The choice of Freedom (Giver)

" Gabriel's breathing was even and deep. Jonas liked having him there, though he felt guilty about the secret. Each night he gave memories to Gabriel: memories of boat rides and picnics in the sun; memories of soft rainfall against windowpanes; memories of dancing bare-footed on a damp lawn.

"Gabe?"

The new child stirred slightly in his sleep, Jonas looked over at him.

"There could be love" Jonas whispered.

The next morning, for the first time, Jonas did not take his pill. Something within him, something that had grown there through the memories, told him to throw the pill away"Gabriel's breathing was even and deep. Jonas liked having him there, though he felt guilty about the secret. Each night he gave memories to Gabriel: memories of boat rides and picnics in the sun; memories of soft rainfall against windowpanes; memories of dancing bare-footed on a damp lawn.

"Gabe?"

The new child stirred slightly in his sleep, Jonas looked over at him.

"There could be love" Jonas whispered.

The next morning, for the first time, Jonas did not take his pill. Something within him, something that had grown there through the memories, told him to throw the pill away"

In the passage above I think that the reason it represents the freedom of choice is because all of his life, Jonas has been told what to do and given a "perfect life with a perfect family." I think that this is the start of Jonas taking freedom because is finally breaking away from the communities grasp. He is finally being exposed to things that shouldn't be controlled or contained, things like love, family, and choices.

Jonas is finally putting his foot down and sending the silent message of thought; I will not obey your rules any longer. I want to be able to have a real biological family that actually loves me for who I am. I want to have grandparents to spend time with and do things with. I want to be allowed to love and to marry the ones who I love, not the one you tell me to marry, and I want to make choices, not be given them. I want to make mistakes because when I do make a mistake I will learn from it. I want to have a life that I control, not one that you control.

The Giver- Would like the future to be controlled by other people?

In my opinion I have to say that I couldn't stand it if people tried to control my future. If we cant control our futures then I don't really see the point of living. What I mean by that is if you are being controlled then you wouldn't be able to make choices and that is what life is all about. Life is about choices. Life is about taking risks, making mistakes, and learning from you mistakes. If you are a controlled robot then you wont learn or get to take a risk. Think about it. Would you rather have the world be a perfect place, or would you rather there be risk taking, learning, mistakes, and choices. I think I would rather make choices and make mistakes because at least I would control my life.

Reflections On My Classmates I movie's

William and Cameron- Khufu

In Williams presentation I think that they explained the time period and time he ruled really well but I think that William and Cameron didn't make Khufu's accomplishments clear enough to the listener. They did a good job explaining his creations but they didn't explain why he built them. Their images where relevant to their speaking roles but camerons background noise only proved to be distracting and through off the whole presentation. So I think that overall their I movie was ok. If they just work a little on the other things they could make a better presentation in the future.

Dania and Johana- Refrotiti

In dania and Johana's presentation I think that their information was clear and they explained everything really well. There were no background noises so you could clearly hear their talking and their slides were explaining what they were saying. Over all I thought it was a great presentaiton.

Ayaka and Raisa- tutankaman

I movie reflection Ramses II

In Humanities over the past few days we worked on making an I movie on one of the Egyptian pharaohs. My partner and I worked on the pharaoh Ramses the Second. In this blog post I am going to reflect on how well I think I did, what worked and didn't work, and the collaboration of the team.

Based on the rubric I think that me and my partner did a good job. Our content matched the rubrics demands we spoke with clear loud voices. What we could work on is stating our citations and putting in transitions. When we did our presentation our pictures didn't have transitions, only the main transitions did. I think that we need to put way more transitions in our presentation that way it looks more appealing. We also need work on citing our citations. When we were making our presentations we felt like we were being rushed and my partner and I felt a lot of pressure. After we finished the speaking and pictures we started to relax and release the stress that we had. We had forgot though about the citations. The next day when we checked on the presentation we found that there were no citations. We tried to hurry and use MLA to give us the correct citation but we ran out of time so we just listed the rest of the citations.

In the project we had a whole bunch of difficulties. Our first was with the research of Ramses II. We had three prompts that we had to answer in our I movie; What time period did the pharaoh live in? What were his contributions to Egypt? How did his monuments reflect on his religious beliefs? The first question was the easiest to answer. New kingdom. The second one was not so easy. Ramses really didn't make any great impact on Egypt. The only thing he really did was protect them from other countries so my partner and I decided that that was his contribution. For the third question we had a similar answer. Next we had technical problems. We recorded in Garage band so we couldn't export the recording to I movie. We thought that we would have to start all over again but then after I realized that it would take sound from I tunes I exported the recording to I tunes then to I movie.

If we got a grade for partner ship I would honestly say that we shared a 50-50 parter ship. Even though I think that I may have been to worried about letting my partner down and because of that I may have tried to do all of the work. So if we wouldn't have made those bonehead errors than our presentation could have been even better than it already was. The lesson learned from this; When you think you finished and you start to take a break look back at the work and fix you mistakes.

http://www.youtube.com/user/vjarvis17#p/u

City Connection Reflection

In class we did a project on a city we have lived in. The project contained information about; your cities history, Statistical information about the city, Environmental factors, Topography, Historical factors, Maps of the city, and our resources.

My project was on Houston and I think that the things I did well were; getting maps to show people where Houston was in the world, speaking clearly, not reading off the slides, and researching information on the slides. Even though I had all those good, I can improve on; picking the fonts for the writing on the slide and getting a good picture for the background. The font color that I chose for my writing was too bright or blended in with the background. Because of that I had to add a highlight to my writing and it didn't go to well with the background. So in the future I need to watch out for that.

Doing this project taught me that when you give a topic you need to add as much detail as you can but not to much to where it is boring. For example when some of the kids were presenting they wouldn't give enough detail about the topic that they were talking about so it would leave me with a lot of questions. Also I learned that if you are going to present you need to know every thing that you are talking about that way if people ask you questions then you will be able to answer them. Some of the kids in my class wrote something on their slides but didn't fully understand the topic so when the person was asked a question they couldn't respond.

From my friends presentation I learned that all towns are created because of something. People never just stay in a place and build a city unless the area has some resources that people need. Also, almost all cities start out little using trading but then when somebody trades to other places then people want to go to that city that way they can get some of the item that was traded then sell it starting a business.

To meet each requirement on the rubric I first looked at the rubric then went down the list and found as much information as I could on the topic. Then I would rephrase the writing for written information then put it on my Power Point. After I made sure that I had all of the basic information down, I went back and tried to put extra information in each topic.

Overall I think that my presentation went well. I was confident and I felt that I had done the highest quality job that I could have. If I could do that project again the only thing that I would change would be the color of my font.

Learning Profile Reflection

     Different people have different ways of learning. Some prefer to work in quiet spaces but some people need to have noise to work. Some prefer to think logically while others would rather think creatively.  Each person has strengths and weaknesses and I would like to share mine along with how I would prefer to learn.

     I learn best when people write things on the board or there is something for me see because if I just hear it then I may not really understand it but if I can see an example or steps then I will understand it better because I can see the steps and explain it to myself.

     I am not a perfect student, that I will admit. So I as a student can improve by not talking as much during class and staying on task because usually what happens is that I go to class and people talk to me so I respond and I start a conversation with the person so I don't end up getting enough time to do my work so I ends up as home work and that really annoys me.

     Strategies that I am going to try starting Monday are: avoiding conversations until I finish my work, telling the person talking to me to "Hey why don't we talk about this later after we finish our work.", and advising the people around me to work so that way they don't have the same problem I do and it helps me because if everyone is working there is no one to talk to so I would get my work done.

     Last I would like everyone to know something about me. My friends and I always try our hardest at every thing we do so if anyone says or thinks different then they're wrong. We give our all at everything despite if we like it or not. We don't give up.

     Those are some things that I would like you to know about my working habits. I hope that you learned a little about my personal character. I will defiantly work towards those goals that I have set for myself and I won't stop working towards it until I have accomplished it. Even when I accomplish my goal I will still try my best to keep repeating it.

2011

     Two thousand and ten is over and now two thousand and eleven is here and I would like to share two things with you. First I would like to share my new year resolutions which were: stop saying that writing was hard and thinking I was bad at it, and be more confident when I talk to adults. Secondly I would like to tell you about a talent that I have, music.

      One of my new year resolutions was to stop saying that stuff was hard and then think that I was bad at it. For me this is a problem because I will be told to write a story or blog post in humanities. Writing for me is difficult so when ever I would write something at home I would always think that it was hard so it made it harder for me to write and wasted time. When I finally got the paper done and had to show it to other people I would always feel that what I wrote was not good and that I was just generally bad at writing. I didn't like that feeling so I made one of my new year resolutions was to stop thinking that writing was difficult and that I was bad at it.

      My other new year resolution was to be more confident when I talk to adults. This is a big problem for me because if I am not confident when I talk to adults people wont take me seriously. One time me and my friends wanted to go and break dance but the dance room was locked. Then I went to the person with the key and I was shy about asking for it so she didn't give the key to me and my friends so we had to go the next day. It really bugged me that I didn't get the key for my friends but it was my fault because when I talked to her I was talking really quietly to her and I talked really choppy so that didn't help. I hate that feeling of not getting taken seriously so I made it my new year resolution to be more confident when I talk to adults.

      Finally, I would like to tell you one of my best talents, music. When I was five years old my parents took me to my first piano lesson. Music wasn't that hard to me and my sister and I picked it up very quickly. By the time I was six and my sister was five we were already performing in concerts. I played a blues song and my sister did as well. I played so well that I could play the song faster that the metronome which was how it was supposed to be played. My teacher had to make me play the value of a half note (Two beats) in a single click from the metronome. I continued piano until I was eleven then stopped because we got to busy but I still played more instruments. Now I play the trumpet in band and can play a little on the guitar. My favorite thing to do in the car is listen to music and try to find the beat. If I cant find the beat I replay the song. As you can tell, I love music a lot. That is the one thing in my life I could not let go.

      That is a little about myself and my goals for two thousand eleven. I will defiantly try to accomplish those goals. Now that you think about it writing isn't so bad. I just did it now.