Inspired

If i were to chose someone as my biggest inspiration i would chose my older brother Aaron. This is because no matter what we have been through he has been there telling me everything was going to be alright. He would also tell me that everything happens for a reason and that things were going to get better but i had to be strong and wait. Ever since i was a little kid i would tell people that when i grew up i wanted to be just like my older brother. I am very thankful that i have him because if i did not then i have no idea where i would be today if i did not have my brother to keep pushing me forward everyday. He is truly an inspiration and my biggest role model.

Letter of Recognition

Dear Aaron,
         
          I just wanted to let you know that you are my favorite brother and that i love you. Thank you for being so supportive over the years of hard trials and happenings in our lives. You were always an inspiration for me and you always were so strong. You always reminded me that i should not slack off and try my hardest in everything i do not just to impress people but so i can be proud of myself. You were the one that held me up and helped me to stay strong. Not only are you my favorite brother but you are my best friend also because i can come to you with any of my problems and i can tell you anything. You always try your hardest to help me out with whatever i need help with. Thank you so much for being you.

Death Evasion

          Can death be escaped or prolonged because a person is wealthy? I feel the financial prosperity of a person does not entail a long life. Author and poet Edgar Allen Poe felt the same way and explained this in his short story "The Masque of the Red Death". In fact in this story "The Masque of the Red Death" he used a clock, a character named Prince Prospero, and a character named Red Death as symbolism to convey a message that death can not be escaped because a person is wealthy.

          The first item Poe used to demonstrate his message was a clock. He brought this apparatus into the picture about mid-story when he was describing all the lavish decorations of the corridors in which the wealthy people were attending so they could get away from the bubonic plague that threatened their land. Poe says "While the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused reverie or meditation" (370-371). I feel Poe was trying to show how intoxicating parties can be because he says ".... as in confused reverie or meditation". I also feel he is trying to show us the doubt the prosperous people felt even though they were at this party safe from the Red Death who was outside. The fact that the music stopped and "....the giddiest grew pale" as if in fear that the party was going to end because in theory when the music stops at the party then the party was over and they would have to go outside and face what they had went to the party to escape from. This shows that even though the prosperous people thought they could escape death they still were not entirely sure. Also when the music stopped they just waved off their previous feelings as if nothing happened. I feel Poe used this as his first foreshadow to how they still could not escape the Red Death. The clock was not the only symbol Poe uses to convey his message though.

          The next symbol Poe uses to demonstrate his message is Prince Prospero. Prince Prospero is a rich prince throwing a party so him and the other wealthy people can attend so they may all escape the Red Death. The prince is the main character Poe uses to demonstrate the wealthy trying to evade fate and death. Poe says "But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court......" (369). Then Poe goes on to say "All these and the security were within. Without was the "Red Death"" (369). This shows that the prince believed he could stop Death from striking by leaving it outside the protection of his castle walls. I fell Poe is trying to say that some wealthy people think they are safe just because they have money and other luxurious things to hide behind just like in this story. I also feel he is trying to tell the reader that just because a person is ,in this case, partying and pretending whats going on is not happening does not make it any less real. He uses other symbols to portray this also.

          Last but not least Poe uses his main character "Red Death" to better give us a visual of his message. This entire story is based on the Red Death and or the Bubonic Plague but Poe puts a turn to it and creates a character that is the Red Death personified. Poe states "And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revelers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall" (374). This is the biggest statement, I feel, Poe uses to show that death cannot be either avoided or evaded. Poe says that it ".....came like a thief in the night" and here he is talking about death. He is saying that a person might not be able to tell when death is going to come just like you might not be able to predict when you are about to get robbed. This quote here is evidence that Poe is trying to show us that death is unpredictable even for the wealthy.

          Poe uses symbolism to show that death can not be evaded even if a person id wealthy. I feel that no death cannot be escaped or prolonged because of a person's financial prosperity. I feel Poe is trying to show the wealthy they need to stop ignoring their surrounding problems and hiding behind their money because in the end things catch up with people. I feel if the wealthy did this then some of the problems this world has today would either be non-existent or not as bad. I feel everyone can learn something from Poe's message even though it is mostly intended for those who have great amounts of money. If we all stop hiding behind things then we will all be very prosperous and not necessarily just in money, but in everything we do.

Location Location Location

If I could live anywhere in the world I would pick a place that is low in violence, quiet, does not have tropical bugs, is not too high in tornados and other dangerous storms, and last but not least has a climate that is more hot than not. This may seem like quite a few qualifications but this would be my dream place to live. I say low in violence as on of my qualifications because I want to have a family one day and I do not want to have to worry about if I send my kids walking to school will they be safe or not.  Also I do not want to have to worry about getting shot up at work or some horrendous occurrence of sorts similar to that.  I would choose a quiet place to live because I feel there is nothing more satisfying than coming home to a quiet neighborhood in a quiet house to reflect on your day without your neighbors yelling obscenities at each other.  To some, tropical insects may seem like such a trifle issue but I despise all bugs that fly and buzz at the same time and most tropical bugs seem to have both of those tendencies. Some even hiss and swim which are just a few added features I could live without in my life. I decided to add the part about living in a place where there are not too many tropical or dangerous storms because like I stated earlier I want to have a family and I want to make a house and I do not want to see that all taken away one day because of a storm when I could have just chosen a different and better location.  The climate part of my list of qualifications is because I absolutely cannot stand the cold. I know though that if I do not want to have tropical storms or bugs than I need to pack a place that has a season where it actually gets cold but I feel the less time it is cold the better. I feel like these characteristics can all be summed up in one place. That place is called Dubai and I am absolutely undoubtedly and irrevocably in love with that place. This place is a dream come true for me and I feel the sooner I move there the better.

What if Money Was No Option: Reflection

This project was life changing for me and it taught me so much about life. What i learned was that people have a great amount of ideas they want to put into action to help their community. Also what i learned was that some of the things people want to do are not being do not because money is greater to them than happiness. In this video are a few selected people who tell their dream career and why they want to do this. I have no idea if their goals will be fulfilled because money could always prove to be a greater attraction at that time then happiness. What i learned from this project is no matter what we want to be in life, whether it is an actor, a poet, or even a wall climber, i should fulfill my dreams because they are what are truly going to keep me happy. I asked around 10 people what would they be if money was no option and they all told me. 9 out of ten people did not end up becoming what they truly waned to be and therefore were unhappy. they did not even have to tell me they were unhappy that they chose the more profitable job than their dream job because you could see it in their face as they told me what they ended up becoming. I do not want that to be me. I want to be like the one person who actual became what made them happy. I want to fulfill my dreams and some day get a message across to as many people as i can that happiness is better than wealthiness and happiness definitely lasts longer.

Shiloh

If i were to choose a book to be my favorite i would have to choose Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. In this book a young boy by the name of Marty Preston runs across a small hunting dog in an abusive home and he takes him back to his place. The owner was not willing to give him up and was willing to do anything to get his prize hunting dog back including trying to kill Marty. He however, did not succeed and was forced to give up the dog when Marty let him know he saw him hunting outside of the hunting season and could at any minute tell the game warden and get ALL his dogs taken away. This is my favorite book because it shows true willingness and sacrifice because Marty was willing to go through any and everything to get Shiloh safe even if it was to risk his own life. This was special to me because even if fictional it makes me think "why can i not be selfless like him?". It makes me rethink quite a few decisions in my past and it also makes me want to make better decisions for my present and future. although this book was written in the early 1990's which was about 5 or more years before i was born, this book has remained my favorite no matter how many greatly articulated or though out books i read and if i could thank the author or pay the author back for writing this book, i definitely would.

Life Lesson

         Life is about trying to find happiness every day. Some find happiness through people, through objects, activities, and even animals. Personally, I find happiness in all of the above. Others find happiness through careers but some are focused more on money than what they really want to do. I feel they would better find happiness if money was no object. Some people’s happiness is more extrinsic which means through outside motivation and some find happiness more intrinsically which means self motivated. The poet Robert Frost understood these simple statements and gave examples of this in his poem “After Apple-Picking”. Through the use of metaphors and imagery Frost conveys a message that sometimes we make mistakes but we should still work hard for what is wanted because in the end it is worth the necessary hardships.
         Frost knows that hard work is important although we sometimes make mistakes and do not see the appeal and he uses imagery to illustrate this. Frost stated in his poem “After Apple-Picking”, “ There were ten thousand fruit to touch,/ Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall” (l. 29-30). I feel Frost wants to give the reader a visual of just how much work is involved with this process that seems so simplistic because Frost goes on to say “ For all/ That struck the earth,/ No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble, went surely to the cider apple heap/ As of no worth” (l. 31-35). I feel this can go deeper than just apple picking, into something bigger like life itself. From this I conclude Frost is saying that life is hard work and using apple as an example, say I picked an apple. In my mind I would be thinking “Yes, one down!!!” and all of a sudden I drop the apple. I still have to pick another apple to fill my quota and the dropped apple would be like a momentary deterrence from the rest of my apple picking no matter if the apple is bruised, ruined, or have no marks at all. Well it is the same way in life. Where I am going with this is every so often it only takes one small thing, say one dropped apple, to slow down or delay work and mess everything up. Also just like the dropped apple is seen as having no worth, occasionally we make one little blunder and we feel we have no worth and that after our mistake it is not worth the continuation of our work but Frost shows us we should be tenacious and careful because in the end hard work has it’s benefits.
         Frost also uses metaphors to confirm that working hard is worth it in the end. Frost says “For I have had too much/ O1-+f apple-picking: I am overtired/ Of the great harvest I myself desired” (l. 38-30). I feel this is metaphoric to life. This is giving an example of intrinsic motivation because he says “I myself desired” and although it is still hard work, he feels it is worth it for himself. This memorandum can be placed into any situation in life where work is needed to be done either intrinsically or extrinsically and your faced with the of whether it is worth it or not to actually do the work. Frost ,I feel, thinks it is worth it for the reason that he wrote a poem about a man who has been apple-picking for some time now because he is experienced. I say the man is experienced because he knows he has to be gentle with the apples, and that he cannot drop them or they become of no worth. So they fact the he is practiced and has been doing this for a while means he chose to do the hard work necessary whether it be for monetary compensation or just for his own personal reasons. I imagine it might be a blend of both reasons because he actually says the words “…..I myself desired” but he goes on to say “There are ten thousand fruit to touch….”. I feel this may be for business purposes because I feel no one would have 10,000 apples otherwise. Nevertheless he realized the hard work was necessary no matter what his reasoning may be.
         Frost is trying to tell us to work hard in everything we do and to not dwell on our mistakes because no one is perfect. So keeping that in mind what if money was no object and we could do anything we wanted to do as long as we remembered Frost’s message?  I personally have always wanted to help people and be in the medical field. I have wanted to be an anesthesiologist ever since I saw this movie called “Awake” where a man was undergoing a heart transplant but when the anesthesiologist put him to sleep he gave the patient to little anesthetic and he was under anesthetic paralysis which means he could feel everything they were doing to him while he was in surgery but he could not do anything about it because he could not move any part of his body or even utter the smallest cry as they were cutting into his skin. Yes, I know it was just a movie but this same thing happens every single day for whatever reason and at times people even die because too much anesthetic is given. I know this is a great amount of responsibility because I have someone else’s life in my hands but that is what I want to do and what I still would do to contribute to society if money was no object. I would work had and if I made a mistake I would not take it lightly, but I would not let it stop me from helping people either. I feel if I can remember Frost’s message I will be very successful in everything I do.

Decisions

If i could change one thing in life i would change how i treated people in Middle School.  I was always mean to people because that is what i thought would make me "popular" i guess. I called people names, talked about their parents, talked about what they wore, and even how smart they were. I did not realize i was loosing people who could have been great friends for people who did not give two fresh squeezed drops of monkey pee about me. I honestly think i would have more friends now if i had not done those things. It made people hate me and feel hurt, subconscious, scared, and just plain not worth anything. I know because that is how i felt when that happened to me. I now have proof  now that those people i tried to fit in with did not care about me because when i see them they do not give me a "hey how is it going" or a "hi", "hello" or anything. They do not even acknowledge my existence. I have now learned that I should not be mean to people, and I am not now, or talk about people because I can just waste my time doing that and trying to fit in, or I can just be me and i choose the latter option.

My Serenity

I would have to say one of my biggest hobbies would have to be reading. It distracts me from everything I am doing including homework sometimes although i get it done still. I love reading because it takes me into a whole different world away from my problems in which someone else has problems that almost always get solved. I have been reading since i was about  years old and it was not those little corny "See Spot Run" books. ". I do respect them though even though i always hated them because of their vain repetition. I was always a little more sophisticated than that. Reading has been in my life for as long as i can remember and i will never let it go!!

Hehe and this one too by the way :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOowQeKyNkQ

this one too :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhC1pI76Rqo

I love this song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gd9OhYroLN0

Music... Music and Oh, More Music :)

I cannot really choose a favorite type of music because i love all music, but i can narrow it down to about 3 genres. Those would be rock/metal, pop, and hip hop. I know it is a weird variety of music styles but I am weird so what do you expect? I chose rock/ metal as one of my favorite because in this genre, they put all their feeling and passion into their songs and say things that others are afraid to say. I also like it because it is wild, like me.

Pop is for my crazy, over-energetic happy moments in life when I want to dance, terribly I might add, and sing with my whole heart.

Hip hop is my thinking music. It is all about personal problems and how the problems do or do not get solved and it is sometimes realize specific problems can be popular and you are not the only one. I'm not going to lie, it also makes me feel a tiny bit better sometimes knowing the next person has it worse than me and i do not have it as bad as i thought i did. It sounds terrible i know but oh well, life must go on.

I can narrow my favorite band/ artist down to about 2. They would have to be Chris brown and Evanescence. I like Chris Brown because his music is something to dance to and is mostly passionate and heart felt when he is not talking about something nasty. Evanescence is one of my favorite groups because Amy Lee ,the lead singer, is something that comes fro deep within her and she is not afraid to say what she wants to. I feel the types of music that i listen to represent me very well because they range from crazy to calm and from happy to sad, just like me.

Day Care

Yes, I think the government should provide day care. I think that if the parents are working for the government then they should be able to have day care provided for their children. Also if the parents had a sense of security that their children were going to have a place to go while they are at work then they would be more comfortable actually going to work so they can provide for their family. This might reduce the amount of parents on welfare. I think a lot of people are on welfare because they need income but cannot work because their children do not have a place to go. I think the government would save a lot of money because they would not have to give the parents the money to support themselves and also pay the people for the jobs the parents who do not have daycare cannot complete. 

Values

There are many thing in my life that i value. The long list ranges from items like books and other personal possessions to people like family and friends. I chose a person who was with me through my entire life. His name is Aaron and he is my older brother by 1 year and 9 months. Everyone says we are twins though. I chose him as the thing/person I value the most because he has been there with me through everything and i know i can go to him if i need help or if i need to talk. I feel Aaron and i have this "psychic" connection where we can just look at each other or say one word and automatically know what the other is thinking about at that moment and time. We even sing with perfect harmony and that is not something we practiced, it just comes to us. We do everything together. We play video games, talk, sing, party, and even chill together. Ever since our parents dies we have been best friends and inseparable. We are closer to each other than we are to our other brother and sister who are grown even though we are all still very close. I feel like he knows me better than i know myself sometimes. We have this little saying we say and it is "I got your six.". Fighter pilots say that to one another to let the other person know they have got their back. We feel it applies to out situation so we took it and we use it now. Although we have our ups and downs, and believe me there is a lot of downs, we still love each ether and i honestly do not know what i would do without my favorite person in the whole world!

Summer of a Life Time :)

   

      There are many things I did this summer and i enjoyed them all. but i chose to write about my trip to Florida. We stayed in a luxurious condominium at West Gate Towers in Kissimee, Florida at first, and the place was so big it had 13 pools. It also had several tennis courts, basketball courts, paddle boating, fishing, biking, a large game room, and even roller skating. After a week we left and went to stay in another condo in Orlando, Florida for a second week in Florida. It had much the same amenities, but the Westgate Vacation Villas had parties every night. The following day we went to Disney World. I know it may seem a little adolescent, but we had so much fun. I rode this ride that used to be called the "Tower of Terror". The ride brought you to the 12th floor of a hotel on this makeshift elevator and they dropped you and pulled you back up. The repeated the process like 6 times stopping on random floors. The worst part about it was when they brought you to the top floor it was open do you could see out above the whole park and they took your picture. The next ride we rode was called the "Rock and Roll Roller Coaster. They let you choose a song that you wanted to listen to while you enjoyed the ride. I chose the song "Stronger" by Kelly Clarkson while we climbed the vertical slope. It was the worst song choice ever because the line "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" and me being who i am, my mind only focused on the word "kill". Would that be something you want to listen to while riding a lightning fast roller coaster? I think not. Any way, i felt like i was going to die because the ride had so many stop and twists and turns and curves and they brought us upside down twice in a loop. They also had steep vertical hills we had to descend and i was so not loving that. When we got off of that we got on the worst ride yet. It was called "The Hulk" and it looked like a big green monster that focused on scaring the mess out of you. We stupidly sat in the front row and I'm not lying when i say that ride went from 0-40 in like 0.5 seconds. When i got off of that tears had blown out of my eyes and i lost 2 out of the 6 earrings i was wearing that day. It was the best experience of my life although i thought i was going to be a casualty too many times. We rode "The Hulk" twice, "The Rock and Roll Roller Coaster twice, and I'm a trooper so i rode the "Tower of Terror" 6 times in total that one day. It was the best summer by far!!

The Significance of My Name

I. consider my name to flow like a river and in fact that’s what it means. Just like famous India Arie I sing about things that mean a lot to me.

N.ever really was I told the importance of my name. Just that in the bible it’s a river next to a garish plane.

D.oesn’t it seem weird that my name is a country though? Although the country isn’t the place in which the river “India” flows.

I. heard the river dances as the wind plays upon the water’s surface. The blue beauty that goes “swoosh” makes happiness become one of my emotions.

A.lthough my first name is special my middle is even more than my first. It is a combination of my aunt’s and grandma’s both. Their names are Jenny and Irene and their rambunctious just like me. You now know the reason the name India Jenene was given to me.

Respecting Others

                                     Most Important Rule

I feel the most important rule is to be respectful to the people around you at all times, no matter what the situation that presents itself is. I think this is important in life because if you don't respect the people around you then you most likely wont wont listen to the things they tell you no matter how dire the information is. For example, if you are talking to your parents and they tell you not to walk across the street before looking both ways. In your mind you are thinking "I don't have to listen to what you guys say." and you do what they said not to do and you get hit by a truck. If you would have respected them enough to listen to what they say, then you would have seen the truck coming and you would have saved yourself a lot of pain. Don't get me wrong, I am not saying you have to like what the person has to say but if it is reasonable you should listen no matter how simple what they are telling you is. I feel that if people have respect then communication would be ten times better and things go more smoothly. On the other hand if you don't respect people around you, then the situation around you might just be a train wreck.