O=Eight People to Emulate

1. Oprah Winfrey- Oprah has an amazing career and talk show that was watched by millions of people and I think everybody, whether they like her or not, at least knows who she is. 
2. Shaquille O'Neal- He's super tall (not that I want to be that tall, but it's cool) and also he's good at basketball, something I really have no skill at whatsoever.
3. Olivia Newton-John- A great actress in Grease and other movies she's also a four time Grammy winner.
4. Yoko Ono- She was married to Joh Lennon, what more could you ask for?
5. Michael Oher- His life story is so inspirational (the movie The Blind Side is based on it).  To be able to overcome the challenges he did, it's amazing.
6. Conan O'Brien- He's a late night television host that brings joy and laughter to millions of people! Who wouldn't want to do that?
7. Sandra Day O'Connor- She was the first female U.S. supreme court justice. That alone makes her amazing.
8. Kelly Osbourne- She is the daughter of Ozzy Osbourne, and yet she turned out to be nothing like him (now) and she also is on the show Fashion Police, one of my favorite shows to watch on Friday Nights.

TU Tuesday- Culture

Interpret, analyze, and evaluate culturally diverse narratives, poetry and drama, aesthetically and ethically, by making connections to other texts, ideas, cultural perspectives, eras, personal events and situations.  Self-select text to respond and develop innovative perspectives.


Article:  http://www.timesunion.com/default/article/Observant-survivors-keep-the-faith-after-Holocaust-2725098.php
Poem:   http://www.thehypertexts.com/Yakov%20Azriel%20Poet%20Poetry%20Picture%20Bio%20Holocaust%20Poem.htm


"How can one still believe in a merciful God after suffering through the worst genocide in history?" Friday January 27 was Holocaust Remembrance Day and this article is about some of the survivors (mostly ultra-Orthodox Jews) of the Holocaust and their struggle with faith.  The article covers the ideas that these ultra-Orthodox Jews live by and talks about how during the annual celebration of the day they "do not participate. They ignore the two-minute air raid siren that brings the country to a standstill, calling it a foreign ritual unfit for Jews. They shun the somber songs and speeches of official ceremonies and reject the Israeli ethos of a Zionist state rising out the ashes of the Holocaust."  The article also touches upon the fact that the ultra-Orthodox were the "hardest hit" during WWII because they were "Easily identified by their long beards, sidelocks and distinctive black garb, they were targeted first." 


This article relates to the poem Smoke by Yakov Azriel.  The first lines of the poem, "At the Umschlagplatz, the train to Treblinka,/Ready to transport the Jews of Warsaw/ To where people are transported through chimneys/As smoke,/ Waits" shows the terrors that the Jewish people went through during the Holocaust.  This line explains so well why it was so hard for the Jewish and anyone else that survived the Holocaust to keep faith, when people were being violently murdered left and right for no reason.

Valentine's Day

Should schools allow children to celebrate Valentine's Day in the classroom? 

Schools should allow children to celebrate Valentine's Day in the classroom because while the holiday originally began as a religious holiday for the Christian Church, today, especially in American and other western cultures, Valentine's Day is mostly a commercial effort.  Valentine's Day is now more of a cultural holiday than anything else now a days.  Granted, if anyone had ethical or religious reasons to be against the holiday, then those views should be respected. However, most school celebrations of Valentine's Day entail no more than passing out character Valentine's to the entire class and maybe some heart shapped candy.  Overall America has so commercialized the holiday, that there really is no religious meaning left to it, therefore it can be considered appropriate for public schools. 

"Dreams are lined up against the wall"

Against the Wall

Dreams are lined up against the wall,

each and everyone of them.

The big and the small,

all in line together.

Dreams are lined up against the wall.

Waiting for their turn

to inspire, 

urge,

and impress.

Dreams are lined up against the wall,

knowing 

almost absolutely that they 

are doomed to death.

Dreams are lined up against the wall.

One by one, 

they march off

into the abyss of the human mind.

Comic Connection

This comic connects to my life because it really does seem like everyone now is "soft".  People rely on things like prescription and nonprescription drugs to help them do everyday activities like fall asleep and make a cold go away faster.  Also people now use more technology to do things for them, like simple math.  Things like GPS are great, but they inhibit your ability to be able to read a real map, so if for some reason your GPS isn't working or the internet is down you would have to read a map, or just not go anywhere.  Plus, like in the cartoon, some people are just lazy and use things like Segways and electric wheelchairs to move of them.  I have no problem with people using them who actually can't walk, but some people are just too lazy to walk.  But, that's our society for you.



http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine

Hi-five Yourself

A couple months ago, whenever the varsity girls volleyball team went to sectionals, some of us from the  JV and Freshman teams (plus other assorted Guilderland students) went to watch them play at Burnt Hills.  Afterwards, (they lost) some friends and I (plus my mom and sister) went to a near by pizza place to get dinner.  While at dinner, for some reason we started saying Hi-five yourself (not knowing it was on the cough drops) and it just kind of stuck.  We would just sit there and be like, "hi-five yourself...in public!" we thought it was the funniest thing ever for some reason.  The other people in the restaurant must have though we were nuts, because I know my mom and sister did.  About a week or two later we had a post-season sleepover at my house and I just happened to be fighting a cold that week.  I grabbed a cough drop from the bag and opened one.  When I realized they were the pep talk ones I was really excited and as soon as I saw the one I had taken said "Hi-five yourself" I was town for a second, wondering how they could possibly have known about our inside joke.  I showed my friends and we honestly couldn't stop laughing! That cough drop just made the night even better than it was!

TU Tuesday

http://blog.timesunion.com/opinion/don’t-play-senate’s-game/17687/

"New Yorkers shouldn't go along with a rigged redistricting process." "They should refuse to play the Senate's game." = repetition- the act of repeating; repeated action, performance, production, etc.

"...rigged redistricting..." = alliteration- the repetition of a sound at the beginning of two or more neighboring words

"...tenuous majority." = oxymoron- a figure of speech the combines two opposing or contradictory ideas 

The article "Don't play Senate's game" by the TU Editorial Board was written in response to Majority Leader Dean Skelos' plan to redistrict existing boundaries to form an entirely new voting district for the Senate.  According to the article, Skelos publicly promised an "independent redistricting process" and the process was "hijacked by a group of senators for the purpose of keeping themselves in power." These strong words help give the reader the assurance that the authors feel very strongly about this subject and that they should too.  The repetition by the authors that New Yorkers should dislike what Skelos is doing and voice their own opinion before it's too late is of the utmost importance to the piece, since it is an opinion article where the author is trying to sway people to think like them.  Also, when the authors use the  oxymoron in the sentence: "And now they're trying to impose a whole new Senate district on New York in order to preserve, if no expand, their tenuous majority." you understand that they really have no power, even though they are the majority.  Without the figurative language, the piece would be dull and boring and no one would probably take the time to read it, but the urgency that comes through (especially through the repetition) makes you want to keep reading.