Where Romeo and Juliet Truley in Love?

               Romeo and Juliet has been a love story for hundreds of years, yet the question of it was a true love story keeps popping up. Did romeo marry Juliet because he loved her, or because he was in love with the idea of love? Many people think, yes of course they loved each other! They risked everything for them to be able to be together! They caused multiple deaths, including their own deaths. But what I think is no, it wasn't true love. And here's why.
                No, Romeo and Juliet were not truly in love. Romeo fell "in love" with Juliet when he first saw her, he didn't even talk to her yet. SO basically he fell in love with her based on her looks, which is also known as love at first sight. He didn't know anything about her. The only thing he did know was that he thought she was beautiful. They decided to get married on the same night they met. I think they got married out of youthful rashness. Not only did he just meet her and decided he was in love, he also said he was in love with Rosaline, and when they broke up, he completely forgot about her and moved on to Juliet. For example Romeo says, "With Rosaline? No. I've forgotten that name and that names woe." There Romeo is being sort of childish. He has also moved on very quickly from Rosaline onto Juliet, which also makes me feel that they aren't truly in love.
                 Overall, true love is real, but maybe not in Romeo and Juliet. Many people say it is, and it really depends on how you see the situation. I think it isn't true love because they are teens, and I being a teen aswell, makes me feel like they don't know love. It all matters on your opinion.

 How do characters personality's affect the main characters personality in the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson


       The book Speak written by Laurie Halse Anderson is about a girl named Melina, a freshman at her new school. She use to have a tight group of friends in middle school but ever since the incident that happened last summer at a party, no one talks to her. Even her closest friends wont talk to her, and are extremely mad at her. Melina tries to handle high school with only one "friend", Heather who isn't that much of a friend and Melina can't really trust her. Not only is she having a problems with friends at her school, she also has to keep on top of her grades, which isn't easy because whats the point if no one likes you? Who are you trying to impress? Not to mention her parents always fight and don't exactly understand who she really  is, or what goes on her life. Melina learns how to deal with high school even in her bad situations. She gets stronger and weaker throughout the story mostly depending on who she is with. Some characters make her more courages, and speak out for what she really believes in and wants to say. While others make her stay even quieter and makes her lose her confidence and her voice.


        Although many characters made Melina's confidence go down and made her insecure, many characters bring out the best in her, and makes her personality kinder and more confident and courageous. For example Melina's old friend Ivy is incredibly nice and caring to her friends. Ivy is an amazing artist and when she saw Melina struggling with her art she helped. The were very close last year but the incident that had happened made them grow apart from each other. But since Melina doesn't have many friends she is becoming less confident in herself. When Ivy started talking to Melina, and when she started to support her with her art work, Melina becomes more confident because she realized that people do like her. This causes Melina to stand up to Heather, Melina's friend who uses her. Not only Ivy's personality is having a positive outcome on Melina's, as does Mr.Freeman her art teacher. He is weird and quirky but also very supportive to his art, and his students. Many students find him weird and strict, but Melina really likes him. She thinks he teaches well and teaches his students with care. Melina has gotten into art recently and tries really hard in his class, and outside of his class. Mr.Freeman lets Melina know that she has potential and that she just has to keep trying harder. He gives hard critisim which makes her work harder. This makes her work harder in her other subjects, and makes her more confident with her art work.


        There are also negative people in Melina's life. For example  Andy the beast. The whole reason why everyone hates Melina. Andy is gorgeous jerk who uses women and girls at his school  and doesn't care about anyone but himself. He is incredibly selfish. However when he showed interest in Melina, she fell for it. He was beautiful and she had no idea who he was or what he did to girls. She got excited thinking she would start high school with a senior as her boyfriend. But of course that was to good to be true. He raped her and she didn't tell anyone. What would they think of her? Andy still messes with her by playing with her ponytail throughout the year, and makes her feel uncomfortable but of course he doesn't care. Whenever he is around her she cannot speak, it makes her even worse than she is. She loses confidence and becomes extremely shy and doesn't open up to them.


        Overall many people can change your personality. If their personality is mean and cruel, it will probably make you feel bad and make you feel stupid or turn you bad as well. And if they are nice to you and supportive they will make you have more confidence and courage to do things. For example they can make you stand up for your self. Its always better to be around people who are kind and nice and don't judge you because they will make you feel good about your self, and you will become a better person.

                                       Invasion Of The Drones Patricia Smith

         

                  "Invasion Of The Drones," written by Patricia Smith is about drones and how they may seem cool by delivering pizza and other things, but some things aren't that great. For example these drones are used by Hollywood directors, farmers, scientist, etc. and they have been spying on people, by accident and on purpose. Not only have they been spying on you, they are also extremely dangerous things that can happen, and that have been happening. Web you are in a drone, you are likely to crash into a building and trees. They also interfere with other flying objects such as planes and helicopters, because they don't follow the schedules the planes go at. Also, many people use drones during war, which makes it so much either to kill people. Because people who think they are protected, may not be because a drone might go over your head and shoot a missile. It also makes something so horrible and deadly like a war, seem like a game. Drones seem like something you would use in a video game, and once you use it in an actually war, many people, especially kids, may think its cool. So overall, drones aren't helping people that much besides delivering pizza to there houses.

                  Throughout this article, the author definitely had specific point she wanted to get by; that drones are not helpful, or good at all. She supports it very well. She gives many examples for a point she makes, and makes many different points that were extremely powerful and made me change my mind about drones. Before I read this article I thought that drones were futuristic things that flew in the sky and were devices that super heroes used. Some big points she made were that she said that they are dangerous for those inside of the drones, and for the people around the drones. For example they can crash into buildings because they can't see, because there are no windows, just gadgets inside the drone that shows you where to go, but if it malfunctions, you will probably crash. And when you crash you affect the people around you. For example they crash into buildings, which could definitely hurt and injure people. Another excellent point she made was that it can make war seem fun, and like a video game. In many video games you may fly a drone, and now you can do that in real life...in war. The last point she made was that drones completely invade your privacy. AN example she gave was a lady named Mandy Lingered, who was sunbathing topless in her backyard in Australia, got caught in a picture taken by a drone. The drone was trying  to take a picture of the house next door for a realastate buissness add, and you see a topless lady in the background. That is a complete violation of privacy. Those were amazing points in my opinion.


                I completely agree with the author of this article. In response to what i read, i feel that although drones may seem cool and fun and futuristic, they aren't all fun and games. They can be a very large danger and cause danger, and invade your privacy. Not to mention to possibly start a war, and make it seem like a game while you kill people. Overall drones should not be supported.

                                      Beauty Queens Susan Lester

           The book, Beauty Queens, written by Libba Bray tells the story of a bunch of girls, who signed up for a beauty queen contest, but have no idea what they had got them selfs into. On the way to their paradise, their plane crashed on an deserted island. Throughout the book it switches narration from all of the other girls perspectives. There's Taylor, a typical blonde beauty from Texas who takes charge on the island, and Adina a girl who only joined to prove a point, to show that beauty queens are just girls with a pretty outside, but are horrible people for little girls to look up to, and also Shanti an indian girl who feels like she is acting fake, and doesn't belong and unlovable. They all deal with problems, some personal, some of the problems are just overall about the plane crash.

           Adina, one of the many girls who is stranded on the island, has many problems. One of her problems is that she wants to be the person who is in charge of all the girls on the island, but they all like Taylor better, so they choose her. Adina gets horribly upset with this because she has more skills, academic wise, and has much better ideas but all the girls want to go with Taylor's plan because she is very glamorous. Taylor wants to still practice their beauty queen routines, so that when they get off the island, they are prepared. Adina deals with that not so well, she lashes out at people. Adina's main idea is to keep everyone safe, and survive, because they might never live to get off this island. Adina also struggles with fitting in with all of these girls. All they care about it beauty, or thats what she thinks anyway. The only reason why she joined was to expose them, but what was the point now? She hadn't planned on making any friends there, but now given the situation, some friends could come in handy. She deals with this by finding one of the many girls, and stays with her since she is nice. She also stays with her because she understands her. Shanti on the other hand fits in quite well, on the outside. She may act like a beauty queen, but she doesn't feel like it. She is "Ms. California," and everyone from her perspective from california are all blonde, and she feels like she doesn't fit in. She joined this to see if she fit in somewhere, if people around the world would make her feel a little less of an outcast. Not to mention that her coach for the pageant told her she wasn't lovable. Thats a huge factor of the beauty pagent, you have to be lovable so the judges will love her. She makes up traits to make her sound more lovable, but that isn't her actual traits, and she feels as if she is is lying to herself. How can she be lovable if she doesn't love herself? If she isn't acting like herself?

       Overall, everyone has different problems. Even if your in a similar situation which in this case was being stranded on an island, you may be dealing other things. I thought it was brilliant of Libba Bray to make this point because instead of focusing on how they may die from being stranded on an island, she focuses on how it brings out the actual them. Not the person they pretend to be so the patent judges will love them. And in Adina's case she learns that pageant people aren't bad, and they have actual skills that will help them in future.

         

                                                 Before I Fall  Response Susan Lester 809

                  Teens have many relationships, with their friends, their boyfriends or girlfriends, their parents, and sometimes all of these relationships, aren't good ones. In the book, Before I Fall, written by Lauren Oliver, is about a girl named Sam who lived a life of an unpopular girl until she was in 7th grade. In 7th grade the most popular girl, Lindsay took her under her wing and made her popular. That meant she was able to have any boy of her dreams, and live the life she wanted. Her three best friends, Elody, Ally, and Lindsay rule the school, and to go along with her perfect life she has a perfect boyfriend, Rob. Well thats how it seems anyway. Throughout the book you realize that Sam's relationships with her friends and boyfriend, aren't that great. There are many flaws in them.


                Sam and her friends are the most popular people in the school. Every girl envy's them, their popularity, their friendship, but really, they don't have any idea how bad their friendship is. Before Lindsay and Sam started becoming friends, she teased Sam constantly. She teased her and chanted, "Whats white and red all over? Samantha Kingston!" She even got the other kids to tease her about it.   Lindsay also sometimes, even though they are friends now, teases her about when she use to go horse back riding. Lindsay would say, "Oh, you love the woods, right Sam? You and your little horsie would go there a lot." Even though she was joking, it still really hurt Sam. She loved horseback riding. Throughout the book she would have flashbacks of when she was younger, and it would be her and her horse. She would mention how it would be so peaceful with her and her horse, and she said how much she enjoyed it, it sounded like she liked it more than her real friends. That shows how there relationship was bad, almost as if it is a fake relationship. Its better to have real friends, than fake ones that are popular.  Her friends aren't the only bad relationship she has, she also has a very bad relationship with her boyfriend, Rob. Sam use to be obsessed with Rob ever since she was in the 3rd grade, and when they started dating, it felt unreal. But as she started to get to know him more and more, she started to realize he isn't such a great guy. He gives sloppy kisses, always accuses her of cheating, and takes her for granted. But she stays with him anyways because he has been her life long crush. I think that Sam definitely liked her life a lot better before she was popular, but she hasn't realized it yet.



           Overall, although some teenagers may think that their relationships are great, they may not realize how much pain it causes them emotionaly. They don't realize that they could be so much happier without the things that they think make them happy. For example Sam thinks that her boyfriend and friends, keep her together and make her happy. I feel that a lot of teenagers could learn from this book and realize that many teenagers have bad relationships, but maybe not realizing it. Everyone has bad relationships, you have to be able to figure it out whats wrong in it, and fix it.

How the Murder of Four Teens Started A War Susan Lester 809

The article, “How the Murder of Four Teens Started a War,” written by Patricia Smith, is about four teens which three lived in Israel and one lived in Palestine who were completely innocent, but were all kidnaped and murdered in horrible ways.  After a feud of this, Israel was pushed over the edge and mentioned how the three teens were “murdered in cold blood by beasts.” This started a horrible war between Israel and Hamas.

Patricia Smith used excellent crafting in her writing. She uses a lot of loaded words. For example she uses the word extremists in her writing. She uses that word to describe a Jewish group in Israel that killed a Palestinian boy. I feel that extremist is a very powerful word because it means that someone is taking something to far. So she was saying that they took it to far, Another loaded word she used is, devastating. She used that word when she described the airstrikes that happened in Caza. Devastating is another really powerful word because it paints the image of something being completely destroyed.

Overall this article really made me more aware of what is happening. And it is horrible. My opinion on this is that it is extremely complicated. It has been going on for years, and there are extremists on both ends, and that is never good. It’s a very controversial topic. I feel that no war should happen. I couldn’t begin to imagine what it would be like if I lived in Palestine or Israel.

                 Darkness Too Visible response Susan Lester 809

              The article, “Darkness Too Visible,” by Megan Cox Gurdan talks about how young adult books these days are extremely dark and can be very disturbing. The author also mention’s that many of the books are extremely inappropriate and not ok for young teens or even older teens. Overall she is trying to get us to realize that we (as in teens) should not be reading those types of disturbing books.

            In this article Megan Cox Gurdon, uses a lot of craft moves and learning techniques. For example she uses a lot of loaded words such as “redneck bigots” and “unusually profane”, to describe the authors and books in this banned book list. She also uses imagery in this article. For example the article says, “The boy has been savagely beaten and left tied up with a gas pump nozzle shoved down his throat, and he may not live.” This quote gives a great deal of imagery talking about some of the risky books that should be banned. Another quote that has a lot of imagery in it is, “Young Jack is drugged, abducted and nearly raped by a male captor. After escaping, he encounters a curious pair of glasses that transport him into an alternate world of almost unimaginable gore and cruelty.” This also shows a lot of imagery. The author supported her opinion with backing up her statements with a bunch of books that are extremely disturbing and makes you feel that teenagers shouldn’t read those books.

            Although the author of this article makes a lot of good points, I feel that anyone should be aloud to read what they want to read. Also some of these books talk about people going through some really difficult situations, and maybe you can relate to that. For example if you are gay and you feel that no one really understands what your going through, there may be a book that can help you get through it because the character in the book is going through the same thing. Even though I feel that you should be able to read what you want to read, Megan Cox Gurdan made a lot of good points. Some of these books like, “The Marbury Lens,” is extremely inappropriate and probably wouldn’t help anybody with their problems, but maybe instead make them even more worried and scared. A lot of books the author mentioned in this article are extremely disturbing, and I have never heard of any of these books. The books really stood out to me because I didn’t know that someone could be going through something so horrible, or be making up a character that goes through that kind of stuff. This article definitely made me realize how disturbing some books are. It changed my perspective on books.