My posts

My first thing on my list of my personal curriculum project was to do a few posts where I really connected with the issues, or talked about what issues are going on in certain places, and how we should think about them and deal with them.

Here are the links to those three posts

 http://nextmj1.learnerblogs.org/2007/01/31/uganda-and-the-lra/

http://nextmj1.learnerblogs.org/2007/01/10/building-off-of-mooses-can-money-buy-happiness/

http://nextmj1.learnerblogs.org/2007/01/04/my-first-connection-movie-we-are-marshall/

The three posts deal with Uganda and the LRA, We are Marshall, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

5 words: surrogates, tantamount, mundane, trepidation, furtively

473pages 

This is my third Dean Koontz book I have read and the more of these books I read the more I learn about this author and his writing style. My favorite part about this author’s style is the way he leaves me guessing. I guess it depends on how you like not knowing what is going to happen or not. I like this quality in the author because it is the key factor that keeps me hooked on a book. I also liked that he made me ask questions to help figure out the book on my own. Its another key to keeping me interested.

Basically, this story is about a family who has suffered a recent family crisis who live in Downtown L.A. Fortunately their luck ends up turning when they inherit this beautiful Montana Ranch, from a long lost friend’s dad. They decide to move from L.A. to start a new life, but was it the best decision? You will have to read to find out. I love mysteries that is my favorite type of genre. Mysteries are the books you can stay hooked on because they never give you the answer. You have to dig deep within yourself to find it.

This was one of the first books I really stayed hooked on because of another one of the comprehension strategies, “visualization”. This was a big part of the book. One scene I remember visualizing really well was when the other described this portal from another world. As I read it it talked about a big portal from which beings of another planet come through. As it described the portal it talked about the size, shape, and thickness of it. What I pictured was a portal big enough to fit a train through it, yet the portal is paper thin and is invisible from a side view. Even though it just described the portal being just black, the way the author described it so well I was able to add my own flare to the portal seeing it with many more colors in it. Thats what is great about visualization, it brings the best out of your own ideas. It sparks new thoughts, and new stories, within your original story.

I think you make part of the book, along with the author. Without using these comprehension strategies, I personally probably wouldn’t read as many books and I wouldn’t be able to expand my ideas the way I am able to. It helps to make reading more enjoyable. I hope to be able to read more Dean Koontz books and learn more about him and hopefully continue to discover how to use these strategies.

I don’t know what to write about. I am just going to think of random things that have happened to me in the past week. Every time I went to delicious I started singing fergalicious. To the D to the E to the L-I-C-I-O-U-S. Every time.  I was at the Bear rock cafe and I asked myself why there was a lot of bear paintings in the restaurant. Then i started laughing after at myself and my family stared at me. I had the worst service ever at Dave nd Buster’s this weekend. I stood at the front desk for over 15 minutes waiting for the person in front of me to say, “Can I help you?” I mean how rude does it get. She didn’t once acknowledge that I was even there. How rude. A the end of the night after being spent for $50 dollars worth of tokens I ended up getting bitter tasting pixie stixs, a remote control car that doesn’t work and two glass cups that are a cool shape , and one of them has already been dropped and broken. Who knew that a fun night at Dave & Buster’s could be so not fun. My fun weekend sort of sucked. It was also funny. That is my random weekend in a whole. I playd basketball to but that is normal.

She was lost on what to do. Erica had always been a good person putting her life before another but this time it just seemed different. There were several reasons why she didn’t want to sacrifice her own life to show her brother she wasn’t lying. First and foremost even though she thinks it sounds a little selfish she doesn’t want to die yet she wasn’t even 26 yet. She hadn’t even had the chance to have a child of her own. Secondly, If she died then what would her brother do. He couldn’t see what was coming at him because he can’t see the future like she could. So then they wold both end up dying and what would be the help in that. Third, she didn’t want to have to goo through the pain of one of those deaths. The deaths were always so gruesome. I mean what would happen to her. Would she be torn limb by limb, her greatest fear was having someone shatter some sort of bone in her body, especially her knees. The thought just made her wince.

She sat there in her room for hours puzzled on what to do. Every time she though of a new idea she didn’t like it. Finally she got some food to think on. Mmm. she grabbed the leftover steak from the restaurant she was at last night and ate it. It was so good. After finishing it she had an idea. How ironic. She thought what if she showed her brother someone that she had seen was already going to die so it wouldn’t be her fault but hat they died just like they were supposed to.

Who would it be though?? Hopefully not someone she was close to again? If so, who would she choose?

In my opinion this is the best sport ever. Basketball is essential to my life. Without basketball I just wouldn’t be me. I love basketball partly because I am good at it. I love playing in games and practicing. I always want to play basketball. I go to the gym for probably around an hour and a half either to improve my basketball skills, to work on my strength and conditioning, or to do both. Basketball keeps me in good shape and keeps me on edge. It helps to keep me up in school by taking away a lot of time to do homework so I have to do it. If that makes sense. Having conflicts helps me to stay on top of things. Basketball is my passion. I want to continue playing it forever, possibly go pro. So far I am ranked in the top 3 in the state for 8th grade boys and I play for a gold crown team and two travel teams. Hopefully by playing on a traveling team I can expand to being nationally ranked. Thats my goal, and my dream.

The main way I have learned this quarter is my blog posts. The main way I can show this is by showing you I have learned to connect myself to outside events in 3 specific posts (Uganda and the LRA, Can Money Buy Happiness Reflection, and We are Marshall). This has been my biggest achievement. I have been able to dig deep within myself and find ways to connect myself to anything. I have been able to figure out how to deal with my issues y writing it down on paper also.