Reflective Essay

The first quarter of blog posting was rather quite interesting. Even though my writing hasn’t improved, I had fun writing or in this case typing. My original plan for blogging is to blog about the Tumblr pictures I thought that inspired me, that did not go so well. Overall, I enjoy having a blog because I can talk about my opinions and I am able to write random stuff in replacement of finding a picture on Tumblr.

To be honest, my writing has not improved. Well, maybe a little but not so much. While looking back at my blog posts I noticed that my posts didn’t make sense in some of them, they are irrelevant to the topic, and it is kind of boring to read. I mainly procrastinate whenever we have our blog posts due and it makes me lose my train of thought once I procrastinate. I could leave some important information because I forgot it. The only two blog posts that were good were my Free Topic: Locks of love and Free Topic: Imperfections do not matter. In my opinion, these posts were the ones that have better flow and ending than my other posts.

Well, if nobody is perfect then why do people have to make fun of others flaws? People can look beautiful on the outside and have flaws on the inside or people can have flaws on the outside and their personality is great. It doesn’t matter if people have little imperfections like bad hair, yellow teeth, unique clothing, acne, our weight, how our hands and feet look, how dark we are or light, how some people have weird shaped nose, their eyes are too small/large,and etc because I believe that our imperfections are what makes us beautiful and unique.

This part is included in the ending of one of my posts, Free Topic: Imperfections do not matter. In that post I included a picture I found on Tumblr and it made me want to write about it. I felt like it was a good topic to write about and I poured all of my heart writing this post because this whole concept of judging other people because of their imperfections is not right and I want to tell the readers that everyone has imperfections so that does not give people the rights to make fun of them. While reading this post I realized that it flows a lot better than my other blog posts. My writing has improved in this post but I did not make any progress after that post. This shows that I started out strong but ended weak, It looks like I have been slacking off.

    When I usually write my blog posts I normally go to Tumblr and look at the pictures to see what looks interesting. Sometimes those photos have a saying or it symbolizes something in life and those kinds of pictures inspires me to write about them. Usually if the photo has a saying on it that I agree with or it looks cool I would mostly write about it explaining why I agree to this saying or why I think it looks cool. When I first started writing my first free topic blog post I wanted to use photos from Tumblr because I have something to actually write about. Since I have found pictures to write about I noticed that I make more sense and I do not ramble on and on. Soon enough I couldn’t find any good pictures from Tumblr and that resulted of me having to blog about random stuff that happened to me in P.E. I have two blog posts about Free topic: Fun times with the girls and I kind of regret doing those posts because it was just plain rambling and I didn’t really have a message and a strong ending in those posts.

      I love having a blog, in my previous school years we also used blogger to post our work which is poems. I like the idea of free topics because I have the ability to write about what is on my mind like if I had fun then i would be able to write about what I did that day. Also, I like being creative with my blog posts like writing about photos on Tumblr that inspires me and connect those inspirations and saying to what happened to me in the past or what happened to my friends that I know. Blogging has changed the way I write because it gives it more style and helps us think more with a keyboard in front of us. Also, by posting my blogs up on blogger people have access to my blog and can read my post. By reading my posts I can receive feedback that would help me in the next post.  Even if the blog posts are graded and for academic reasons, it helps us have another way of writing and thinking. We are able to write posts that include examples and we can surf the web to use the sources on the web. This helps us have strong evidence outside from the sources that teachers provide us.

      After reading my blogs that I have typed over this quarter, I have made some goals for the next quarter. One of my top goals is to Stop Procrastinating! I procrastinate way too much!. By doing so, It slows down my thinking and it loses important information I needed to write about. I mostly do all my blog post on Friday and it is becoming rather inadequate because of the number of blog posts that are being raised each quarter. I won’t be able to finish all 3 posts on Friday. Another goal I have is the flow of my post. Whenever I procrastinate and lose my train of thought I tend to ramble and make no sense at all at the middle of my post. My last goal is to actually improve in writing which is make better Introduction, Conclusions, Grammar, and Vocabulary.

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Of Mice and Men Essay

In the novella, Of Mice And Men, by John Steinbeck tells the story of George Milton and Lennie Small. These two men are migrant workers who are traveling through California in a time where the Great Depression had started. George and Lennie are struggling to survive during the Great Depression while working in a ranch in Soledad in order to reach their dreams in owning a piece of land.The central conflict in Of Mice and Men is character vs. self because Lennie struggles to survive with his own mental disability that he was born with.

In the book, Of Mice and men Lennie’s illness is affecting himself because he can’t think for his own actions.

“Well, he seen this girl in a red dress. Dumb bastard like he is, he wants to touch ever’thing he likes. Just wants to feel it. So he reaches out to feel this red dress an’ the girl lets out a squawk, and that gets Lennie all mixed up, and he hold on ‘cause that’s the only thing he think to do. Well, this girl squawks and squawks, I was jus’ a little bit off, and i heard all the yellin’, so i comes running, an’ by that times Lennie’s so scared all he can think to do is jus’ hold on.” (41)

Lennie is a kind of person that would easily get so scared because of his own illness he doesn’t know what to do. Lennie panicked and doesn’t understand what he is suppose to do when the girl in the dress is screaming. When Lennie was in that situation George has to step in and help Lennie and tell him what to do and even to rescue him.

Furthermore, the book states,” I was feelin’ pretty smart. I turns to Lennie and says,  “Jump in.’ An’ he jumps. Couldn’t swim a stroke. He damn near drowned before we could get him. An’ he was so damn nice to me for pullin’ him out. Clean forgot I told him to jump in.(40)    

When George tells Lennie what to do, Lennie does what George is told. George told Lennie to jump in the river, Lennie didn’t know that he couldn’t swim so he jumped in which resulted in Lennie almost drowning and George having to save Lennie.

Lennie’s illness is causing him to forget things, especially when George tells Lennie important things.

    Lennie looked timidly over to him. “George?”
    “Yeah, what ya want?”
    “Where we goin’ George?”
The little man jerked down to the brim of his hat and scowled over at Lennie. “So you forgot that awready, did you? I gotta tell you again, do I? Jesus Christ, you’re a crazy bastard!”
    “I forgot,” Lennie said softly. “I tried not to forget. Honest to Got I did, George.”(4)

It is difficult for Lennie to remember everything because of his illness. George has to do a job of reminding him what he said because Lennie doesn’t know what he is doing. Lennie struggles to remember what George tells him. Lennie tries to remember but because of his mental disability it shortens his memory.

After all the trouble that Lennie caused it resulted to Lennie’s hallucination, where he thinks he sees his dead aunt, and proceeds to have an argument with himself.

“And then on from out of Lennie’s head there came a little fat old woman. She wore thick bull’s-eye glasses and she wore a huge gingham apron with pockets, and she was starched and clean. She stood in front of Lennie and put her hands on her hips, and she frowned disapprovingly at him. And when she spoke, it was in Lennie’s voice. “I tol’ you an tol’ you,” she said. “I tol’ you, ‘Min’ George because he’s such a nice fella an’ good to you.’ But you don’t never take no care. You do bad things”(100-101)

    Lennie’s mental disability makes it impossible for Lennie to take care of himself. George steps in and decides to help Lennie by helping him to remember important things he needs to remember or know, He also helps Lennie by keeping him out of trouble so that both of then can still work in the ranch in order to reach their dreams in owning a piece of land together. After the troubles that Lennie did he starts to hallucinate and fight with himself, because George is constantly telling what Lennie needs to watch out more. Lennie feels that he needs to be aware but he also over does the awareness . Lennie tries to be careful but ends up turning bad , and messed up terribly. As he starts to hallucinate he felt as if he tried his best to be careful and that it wasn’t his fault for messing up.   
    Overall,  in the novella Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck Lennie struggles to survive with his own mental illness that he was born with. Lennie’s mental disability causes him to struggle to be a normal person, because he is unable to control himself and remember things which resulted of him fighting with himself.

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Free topic: Continuing Fun times in P.E with Karen S. :D

   For a free topic I do not know what to write so I will write more about the fun times in P.E with Karen! because I didn’t finish with the last post. Correction, The first time me and Karen laughed for a long time which began our friendship as Laughing Buddies was when we played Frisbee and I was sort of bored because I didn’t really do much at the time so I decided to laugh really weird and then Karen, you looked at me and laughed at me because I was laughing really weird and then I started to laugh because you were laughing. Skipping to the more recent ones, Lets talk about Soccer. When we played soccer I told you that i was on my monthly and i started to have really bad cramps and then it affected my mood and i became more cranky a bit and then I told the guys that they were lucky they didn’t have to go through all of the pain and then Luis agreed and then I asked Luis if he wanted his period and his face was like the face of pain and completely denied. Karen and I use “period” as a threat to Luis and we also call him period because that is his name for the week.
   Yesterday, we played volleyball and that wasn’t our winning day. We sort of failed at volleyball yesterday especially when Jackson ducked and I tried hitting it but I wasn’t in my position. The funniest part was when Fermin hit the volleyball with one hand and he was very confident that it would go over the net with one hand but he was wrong... and we all laughed. When the ball was coming towards Karen she yelled out OLE! and then hit the ball and Luis turned around and said,”Did you say Ole because I’m Mexican?!” and Karen and I laughed a lot. Oh! This reminds me of when Me and Karen kept on laughing at everything and the guys in our team didn’t understand the reason why we kept on laughing so Luis said,” Are you guys laughing at my face?!” and then Me and Karen just laughed even more and ignored his answer. Luis if you are reading this, we weren’t laughing at your face.

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I miss UPA!

Over the past few weeks I really miss Middle school. Bany's post states,

I remembered the times I had with friends at middle school. I remember always hanging out, not really doing work. I never studied for test and I did my homework about five minutes before class, I never really needed to do anything because middle school was so easy. I would just talk in class and then go home and hang out again. we would have so much fun at lunch, going out to the yard and just talking all day! our classes were much shorter and we did fun things in class. We would have a better way of doing class work, by going outside to do work and having group projects. I also LOVED the events we had at our school. We had a bunch of spirit weeks and dances and parties. What I dont really miss is the drama that happened at my school. It was soooooo annoying! A fight this week, r Middle school was so fun and now i miss a lot of what we did in there. rumor on this guy, and some little punk ass kids selling crack  after school. It was too much!But I love my school and the people(most of them) we were so much fun and hung out all the time.

  For the one's that when to UPA or Urban Promise Academy, at some point we all disliked that school. I wouldn't use hate because hate is a strong word. UPA is an okay school, The teachers there were really interesting. Some teachers at UPA were nice and some were just mean and unfair. One thing I disliked about that school is the fact that they have Homework Detention. Homework Detention is pretty self explanatory, if you do not do your homework they simply mark you down and you would have to come after school and finish it. If you do finish the homework really quick they would still make you stay and wait or read a book which I think the whole concept is really pointless. I wish they would have removed Homework Detention and just take it out of their grade if they didn't do their homework.
  I really miss UPA though, I miss all my friends and teachers. I had a great group of friends that I mainly stick to and ever since we graduated we sort of tried to keep in contact which we still do but not as much because of our schedules and my schedule. I remember the times where we would all do our homework at recess, yes UPA has recess but it was funny because at recess we would hangout outside of the classroom but there were still windows that teachers could see. I also love the events that UPA provided us, my favorite ones were the College for all trip and Volunteer day. College for all trip is we go on a field trip to see colleges like UC Santa Barbara, UC Santa Cruz, and Cal poly. It was fun because we slept at hotels and we got to choose our roommates and we would stay up until like 1AM because we couldn't sleep and we where watching a basketball game. We also went to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and it was fun because we got a lot of game tickets and we cashed it in with prizes. Volunteer day is where the whole 8th grade class goes to a place and Volunteers it can be working at a park,garden or Senior center. You help out the community and show that you care about the environment and others. Looking back at my times at UPA I wish I can go back.

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Response to Cameron's post

I came across Cameron’s post about A Difference in Life & School.

All of a sudden, life just became much complicated. I have school, music lessons, after school clubs, and a little sister that I have to watch sometimes. Middle school was all gravy. To me it felt like I was sailing through it with out any obstacles in my way. All of a sudden, I am realizing that life is not so simple. As I am getting older, I am realizing the responsibilities I have are way more serious. No one is here to tell me to do my homework, or to make sure that I study for my tests. Of course my parents are there for me if I need help, but they expect me to do what i need to do with out being told. School especially is getting a little bit harder as we get further into the school year. I want to focus on my experience at ASTI so far.

  I agree with Cameron's post, Life did get complicated. Back when I was in 8th grade I had time to go shopping for clothes, go to the movies, hangout with friends, play guitar, and more. I had a lot of spare time. Middle school for me was easy especially 8th grade, I am a quick learner so I think that is why. 8th grade homework was easy to a point where I can finish everything in less than 3 hours and sometimes I feel like I don't want to do it because it was too easy. In 8th grade we sometimes have tests but some of the tests we didn't have to study like crazy. As time starts to pass the things i have time to do starts to fade away slowly.

It is sad when I think of it because I would have to wait for the holidays to do the stuff I couldn't do during school days because I don't have time. I know that i would have to manage my time but managing my time means I would have to cut out some stuff so that I would have time to study and do homework because we basically have quizzes every week. To be honest, I am a huge procrastinator so I think that is the main problem why it takes me a while to finish my homework. There are days where I can't play my guitar because of the amount of homework I would have to complete or how much I need to study. My parents support me all the way, they understand why I would have to stay up late to study or finish up a lab report but at the same time they have high expectations for me and I would have to try my best in school. Sometimes my parents don't understand why I got the grade I receive, of course they want me to get all A's but if I get B's then my parents would yell at me which is useless because it is just a B, B's are not bad at all.

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Free topic:Fun times with the girls.

I thought about yesterday at P.E and I started to laugh because of what happened at P.E when My team and Janice’s team were playing football and I decided to write about this because I normally attach a photo and write about it but I can’t find any good pictures so I am choosing this topic to write about which is fun times with Janice and fun times with Karen in P.E.
  The first time i met Janice was when it was P.E and we were waiting for the gate to be opened and she randomly looked at me and waved and of course I waved back and I walked over to her and talked to her and we introduced ourselves and etc. Janice decided to add me on Facebook and we started talking about random stuff like Boys and Hello Kitty. Janice and I like to call each other “Twin” because we have so much in common first we are Vietnamese,we like the same food, we like to wear Chucks and Nike’s, we get tired at the same time when we run one lap, we feel embarrassed when we try and kick a soccer ball but we miss the ball and much more. We laugh at pretty much everything. Oh! I remember when you said,”Doogie” and I said,”Don’t you mean Dougie?” And we started to laugh. I have so much more to explain but I can’t think of any right now.
  Fun times with Karen, Man we laugh everyday when P.E starts. I remember the first time we laughed it was when our team was playing softball, Francis was batting and he couldn’t hit the ball so he had to use the Tee and when he hit the ball, We bursted into loud laughter everyone thought we were crazy but hey who cares? The more recent time we laughed was when we played volleyball on Wednesday and it was Jackson’s turn to serve the ball and Yazen was in front of Jackson and Jackson threw up the ball and with his other hand he hit the ball really hard and fast and it went straight into Yazen’s stomach it was pretty funny because it barely made it over the net but I also feel bad for Yazen. The Last time was Yesterday when we played FlagFootball.

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