Discussions

We had another one of those group discussions in Mr.Sweeney's class. This time, we got to write any discussion questions that we could think of on a card and converse with each other about the subject. One of the discussions I participated in was about the death penalty. Of course like many other Americans, majority of students in the class room said they agree with the usage of the death penalty. I for one disagree with its presence. Many of the students arguments were that the many people deserved to die if they killed someone else. My argument and response to that was I felt that it does not make the situation any better to kill someone for a wrong doing. Your judging an individual for taking someone's life, yet you are doing the same deed as they have done. Either you way you look at it killing is killing. You can sugar coat with morals anyway you like but the justice system is doing the same thing they are judging other people on. I also feel like not only are they doing the same sin, but they are trying to play the role of God, and its very obvious. I feel like no single man has the right to deny life and judge others for any reason, considering the fact that they are far from perfect in themselves.

Grammar Schmamar

My group and I presented our Grammar Schmamar projects. I was hoping to make the presentation better than the first group we seen. They were a little disorganized, so I was hoping not to follow in those same footsteps. My group created a slideshow presentation depicting the uses of commas and semicolons. We each read aloud the meanings of them both and then examples on how to use them. After we presented when to use commas and semicolons, we showed sentences that required either a comma or a semicolon, and asked students for the class to show where one would be located. For every right answer, the student received a piece of candy from the bag.

Scrimmage

For my second out-of-class event, I decided to attend a Richard Bland Basketball scrimmage. When Mr.Sweeney informed us that this counted as an event, I quickly jumped at the chance to go because Basketball is a passion for me, so the fact that I could go to a game and it count for my class made it all the better for me. Needless to say, I was expecting more from the Statesman team. I had played with a few of them during gym hours before, so I was expected a really good college game from then. It was nerve racking when they could barely bring the ball up the court and produced numerous turnovers in the start of the game. I know they have good handles from seeing them play before, but i wasn't showing up when game was going. I can admit, alot of the players on the team have a nice shooting ability and good athleticism, but you need substance to back it up to create a shot and create plays. That's were handling the ball comes into play.

Fall Break $$

During Fall break, I didn't not have the opportunity to go home like a number of other residents did. I was scheduled to work and close that weekend, so I was stuck at Bland. I did however go home for a few hours on Sunday and hang with my mom. We haven't had the chance to just sit down and relax together. So when
I got there she had already rented a movie i had been dying to see called "This Is The End". The previews were hilarious, so I was pretty excited to watch it. She also ordered Papa Johns pizza, which I love. "This Is The End" was such a great and humorous movie. It was about a group of friends who were stuck on Earth during the infamous rapture. Some people might not believe in the rapture, but I am one of the ones who do. This fact made the movie even more interesting for me. All the events that took place during that time they were stuck was hilarious. At first, I just thought they were all going to die, but when each one of them did a noble deed, they were shot up to heaven.

Kings Dominion

For one of my out-of-class activities that was assigned on the contract on the beginning of the year, My and my best friend Kiel took a trip to Kings Dominion. We hadn't been in a long time, so I was pretty excited about going. Unfortunately, there was plenty of road work occurring on 95, so we were stuck in traffic for a couple miles on the way up there When we finally arrived, Kiel told me to put everything in my bag, because I have a reoccurring habit of losing items when I go there (especially my phone). But me being hard-headed the way I am. I put everything in there except my keys, which I didn't think I was going to lose. So went went into the campus and rode The Dominator. I usually end up riding this ride first. After we got off I realized I didn't have my keys in my pocket, even though Kiel told me to put everything in my bag. I was so furious at myself, but I had to enjoy my time and look for them later. So I rode my ususal rides and it became dark. I didn't realize fear fest was going on that day. Fog appeared everywhere and random monsters layed in between it. Everytime I went into the fog I would get harassed by every monster there, because they could see I was scarred. Me and Kiel took the opportunity to some of the mazes that we had been hearing about. We ended up have the best trip to Kings Dominion that day!

Movie posters

In English class, we further on discussed the different types of arguments that are commonly used. Mr.Sweeney displayed some examples of well-known movie posters so we can depict the different types attractions. being used. For example, the first poster he showed us was Sylvester Stallone's famous rocky movie. This movie came out in 1976. Mr Sweeney showed us the poster and we discussed the many ways the poster tried to attract the audience. For example, up at the top of the poster it read '' He was one-in-a-million-shot'' This shows that the character displayed on the poster was an underdog, and usually the audience roots for the underdog. Another example was the second Stallone movie entitle First Blood. His name was one of the more noticeable text coming from its size and color. We declared the type of argument as ethos because it was trying to gain credibility from the actor of the movie.

Narrative

We were given a paper to write that was about a positive or negative experience we had with language. I chose to write mine about a book I read that made me want to become more of a reader that what I was. Originally, I was never fond of reading books. It could never really grasp my interest and attention. I was more of a movie fanatic than I was a reader. I could never figure out if it was just because I thought reading was boring, or if just never read a book that captured my attention. In 7th grade, when I was introduced to the novel Milkweed, I did not feel the same way about reading and books. Milkweed followed a little boys story during the time of the Holocaust. Not only was the story well told, The Holocaust also played a part in me liking the book. I always took an interest on learning about that subject. I actually enjoyed reading the book from the beginning to the end. Reading a book that caught my interest made me want to see what other books could do the same. So from there the cycle began and I jump started into reading.