Decisions

Author’s Note: In this upcoming piece, you will read my theme essay of choices, decisions , life and family struggles

Picture your life being not so hot from the decisions and choices you have made. Choices like, boyfriend and drugs, or perfect nerdy life. Perfect daughter with a future or not so perfect daughters life getting thrown away every second of the day. The downhill choices were her new life. If you choose to read the book Crank by Ellen Hopkins, you will understand more about my opinions with theme.

Drugs took a huge part in this book, not only in the book, but in her life. Kristina had met the monster inside her, named Bree. Bree took over her life until Kristina couldn't be herself anymore. Just from one boy entering her perfect little world, it brought this young girls life down the drain. Her family members worry about her, she has had three boyfriends since she had come home from her dads house. Adam, her old boyfriend, brought her Bree, he brought her drugs, he threw her life away without realizing. Kristina has changed into a bad influence. She can't live without drugs, and boys.

Not only did she have many choices to choose from, family struggles took a huge part in her life. When she was very little her dad had left her family. Her mom raised Kristina and her siblings on her own until Scott came along. Maybe Kristina was always going to turn out like this from her former life with not growing up with a dad. When she flew to visit him he still wasn't a dad to her. She loved him, but he didn't know how to care for her. She didn’t really care what her dad did when she met Adam. Adam was the start of all the trouble. The drugs, tears, and her crazed boy obsession. The reason why Kristina was with her dad for some time is because her mother’s attitude can get out of control and she struck again.

Love was a problem for Kristina and Bree. They had many boys falling for her at her mother’s. After Kristina had come back home, she ran into a few friends, guy friends. The boys she used to love until she met Adam. Something that I didn’t quite understand is that it was okay for her to have two boyfriends at a time. While shopping with her mothers  credit card from her terrible apology, she ran into two of the boys. That is when Bree came out, and brought her personality from her dads.

There are many things that the author was trying to say, but a big part I picked up was  not everyone is a perfect person and that people won't turn out the way you planned.

Cats

The myth that people say is that cats have nine lives. This is said because cats can receive minor injuries for major problems. For example, if a cat fell from a high height it is most likely that it only receives a small injury. Like a broken rib, bloody nose, or even nothing at all. They don’t receive many injuries because of their small bodies and light weight. The cats inner ear helps with balance. Cats have great balance and when they land on all four legs, they bend them a little so they don’t break any joints or any of their legs. Cats having nine lives is a myth and is just said from the cats great balance and lack of injuries (That Explains It!).

Bibliography

"That Explains It!" 2010. Cool Quiz. http://www.coolquiz.com/trivia/explain/docs/cats2.asp. 3 December 2012.

Mrs.Jones And The Blue Suede Shoes

Author's Note: In the paragraph you are about to read is how I predicted the ending as if the story "Yes, Ma'am" goes on. 

In 2 years I see Roger in school with his friends. Someone has offered him a home and he took it. A lady with no one saw him on the side of the street a year ago. She took him home just like Mrs. Jones and they got to know each other. He talks to her like she's family. After about a month or two of knowing him, she put him in school. Roger now has many friends. He also kept his old blue suede shoes, just to remember Mrs. Jones. About a year later he still remembered Mrs. Jones and one day while walking downtown he saw her bag he ran up to her and they both recognized each other. She greeted him by saying  "Now son, don’t go trying to grab my pocket book, now how are those blue suede shoes?" She took him to lunch and she gave him her number. After that one day, they became the best of friends. 

Crank the Ending

Author's Note: This is a prediction piece on the book "Crank" by Ellen Hopkins I am currently reading. I have no idea how this book ends, so you get to read my summary of the ending that I predict.

Katrina sees herself as two different people. "Bri" on the outside and "Katrina" on the inside. After she met her neighbors boyfriend she has been forced to do bad things. He wasn’t the type of boy you would bring home for your parents to meet. He was the kind of boy who you wanted to spend time with and keep him a secret. She thought he was perfect.

 Katrina's dad was a huge drug addict. The one thing he told her not to do, was drugs, that was his biggest mistake in life, because you can never quit. Drugs got her dad no where in life. As Katrina meets her new friend he pulls out what seems to be drugs. She gets forced into doing them. She does and regrets them, cant stop. She's only at her dads house for a limited amount of time. 3 weeks to get rid of everything. About 3 days before she leaves, she finally tells her dad. He then tells her she can stay longer, with nodding her head, she accepts the offer.

She's happy to be with her dad again, but feeling terrible about what she's done. When she told her dad he didn't have an answer. He just kept going on with his conversation about her staying. She then leaves her perfect little boy because he has completely changed her. She goes on with her life. One step at a time. She learns to forget the past and continues to try her best to quit. She finally has the urge to stop. It all goes back together now. Her life is completely the same and she goes back to her mothers house. In the end she gets to go back and fourth to see her dad again. She earned his trust back. She learned how to love again.

This prediction is  what I think would happen for the ending. I am not all the way finished with my book, but I am almost positive that something like this may happen. I am so used to having many books end this way. They meet, fall, in love and that's the end. I have kind of changed it up a bit for my prediction.

Nina/Re-telling

Author's Note: In these upcoming paragraphs you will read my re-telling piece about Nina, from the book "Among the Betrayed" by Margaret Peterson Haddix.

In this period of time, you weren't allowed to have more than two kids. A girl, Nina, was a third, illegal child. If she gets caught being an illegal child, she has to go to a prison. Nina was betrayed by a boy that she loved. She was taken away from the population police. Nina has to get three shadow children to admit that they are illegal children and Nina can be set free. If she doesn't then Nina will be killed immediately .

Nina dislikes the deal. She doesn’t want to give up these innocent children and she doesn't want to be immediately killed if she doesn’t cooperate. She tries escaping, she succeeded. They get caught and begins to turn into a huge twist! This book is great for readers who like action and suspense.

Thanksgiving

Author's Note: In these upcoming paragraphs you will read my story of Thanksgiving.

The delicious smell of the warm bread sitting on the table, I can already taste it. The smell of Thanksgiving in the heated house. Thanksgiving is a wonderful time to spend with family or friends. Where you can sit at the table and eat the scrumptious meal that brought everyone together.  The time to learn something new about each and every person that you haven't seen in a long time.

Great foods are cooked sitting at the table. You look into the big wide turkey and cant wait to take a piece. The perfectly cooked stuffing sitting right beside the white buttered mashed potatoes. After everyone has greeted each other, it's time to dig in. You reach for the wide heavy spoon full of cranberries. These dark purple, jelly like, sweet food. Can't wait to fill your plate with amazing foods. The large glass plate is full and you begin eating.

After your dinner is over you talk with your family and friends. Great things happening in each others lives. Thanksgiving is a great gathering for food and family/ friend fun. What do you think of when the word Thanksgiving is said? Again, Thanksgiving is a wonderful time to spend with family or friends.

Connie/ Character Analysis

Author's Note: In the upcoming paragraph you will read is how a 13 year old girl, Connie, changes from a pacific situation.

Connie is a 13 year old girl that is always compared to her sister June, especially about her mother. Connie's feelings change through out the story. A warm afternoon Connie's family went to a cook out and she stayed home alone. She heard a car coming down her long gravel driveway and it was a boy who looked about 18 years old. She felt concerned. Connie thought she had control over this whole situation. After all, she was the kind of girl who flirted with boys. Combed her hair and had to look all pretty for going out. She was the bad girl of the family unlike her goody two shoes sister, June.

As the conversation kept going from this boy, Arnold Friend, the 18 year old boy, and Connie, she realizes she is losing control and she becomes scared each and every minute. Connie seems to think she can make this guy leave her property, but she was wrong. He kept talking about her being his love and he wanted her to get into the car with him and his creepy friend, Ellie.

As the time goes by she realizes he Is not leaving and towards the end she loses complete control and gives in to Arnold Friend. Her feelings went from normal, happy, and self- centered to scared, helpless, and afraid.

Towards the end her feelings can relate to David's feelings from "A child called it" by David Pelzer. He was abused by his psychotic mother and he was sad and helpless practically his whole childhood. When I read the story about Connie, it had reminded me about David and his horrible childhood.

Patriots Pen

Hello, I am here to talk to you about the good and bad things that may need to be changed about our country. I'll be talking about all the problems about our country and all the things that are wonderful! I am so grateful for the great things you have done for us.

There are some good and bad things in our country. I'll start off by stating the good things about America. Well first, we are all happy that we have a free country. It's nice to know that we aren't ruled by anyone. Next, were all glad to have freedom of speech. I personally think its great for freedom of speech so you can speak your own mind. Some other great things are, we have a president, we have great places to eat, everyone above the age 18 gets to vote, freedom of religion, and we also have opportunities. It's great that we have a great education system.

There are actually many things that do need work. Some of these things are, Pollution, Debt, Taxes and Economy. Taxes have been raised by a lot. It has been hard for adults to keep up and puts some people in debt. Racism is also a problem we have. A lot of people from different races like, African-American, Indian, Asian, even Americans get made fun of for being who they are. These things really should be changed.

We are all grateful for what you do for us. Thank you for your time. Out of all the great and bad things, I love where we live. Thank you again for having a wonderful environment for us to live it. We are all so grateful for the things you have done for us.

"Pictures of Hollis Woods" Cause and Effect

Author's Note: In these upcoming paragraphs you will read, are about cause and effects of the book, "Pictures of Hollis Woods". I really recommend this book.

Hollis had very hard times. Being alone when you’re very little is hard. She was in foster care her whole life. Whenever Hollis was put into a different home, she would run away. Hollis thinks that she will never have a family, until one house came, and she loved it.

The bond between Josie, the foster parent, and Hollis was extraordinary. She didn’t want to leave her. She began to be more comfortable around Josie and decided not to run away.
The whole cause in this story was the fact that every house Hollis was put in, she had ran away from. She didn’t feel welcome into their homes. Hollis had a past with a family of three, Steven, Old man, and Izzy. Hollis’s foster worker wanted to put her in a different, permanent, home. She began to pack everything up and decided to leave, but this time, she brought Josie with her. Hollis took Josie to her old foster family’s summer house.

How this effects the story, is that Josie gets homesick and must go back home. Hollis knew she had to take Josie back. Hollis called Josie’s cousin to come and pick her up, she did. Hollis knew it would be hard saying goodbye. She then saw a little boy, it was Steven. he invited Hollis to come live with them. Hollis knew she would see Josie again. She started living with the old family again. Hollis was finally accepted for who she is. She finally felt accepted and welcomed.

"Fact of Life #31" Conflicts.

"Fact of Life #31", favorites to many. So many people can relate to this thick detailed teen romance book in many ways. The conflict in this book is, Person vs. Society, and Person vs. Person. Katima, the main character, has a secret romance with this boy, Manny. I chose Person vs. Person, because throughout the book, Manny and Katima have some fights. As well as Katima and her mother. I also chose Person vs. Society because Katima isn’t popular herself,  unlike Manny, every girls dream. She has one friend and her friends boyfriend. She is the “nerd” girl who’s best friend wears hats every day and has a stick skinny shy boyfriend.

Person vs. Person, had been solved from making up from fights. When Manny and Katima had a huge fight, towards the end they made up. I will try not giving away the ending if you are interested in this book. Like every fight, you have to make up somehow! That’s what Katima and the victims of her hatred words had to do, makeup. Person vs. Society had been solved by Manny not being embarrassed from Katima. He stepped up and didn’t care about his reputation and in the end Katima had also turned popular, but never left behind her best friend.

Summer 2012

Summer 2012 was a boring, short, but fun time! Some things I did over the summer will be shared in this story! For the first weekend my mom took me and my friend camping. It was okay, some people on the trip got homesick and I got a little fever. We went swimming in a freezing lake full of tiny and big fish. While I was outside in the hot summer weather for five hours I had received a gift from the sun, a terrible sun burn. The five hours had cost my skin a second degree burn. This terrible burn caused blisters on my skin and I couldn’t be outside for two weeks! After the week of nothing was over, of course, I get the flu the next week! Now that’s three weeks of nothing to do in the summer break!

After my misery of sickness was over, the summer continued with being home alone not being able to do anything. About a week later, my mom was able to drive me places. I didn’t have the rest of my summer go to waste! July 10^th was my birthday, I had a lot of fun at my party. For my birthday I had received a load of money, so I went off and bought my very own IPod touch 4. That was an amazing day! Till this day I can’t live without my IPod! About two weeks after my actual birthday, I had my party. I had about 25-30 girls over, that’s a lot of people! While my party was going on, we wanted to take a walk down to the board walk by my house. When we walked down we had noticed that the neighbor down the road was having a big party. They were all freshman in high school and they chased us and threw water balloons! It was a great time though!

"Fact of Life #31" Re-telling

 Fact of Life #31 is about a girl, Katima, who has had a crush on this boy, Manny, for the past 4 years. As they ran into each other it was a start of something new. They had a secret  relationship until Katima found out Manny didn’t want to be with her.This is a great story for girls ages 12-15.