I'm back...Sort of...

It’s that fun time year now, finals’ prep week. This year Mr. Dunn has asked up to write a reflective blog over the highlights and lowlights of this first semester. Therefore, that is the topic today.

I think one of my favorite things that we did was the Mock Essay project. It gave me a chance to work my imagination muscle*. It was cool way to learn to cite our sources. I really enjoyed being able to just make it up. It was a challenge making up something and making it seem legitimate. A low point though was the education project. I learned a very hard way not to get in over your head in a project and that I can write a thousand word five-paragraph essay in a Sunday. That was exhausting and I learned a valuable lesson.

A recent book that we read was I am the Cheese by again an author’s whose name escapes me. The book was an interesting analytical read. It was purposely confusing, but it was good. I called the ending on it too, but I won’t spoil the end for you. I had a lot of fun when we did class discussion over the book I really liked how the author wrote it in a way where two different stories going, but then they came together in the end. It might be something I will have to try in my stories.

One thing about this semester is I have improved as a writer and I’m happy. When I look back on my work, I can see my voice starting to develop, grow, and make my stories come to life. I think it comes from both the nonfiction work we have done and the fiction, both have forced me out of my shell as a writer and made me write in a way that I don’t normally write in. For that, I am grateful.

WCP

*I do not own this. It is sole property of the author of the Looking Glass Wars whose name escapes me. Please don’t sue.

Quotable Quotes

“’I did this, all by myself.’ Superstar lawyers and math whizzes and software entrepreneurs appear at first blush to lie outside ordinary experience. But they don’t. They are precuts of history and community, of opportunity and legacy. Their success is not exceptional or mysterious. It is grounded in a web of advantages and inheritances, some deserved, some not, some earned, some lust plain lucky- but all critical to make thing them who they are. The outlier, in the end is not an outlier at all.”

This is one of the most profound points Gladwell makes in the entirety of the book. It sums up most all of what he is trying to say, Outliers aren’t outliers they are just people that were given extraordinary opportunities and took them. Bill Gates was given a computer lab for several years, the Beatles got an amazing gig for practices, that’s how they got good, they got these incredible chances and took them with both hands and held on tight for the ride.

“If the resources of that grocer, the fruits of those riots, the possibilities of that culture, and the privileges of that skin tone had been extended to others how many more would now live a life of fulfillment, in a beautiful house high on a hill?”

How many more people could be successful if more people were given opportunities? How many more Beatles, and Bill Gates would we have if more of those types of opportunities were available to people? Outliers are only outliers because so few are given those gold gooses or holy grails. Society makes outliers, but how many more can we make? That is the question posed in that last sentence if more people were given these golden opportunities who know where we would be now?  That is truly the most interesting question posed…

So could you be an outlier?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trip_Hawkins

Notice anything about is birthday or year rather…

http://www.sparkprogram.org/

This origination is helping to stop the dropout rate and is giving kids a chance to find a career they really enjoy, they are being given a chance to take hold of and hold on to…

http://www.kipp.org/

There are camps and schools out there that are also giving underprivileged kids chances to take a hold of like the, KIPP Academy.

They are cool stuff like those that people are starting you should really check them out, and maybe support them too…

A Reply to the 3's

For the one person not in my class reading this, ignore this post, it just for my grade, so come back next week please. Thank you and have a nice day.
AMK
"What are you entirely devoted to or have the most faith in?"
  I would have to say that I am most devoted to my church. Anyone who knows me, knows that I give up a lot of my time for it. In fact, most of you have probably heard me complain about getting up so early for seminary :) But, nevertheless, I believe in it, and so I'm willing to give up a lot. For those who don't know, I attend seminary, a church class for high schoolers, every morning at 6am, I go to church on Sunday for at least 3 hours, I have activities on Wednesday nights from 7-8:30 approximately, and then there are other various activities. That's a lot of time devoted, and I wouldn't do it if I didn't believe that what I was doing was right. I can only hope that everyone can find that in their life.
You should feel lucky Liz, I really don't have anything that I am that devoted to, unless you count read or books, I don't. I do have my faith, but I'm still trying to figure that one out. So I can't say much on total devotion, but you have my respect in that aspect. As the saying goes, that’s life.

P.S.- Re:Anthony Does an IQ define how smart you are?  I think not. Like it was stated in the book, it's nearly useless once someone passes into the intelligence threshold. I don't think it even matters before you get into any kind of threshold. Every person is a genius at something, because you just simply cannot know everything. I don't see how IQ matters when you are faced with a task you know nothing about (Knowing how radiation works, for example, is useless when someone is asking you to fix a leaky faucet).
I'd have to disagree with you in some aspects. IQ does have some barring on how smart someone is. Yes it plays no role in street smarts and practical skills, but in school that is a whole different can of worms there. IQ does play role, but in only in certain settings. IQ does not affect if someone has the skills to survive in the real world, just what they will be doing in school. I’m smart so I get more advanced classes so it does have an effect there, but I have very little knowledge in terms of boyfriend and that kind of stuff, so me knowing how to calculate the area of a circle is no help. But our IQ do play a role in our lives, just in certain aspects.
No Katie, I've never wanted food because of an advertisement, but i can understand why people may want them. Commercials, billboards, and even transportation are always advertising for unhealthy food. Children are mostly the main targets, but adults are victims too. Mostly, the ads just make me sick to my stomach, and I wish for them to be taken out of society because they're poisoning the minds of young people. When children see a golden arch, they began crying and begging for McDonalds. It's quite sickening if you ask me.
Food from an advertisement, yum and ich! The food I see on T.V. does sometimes have an effect, depends on whether or not I’ve eaten yet. If I have, I will think oh that looks good, other times, Dinner time and I will go eat. Sadly if you could get rid of the commercials and ads, you would have no T.V. it’s a fact of our economy, ads pay for the stuff we see and watch. Although you have a point yes it is quite sickening, fast food companies need play fair, in terms of the law, they do. But we all know the truth, but there isn’t much we can do about it, so as the French say Such is life.

Legacy

Where a person grows up plays a huge roll in how they interact with people and respond to certain situations. In Part II of Outliers Gladwell talks about the effects their growing up. One case he brought up was the Harlen, Kentucky bloodbath. He what he tries to explain is why it happened.
"'culture of honor.' Cultures of honor tend to take root in highlands and other marginally fertile areas, such as Sicily or the mountainous Basque regions of Spain." The people their often are herders and have to defend them from theft, lest their reputation is ruined.
When I think about it, it make a lot of sense; both in the people from their and why they are the way they are. They are dependent only on themselves and take pride in their work. People I’ve met who are from “down south” nine times out of ten have rather nasty tempers when insulted and “boil over” quite easily. So I can safely say from my experiences that a certain areas of people have similar tempers and way they react to certain situations.

“In the 1990’s, two psychologist at the University of Michigan- Dov Choen and Richard Nisbett- decided to conduct an experiment on the culture of honor.” They wanted to know if there were remnants of that culture of honor that was in Harlan was still around today. They experiment was interesting to read about to say the least. When all was said and done they found that the southerners that were insulted were more likely to have violent responses to the test questions than the northerners. The northerners were more likely to laugh it off as a joke when they were given the insult, asshole. What was really amazing is they were getting these volatile responses from the sons of business executives. That the crazy part. It made a lot of sense. Our parents learned from their parents how to react and act and their parents learned from their parents. So it would be safe assume that a culture like that would be passed on though generations, if there is anyone left to still pass it on that is.

Now on to the boring…er…fun stuff that gets me my grade:
A question posed by Sachary Zpahr was, why does coming from a wealth increase your chances of being successful?
Besides the obvious, it makes a huge difference in how a person raise, thus changing how they interact with their world. People that come from upper-class family often are more accretive, than those from lower-class families. It is how they are raised that is the gift that was given to them, take hold of and take them skyward.
A.M.K

Change of Book

Just a heads up I've changed books. I'm now reading Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. The point he is trying to make is success isn't all that we make it. The "outliers" of society didn't just get successful on their hard work and determination alone, no they got really lucky and caught some huge breaks; that genes and demographic did play a role in their success, for example he compares to geniuses, one grew up in a lower class family the other in a rich middle class family. It played a huge roll in how the interacted in the world around them. One tried to poison his tutor in collage and got away with just a slap on the wrist, the other couldn’t get a break. The difference was the way they grew up, the genius from the lower class family wasn't taught how to talk to authority figures, the other learned to be assertive and how to communicate with authority. Their demography played a huge role in how they turned out.

Mr. Gladwell poses some interesting questions:
How does someone’s birthday change effect what they are going to do?
How did the era that these people grew up in effect how they reached success?
How did their going up effect how they did as an adult?
What break did they get that gave them that extra boost that made them an “outlier”?
 They are interesting, but the question he is really asking is, what made these people outliers?

The answer: they had determination and worked hard and they got really lucky. That was one the hugest differences between outliers and the rest of us.

Here are a few questions you can chew over for next week:

Have you caught any breaks that have given you an edge?

Are you the making of an Outlier?

Fast Food Nation

Hello, and welcome. My name, well I'm not going to tell you, but you all can know me as WCP. This is my fist blog to bear with me. I am joining the blogging world because well... my English teacher is making and well I wanted to share about books I'm reading and share some really good stories. Well as for the name well ny of you Last Airbender fans can get it. Ok on the english aspect of this...
The book I am reading is Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser. The book is about the dark under belly of fast food. So far he has talked about who started this fast food as we called it and made it the way we see today. I am well into chapter two right now and it is interesting to say the least he as just started to pull of the nice paint and expose the ugly truth to "our trusted friends".
From what I've read so far, the claim he is trying to make is that fast food isn't all clowns and French fries. One of his key points he makes is that the companies don't play fair and that there is more to them than the toys and play lands. For example McDonalds has an ad campaign for small children and that Disney Hired Nazi S.S. officers to work on Disneyland. Welcome to the underworld of Fast Food. Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate



W.C.P