Rivals Blog 1 - Quarter 4 Blog 7

So far in Rivals, a boy named Josh is on a baseball team with his friend Benji. They are on the road to Cooperstown, and only the best of the best make it. Then on a qualifying game, Josh gets beaned in the head by the opposing pitcher and causes him to almost lose his eyesight but still win the game. Josh agrees with his parents to have surgery and off he goes to Cooperstown where his friend, Jaden, starts to get closer with the star of the show Mickey Mullen Jr who is the son of Mickey Mullen. He is a famous baseball player/actor and is causing all the hype in Cooperstown. That is where I left off.

Overall Rivals is a great book so far. It's something I can connect to with baseball and I think it helped me to read double than what I was supposed to. But the only thing that bothers me is the lack of detail that the author, Tim Green, gives the readers. Which is really suprising because he is a great author.

The Outsiders Blog 2 - Quarter 4 Blog 6

Ponyboy and Johnny get into some deep water with Cherry's boyfriend and a couple of others for the Greasers trying to get with their girls. Ponyboy gets shoved into some water and starts drowning so Johnny reacts and kills Bob, Cherry's boyfriend. Ponyboy and Johnny turn to Dally to help them because Pony's brother, Darry, would take Pony's head off for getting into that mess. Dally tells them to flee to Windrixville for a couple of days so things can die down. After two weeks, Dally finds the boys and takes them back home but there was a fire that Ponyboy and Johnny quickly reacted to help with. There was 5 eight year old boys in the burning church that the boys and Dally managed to save. But they didn't protect themselves as Ponyboy and Dally suffered burns, and unfortunately, Johnny had a timber fall on his back and was paralyzed. As Ponyboy awoke, he found himself in the hostpital and a hero. Darry and his other brother Soda were more worried than disappointed and informed Pony that there was going to be a rumble to avenge Johnny's injuries and for what the Socs had did to Pony. At the rumble, the Greasers managed to make a statement towards the Socs and end the rivalry for good. Johnny and Dally go to tell Johnny the good news but Johnny was quickly dying. Before Johnny passes away he tells Ponyboy, "Stay Gold Ponyboy" which he is referring to from the poem in Windrixville. Dally takes the death of Johnny hard and soon gets killed in front of the rest of the Greasers by the police. Ponyboy wants everything to end so he goes to court and the judge closes the case and is official that the rivalry is over between the Socs and the Greasers. At the end of the book, Darry, Sodapop, and Ponyboy had a disagreement which caused Sodapop to flee. But the boys had soon came to an agreement to never leave each other and that they would always stay as brothers forever.

The Outsiders was a fairly good book that I've been wanting to read for a while. I just wish that S.E. Hinton would've touched more on Cherry Valance an d her pint of view in the fighting after that one time she came out and talked to Dally about Bob's death. But overall this book has a meaning that really stands out. And that is brotherhood and friendship that the Greasers have that can never be broken. I'd defiantly recommend this book to a friend!

The Outsiders Blog 1 - Quarter 4 Blog 5

 After abandoning What is the What, I decided to read The Outsiders which is a book that I've been wanting to read for a while. What I've learned is that a 14 year old Greaser named Ponyboy grows up around his two brothers, Dallas and Sodapop, who raise him after his parents pass away in a car accident. But as well as his brothers raising him, he grows up around his other Greaser friends in their gang. The Greasers have a rivalry with the Socs who are the preppy and rich kids on the other side of town. But so far in the book, Ponyboy begins to question if he was meant to be with the Greasers and asks why he had to live in such an environment of constant fights and robbery all based on reputation.

One thing that stuck out to me was when Ponyboy was with Johnny and Two-Bit, members of the Greasers, went to a drive in and ran into a couple of girls. One of the girls, Cherry, began to understand Ponyboy's story and told him, "It's not just the money. Part of it is, but not all. You Greasers have a different set of values. You're more emotional. We're sophisticated-cool to the point of not feeling anything." This quote proves that it's sort of like a brother/sister relationship between the Greasers and the Socs. They are growing up around the same neighborhood but like a relationship between a brother and a sister, it has its significant differences. But at the end of the day it's not all that different. "Maybe the two different worlds we lived in weren't so different. We saw the same sunset." 

What is the What Blog 1 - Quarter 4 Blog 4

Recently I had started a new book called What is the What but I didn't really enjoy it. It was more of a confusing book after page 100. It speaks about a Sudanese life, Deng, who goes through the militias in the desert, wild animals, and often starvation. But he soon gets to America and his life starts to turn around. From the start of the book, he gets robbed of his things but his things were all from a church  that provided him with the couches, alarm clocks, VCR, and TV when he arrived from Sudan. But the reason why I didn't like the book was because of the fact that the author made connections between the recent events Deng had to go through.


I had wanted to read this book because I had liked the third person view of somebody's life and what they had to go through just like The Other Wes Moore. But What is the What was somewhat like it. When Deng was getting robbed, something caught my attention RIGHT AWAY. It was the fact that Deng had rather wanted to be in Sudan than to be getting robbed in America. He said that he was grateful for America because he was seeking a land without war, but these kind of things had never happened in Sudan. This just proves how America's society is a huge melting pot. It's like an ignorant child who wants every little thing in a candy store. But still, I am abandoning this book.

Native Americans Blog

One way American Indians were marginalized was when Captain Pratt's goal was to "Kill the Indian, save the man". In short, his goal was to kill the Indian inside of all the young students who went to Carlisle and mold them into the "proper" child. In the text it says that Ota Kte's "long hair was cut short. His leggings and moccasins were taken away, replaced by an itchy wool uniform and black leather boots that squeaked with every step." This proves that Captain Pratt was succeeding with his plan and the Indian inside Ota Kte was slowly fading away.

The purpose of Shanice Briton's essay was to inform the reader that American Indians today aren't the stereotypical Indian who lives in a teepee. In the text she explains that she lives in a house with running water and electricity and also, takes showers, watches TV, and wears jeans like any other teenager in today's society. Not to mention, her environment that surrounds her is just the same as the environment that surrounds us as well. Such as restaurants, gas stations, and grocery stores. Yes, there are times that she explains about the different occasions her tribe has celebrating with women wearing the long skirts and men wearing the headbands with feathers. But, at the end of the day she is still an average teenager living the same life as another one living 1,000 miles away, but just like that other teenager, she comes from a different culture.

The Other Wes Moore Blog 2 - Quarter 4 Blog 3

Summary

As Wes (#2) began to recognize the kind of money he can make by pleasing someone on the street when times are hard, he began to really make money which left his brother Tony, who was a veteran of the streets for a while now, began to notice what was going on. Wes's mother was the first to recognize the way Wes had dressed with top of the line shoes and shirts and had had asked Wes where he had gotten the money to purchase that kind of clothing for a boy like himself when money was slow for the Moores. Wes had told his mother that he had earned the money DJing which he had passed on to his brother but Tony didn't believe a single word. Tony had told Wes, "If you won't listen, that's on you. You have the potential to do so much more, go so much farther. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink, right?" After so many times of Tony telling his brother to stay out of the drug game and to live an honest life, Wes "wanted to be just like Tony, Tony wanted Wes to be nothing like him." Those quotes prove how much Tony cared about Wes and tried to mold him into an honest person for life but Wes couldn't take that because he didn't have a father to look up to.
The OTHER Wes was almost the same story. He had been taken over by hip-hop which caused him to get caught with the wrong people and eventually arrested and let go with a warning for tagging a wall. This then led to Wes slacking in school and had soon caught the attention of his mother. Wes's mother had no choice but to send Wes to military school and became a HUGE part of Wes's future success. He was a star on the basketball team and was getting scouted by Harvard in junior high! Military school had absorbed Wes and Wes had a passion for his country after he had learned so much about it and got the education he needed.
Meanwhile, back to the other Wes, he had just become a father to a girl he had met on a bus ride to school with his god brother. It had left his mother a 36 year old grandmother and was, at the same time, having a baby of her own as well. To support his family, Wes had dropped out of high school and was deep in the drug game. Wes was constantly in and out of jail for drugs and drugs had soon took over the the life of Wes's girlfriend. Wes had no choice but to leave his kids with his mother while he decided to finally work an honest job as a carpenter. Soon enough, he gave up that decision and chose a different path. On February of 2000, Tony, Wes, and 2 other men robbed a jewelry store and stole $438,000 worth of watches, they fled. Just before peeling out in their vehicle, they shot 35 year old security guard Sergeant Bruce Pathero three times to his death. Wes and Tony fled to Philadelphia together and were soon caught and arrested. They were both tried in court and sentenced to life in prison without parole on a first degree murder. A quote I read stated, "Early losses condition you to believe that short term plans are always smarter. Now Wes's mind wandered to the long term for the first time. Finally, he could see his future."
Wes #1 turns out as successful as anybody can be. He decided to attend law school and applied for the Rhodes Scholarship which he had graduated with from Johns Hopkins.

BIG Thought

A quote that had caught my attention and which solves the theme/both of Wes's stories is, "Fighting for your convictions is important. But finding peace is paramount. Knowing when to fight and when to seek peace is wisdom" This quote inspired me and made me think about what the world would be like without any violence. This was the main thing that Wes learned while he was in South Africa. It was that violence isn't always the answer. Spreading peace and love and being smart about your surroundings is 100 times more powerful and more affectionate than to make money on a corner every week. This is more of a message that should be sent and that is as strong that any race, individual, or marginalized person can express to the world. Life is a mental game, and its important to know which pieces to move at the right times.

The Other Wes Moore Blog 1 - Quarter 4 Blog 2

Summary

The Other Wes Moore is a very inspring book that gets people thinking about choosing paths in life. It starts off with a Wes Moore talking about his childhood and how he had lost his father to a sudden stroke. Which then left his mother to raise him and left her in despair and deppression. Wes's father, Wes Sr., was a radio broadcaster and was popular in his neighborhood which was mourning for Wes Sr. as much as his wife and three kids were. Without a father to follow, Wes grew up in Baltimore but moved to Brooklyn with his grandmother and grandfather when his mother couldn't take living alone in Baltimore, as drugs and violence was washing the neighborhood out. In Brooklyn, Wes adaped to the Big Apple and made friends, but his neigborhood was reeling him in. His demeanor had changed; his grades were dropping and he was taking more pride into music, playing basketball with friends, and tagging.
But the OTHER Wes Moore was somewhat a different story. Wes Moore grew up in Baltimore as well as the other Wes Moore did (#1). He grew up fatherless, but that was only due to the fact that he was an alcholic and his mother, Mary, did not want him around. Wes grew up in the dark part of Baltimore just like Wes #1 did. He had an older sibling named Tony who was brought into the drug game at the age of 13. By 18, he was a veteran and was running "his own operation". Regardless of being a drug source for the Gun Hill Projects in Baltimore, he always told his little brother to stay out of the drug buisness. But Wes could do nothing but let himself go. One day, he saw a kid with a gold ring and well dressed for the 1980s, not to mention, a headset. Wes was attracted to it and asked the boy what he could do to have one of those. The boy had told Wes to stand on the corner and listen to the headset and let the other people on the corner know when the cops were around. As curious as he was, Wes agreed and was officially into the drug game even though he never touched drugs until he was about 12 years old.

Fascination

One thing that fascinated me about Wes (#2) getting into the drug buisness was why he got into it and it made me think that he proved a good point about the "slinging" and "hustling". Wes's first interaction with dugs was when he was going to have a cookout with friends and ditch school. Before this, he had moved into a better neighborhood which was more surrounded by white people but still found african american friends as nobody else wanted to be his friend. Anyway, as he was looking for some change in the usual place in his mothers room, it wasnt there so he started to snoop around. In his mothers closet, he found a bag of marijuana which had then cancelled the cookout and attracted his friends more to smoke than eat some good-ol hot dogs and burgers. Wes and his friends found a spot under a bridge and smoked the marijuana. At the end of the chapter, Wes had said, "As he lay in bed, he realized how yome seemed yp stop when he was high, how the drug-smoking it, feeling its effects, recovering  from it - made him forget everything else." Which led to, "he understood, faintly, how addictive that feeling could be, and how easy it would be to make some money off selling that feeling to people who needed it." Those two quotes caught my attention because who could blame him, it's a valid point. Yet, besides all the pros about making a little extra, the downsides such as getting shot or even arresting defeat that purpose of making easy money or everybody on EARTH would join that business. But the flaws to a good idea almost 65% of the time throw that idea to waste.