History Blog #3

One thing that I gained from my experience as an honors student was writing development. The two books helped me to grow in the experience of writing and now I feel more and more like an actual author. Something that I might have done differently would be the schedule that I had for all my work because I seriously felt over worked throughout this whole semester and now I want to just take a nap. My honors goals for next semester are to keep up with the projects and homework and maintain a B/A level grade. If I could choose any part of literature or history for honors next semester I would choose to look into either the civil war or revolutionary war but look at the countries that are the least mentioned. I pick these wars because they interest me and I would like to know more about it.

American History: The Great Recession

I remember it all perfectly clear the day I heard that the stock market had crashed. I had been finishing up a daily check-up on a stock market for school ( I was currently about 12 or 13 at the time) when the news came on announcing that the stock market had crashed and afterwards I guess you could say that is when everything just went down hill. I am not 16 and it's been about 4 years and there has been little to no sign of improvement but there are still many hopefuls with Obama America's first black president. Some people like the Tea Party a group of (I guess you could say) political haters. They always have something to complain about. But they have made quite a few changes that we are grateful for.

Currently in case you haven't noticed I have been studying and writing about politics in humanities class. I find many points annoying or just plain confusing but, I do know for a fact that we are in a sort of endless swinging pendulum. In fact The Great Recession is very similar to The Great Depression. On October of 1929 on a Tuesday the stock markets crashed with great impact. Many across the nation were devastated by this and people went out of business or lost jobs. A new president was elected and was stuck in a mess already so far in. While we were wallowing in our loss a war ravaged on in another country. We were being flooded with immigrants, most who were trying to run away from their problems, while finding themselves stuck into ours.

Sound like anyone we know? I ask Mr. Anderson (dad) what his views on both stock market crashes were. He said that he found many similarities between them in the fact that both crashes had major impacts on people’s jobs. He explained how many people were laid off or had to work part time because they couldn’t find a supporting job. In the end I think it’s going to be quite a while or more like 6 or 7 years before things show any sign of turning around. I realize that by that time I will just be out of college and I have only one thing to say about all of this, “I ain’t picking up after you!”

Honors History Blog #1

Obama’s healthcare reform was passed in March 21, of 2010. The bill basically states that it will get mostly everything back in the right order. Health care legislation is when the government wants to make healthcare accessible for everyone and want it to be government run. The reform is made to help us get back on track with our money and to help with money troubles.
A writer for yahoo answers writes that the system fails time and time again and will continue to fail. I find that by looking through history back to time like the Great Depression the system would fail and even today our economy has been in a recession. This recession has been going down hill since 2007 and has slowly been slipping down affecting not only us but other countries as well. We also go through fazes were we want federalism then we want anti-federalism, the pendulum swings to another side every 30 to 40 years but sometime changes earlier.
We have and always will be an unstable society. We will climb and we will fall never to stay in one spot for too long. Society will pick it’s self back up again soon enough and we will begin to stable. Yet we must remember that the system will fail yet again and we must prepare for the worst, even the Great America has it’s few kinks.


http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20101019101323AARCsyh

Life: The Book

1. What are you most proud of in your Life: The Book writing? Try to describe this is detail!
I am most proud of the personal connection I make in the story. The story is literally about me and my mother and the struggle we are going through and how it connects to my readers.
2. What are some changes or new ideas that you have developed in your writing through the course of this semester?
Some new changes that I gained in the story was that I can now write a piece of literature and have both humanities and science interfused into the story. I have also calmed down in the details that are placed in a story and am now more reserved when it comes to details.
3. If you had a little more time to work on your writing for Life: The Book, what would you do differently? What would you change about your writing?
I would add more information on neurofibromatosis and have more progression in the story with my mom. I would have a scientific yet personal feel to the story.
4. How has the additional element of publication in a book affected the way you approach writing?
I take a more effective, wider range of writing to appeal a wider range of audience.

Senate Health Care Hearings

What are your character's main goals for the Senate Health Care Hearings?
My character Emily Carter (whom is completely fictional) wants to see universal health care coverage put into the bill and America.

What do you want to accomplish?
I want to accomplish the partaking of my role considering I only had a day to adjust when everyone else had at least a week or more to adjust and learn about their character.

How do you plan to accomplish it?
To accomplish this I am going to have to mostly go with what I know and use my years of listening to the news and doing plays as backup when stuck heck I may even repeat but I will try my best to refrain for such things as it is not professional.

Who are you working with to get this done?
I am working with my senator Dylan, and my teatchers assistant Carly to help with any confusing section in the bill and hearing.

More opposing viewpoints!

This debate really gets at my topic of chromosomal disorders, because more and more people are being born with chromosomal disorders and many require medication but aren't able to pay for it. Some can pay but the health care takes so much money but we get less of what we should be getting. Obama wants to pass a bill so that insurance companies can't kick you out when you require a huge sum of money for some injury or disease. I believe that health care and medicare should be as avalable to everyone as it can possibly be without the governmnet taking away extra money for their own pleasures. "Does anybody really belive that adding 50 million people to the public health-care rolls will not cost the government more money?" This is more of a statement saying the government will not be affected if we add a couple more people to the plan yet you ask your self what are the statistics and estimates if we do add 50 million people? What are the positive and negative effects of this plan? and why is the government doing this, what is their motive behind this? I find health care to be a pain but in many ways usefull to.

Opposing viewpoints & your topic for Life: The Book

In the course of this blog post, please quote at least once from each article.

This debate impacts my topic because I am writing about chromosomal disorders and health care can affect how much or how well of medication one can get if they have a type of chromosomal dissorder. There are many dissorders like down syndrom and heart dissorders. I choose to focuse on the dissorder of hearts because I feel that Down syndrome is a little too personal for many people. I belive that health care should be available to all because we have a right to life and chromosomal dissorder requires a lot of medical attention.

Life: The Book & American History

1. Describe a basic history of American government's role in health care. Be sure to include major ideas such as Medicare, Social Security, the Civil Rights Act, and 21st century health care laws passed under George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

In a basic sense of the history of the American Government's role in health care throughout the course of history there has always been something unfair or exageration in the laws for health care. Some of the medicare laws passed under Bush and Obama were the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act
passed by Bush in December 8, 2003. Obama recently passed a bill on spending cuts recently made.
These article's were very useful in researching about the bills passed.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/12/medicare-cuts-hypocrisy-g_n_459930.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_Prescription_Drug,_Improvement,_and_Modernization_Act

For our book called "Life: The Book" I am writing about Chromosomal Defects in babys and prenatal care.

For whichever one you choose, feel free to answer in a manner that specifically addresses your topic for Life: The Book or a more general manner (remember that the general manner could still be very useful for your article, as it could provide background info). Be sure to embed links to relevant information and sources of further information.

1. Using a specific example, describe what makes a compelling character in narrative nonfiction or literary journalism.
In The New Yorker they write about a compelling character named Francis Collins, a stem cell researcher who has a strong belief in Christianity.

2. Using a specific example, describe what makes an interesting plot in narrative nonfiction or literary journalism.
An iteresting plot can be anything, it just has to catch the reader, keep them in and when they finish the story end with a bang! To get into more detail when writing tell the audience something that will interested like in The New Yorker's story The Covenant they wrote.
"When the geneticist Francis Collins was named director of the National Institute of Health, last summer, he became the public face of American science and the keeper of the world's deepest biomedical-research-funding purse." After yuou give the audience background info. and facts about the character and subject. You finally end it in a way that it ends but you still get the audience to think more indepth later on.

3. What specific steps do authors take to write non-jargon-based scientific writing?
They mostly do drafts and make sure to have a bit of everything when writing.

4. What specific steps do authors take to encourage their readers to connect with their stories?
They will base their writing on a huge portion of readers who share a common idea or belief and imply that into the writing.

Life: The Book & Humanities

For Life: The Book I decided that my topic would be on biologically engineered medication that is riskily taken by women in the stages of prenatal care. I choose the stage of prenatal care as my part of the books stage of life. I picked this because I found it interesting in the sense that is and isn't medication that you can take during pregnancy. NIH helps fund companies that make the medication that I will be researching.
http://www.webmd.com/baby/antenatal-corticosteroids-for-fetal-lung-development
One relavent literary example that relates to my idea is this website bellow.
http://search.marchofdimes.com/msmres.asp?cat_key=&query=betamethasone
The reason for this is because it shows some of the individual procceses that the drug takes effect against the defincency spoken about in both articles.

Chromosomal defects is the other biology based topic that I want to talk about.
http://www.marchofdimes.com/pnhec/4439_4137.asp
This website talks about the birthdefects and how defects in the mother or father chromosomes plays a big part in it. I picked this because I always see strange verietyies or birth defecs and it's all involved in the chromosomes. On relavant literary example that I found was this website bellow.
http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/genetics/chromosome.htm
The reason for this is because it shows in a more descriptive sense what Chromosomal or birth defects are.

Life—The Book!

One idea that I have for Life-The Book is to talk about racial genetics because it has always interested me, in the scenes that I don't even know half of the races that I am. There is a lot of genetic science involved such as phenotype and genotypes.


Another idea is to write about abortions and the multiple opinions and options one can have. A genetic science involved in this would be in-vetro fertilization and how it can be usefull in other ways.



My final idea for the book is to write about blood types and all the facts about them even a small section on how to find your blood type with house hold matterials if we're able to. some science in this would be to explain the different blood types and what they mean and how blood transfusion works.

Beginning the Internship Brainstorm

Idea # 1 I would like to work in a fun yet experiencing enviorment. I would like to work in a small enviroment with either kids or artist.


This is a place I would like to work in.

Idea #2
I want to use my art skills and teaching skills for my work. I see my self doing either crafts with kids or illustrations for some kind of graphic design.

Idea #3 I want to learn about better ways to teach or about different art styles. I would like to see what it is like to be an artist or a teacher the buisness behind the fun. I want to know what it would be like to be an artist and see what their daily routine is.

Twitter!

I find this article about a Retired NORAD Officer's New Book that Predicts a Tentative Worldwide UFO Display very interesting because the book talks about UFO's and how they work. Many idea's of how UFO's work, what they look like, and veiw's on the future. http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/57437/Norad_officer_predicts_huge_ufo_display_13_10_10/
For this article we find many interesting facts about a Norad Story writer and his facination in UFO's.

Dying For Dixie

The main cause for Michael Westerman's death was the Rebel flag, a symbol that has long lost it's purpose. Even in the reading it explains that even Freddie who was the one o kill Michael did not know the meaning of the flag, only that he was suppose to hate it. It may have been that he killed Michael purely because of the pure pressure he was under by the others whom he hung out with. Other people like Michael's Aunt who talked about Michael's past probably grew up in a life where they only knew to hate African Americans. One other person who may have been involved in Michael's death was himself. The reason for this is because he himself did not know the full meaning of what the Rebel flag means and due to this he basically called for his fate himself.

The Civil War... today?

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/lincolns/slavery/
I couln't link this because I was having too much trouble with it so I just pasted the site.
For this website I found even though it isn't about today and and how it talks about the lasting effects of the American Civil war it still represents that we are a completely free country. It talks about how we for the longest time had conflicts in the north and south and we still have some today, in things like politics. One of them is the whole deal on illegeal immagration. In a broad aspect of my thoughts and opinions I believe that the civil war means a lot of things, everything from african american rights to, conflics in immagration rights.

The Constitution, The News & You

I found this article interesting in the sense that the government is taking down several thousands of blogs contrary to the first amendment.

Amendment 1:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

The article basically is about how the government (they were not specified) had several thousand blogs taken down by the FBI but the Government never saw any of these blogs and so could not prove that these blogs went against the first amendment. It greatly interests me because for one I myself as I write this have a blog and two I begin to think will by blog may also be attacked for pointless reasons. It may be removed for the most pointless reasons such as expressing my opinion on some politics or even saying that the presidents nose looked funny. By removing ones blog for that reason makes it so we feel that we don't have the freedom of speech or the exercise of thereof. Still today the government baffles me in it's strict ways.
Here is the link to the article
http://blogcritics.org/politics/article/update-new-info-on-blogetery-takedown/

What stands out so far?

1. What stands out to you in your learning?
Something that stands out to me in my learning is how my old perspective of our world history is gradually changing everyday, because there are things in history that I have never know about until now. An example would be about things like not all of the colonist were American and not all were in America to start anew.
What is working well in this class?
Something that is working well in this class is staying up dated or at least knowing someone who knows the work we have for that night.
What can you do to build upon your successes?
Something that I can do to build up on my succes is to have more people critique my drafts so that my papers are better and make more sense.
What very specific, concrete & manageable steps can you take to make the most of your opportunities to learn in this class?
Some specific steps that can be taken to make the most of the oppertunities in class like: whenever the teacher gives you the opertunity to raise your grades go to the teacher after class or during break and see if you can get any information about the work.
What are your goals for the next few weeks in class?
Some goals for the next few weeks are one I want to get ahead on my honors reading(yes I am taking honors), two to be more active during class in class participation, and three to take advantage of extra credit oppertunities.

American Icon Final

Big blue eyes stare at a TV screen full of excitement, as honey-blonde hair hangs around a young, excited face. All day I had begged my mom to let me watch my favorite animated movie, “My Neighbor Totoro” by Hayao Miyazaki, a classic animated movie of two young girls who venture through their new home. They meet a mysterious creature named Totoro who is the guardian of the forest near their home. As the plot grows, I get closer and closer to the edge of my seat. Even though I have seen the movie before, I still feel as if it was my first time seeing it. Finally, as the credits role, I began to think about the movie, about how every scene had captivated me and how I wanted to know what would happen next even though I already knew what would happen. I wanted to be like that, to be like Hayao Miyazaki I wanted to draw.
I would sit in class, my notepad out and my mind would wander. Sometimes I got bored so I would pick up my pencil and draw. Whenever my art teacher would come I would get him to look at my pictures. He told me his favorite part was the birds. He taught me how to draw birds with stencils. It was fun creating new pictures of birds, now when I can’t think of what to draw next I just draw birds. Another person who helped me to really advance in my drawing was a substitute teacher, who taught me how draw people’s proportion more properly one day when I had spaced out and had begun to draw. Without him, it may have taken more time to advance to my level today. These people have really inspired me and have taught me so much.
The reason that this is such an inspiration to me is because, I have grown to love art and have become more skilled as an artist. Because of Hayao Miyazaki’s inspiration towards me, I have decided to build my future around art. Like any other human-being I was never a good artist, but with time I begun to understand and improve my skills as an artist. At first, my art consisted of everything, people, plants, and animals but I eventually got to the point were I liked to draw people. I slowly worked on that until I got better and I even still draw people but I have started to have more of a variety of things now. With time I hope to pass on my skills and my passion for art to others.
Now that I am older, my art style has changed and I have become better as an artist. I write my own stories and I have watched more of Hayao Miyazaki’s movies such as Kiki’s Delivery Service, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, and a recent release Ponyo. I have become more experienced in art and have learned about more art styles. Thanks to Hayao Miyazaki, I have been inspired to pass on my knowledge and skills of art to the next generation by through my stories, comics, or even through becoming an art teacher so that I can teach kids all about art. The reason I chose Hayao Miyazaki is because his art has influenced me throughout the years to become an artist. When ideas wouldn’t come or I needed a break I would watch one of his movies and just look at his style and how he thinks, really taking in what was going on. The reason is because of all the culture and art in the movie and how there is so much imagination and creativity. My hope is to inspire young minds through my art and pass the baton or the pencil in this case to the next generation.

Questions about our writing

1. An aspect that has been most successful about my artist statement is my ending because I feel that I have ended the story while satisfying the reader or in this case completing the loop on a high.

2. Some writing tips that are very useful are ones like changing one of my paragraphs so that the writing is more about me than my Icon, Because if I didn't people would think it's about Hayao Miyazaki and not me.

3. The most challenging part of the artist statement was to keep writing because at points I had no idea what to write.

4. The most challeneging writing tip I have had is when I was told to extend it because it was hard to find topics and things to talk about.

5. 1st and 2nd paragraph of story.
Big blue eyes stare at a TV screen full of excitement, as honey blonde hair hangs around a young, excited face. All day I had been begging my mom to let me watch my favorite animated movie “My Neighbor Totoro” by Hayao Miyazaki. A classic animated movie of two young girls who venture through their new home, and meet a mysterious creature named Totoro who is the guardian of the forest near their home. As the plot grows I get closer and closer to the edge of my seat. Even though I have seen the movie before I still feel like it’s my first time seeing it. Finally as the credits role I began to think about the movie. About how every scene had captivated me how I wanted to know what would happen next even though I knew what would happen. I wanted to be like that, to be like Hayao Miyazaki, I, wanted to draw.
I would sit in class, my notepad out and my mind wandering. Whenever I got bored I would pick up my pencil and draw. Whenever my art teacher would come I would get him to look at my pictures. He told me his favorite part were the birds. He taught me to draw birds with stencils. It was fun creating new pictures of birds, now whenever I can’t think of what to draw next I just draw birds. Another person who helped me to really advance in my drawing was a substitute teacher, who taught me how draw people’s proportion more properly one day when I had spaced out and had started drawing. Without him it may have taken more time to advance to my level today. These people have really been inspiring to me and have taught me so much.

Icons Loop

Big blue eyes stare at a TV screen full of excitement, as honey blonde hair hangs around a young, excited face. All day I had been begging my mom to let me watch my favorite animated movie “My Neighbor Totoro” by Hayao Miyazaki. A classic animated movie of two young girls who venture through their new home, and meet a mysterious creature named Totoro who is the guardian of the forest near their home. As the plot grows I get closer and closer to the edge of my seat. Even though I have seen the movie before I still feel like it’s my first time seeing it. Finally as the credits role I began to think about the movie. About how every scene had captivated me how I wanted to know what would happen next even though I knew what would happen. I wanted to be like that, to be like Hayao Miyazaki, I, wanted to draw.
Now that I am older my art style has changed and I have become better as an artist. I write my own stories and I have watched more of Hayao Miyazaki’s movies such as “Kiki’s Delivery Service”, “Princess Mononoke”, “Spirited Away”, and a recent release “Ponyo”. I have become more experienced in art and have learned about more art styles. Thanks to Hayao Miyazaki I have been inspired to pass on my knowledge and skills of art to the next generation by making stories, comics, or even becoming an art teacher so that I can teach kids all about art. The reason I choose Hayao Miyazaki is because his art has influenced me throughout the years to become an artist. When ideas wouldn’t come or I needed a break I would watch one of his movies and just look at his style and how he thinks really taking in what is going on. One of my most favorite movies is Spirited Away. The reason is because of all the culture and art in the movie and how there is so much imagination and creativity. My hope is to inspire young minds through my art and pass the baton or the pencil in this case to the next generation.

The reason why I choose this opening and this ending is because it is the starting scene to show about how I came to find Hayao Miyazaki as my Icon, and the ending scene it to talk about my achievements since then. This ties into the big idea that I want to become a great artist who has their book or their movie read or watched over and over again. I hope my reader is really intrigued by my work and that they support me and cheer me on as I go and grow towards my dream.

American Icons & Resources

Part 1: Icons
Think of all of the Icons—people, places, things & events—that you plan to include in your Artist Statement. Then...
Choose two and explain how they are connected. Describe what ideas they represent. Describe how they might represent variations on a theme and/or different relationships with you.

Two Icons that I have put in my artist statement are the movie "My Neighbor Totoro", and Hayao Miyazaki. They connect because Hayao Miyazaki is the creator of the movie. Hayao Miyazaki is the reason I wrote the artist statement and he represents my inspiration for becoming an artist. "My Neighbor Totoro" is what introduced me to Hayao Miyazaki so without it I may never have become an artist.

Part 2: Resources
Post an annotated list of resources that you are using to create your artist statement. For each resource, post as much of the following as you can:
1. Name of the resource (book, article, photo, interview, etc.).
2. Link to it (for a photo or video, please embed it).
3. Description/explanation of how & why it is useful to you. Remember, some resources might provide info that you could include in your writing, while others might be a good example of the style of writing that you'd like to emulate.

For my resources I already know a lot about Hayao Miyazaki so I don't need as much help to create my artist statement.

Wikipedia



This website is useful for basic information.

American Icon

The first project for Humanities this year is a project called American Icon. For this project we have to pick someone who is an icon in our lives that has something to do with America. I have three people whom is an icon in my life.
The first person that I choose is Hayao Miyazaki. I choose him because he represents an artistic fictional side of myself much like many of his wonderful movies. This icon is important to me because he helps influence a childlike side of me. This Icon has become important in American culture by creating many wonderful movies for children like the new award winning film "Ponyo", although the correct name is "Gake no Ue no Ponyo". As a child I use to watch the movies all the time and they were important to me because the hero was always a girl so I was able to feel that I could be as strong as the girls in the movies. The movies have inspired me to do drawings like Hayao Miyazaki and show the childlike fantasy behind everything. I plan to make drawing my career even if it means being an illustrator because I love to draw with all my heart.

The second person who is my Icon I is Masashi Kishimoto who is the creator of Naruto a very famous and my favorite comic. This comic is very well know throughout America and you can ask just about any kid what Naruto is and they will say it's about ninjas. It is important to me because this is what helped inspired me to start my hobby of drawing ( this also includes Yu-gi-oh and Pokemon which I grew up on). This Icon became important to me because it helped me to get a firm knowledge and understanding of how to draw people of course over the years I gain my own style of drawing with out the help of art classes.

My third and final icon that I chose to write about is J.K.Roweling. The reason for this is because she wrote my favorite book series "Harry Potter" and like me she has an interest for fantasy. She is important to American culture because her books are very commonly read and they have even been made into movies which is very popular. This Icon has inspired me to do more writing and have an open mind when creating stories and my imapination has expanded due to reading her wonderful work.

I am back!

Hey everyone! it's been two years and not only you but I have changed as well! I am now in 11th grade and I am getting ready for another exciting year with all my teachers, ecspecially my new humanities teacher Randy Scherer. Some hopes I have for this year are things like having some good books to read. I hope that we get to write out own stories and that we get to have free writes more often. I hope to inhance and perfect my writing skills in a way that i am able to capture the reader and keep them from putting down my writing. I also want to improve my artist skills by improving in the area of drawing animals, plants, nature, and people. I develop this skill through critiques, through practice, and by seeing others work. Well after up dating my answers I hope you all enjoy my new posts coming soon.