Here is a qoute from Bianca's blog:

Every time we have a substitute at ASTI, it seems that my class almost always takes advantage of them, and I personally get annoyed every time it happens. In fact, no offense to anybody, but it is rude. 

I agree with this. I think its very wrong to take advantage of subs, especially when they are having trouble getting use to the school.

The rite thing to do would to help them with trying to get to know the school. like would could show them good ol' ASTI hospitality by telling them the little things they should like no college students in the bathroom. We should also try to help them with names, instead of just letting it go. Like if a name is uncommon, then we should correct so the don't make an as* out of them selves. I think thats the one thing i can't stand most; when we laugh at the things they say or the way they pronuce words or names.

You know, that also goes for other things in life like the social background info we as teens spend so much of our time in. Like we make fun when people say things that either sounds weird or is weird.

Back to subs. Another thing subs are subjected to are the disrespectful comments behind their backs. I hate talking about people behind their backs because what ever you have to say, u should just say to them face on. I hate this. Every sub has to go through eventually, but some are good evaluations. Like the sub that Bianca was talking about. I was in her school so i had her too. She was awesome! she taught us real Spanish and taught us how to take notes. She is awesome. Also, she had something no other teacher had, and that was like this element around them wanted you to study. It was so awesome to finally learn Spanish from my sub. I mean this in no disregard to my real spanish teacher; she was a good teacher.  

Elite colleges VS non-elite colleges

I believe that, out of the seven debaters on this website, "Skip the admissions game" is the most persuasive one. I chose this one because they said examples of what they meant and had both sides of the argument, if i recall. Also, he defined what an elite college is; not many of the debaters did that. All of these things help me determine whether or not i should believe this article. Between all these things above, I think that the most persuasive one was the definition of an elite college. This really made believe what he was saying because he actually had the thought process. In anthropology, antroplogists should always site where they come from that can some how have a negative effect on the outcome of what ever they are doing. Like lets say if a white male was looking at the communication between black females. He would have to put that he is a white male and that he mite bring that to his studies with out knowing it.

Out of the seven again, the least persuasive was the "merit and race". I think the major down fall is the major vocabulary of this article. Now, going from what i sid above, I am a freshman that hasn't really expanded my diction to a level of a collegiate standard (however, thats why we have 3 higher grades above freshman). However, once i decipher the complex language, i still have some trouble with what he is saying about minorities. Is he saying that minorities should go to prestiugues school to raise their life's quality? Or is he saying, as a minority, we should be liable to programs that help us. if he is saying the second, then he is racist. There are to many factors to look at to determine whether or not he is being racist, so i wont mention them. Anyways, with all this trouble we had with this article, i have determined that this is the least persuasive.

"The ignorance of people can sometimes be overwhelming. Sometimes it just hits me that we, humans, the animals that have an open consouis and can feel love are the same animals that can a drop a nuke and comit genocide on a people because religious sterotypes. We are the animals that can make industries like Pixar and the Red Cross, but yet, we can also judge someone based on thier skin color or have rich and poor. Well, I think we messed up, big time. I think it stared to go bad when we first elected the first tribal leader. Some say that we need a leader but i think that was our major and ultimate defeat. Egalitarian. That basically means in a crude and understated way equal. Thats how we all should of acted at the beginning. This would mean that we would hold each member in the tribe EQUALLY responsible for the saftey of the tribe and themselves, the maintanice of the tribe and self and the progression of the tribe and self. 

What would that look like today? well sort of like this: When we see a pot hole in the street, we fill it.When we see a root damaging the ashalut, we chop it. When we mistakingly given someone a penny for change, even though it should have been a dime, we switch it. It may not seem like it, but this is revolutinary. It's silly to thinink that a change mis calculation can lead to genocide, but it can. Thats when we, as humans start to get lazy."....

so this is sort of what i was thinking writing for my peace essay. After i talk about laziness, i'll go a start to talk about obtaining peace today and then ill re-state my maintance thing, add a couple of quotes here and there, and yeah. 

 so please, comment and comment all u want. I think thats a wonderful way of learning, through constructive criticism. 

Some things really important to stay out of: a)drugs b)materalism (or for some who are, to keep as low as possible) and c) drama. And, as far as darma at ASTI goes, Mercedes sums it up pretty good:

This is some pretty decent advice. Ok, I lied, this is damn good advice. Seriously fellow ASTIans, we need to cut ourselves off the drug that is drama. All it does is screw us all up mentally. I know how tempting it is to say horrible things about someone because they were cruel to you (as I always say, your peers are more cruel to you than anyone else), but it would be advisable to not take the bait. What is that thing they always said to us when we were little? It was something like... don’t react? 

 I think that drama is something that comes naturally to teenagers....or does it? Maybe it something embedied in our society that drives teens. Whatever it may be, it should be something we both embrace and shun. I agree with Mercedes and how she says that is side tracks us A LOT. In fact, sometimes whole entire days are cast into a bloom when some one disses others hair style. So when that happens, I must admit, it gets a little out of hand. However, it is important to see the positive side of drama (if there is any). So.......ah, it helps us defuse our ticking emotional bomb inside us all. Well....I guess thats why we have blogs. Well......how bout..... with out drama our lives would be boring? But, I fail to see the postiveness in that.
     So, I guess my "studies" show that drama is bad. You were right, Mercedes, like always. Happy holidays to you and to every one. I say holidays because not every one is catholic. Yeah, I dont think ill be blogging for a while, or maybe i will.... we'll see. good night sleepy world. Happy Holidays.

The curious incident of the dog in the night time final review

     In this last lit circle discussion, our group talked about many different things relating to Christopher's autism. However, in this blog, I am going to write about the actual mechanics of our discussion. We had every one pitch in this time, instead of only one or two members dominating the conversation. It was nice to have others input on this book. Some others brought up good points that would have never come up in my mind.

     I think that group activities such as these are a wonderful way to learn and to calibrate. We use this discussion time to talk about how far we got in the book. Also, we learn from each other like when some one says something that you might think is interesting, you could ponder and question it.

     The other thing i really enjoy about is that we can then write on out blogs about our discussions we had in class. This really helps me organize my thoughts and ideas on and into a "journal" per say. 

     The curious incident of the dog in the night time is a book about an autistic child named Christopher who is 15. The author, Mark haddon, is an amazing author who writes in such away that it makes feel like you are really in the head of Christopher. What i like about is that it shows an every day world through the eyes of an autistic kid. And, with that, i have come to realize that we all have little things we do to keep our selves calm or relaxed. Like the habit of your leg bobbing up and doing really fast or how we sometimes find our self counting steps or twiddling your thumbs. The only differences is that he takes to an extent that is to far sometimes, like he wont talk for weeks just because he saw three yellow cars in arrow. I can sort of understand why he does this but it can crazy sometimes. 

     

The curious incident of the dog in the night time response post 2!!!!!

In our class discussion on the book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, some major, key points were brought up about the way Christopher reacts to certain colors, emotions, and to physical contact.

One of the points brought up was how Chris reacts towards the two colors, yellow and brown. One of his reasons for disliking these colors was because bananas turn from yellow to brown. Everyone in the discussion agreed that there must be a connection there, but it was hard to tell. I believe that this banana thing has to do with the fact that it turns different colors, something that seems illogical. And especially from yellow, a bright color, to brown, a darker color. It seems that he also has problems with these colors because maybe his mom was wearing these colors the day she left him and the father.However, he recognizes how it is silly that he hates these colors. So that brought up the question of whether or not kids who have autism know that they do?

Another point that we brought up was how he reacts to emotion. The dad becomes very cross with Christopher because he continues to investigate and study the case of Wellington's murder. Soon after, Chris's dad reviles that he is the killer. We talked about how the dad feels guilty about bring Christopher into the world autistic, and how he wants to repair the damage between him and his wife and between him and Christopher.

The last point we brought up was how Christopher dislikes physical contact between himself and others and between food items. Chris hits the dad on accident when the dad touches his shoulder.  We said that he felt scared and worried about what his father might do to him.The other thing he hates is when food touches each other. Again, we are not sure why he is like this.

The Bi-products of peer pressure.

I found this quote on Bianca's Blog:

Through peer pressure, people get the feeling that if they do not follow the crowd, then they are not as cool as the other people. It seems crazy to just think that for a moment of coolness could actually cost someone their life.

     I agree with all Bianca says in her post and this quote. Today, teens are to much obsessed with being apart of the "in" crowd and not being a loner outsider. It seems like everything we do is because to look cool or find a new click we belong to. Drugs, like in Bianca's post, is just another way we can "fit-in", but, we are not even aware of the possible long term affects that can cause harm to our bodies. Another way we are peer pressured is through the clothes we wear. We are constantly being judged by our appearance instead of being judged by our character.
     Is there anything in our lives that is not run by peer pressure? None of us want to be alone or a "loner", but when we are asked about how feel about peer pressure, we respond by stating that we are non-conformists. But we are not. If we were true non-conformists, then we would not need to by fancy phones, or have to wear bright glittery shirts, or walk a certain way or talk a certain way too.
     One huge factor in peer pressure is materialism. Materialism is when we buy and buy stuff and things that we do not need. People judge and are judged by the things we have instead of the character inside us.Peer Pressure can influence this, making it cool to have expansive things instead of cheap things. Thats when people get so excited about new phones like the i phone or the android stuff. Then clothes come into, with the glitter and the brand name stuff. next shoes, with the vans and converse. Are society is so driven by materialism that we have a day dedicated to this, Black Friday. Black Friday is a day that we go and spend a lot of money on stuff for Christmas. It is a huge commercial day and has become embedded in our society.
     To conclude, Peer pressure is something we must all deal with, and to avoid this, we should just be proud of who we are.