English Final V2

Describe the world you come from — for example, your family, community or school — and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations.

I had a grandpa that was very close to me. He raised me from when I was 2 years old until I was 13. He was someone that I looked up to immensely, and he influenced my life tremendously. One day, he was suddenly diagnosed with lung cancer, and he had to stay in the hospital. No longer could I wake up and see him as I walked to the bathroom, and no longer could I see him in my house, like always, a reassuring presence. Now, if I wanted to see him, I would have to visit the hospital and see him, because he was too weak to live with my family anymore. I watched as he slowly got weaker and weaker, as the cancer spread to his throat, so he could not eat solid foods anymore, instead, he had to get a hole in his stomach and had protein shakes through the tube because he could not swallow. Eventually, he weakened so much that his body could not handle it and he died. I was inspired to become a doctor or at least get into the medical field, so I could help others who either had family members, or they themselves were inflicted with a debilitating medical condition. I want to have the knowledge to ease their pains or to cure whatever they are inflicted with. I did not like seeing a once strong healthy person slowly become weaker and weaker and eventually die. It is painful to see something like that happen, and to watch the disease progress through the stages. A doctor or many people in the medical field have the knowledge to either ease the pain or to cure it, and I find it very inspiring to be able to help ease a person’s pain that way. I do not want others to go through what I have, because of the painful memories and emotions that I relate to those memories. I want to be able to help people, no matter what I have to do.  

Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?

There are many things that I have done throughout my high school career that are important to me. I have been part of an after school program that has helped me develop as a an individual. It was a program called McCulum Youth Court. It was the first extracurricular activity that I was a part of that that actually made me feel as if i was part of something bigger. I felt as if I made a difference in my society, and that I was doing something important, instead of wasting my time on frivolous unneeded activities.
McCulum Youth Court is a program that practices restorative justice. It is a real court system that is recognized by the law. Every 2 weeks, we have a court night where we hear the cases of real youth who have committed crimes. Each court night, I have had to help strangers that are new to the program find their way through their program, and help them through the program every step of the court night.
During court nights, I have to speak with all of the volunteers that go through the program to work as jurors for the court night. I also have to speak individually with each and every judge that comes into the courtroom, and explain to them what they have to do during the court nights.  I talk to the youth offenders and their parents and tell them where they have to go and what they have to do during the court nights, each and everyone of these people being strangers. I also have to help brief each and every judge on what they have to do in court nights, and each and ever one of the judges change from one court night to the next, always strangers to me.
I have had to improve my public speaking skills because I have had to constantly use those skills each and every court night, I could not just be some kind of wall flower and hang around in the background, never speaking.

I have developed a joy of helping others in my community, and I have earned skills that are necessary for having a job that is easily accessible by the public for information, such as pharmacists, where regular people can go up to them and ask for help. In this program, I have developed public speaking skills that I can use to communicate better with other people, and I have also earned experience that is necessary to help influence people’s lives in a positive direction. I have also grown less intimidated by others, because I have grown desensitized to it due to the multiple times that I have had to face my fear of meeting and talking to new people during my volunteer work at McCulum Youth Court.

English Final

My school is an interesting place. It was an alternative school of a sorts. It is different from a traditional high school in the sense that it’s school curriculum has college classes built into it. It also has a much smaller student population, so it is easier to form stronger bonds with more people.
Before I came to this school, I was an extremely lazy person. I would procrastinate on everything, and all I would care about would be to finish my work as fast as possible so i can go play games or go on Facebook. I would never think about the work that I did nor the quality of work that I would hand it to the teachers just to get credit. After I went to ASTI however, that all had to change. I could not just procrastinate and do my work last minute. Now the teachers looked at the quality and quantity of work that was turned in, not just the quantity. I had to up the standards of my work and do all my work in a consistent timing or else I would not keep up with the work load.
Since this school was an early college high school that had college classes for he upperclassmen years, they did not offer a choice for an elective class. Instead, you had to take a Writing class, which was supposed to improve your writing skills and to bring them up to College Writing Levels. I was woefully unprepared for that class. For my freshman English class, it was practically a free A. There were not many assignments in the class, and to get an A on the assignments, all you had to do was turn something in that looked moderately like you followed the rules and instructions. There was literally only 1 or 2 people who had lower than A’s in my Freshman English class. When I went into the class, I went in thinking that I would ace everything that went in my way, after all, I had gotten an A in the last English class right? Oh how wrong I was.
Her writing class was hard, there was no doubt about it.  There was nothing that I did before that prepared me for it. I had to change my style of writing, and to improve on the vocabulary, the integration of quotes, the redundancy, almost every aspect of writing. The sudden shock dropped my A grade down to the C grade the first semester. I was crushed. Never before have I gotten such a low grade. However using the things that I had learned the first semester, I improved on my writing and managed to raise it to a high B the next semester. I had to work on losing my procrastination and developing better work habits and writing skills.
Through the school, I met a lot of people who are very focused on their futures and know either what they want to be, or have a general idea in the field that  they want to work in in their adult life. For example, David, who has already decided to go into the medical field, and be either a doctor or a pharmacist, and Vincent, who is aiming to be a lawyer.  

Before, I was unmotivated and I did not have many goals in life, nor did I have many ideas about where I was headed in life. have heard about my classmates wishes for going to schools that were related to the field that they wanted to major in, and their wishes for their futures, such as what jobs that they have wanted to get. Their dreams and aspirations have rubbed off of me, and now I feel more confident in my life’s goals. I actually have dreams and aspirations now, I want to get into the science and medical field. After hearing my classmates discuss their futures and the confidence that they have in themselves to succeed in life, I now have a lot more confidence in myself to succeed in life and to overcome whatever obstacles appear in my path to my future.

There are many things that I have done throughout my high school career that are important to me. I have been part of an after school program that has helped me develop as a an individual. It was a program called McCulum Youth Court. It was the first extracurricular activity that I was a part of that that actually made me feel as if i was part of something bigger. I felt as if I made a difference in my society, and that I was doing something important, instead of wasting my time on frivolous unneeded activities.
McCulum Youth Court is a program that practices restorative justice. It is a real court system that is recognized by the law. Every 2 weeks, we have a court night where we hear the cases of real youth who have committed crimes. Each court night, I have had to help strangers that are new to the program find their way through their program, and help them through the program every step of the court night.
Through this program, I have developed many skills necessary in life. I have had to improve my public speaking skills through phone calls that I have had to make for the program, and the things that I have had to say in the courtroom’s during court nights.  
During court nights, I have to handle most of the youth and adults that go to our program. When the court night begins, I am the person that the judge always goes to for help when they need it, I am responsible for them doing their job correctly.
I am a more self-confident person now, I am not intimated by the new and the unknown. I my be apprehensive about what the future holds, but I will not be so intimidated that I will not move on.


Hey Sutherland, I'm Just adding a link to a different version that I wrote, can you tell me which one is better in the comments?
http://mycjapan.blogspot.com/2011/05/english-final-v2.html

Comments on Rough Draft's

For David:
Even though you provided a lot of background information, you should do what you told me to do and provide more background info regarding what the reaping is, and describe the relationships between different people. Could there also have been another reason for her to have written the book? Wanting to put your feelings out for the world to see in the form of a book seems to be the generic reason to write a book, it doesn't seem special in any way.

For Amber:
What is the point of the fire? I would like to know more because you just seem to though it out there, but you don't explain what it stands for or what it represents. Also, does the is the gem only there because it was the initial thing that the fought over, and it was how they met? I would like to know more about that.

Hunger Games Book Review Final Draft

My book, the Hunger Games,  is about the American government in the future and how it changed from a democratic government into a dictatorial government. The Nation went through another Civil War with the “Capitol” on one side, and everything else on the other. The other side was a group of 13 districts.  In the end, the capitol won, and the opposing forces were defeated, with the 13th district being obliterated. The Capitol then assumed total control over the affairs of every district, taxed them heavily due to their defection, and created something called the Hunger Games as a punishment. The Hunger Games were an event where every district had to offer up 2 tributes, 1 male, and 1 female, every year in a fight to the death. This was a way to show the districts that the Capitol still had overwhelming power and could destroy any district, like they did to district 13, if they disobeyed.

There are a lot of themes in this book, and the author may have had a lot of different purposes or reasons to include all of the things that she had in the book, such as some hidden messages or hidden themes that she wanted readers to find out. One of the things that I found interesting was the theme of genetic engineering, and a foreshadowing of the future of a nation.

Her book could be talking about how power can corrupt a person/government.

I think that the authors purpose in writing this book was to talk about what might happen in the world if the government had too much power over their people, and what happens when the governments has absolute and unquestioned control over the citizens of their country. They could endue famines and economic downfalls just to control their citizens. This book may also show what may happen when there are TOO many scientific breakthroughs in life, such as in genetic engineering and genetic modification, as shown in the books creatures which do not exist in real life, and only exist because they have been genetically engineering into the world by scientists who have experimented with to much animal DNA. This is also shown by the “tracker jackers” in the book. They were created by genetically modifying the DNA of bees were turned into weapons to use in a war.

Another point that I find it brings up is whether or not it is ethical to genetically engineer new species into the world. It is a controversial topic because human beings are torn on the issue of whether or not we have the right to “play god” in a sense and bring new species into the world.

It also shows the government is manipulative, and how cruel they can be just to put on a show to their citizens, and to prove their superiority over others.

When food is scarce, the game makers will invite players to a banquet, somewhere known to all like the cornucopia, as an inducement to gather and fight. (Pg. 244)

The game makers purposefully go make an even where they try an gather people and make them fight, just to produce more fights or to produce more deaths and meaningless suffering. There is no other reason for them to do this except to prove their superiority to the citizens of the country, and to remind them of the fact that this could happen to every single one of them if they misbehaved.

This is a dictatorial government, and it is nothing like the government that we have presently. This book could also have been written to talk about the government that we have right now, the US government. The author could be implying that, even though our government may not be perfect, at least it is not like the government in the book, at least we still have the right to vote our officials into office and they do not rule our county with an iron fist.

The news sinks in. Two tributes can win this year. If they’re both from the same district. Both can live. Both of us can live. Before i can stop myself, I call out Peeta’s name. (Pg. 244)

This part shows how the Capitol, the government, manipulates the emotions of people just to try and make their point. This was when they changed the rules to draw out more love and other emotions from Katniss, but later on, they try to reverse this rule when it is fulfilled. They try to crush the hopes of Katniss trying to go back home with her “boyfriend”, and then, they suddenly have to kill each other. They purposely make new rules up and go back on them just to draw a reaction out of the crowd, and to crush any hopes of escaping together and to destroy the spirit of Katniss and Peeta. They play on the emotions of people just to prove their superiority, which may be a part of the authors message, that the government may eventually have too much power over the lives of citizens, and that the government begins to give little thought to the worth of human lives.

There are many interesting themes in this book that not a lot of people may have thought about deeply or have discussed about with other people. There may also be a lot of hidden messages in the book that not a lot of people can see or catch, and there are also a lot of hidden messages that may have not been left purposely in the book, but were caught or made up by readers that dived a little deeper into the book. The themes and other things that I have talked about, such as the genetic engineering and the possibility that the book may be foreshadowing the future were themes that the author may or may not have purposefully put into the book. These themes however, were included in the book, and a book is made to be interpreted by everyone in different ways.

Hunger Games Book Review #2

What was the author's purpose(s) in writing this book, and how can you tell? How well was this purpose achieved?

As I had said previously, I still think that the authors purpose in writing this book was to talk about what might happen in the world if the government had too much power over their people, and what happens when the governments has absolute and unquestioned control over the citizens of their country. This book may also show what may happen when there are TOO many scientific breakthroughs in life, such as in genetic engineering and genetic modification,

It also shows the government is manipulative, and how cruel they can be just to put on a show to their citizens, and to prove their superiority over others.

When food is scarce, the game makers will invite players to a banquet, somewhere known to all like the cornucopia, as an inducement to gather and fight. (Pg. 244)

The game makers purposefully go make an even where they try an gather people and make them fight, just to produce more fights or to produce more deaths and meaningless suffering. There is no other reason for them to do this except to prove their superiority to the citizens of the country, and to remind them of the fact that this could happen to every single one of them if they misbehaved.

This is a dictatorial government, and it is nothing like the government that we have presently. This book could also have been written to talk about the government that we have right now, the US government. The author could be implying that, even though our government may not be perfect, at least it is not like the government in the book, at least we still have the right to vote our officials into office and they do not rule our county with an iron fist.

The news sinks in. Two tributes can win this year. If they;re both from the same district. Both can live. Both of us can live. Before i can stop myself, I call out Peeta’s name. (Pg. 244)

This part shows how the Capitol, the government, manipulates the emotions of people just to try and make their point. This was when they changed the rules to draw out more love and other emotions from Katniss, but later on, they try to reverse this rule when it is furfilled. THey try to crush the hopes of Katniss trying to go back home with her “boyfried”, and then, they suddenly have to kill each other. They purposly make new rules up and go back on them just to draw a reaction out of the crowd, and to crush any hopes of escaping together and to destroy the spirit of Katniss and Peeta.

Hunger Games Book Review #1

I think that the authors purpose in writing this book was to talk about what might happen in the world if the government had too much power over their people, and what happens when the governments has absolute and unquestioned control over the citizens of their country. They could endue famines and economic downfalls just to control their citizens. This book may also show what may happen when there are TOO many scientific breakthroughs in life, such as in genetic engineering and genetic modification, as shown in the books creatures which do not exist in real life, and only exist because they have been genetically engineering into the world by scientists who have experimented with to much animal DNA. This is also shown by the “tracker jackers” in the book. They were created by genetically modifying the DNA of bees and turning them into weapons of mass destruction.
Another point that the book brings us is the use of genetically engineered animals as weapons of mass destruction in wars. This is a serious moral issue because many people are torn on the issue of whether of not humans should be able to create weapons of mass destruction out of animals and to use them to fight other people in wars. It could be considered inhumane and cruel because you have brought something into the world just to use as a weapon in a war. That seems to be something that is unethical and wrong to some people, including myself.
One last point that I find it brings up is whether or not it is ethical to genetically engineer new species into the world. It is a controversial topic because human beings are torn on the issue of whether or not we have the right to “play god” in a sense and bring new species into the world.

Connections with Immigration

There were a lot of family stories that had people fleeing China because of the communist government or because of the ruler, Mao ZeDong. This seemed somewhat consistent with the stories that my families had told me. For example,  my father would sometimes tell me stories about how good China was back then and that the only reason that he had moved was because of the little job opportunities that they had they had in China. However, my mother usually talked about how bad some of the living conditions there were in China and how glad she was they they immigrated.

So, my uncle’s father was a mayor in Zhongshan, a big city in Grangzhou. During the Cultural Revolution in China during 1966 to 1976, under Mao’s leading, the upper-officers tried to find out the corrupt in every city with every kind of torture. So, they not spared to get information from different city and people, to find out the Corrupts. As I know, many loyalty workers also die during that period, because the governors did not give so much patients or trustings on them. Unfortunately, my uncle’s dad got attention from those people, and getting into a big trouble—those people wanted information of how people corrupted each one no matter you did it or not—of course everyone would say they never did so, which the officers would use torture on the mayors, until you make something up and they have enough evidences to “kick” you into jail. This is what really happened to my uncle’s family, when he was a teenager. It was impossible for his father to escape anyway, at the end; his father asked one of his best friends brought them away as far as he can because he feared that his family would get involved into it. Thus, my uncle follower his two brothers, from China, then shipping to Macau, to Hongkong, and lastly took airplane to United States.

This seemed to be a consistent reason of why people had moved out of China and immigrated to the United States or to other areas, Mao ZeDong was a iron fisted ruler that not a lot of people liked. he was disliked by a lot of people, and the people that he had wronged usually left the country. This was from Peter’s blog, and it talked about how even in present times, the influence of Mao ZeDong is still far reaching.

In 1951, about six years after World War II, my great grandfather passed away but not because of natural causes. After the world war, Communism was on the rise in China and Mao Zedong became the first chairman of the communist party of China. During his rule, one of his terrible actions is that he ordered the imperial army to arrest all of the wealthy people, in which one of them was my great grandfather, and placed them in jail to rot. The jails had horrible living conditions and eventually, my great grandfather died of starvation because the food there was unbearable. The family wealth was never returned and the family had basically dropped from the elite class to the poor class within a few years.

This was a quote from David’s blog that talked about how Mao ZeDong and communism basically screwed his family over and over. It seems consistent with Peter’s blog post because it talks about how Mao ZeDong was a ruler that somewhat brutalized his people and deprived them of the things that they had achieved in their lives.

At the time, there were people in China who believed that he was a great leader, while there were also people who despised him and wanted to get rid of him. Personally, my mom stated how she thought Mao was a good and just ruler because he brought positive change and was helping China move forward technologically, militaristically, and in other ways. My mom stated how she does not understand why almost all Americans view Mao Zedong as an evil dictator. She believes that the people used propaganda to show all of Mao Zedong’s negative aspects and hid his numerous accomplishments as leader.

This was a quote that I found on Andy’s blog. This interested me because his mom’s views were similar to my dad’s views on the issue of Mao ZeDong. Andy basically talked about his mom and how his mom thought that Mao ZaDong was a pretty good ruler/ governor, and that the only reason that people think that he is such a bad person is because people use propaganda to make his bad deeds outshine his good deeds.

The thing that connects all of these family stories together is that they all talk about relatives that fled China and Mao ZeDong, no matter if he was a good ruler or not.