique, not a bunch of people or animals that all act the same. We have a variety people, and we want to keep it that way. Cloning might help us in some ways, but in others it’s a waste of time, money, and lives. Cloning had so many disadvantages. Including that cloning never works perfectly because there’s always some sort of side effect. For instance, Dolly the sheep was cloned in 1997 (Knight). She was put down six years after, because she got lung disease (Knight). Sheep are usually supposed to live up to age twelve (Basic information about sheep), but Dolly didn’t live up to this expectation. Many other animals have had failed organs because of cloning. If almost all of these animals are dying, why are we still experimenting? A fter you get past all of the bad things about cloning, there are some upsides to it too. Maybe, just to be safe someone cloned some of their organs incase one of them had failed. This would be great if everyone could do this because we would never lose our loved ones unless it’s truly time for them to pass. Another positive thing about cloning would be we could clone a professional athlete, but cloning isn’t what everyone thinks. You don’t just take someone like David Beckham and put him into a giant machine and two of him appear. Cloning is a long process that involves cells. For example; you start by taking many cells from the donor animal, then you take out the nucleus from each and every cell (Cloning: How To Make Identical Genomes ). Next, you take many egg cells from a female and take out the nuclei’s, then replacing those with the nuclei’s from the person or animal you were cloning and place the cell into the female’s womb (WHAT IS CLONING?). Then, after the person or animal gives birth to it, it starts out as a baby, then in many years will grow up looking as if a copy of the donor clone. I personally think cloning is a horrible idea. Sometimes it’s good, but clones usually have very bad side effects. They’ll get horribly sick and get lung disease (Knight), or they might turn out really messed up. Also, many animals die from experiments on cloning, and they don’t deserve that. We don’t need to keep going through with this process, because no one should be tested on, unless of course they want it. Animals have rights too, and they have as much of a right as us to not be tested on. Overall, cloning is a pretty good idea. It might be a very long process, but it might work in the end. Because it takes so long, costs so much, and kills many animals, we shouldn’t be still trying to clone. In the end, like it was for Dolly, it could be a big failure. After everyone realizes how ridicules the idea is, we could actually stop scientists, so they can spend more money on something more important, like finding a cure for cancer. The scientists could be saving lives, but right now they’re doing exactly the opposite.

Best Mall Experience

What a beautiful day! Then sun is shining, the sky is clear, and it’s so warm! What are you supposed to do on a day like this? Go outside? Play video games? Maybe….but no. it’s a great day to go to the mall. My friends and I had a trip to the mall, and it was like one of the best days of my life. It was such a fun-packed day! To start off the day, we decided we should all get a bouncy ball. They were very bouncy. We lost them a couple of times, but eventually we got them back. Then, we headed to the changing rooms and made each other try on the ugliest outfits we could find. The funny part is, Austin was with us……and we were in the women’s dressing rooms. This lady was waiting for him to come out, even though he wouldn’t, so she could prove he was a guy. So I went in there and exclaimed, “Common Lauren! It’s time to go!” and he came out, but she followed and yelled at us. To top the day off, the photo booth took our money. What a miraculous day!

Journal Entry

The songs "Big Yellow Tax" and "Field Below" are very similar. They have the same tone, the same mood, and they both make you think twice about yourself. But, that's only the lyrics. When you add the music to the words, they sound completely different because "Big Yellow Taxi" is so upbeat and happy. "Field Below" is so depressing and makes you want to cry. The only part in "Big Yellow Taxi" that is sad and depressing is the end, the music slows down and so does the voice of the artist. This made that part of the piece actually seem depressing, even though the rest of it is too. In the other song, the whole entire thing is sad, and that gives you the feeling that there is something wrong happening with this person.

Frisbee

I can watch your shimmering gold car drive by everyday
I can listen to you bellowing through the streets with you and your friends every night
I can smell your nauseating armpit stink when you jog past me every morning
I can taste the bittersweet chocolate you just ate as you skip past me every afternoon
I can feel the damp puddle that showed up under me when you tossed a can of soda into the ditch
You left me here, you come looking for me, but I can't say anything.
I'm a miserable, depressed, lonely, troubled Frisbee, that you will never find.

Disgusting Lies

People wonder why kids don’t listen to their parents. But they don’t realize how badly kids are treated. They get lied to every month of every year. We are told Santa brings us presents. We are told there is a bunny that hops around and gives us candy. We are told that there are magical tiny people that come around building rainbows and giving gold to lucky people. It's so tragic that we get into so much trouble for sneaking out, or lying to a teacher. But really, parents should be the one's getting in trouble for lying to us every waking moment of our lives.

Santa is great. Every December he comes around and gives us things we want. Of course no one wants to completely get rid of Christmas, but we should change it up a little. We could actually tell the truth to kids! No way, right? Well, it's the right thing to do. According to Parent Beyond Belief, six percent of kids die each year because they find out the truth about the obese man that celebrates holidays only by giving. We could change this, and give up on Santa. It's fine if your parents give you presents, it'll make a big deference and every year there will be no percentage of kids dying because of Christmas.

Next to Christmas, Easter Is pretty bad, too. Many kids start to believe that a giant bunny passes out candy to every kid in the whole world. This is bad because when they're older they decide that they will catch this bunny. They don't trust rabbits hopping around their house. This is very dangerous considering that children might try to set up traps for these creatures, and then the bunny never comes, well that's what they think. But really, they leave their hiding fort and find baskets in their living room. The Easter bunny is the most unrealistic. At least Santa is human, unlike the symbol for Easter. We need to make this holiday more realistic, this is why kids have wacky imaginations. This is why kids run around the yard naked. This is why we need to change holidays and they way we treat children.

St. Patrick's Day is by far the worst holiday! So many kids are terrified by the fact that there are tiny people roaming around their house anytime in that day. This is unacceptable. That's not even the true meaning of St. Patrick's day! It all started when a very clever man who brought Christianity to Ireland. Everyone respected him so much, they made a holiday that was named after him. This holiday is touching, and should not be treated so dreadfully. St. Patrick deserves some respect, and never was he a leprechaun. Leprechauns have nothing to do with this holiday, and we are treating it the wrong way. That's what people believe in, and we shouldn't make up some dim-witted story, even though adults tend to do it a lot.

As you know, kids love holidays. They have merriment times no matter what day or what time it is. But, we shouldn’t be lying to them. No child deserves these lies given to them by their own parents. When they find out that these things were all lies, they start lying because they think it's okay. They get into so much trouble, not only with their parents, but with kids at school as well. Also, all the three holidays mentioned are not very realistic, and they could start thinking out of the ordinary. This is why people believe in aliens taking over the world. This is why people believe in the world ending on twenty-twelve. This is why kids don’t do well in school. They're scared about what's going to happen next. If we stop telling lies now, imagine how much further in life everyone will get. Parents should stop with the lies, and tell the truth, or sooner or later no body will be telling the truth.

Parody for The Lovely Bones(Death Scene)

I was walking home, when I heard twigs snap behind me. I quickly turn around with my fast reflexes. It was Harvey. Mr. Harvey. He’s the new guy that moved down the street. He’s so nice and funny. But my mom told me to stay away from him, he was too mysterious. Anyway, so Mr. Harvey asked me a very interesting question, “Would you like to visit my fort?” I didn’t know what this meant, but I realized it would all be worth it in the end. So, I followed him into his underground fort. The one next to Dairy Queen. It was humongous! But the only thing in there was a stack of Pokemon cards. “You wanna play some Pokemon?”

“You know me so well!” We both ran to the deck and sat on the floor. We were battling each other. But I usually won. I had better cards. But, right when I threw down my Pikachu, he exploded like a volcano. Not literally, but he got so mad. He stands up, and turns on a switch. I look around, and where am I? In a pot. He pours oil all over my body, and my body bursts into flames. Eventually, once all my body parts were boiling, he stuck them all into a large bowl, and sucked me up through a straw.

When I was watching from heaven, there comes my sister, skipping into this hole. She paid him money. To kill me.

Then they went out for ice cream.
THE END!

By: Austin & Brittany

Mother to Son response

In the short story Mother to Son there is a lot of figurative language throughout the whole thing. Mostly there are metaphors, that all follow the same metaphor is the beginning; life ain't no crystal stair. This means life isn't easy. There are hard parts of life, but later the narrator tells that even though life isn't so easy, she has gotten through it. I think this poem is about how life is difficult, but that doesn't matter. Never give up and try your hardest to get past all the bumps in the road.

How important is love?

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be a lonely, miserable old man, that had no one to talk to? Well, in the book, The Lovely Bones, you can put yourself in this man’s shoes. Mr. Harvey came off as a nice man. He seemed like one of those people that wouldn’t harm a fly. This was obviously wrong, considering he killed a child. But, if this man would have someone to truly love him, he wouldn’t be a bad person.

Many people get sad because they don’t have someone special in their life. Because they have no one to hold them close when they’re sad. Because they have no one to love. This is how Mr. Harvey feels. Susie was an innocent girl that he betrayed. He never said he was going to hurt her, nor did he say he was going to do things to her, but she didn’t know. She died because of that man, because he had no one to love. Her last words were, “I love you.”, only because the man threatened her, but Mr. Harvey killed the fourteen year-old anyway. It’s a very sad world you live in when you have to threaten people into saying three simple words.

If at some moment and time Mr. Harvey had someone to tell him they loved him, everything would be great. No dead girls, no scary man living down the street, the world would be a big happy place. But, a disadvantage towards this situation would be that the Salmon family would never go through a problem. They just have a wonderful, happy life, well, until Susie went missing. If they never went through this problem, they would have never had the experience of having trouble in their life. And if something bad happens later, they won’t be ready for it. But then again, this is the only disadvantage to the idea, so Mr. Harvey should have a chance to be loved. If he did, the world would wondrously go round.

Susie Salmon

Author's Note: our class had to make a character description story of the book we're reading. This is about what happens when Susie Salmon, from The Lovely Bones, walks into the room.

When she enters the room, nobody looks. They see right through her. They can’t see her flowing blond hair or her tight yellow jeans sticking to her legs while she jumps trying to get someone’s attention, even though she knows no one will ever even realize that she could be there. Susie Salmon, a dead fourteen year old girl, looking down on her family. She isn’t actually in the room, but she’s watching. Watching her family’s every step, getting closer and closer to finding out the truth about her mysterious murder.

Susie just wanted to tell them. She wanted to tell them she’s okay. She wanted to tell them everything was going to be fine. She wanted to tell them all Mr. Harvey did was kill her, nothing to it. But, she couldn’t. Susie couldn’t mention who hurt her, and what horrible things they did to her body. She is there, technically, and she knows it, but only if they did, too.

Transporting into Touching Spirit Bear

In the book Touching Spirit Bear Cole goes through many lessons, mostly the hard way. If I could somehow help Cole out in this book I would lend him a hand in the scene where Peter comes to the island. I chose this scene because Peter won’t forgive Cole for all the bad things he’s done, even though Cole has changed. Peter doesn’t believe that and I would try to convince him because he won’t even try listening to Cole, but I wouldn’t blame the kid. He’s been through so much since Cole beat him up. But, I could change his mind about the world. Or, I could’ve stopped Peter from beating Cole up when they were on their walk. Then he would’ve realized what he was about to do, and stop that feeling before it became an action.

The Importance of Forgiving

Have you ever wondered what life would be like without having anyone to love? You can’t survive with no one taking care of you every once in a while. Even though these two things are true, Cole, from Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen, can live without them. He proved he could by his parents not loving him, so he didn’t love his parents. Also, he had survived through live physically, but not emotionally. This story proves that life is all about forgiving, and without it we would be nothing.

Cole Mathews is the main character in this book. He goes through many troubles in life. For example,ever since he was a little boy, his dad has abused him. After all the years of his dad beating him, he decided to be a bad kid. He robbed banks, beat people up, you know, the usual. But one day, he went too far. He found the scrawniest person you could find, and knocked his head into a side walk. Hard. A troubled teen’s life started with his father abusing him, in many ways. If his father would’ve left him alone, he wouldn’t have almost gone to jail, or beaten up Peter. But, because this did happen, Cole had to forgive himself, then his family, and then Peter. It took Peter a long, long time before he would forgive Cole, but that eventually happened. If no one forgave anyone, Peter would be dead, Cole would be dead inside, and his mom would be miserable. Forgiveness is a gift we all get, and no one in this book took advantage of it. Except for maybe his dad.

Another example of trouble Cole got into was when he got mauled by the Spirit Bear. The Spirit Bear is a giant white bear that only shows up when you are truly relaxed. Cole saw this bear, and was very angry at it, because it wasn’t afraid of him. So, he ran at it, and tried attacking it. His plan backfired, and the bear attacked him. He lost feeling in his body, and he couldn’t really move anywhere because he was horribly hurt. Cole was nearly on an island for three days, not moving. He ate a bug here and there, but he couldn’t move otherwise. During this time, Cole realized it wasn’t his fault he beat up Peter. And it wasn’t Peter’s fault either. It was his dad’s fault. His dad was the one that got him mad, and he blew up at Peter. Peter was just in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Cole decided to forgive himself for all the trouble he’s been through, and blame it on his father, because all of this was truly his fault.

Forgiveness is great. When someone forgives you, you have a different feeling inside. It feels like they gave you a second chance to live. Like you and that person can start over with your friendship. Cole from Touching Spirit Bear feels this way about Peter. They seem to have a strong connection at the end of this book, and it seems that they really did care about each other. Forgiving all lead up to this. Without it, Peter wouldn’t see how sorry Cole is, and how Cole has matured. But, he has now, all because Peter gave Cole a second chance, even though he didn’t really have a choice. Forgiving is the reason the world goes round. Everybody makes mistakes, but anybody can fix them.

My Prediction

Imagine being chased by people that want to keep you locked up in a cellar. Imagine being on the run at age 15. Imagine being betrayed by someone you really trusted. All of these horrible things happen to Chloe in the book The Reckoning, and she really doesn't handle her problems very well.

In my book so far, a group of teens all have supernatural powers and are being experimented by people they barely know. When they were being experimented, people told them they had mental problems, and where they were staying was a mental home. But really they weren’t mental and they kept them there so they wouldn’t hurt anyone with their powers. Now they’re on the run from everyone and everything. Including the Edison group, which is the group of the experimenters.

What I think will happen next is that they will run away, again, but get caught by the people that caught them in the first place. The Edison Group will probably end up killing one of them, because that’s what they intended before the last time they ran away. I think this because it reminds me of the book The Outsiders. Because when they ran away, two of them came back horribly hurt, and one never came back, because, obviously, he died. This happened because the teens were trying to save other kids that were trapped in a fire, and even if they went home and never saved those kids they would have gotten beaten up anyways.

This book is most likely to be an irony. It's obviously not very realistic because they all have supernatural powers,which doesn't happen to people in real life. Also, the characters go through many struggles as their enemies try to catch or kill them.

A horrible ending will probably happen to Chloe and her group in The Reckoning because they have the same issues in life; they’ve done bad things that people will never forgive them for. So, they also have a pretty good chance of dying, just like Johnny from The Outsiders.

Confession from Cole

Author's Note: We had to pick a paragraph or sentence that we thought was important from Touching Spirit Bear.

Hesitantly,he explained how he had how he had tried to escape the island and how he was mauled trying to kill the Spirit Bear. "I wanted to kill it because it wasn't afraid of me," he admitted.

I thought this paragraph was important because that Cole changed his ways by finally admitted something true. He admitted that he doesn't like it when people aren't afraid of him, because he likes seeing their reactions when they are. For example, when Cole and Peter were in the Circle of Justice together, Cole gave Peter the stare and Peter had a scared look in his eye, and Cole enjoyed it. He confessed something that he never would have if never went to that island.