Shadeslayer375

Clarification

2009-05-02T11:44:00.000-07:00

Some of you didn't get what I previously posted. It's okay. My brain was skipping a few steps when I wrote it.

The first paragraph was a short description of the book I read recently entitled The 47th Samurai. I didn't go into alot of detail for it was not a book that you talk about. It's hard to explain as most of the subjects are socially not acceptable to talk about, so that's that.

The next paragraph was an assignment from our English teacher to write a story about a number.
I used 1. You'll notice I used many prefixes such as mono-, uni-, and ordinals like first, and such. So that's my clarification.

2-in-1...again

2009-04-30T15:43:00.000-07:00

Been awhile since I posted last. Been very busy. Yep.

I finished a book by Stephen Hunter entitled The 47th Samurai. Very good book. It was a great American blood-soaked thriller but also gave me a new perspective on the subjects of face, bushido, samurai, seppuku, and Japan's love of porn. I guess they really love white, blond women in a teacher-blows-Johnny porn vid. Anyway, I've got a cool little story to share with y'all.

Once upon a time, there was Uric the Unicorn who was talking to Manny Monogram who was talking about Newton's first law of motion to a one Sandy Solo. That one Sandy Solo was practicing one of her monologues in front of Uric the Unicorn and Manny Monogram who were making unique comments concerning her comic comedy.

How many references to the number one did I make?

Count and post.

Spontaneous Word Poem

2009-04-22T13:57:00.000-07:00

He ran to a place,
any place, from elementary school
a person followed in pursuit,
that teacher from LA.

He climbed, they jumped
he slipped, the shouted with
the teacher from LA.

Cops drive, principals slip away, for
they hit, they lie
like the teacher from LA.

School House Rock destroyed him,
other kids were broken,
but he would not be broken,
by the teacher from LA.

They came across the alleyway,
he slipped by unnoticed,
beams of light grazed him as he saw walk by,
that teacher from LA.

He ran to someone, someplace,
any place,
that apartment!
In the dark of a bush
the teacher from LA.

He opens the door-
damn! it's locked!
Smells the sweet lavender
on her cheeks and knows the chase is over
he turns and faces the teacher from LA.

Spring Poems

2009-04-18T11:07:00.000-07:00

So much depends
upon
a shiny, earth colored
noisy wrapper
upon a melty piece of heaven
layered in milky chocolate

So much depends
on
Soft, chewy peanuts with
gooey caramel
on the complexity of a single
recipe
and the happiness
inside

So much of Spring depends
upon
the song of animals
in the trees
calling out "Hello. How are you?"
"Just fine, thank you."
replies the fluffy, soft voice
of a Nuthatch

So much of Spring depends
upon
the waking of the trees from
winter's chill
upon the revival of the grass
and flowers

Native American Persecution

2009-03-18T16:19:00.000-07:00

George Washington thought that the Native Americans were an equal but inferior race and designed a six step plan to civilize the Native Americans. In my opinion, this occured because the Native Americans really had no central governmental figure to stop the colonization. Akin to the tribes of Umuofia in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart the Native Americans were a mottly bunch of little tribes that really had no chance against a central power like the newly formed United States of America. Here's my source: Remini, Robert. ""The Reform Begins"". Andrew Jackson. History Book Club. p. 201.

2009-03-07T11:38:00.000-08:00

It looks better when you click on the image. Well, I can do it now. Check me off.

BOLLYWOOD!!!

2009-03-01T14:21:00.000-08:00

Bollywood is a word that either refers to all the movies that are made in India, or it can refer to a specific genre of movies that qualify as "Bollywood" movies. Slumdog Millionaire can be a Bollywood movie as it was made in India however, it doesn't meet the requirements to be a pure and true "Bollywood Movie".

"The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the Indian film industry. Bollywood is the largest film producer in India and one of the largest in the world." (Wikipedia 1).

I think from Slumdog Millionaire that we can expect a great deal more movies that are from Bollywood coming into the American theatres.

2 in 1

2009-02-23T16:46:00.000-08:00

Eck. it's my sweet 16 and I'm sick. it's cheap irony. well, life goes on. I didn't do the last post so I'm rolling both hope and change into one post. I really don't have a lot of hope for getting over this sore throat and cold that i have. I stumbled across a poem of hope by Joaquin Miller entitled "Colombus"

It reads:
"Behind him lay the great Azores,
Behind the Gates of Hercules:
Before him not the ghost of shores,
Before him only shoreless seas.
The good mate said, 'Now must we pray,
For lo! The very stars are gone.
Brave Adm'r'l, speak; what shall I say?'
'Why, say: Sail on! Sail on! And on!'
Then, pale and worn, he kept his deck,
And peered through darkness. Ah, that night
Of all dark nights! And then a speck-
A light! A light! A light! A light!
It grew, a starlit flag unfurled!
It grew to be Time's burst of dawn.
He gained a world; he gave that world
Its grandest lesson: 'On! Sail on!'"

Columbus kept his faith and he gained a world, he found a hemisphere. I believe that this has significant relevance to the times now. As Obama said, we must quit bickering about the past, quarreling and playing the ever familiar, politician's favorite game: the blame game.

SAIL ON! Move on america. Wall st. Get your act together. quit spending millions in private jets and bonuses. Enough is enough.

I was looking through a book by President Gordon B. Hinckley (late President of the LDS/ Mormon Church) entitled: "Standing for Something: 10 Neglected virtues that will heal our hearts and homes."

In reading through a section focusing on learning a passage reads:
" Many events that take place around us provide constant reminders that
there is cause for alarm in our nation. It is shcoking to read, for instance,
that illiteracy is on the rise. It is almost unthinkable that, in such an
abundant society, many adults cannot read. A story in the New York
Times published under the headline 'Study Says Half of Adults in U.S. Lack
Reading and Math Abilities' offered some sobering statistics based on a study of
more than 26,000 Americans above age fifteen:

Nearly half of the nation's 191 million adult citizens are not proficient enough in English to write a letter about a billing error or to calculate the length of a bus trip from a published shcedule, according to a foru-year Federal study. The study, released yesterday by the Education Department, presented a bleak statistical protrait of the nation's literacy. . . . Businesses estimate that lose $25 billion to $30 billion a yeat nationwide in lost productivity, errors and accidents attributable to porr literacy" (Hinckley 63).

I find this quite fascinating. Later in page 63 he quotes the Chicago Tribune in its false surprise that this phenomenon has occured. A society with the manners of a rock band, the morals of a soap opera, and the decision-making ability of the Simpsons wants to pay for government on Visa and American Express? DUH!! All we want is quick zip-zap remote controlled patch-er-up solutions so that I have to deal with all this crap. At 16 years of age, I'm already confused and wondering, "Where'd all my college fund go?". We need to change our habits and work hard for the things we care about. That's what I have to say.

Gender Roles

2009-02-10T16:04:00.000-08:00

Nectar in a Sieve presents gender roles in a very straight forward way. Women bear children and men work the fields to provide for the family. Though, this can go on beyond men and women. The firstborn of any family prepares to inherit the land of his father, so, he must work in the same area of expertise as his father: farming. However, we see that in Nectar in a Sieve the roles flip-flop for a short period of time. We see that, "With her earnings Irawaddy was able to buy rice and salt, and milk for [Kuti], who was too weak for anything else" (Markandaya 99). Ira supported her family during the drought from her earnings by selling herself. Granted, that may pose a very unmoral decision, but, a decision that she resolved to make. So, I think that gender roles present a very biased view on the woman. People should not view women as weak, dependent people, but rather as people who can contribute to society.

Different Cultures

2009-02-09T19:49:00.001-08:00

The Indian culture is different from ours in many ways. They have different dances, food and clothing. Very tired right now. Haven't really found any texts about this subject. night.

2009-02-04T15:10:00.000-08:00

I found a passage in Nectar in a Sieve that eludes on the subject of trying to get over a difficulty or facing a challenge. Ruku and Nathan are trying to keep their hopes up even when the drought has the best of them and they're barely making end's meet. She says, " That ye3ar the rains failed. A week went by, two. We threw ourselves on the earth and we prayed./I thought she [Ruku's goddess] looked at me with compassion and I went away comforted, but no rain came" (Markandaya 71).

New Book

2009-01-31T16:58:00.000-08:00

We got a new book this week titled Nectar in a Sieve. This first post is going to elaborate upon the natural disasters or how people are affected in the book. The monsoon comes in the book at around chapter 5-6 or something like that. The monsoon comes in and literally destroys everything. I find it quite interesting that despite the monsoon and the destruction good things can happen. As Ruku and Nathan break the dams around the rice paddy she recalls,

"When the water was all gone, there they were caught in the meshes and among the paddy, shoals of them leaping madly, wet and silver and good to look upon" (Markandaya 44).

Good things happen to us if we keep our faith up and believe that things will turn out for the better. As long as we find things to be grateful for everyday then we find that life is good, and we are blessed. That is what this passage means to me. Life is good.

Shakespeare

2009-01-10T12:46:00.000-08:00

I love Shakespeare. I've always loved his language, his sense of humor and how entertaining he is. My favorite play is Romeo and Juliet. This new play we're reading in english is A Midsummer Night's Dream which is really funny and has many twists and turns. Very well written. I am working hard in school this last week before finals so I can get all of my stuff back. Not much else. Haven't been reading much. Maybe I should get to that.

It's been awhile

2009-01-07T14:40:00.001-08:00

Been gone awhile. I was busy during Winter Break, rocking out on my new Laguna Guitar and my Line 6 Spider III 15 amp. Been practicing Stairway to Heaven for about a month and its getting solidified in my head. Started a new unit in English. Midsummer Night's Dream. I really love Shakespeare. It's just really funny. I'm really busy with getting my grades up. If I can get a B+ average in all six of my classes I can get my phone, mp3, facebook, and socializing back plus I get signed up for Driver's Ed. With my A in Chem. I can have no lower than a B- in another class with my other four B+'s and I'll make it. It's kind of a strategy game almost. That's the news.

Being a techie

2008-12-18T17:48:00.000-08:00

is hard. I'm the only one in my family of 5 who knows how to decently fix a computer. My sister's computer is the best in the house, with three compys. with 5 gbs of ram and half a terrabyte of hard drive, that's over 500 gigs!, it's a techies dream. Nvidia gt 8600 it kicks all video game butt! with vista there's nothing this thing can't do, but as I've just learned as im typing, my sister's compy won't read any cd i give it. I look into the computer files and I realize there's no cd drive showing up. so that's my problem now. had to tell her to take it into best buy. finished watching All My Sons in english today. I started blubbering like a baby. I'm gonna be converting all of my baby tapes of my birth till the present time to dvd which i get paid for 30 bucks a pop. gotta get to work.

WHY?

2008-12-13T13:09:00.000-08:00

Why is it always me? Now the drama's over but I'm sick. ugh. I hate head colds. They suck. I was dreaming about being a castaway on an island like Tom Hanks and my bed was soaked. No, I didn't wet the bed. At least not in that way. I had a blanket over the covers so as to break my fever with heat and I ended up sweating till my bed was wet. My fever broke though. I am reading All My Sons and I'm 60 pages away from finishing The Fellowship of the Ring. I also started a new book called Extreme Measures by Vince Flynn. It's a political thriller and it has to do a lot with terrorists and Al-Queda. That's about it this week. I'm hoping the sniffles will subside.

People

2008-12-10T14:30:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I just hate people, y' know? No matter what I do there's always a red flag going up. I've had a lot of drama these past two weeks and I am sick of it. I just can't wait till people will get over themselves and start being smart and not the idiots they are. Ugh. I've been reading a lot though. I am nearly done with the first Lord of the Rings book: The Fellowship of the Ring. AWESOME!! How can you not read it? That and I've just started Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. A similar style to Freakonomics, which is my favorite, Blink talks about that part in our minds that we really can't explain. Our subconsciousness. In Blink a subject of a lot of talk is thin-slicing. Where we can in an instant without having any real physical evidence, or explaining how we know, we can make highly accurate descriptions of people's personalities, whether a tennis player will double fault or whether a kouros is a total fake. Awesome book. Not for those idiots aforementioned. So that's my life these past two weeks. Total Sh*#!! Ah well. What are ya gonna do?

Today...

2008-12-04T16:54:00.000-08:00

...is not that great. Been losing my sanity all week. First, I can't open my Laguna electric guitar with the new Line 6 Spider 3 amp till xmas and that just kills me. I'm slowly failing at fitting in with society and i am just so sick and tired of trying. People are telling me to fit in, and not just at school, but no matter how hard i try it just isn't who i am. im tired of putting a mask on just so that people will say, "Hey, he fits. He's cool." I'd rather have them say, "*snort* Dork." My life is just not that great anymore. It's slowly going down the tubes. I don't know. I just feel really down lately. I'm basicially confused. I never thought that when I finially would spill my guts online like this I'd be whining. Heh. ugh. This just has not been a great last two days for me. They've been complete crap. Now I've hit rock bottom. What goes up must come down, so isn't true that what goes down must go up? Or does it go bankrupt like AIG?

....ooohhhhh... . . .

2008-11-28T09:54:00.000-08:00

Ow. Ow. Ow. ugh. This thanksgiving hurt really badly. I sprained my toe, tried to get up today for Kohl's 4am sale. WTF was I thinking? I mean really? 4AM!! ugh. Stayed up till 1 watching lord of the rings with my father all the while drinking fizzy bubblie! I love fizzie bubblie! its that non alcoholic sparking apple, pear, apple-lingonberry, and all other flavors sparkling juice! AWESOME!! So we downed 3 bottles of that stuff, so now I have a hangover. Not from the bubblie but from watching lotr for about 5 hrs. My head feels like a train wreck. ugh. my gut feels horrible. Why do we even do thanksgiving if it hurts so bad afterwards? we eat until we literally explode and the next morning our stomachs are just messed up. ugh. ugh. ugh. I can't even spell right my head hurts so bad. tylenol just makes it worse. ugh. next time I'm gonna go easy on the pie.

Reading

2008-11-22T12:10:00.000-08:00

Well not so much reading as watching in school. Despite the protest of my parents that watching movies in school is a complete waste of time, that they could show me the same movie and teach me the same if not more about that movie than Roehl could (which I doubt) and that watching movies degrades your brain into mush which is oxymoronical to school's purpose. So yeah. We watched "O brother, where art thou?" which is my favorite movie of all time!! My favorite part is when george nelson shoots the cows and then the cows get run over by the cops!^^! BLOOD!! GORE!! RAMPAGE!! Ahem. Anyway, one of the most occuring motifs was sight. Lots of blind people. I keep wondering how many blind people there really were in 1930 but the representation of sight is of vision. The sight was of prophecy and that our eyes decieve us and without our eyes we could see the truth of our destinies.

Reading

2008-11-20T17:07:00.000-08:00

Just finished I AM LEGEND!! AWESOME BOOK!! It talks about how that vampires in our world are legends but as he racks up his vampire kills he has become a legend for them. The last line of the book is the three famous chilling words: I am legend. AHHHHH!!! AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME!!! Very good. I found Richard Matheson's insight on what happens to a man all alone in a world full of people waiting to kill him very interesting. Highly recommend this one.

Wednesday's reading

2008-11-13T18:44:00.000-08:00

It's been awhile since I posted last, I've been busy with English and our Odyssey essays. As I was getting quotes for the revenge topic of the essay, it really came clear to me that a lot of what I was trying to get at in my paper was that revenge and violence is not the answer and that more conventional ways of solving one's problems are at hand.

Wednesday's reading

2008-11-04T14:41:00.000-08:00

Today I saw the back of a kid's shirt at school that said: "Barack & ROLL!!" I found this very clever but what also hit me was that alot of young voters, even us young people who can't vote, really support Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Some classmates that I know support John McCain for their own reasons and that's fine, but I just really am surprised at how well Obama has hit it with the youth of America. I am starting to realize that what I learned about ancient civilizations is true. When a country is in the dumps a pattern occurs, that is a powerful leader brings that said country back on its feet it has prosperity and I believe that is what is in the foreseeable future. If you really want to know why we young people are really turning out to vote this election it is because we were raised on a lot of rhetoric about the "American Dream" but rarely have we been able to make such and impact, or direct effect on that dream. Whether your white, black, gay, straight, ivy-league educated, disabled, fat, skinny, male, female, asian, latino, it doesn't matter, just as long as you show up and pull that lever. We will vote because we know that even though the president cannot save us from ourselves, he is the symbol for the best in us. What we do, consume, how we treat each other is what identifies us as the USA, the president merely is the figurehead of our chorus of voices, again, the symbol for who we are and who we can be. That's why. Every vote counts. That's my message today. Go Vote!

Green Bay Packers Heroes

2008-10-21T11:00:00.000-07:00

As I was researching the many packers heroes, people who made a fame and a name that cannot be slain for the Packers, and among them were the infamous Brett Favre, Vince Lombardi, Reggie White, Curly Lambeau, and Ray Nitschke just to name a few, can be separated into three different columns. They are heroes who play with their hearts not their heads (all the time at least) on the field, players who play with their hearts out in the community, and players who play with their hearts out on the field of the world, metaphorically speaking, changing the lives of people. The people who play with their hearts are all of the above and more like Greg Jennings, Donald Driver, Nick Collins, Ryan Grant, Aaron Rodgers and the one and only Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila, they all play tremendously on the field; they do things that are illogical and they constantly bend the play rules risking the ball and possible points but because they take risks they are rewarded with our love and support. Those are the heroes of our time, the people who risk everything for the love and adoration of other people.

Wednesday's Reading

2008-09-20T15:40:00.001-07:00

School sucks. Had to get that off my chest there. Saw the first Timberwolves game last night. AWESOME!! Just reading about two of my favorite dancers on "Dancing with the Stars" who now have endometriosis. Not happy about that. Nothing else really.

Leadership

2008-09-16T14:58:00.000-07:00

This summer I showed by doing an Eagle Scout Project. An Eagle Scout is the highest rank for scouts and a great honor. I decided to take on a landscaping project for Cornelia Elementary. The project took 2 years to plan and get passed by the school district and my BSA adviser, but I got the building part done in 2 days with over 30 volunteers from the families of my fellow scouts. It was a huge project, and I was glad to be a part of it.

Hall of Fame

2008-09-11T14:02:00.000-07:00

Ben graduated E H S in the year 2011 being involved in many activities such as Soccer, Marching Band, and Sober Squad. He then became a very successful businessman by becoming the CEO of Microsoft, Apple, and Dairy Queen in less than 3 months. In celebration he shared the world’s biggest cookie-dough blizzard with the entire North American Continent. Later he won the National Spelling Bee three times in a row and at a huge party after his third win, died of the world’s largest drug overdose and died at the age of 22.