"Lord of the Flies" Extra Credit

People are born evil. You are inherently selfish and jealous of others. Society restrains corruption.

Education Reform

In class, we read an article about Tacoma schools replacing half of their staff because they are low-performing, and we talked about the east coast school that is completely shutting down. I feel the government is making the right decisions when it comes to what to do with those schools. If the schools aren't meeting standards, then changes need to be made.
If Olympia High School wasn't meeting state standards, then I would do the same things to it that are being done to the other schools mentioned above. If Olympia High School was closed down or half the staff was fired, it would be a sad experience, but if the school isn't performing up to standards, then changes need to be made. It's alright to think about what you want to do, until it's time to start doing what you were meant to do.
I just hope that the government doesn't get carried away with what they're doing, and start closing down every school that doesn't perform up to standards. There are other ways of trying to fix the problem of under-performing schools. When your only tool is a hammer, all of your problems start to look like nails. The government needs to keep an open mind and make sure that the changes they set in place are truly going to help the students, because the students are the ones that need to be helped.
Here is a great website that addresses the topic of how a school closure affects your neighborhood, the major aspects of education reform, and offers parents guidelines for personal involvement: http://www.projectappleseed.org/reform.html

-Mark Twain

Technology

A Poem About Technology:

Technology can be good,
Technology can be bad,
Technology is not in the hood,
Technology can make you sad.

I own technology,
Do you own technology?
With new technologies,
Comes new possibilities.

A man once created fire,
Is fire a type of technology?
A man once used a dead animal's bone,
Was that animal's bone a type of technology?

What is technology?
Where is technology?
Is it all around us?
Has is always been here?

I do not know much of technology,
But then again I know very much.
I guess it depends on your point of view,
But I do not ponder such.

I think I am at one hundred words,
Do you think I am?
Thank you technology,
For making this poem a possibility.

By Mark Twain



This was a poem that I wrote under my pen name, Mark Twain, to express my thoughts on technology, both good and bad. I feel that technology has opened possibilities for modern society that are great, but then again has opened doors wide open for evil. In the end, my opinion on technology won't change anything. As long as people keep using it, it'll still be around. And no matter how much good technology does for society, anything left to grow without restraint will eventually tear society down; I believe technology will be the downfall of our species.

-Mark Twain

She's the Man

Ten parallels between the play "The Twelfth Night", by William Shakespeare, and the movie "She's the Man" are:

1. The play is held "in the kingdom of Illyria," while the movie is held on the campus of Illyria.
2. In the play, a guy is "pining away for the love of Lady Olivia," while in the movie he is pining away for the love of Olivia, a girl attending his high school.
3. In both the play and the movie, there are two twins, Viola and Sebastian
4. In both the play and the movie, Viola disguises herself as a man
5. Viola, disguised as a man, becomes good friends with Orsino (Duke)
6. Viola falls in love with Orsino (Duke)
7. Orsino (Duke) sends Cesario (Viola) to give messages of love to Olivia for him
8. Olivia instead falls in love with Viola, who is disguised as a man
9. Orsino (Duke) realizes that he is in love with Viola, once she is revealed to be a woman\
10. Sir Toby (the black soccer player for Illyria) and Maria (the weird girl with the braces) hook up
    

"Of Mice and Men" Movie Trailer

Project Checkpoint

My group, composed of me, Steven, and T.J., will be filming tomorrow night at T.J.'s house. We plan to be done with the filming that night, and during the same night, edit the the film we've taken.
In our movie trailer, we plan to have the characters George, Lennie, and Curley's wife. I will be playing the part of George, Steven the part of Lennie, and T.J. the part of Curley's wife. We also plan to include three scenes; the scene where George and Lennie are standing 400 meters away from the worksite and George is telling Lennie to run back to that spot if he ever gets in trouble and to not speak when they get down there, the scene where Lennie accidently kills Curley's wife, and the scene where George has to shoot Lennie in the back of the head.
Probably the biggest set back we will encounter will be trying to edit the film. None of us have any background using video cameras or editing film, so it will probably take us quite some time to figure things out.

Romeo and Juliet Final Scene

The ending of Romeo and Juliet enraged me at the same time that it made me sad. Romeo going to the tomb to kill himself, not knowing that Juliet was still alive, and too emotional to think things through, was what enraged me. It was annoying to watch a character make such a huge mistake, when I knew it was a mistake, but he was clueless. At the same time though, it was really sad to watch Romeo take his life in grief, and then Juliet wake up to Romeo being dead, and taking her own life as well. The thought of such a young couple taking their lives for each other is a really sad one, and it truely saddened me.

I believe the story of Romeo and Juliet has had a huge impact on pop culture throughout the ages, influencing people to make movies and stories about lovers who couldn't be together. Even today, you often see movies with story lines very similar to that of Romeo and Juliet.