Something for Something

I feel this school is turning more austere, and I don't like that. I hope the chaos mixed with the zero intolerance for anything plus the drama between teachers and students is not a harbinger of what Chinquapin will become. To me all of this is rather novel. I guess because I was used to the loving, homey, and nurturing Chinquapin I grew up in. Yes, we called it family, not so much to sell it to donors and perspective teacher, as we do now, but because we truly felt like a family. We truly felt loved. I truly felt loved. But now it seems it's all about business. I guess it's something for something. Loving family environment in exchange for a more professional and "efficient" system that train people for college. And it's no only me saying it; there are other our there too scare to speak up.

Cults

There are many obscure cults in the world in which people are abused.

Growing Up

When is time to grow up, some people are filled with apprehension because with adulthood comes many new things, most of which are responsibilities. I mean how can someone not be timorous to start a new life because basically that's what happens when on grow up. A new life suddenly hits us on the face, and we can never be the same again. The things is that we have no idea what's exactly going to hit us on the face because this kind of grown up life is unknown to us really. I mean we see all the good things about it, but very rarely do we see the trepidation of life. Nothing's ever for sure in life. It's simply filled with surprises. When we think we have everything figured out, life comes and slaps us on the face only to show us we know nothing. That's grown up life. It sucks. Really. I mean there is no more mom and dad to protect us from the craziness of life or from any ominous things that might get near us. We are naive sometimes to think that being an adult is all fun because it isn't. We know nothing, yet we are thrown into what's called adulthood, and it's amazing, yet scary because now we have to make our own decisions. We have to decide for ourselves, and that's the hardest thing in life because it's difficult sometimes to decide what's the wisest decision we can make. It's hard to know what is the best for us, even though sometimes we feel we know it all.

Creativity Week

During creativity week, we remodeled the gym. We repainted the entire gym with red, gray, and white, and we made a prodigious mural that says burrs.

Many of the people painting were novices, but luckily we have Mr. De Leon, who simply seemed like a virtuoso when he would grab the paint brush. He has inherent skills when it comes to painting. He taught us how to use the brush and roll properly. If it hadn't been for him, we would have never finished our job. We really enjoyed learning his innovative teachings.

You Have To Earn It

Some teachers might thing my attitude is bad, but I mean I tired. Some might argue that my behavior is not exemplary, but I try my hardest to be the best human being that I can and to always go for justice. I don't care what have to do to achieve this, and I don't care who likes it or who doesn't.

I've been trying to please the world for the last 5 years of my life, I simply can't do it anymore. I'm human I get annoyed too, specially by those people that are so fastidious. Yes, those people make me mad. Even more annoying are those who demand to be venerated. The thing is that you just can't demand respect, just like you can't demand love. You must earn it.

People can't expect to be respected, loved, and looked up to simply because they have a title. That's not how it works. Even in a hierarchy, the person at the very top isn't always respected by others. People respect those who give respect, love those who give love, and look up to those that are worth looking up to. It's not a matter of idealizing a person. No on is perfect we all know that. Looking up to someone is a matter of looking at a person and seen that they have qualities worthy of admiration. Qualities like humility, patience, understanding, among many more.

We should all learn to earn the respect and love of others, instead of demanding these from them. Because when we demand it, we will only get the complete opposite.

Thanks...Really Thanks

I'm not an ingrate. Am really not and I would bet that my classmates aren't either. I really am grateful to have been at Chinquapin. I am thankful to all of those that really cared, and that helped me to go on even when I felt like I couldn't do it anymore.

Just because we don't say thank you every second of our lives, it doesn't mean we aren't. We are simply tired and burned out, which is why it's harder to show our appreciation.

Ahh...

I will neither be disingenuous nor will I use ostentatious writing to convey my message; rather, I'll just go right to the point with simple plain language.

When certain things are taken out of context, they sound wrong. For example if someone took out of context some of the stuff I said to a teacher when angry, it would sound pretty bad. But once the circumstances are explained certain things are understandable.

I've shown for the past six years at Chinquapin that I have sense of propriety and that I am prudent. I've never really had any big problem with anyone. Usually, I'm pretty decorous with everyone, and I rarely get mad. Even when I get upset, I usually have great equanimity. I'm not even brittle because even under the pressure of anger I can usually keep my head cool. But I have a limit to how much I can take. Usually, I think before I say things because I'm not capricious. But I can get mad when people are unreasonable and stubborn. And when I loose my temper, it's not pretty.

Like this week, I know I was very upset, and lost my temper completely because a teacher gave us an arbitrary test. A teacher went off on us and gave us an extremely difficult test because many people didn't do the homework. He set us up to fail. I believe that, and will continue to sustain this claim. He was trying to punish people for not doing their work because he saw it as malfeasance. But the problem I have with this is that he punish me too, even though I did my work.

I understand he was frustrated, but I was and still am upset because I actually did my work. I don't like mediocrity, so I try to do the best work I can. I haven't been doing my best work lately because I'm just tired. I'm burned out, and I just need people (teachers) to understand that. I'm just tired of people telling me I'm not doing what I'm supposed to do when I'm really trying to get done the million things I have to do. The continuous reminder of everything I'm doing wrong is very discouraging and annoying.

I reached my limits. I was so upset because this teacher by giving us this extremely hard test will cause my GPA to go down probably significantly. I mean, I have worked my butt off for the last 4 years to have good grades for one teacher to come along and cause my grade to go down a lot. It's very upsetting, which is why I kind of went off on him. I was really frank with him, maybe a little too frank. But I needed to let him know how I felt. What made me even more angry is that he didn't care about what I had to say. He just seems not to care about us. It seems like he just wants to affect us negatively as much as he can, so he can get revenge.

I know I haven't acted so correctly myself. I was brusque and maybe even insolent when I was expressing my feelings, but I couldn't control it. It was frustrating to be talking to a rock. I'm trying to calm down, but I'm still very upset. I just hope this passes and that there will not be any enmity between us. For my part I was going to apologize, but today he just added more fuel to the fire. It will probably be some time before I can apologize sincerely.

See this is the kind of stuff that makes seniors want to leave. Certain people just create negative vibes, and I don't want to be in a toxic environment. I loved Chinquapin (I still do is just that I'm mad), and I thought I would never say this, but I'm ready to get out of here.

I hope that these essay doesn't seem a heinous one. I hope I didn't come out as pugnacious either, but if I did, I hope I get some understanding. I mean what is the expected reaction from someone who had to pay the price for something she didn't do. I felt like I was made reprehensible simply because the teacher believed I should. He thought I should be punished and blamed with all the rest even thought I did what I was supposed to do. I felt like I had been blamed for what others did. I want to also clarify that I do not intend to vilify the teacher that arouse my anger through this essay nor do I intend this to be a flagrant sign of any rebellion; I simply intend to vent through.

Mexico and Family

When we emigrated to the United States, I was was really sad because I wanted to stay in Mexico. I liked living in proximity to my family, specially my cousins because we played all the time. We always had a good time being facetious with each other. When I moved to the U.S.A. everything changed because my communication with my cousins was truncated. I was really sad that I could no longer have fun with them. When I arrived to the U.S. , I had the impression right away that I would not be happy here, but I had no choice. There was such a huge disparity between the U.S. and Mexico; life was so different. I hoped my sadness would be transient; I hoped that with time it would pass away. But a year passed and my sadness persisted. I prayed to God, the omnipotent, to help me be happy. It seemed as if I was after happiness, and it just kept evading me. Happiness seemed to be elusive, but one day things changed. Things started to be more spontaneous and enjoyable. At school, I just went with the flow and everything didn't seem as compelling as before. things didn't seem than compelling. I enjoyed everything a lot more, and suddenly, I felt a lot happier than before. When I got to the U.S., things didn't seem very auspicious, but as time went on I realized that here I could make my dreams come true. I acquired the ability to understand the people here, and I assimilated into the American culture.

Ipods

In this apology I want to justify the use of Ipods in school.

I wish that the faculty would sanction the use of ipods because listening to music helps me focus. Ipods are not at all pernicious as some people may say. Not, they are very safe and useful. My ipod doesn't only help me focus, but it also helps to mollify my nerves when I feel stressed. I wish that adults would had conception of how helpful an ipod can be to a student who is trying to focus. When we are exhausted and feel like we can't do anymore homework, we can listen to our ipod, and in a second, we can regain our vitality to do more homework. When teachers are obdurate about ipods or music in general, students are bound to try to listen to music surreptitiously. It's inevitable that when we are not allowed to do things that help us we will go and do them in a clandestine way/ Because of this, I wish the faculty would reconsider this rule. I wish they would be more open minded and would not be so obstinate in their refusal to the use of ipods. Times are changing. Ipos are contemporary. They are the modern thing, and as teenagers we love them, and have learned to have them as part of our daily lives. I wish the student and the faculty would be on the same page regarding this issue; I really wish we would be more amenable in many issues. I hope one day we can agree on something.

Homeless People

I have an innate desire to change the world, to help people. I wish I could give asylum to all those homeless people. I wish I could feed them all, not only physically but also spiritually. It saddens me to see people that think the issue of homelessness is inconsequential. When in fact, it should be one of the most important issues in America. These homeless people are human beings who have often endure many hardships. Although many of them seem to be completely capable of sustaining themselves, these people have a reason why they are were they are.

We often judge them too hard. When we see a homeless person wearing their hackneyed clothe, we become wary. When someone holds a signs saying, " I need to feed my family, we often think that they are spurious, and they are just trying to lie, so they can get some money for beer. When we see them standing there looking so staid, we think that they are trying to be astute by making us fall into their ruse to get us to give them money. But we think we are even more astute by not falling into the stratagem and ignoring them instead. We are malleable by the image "society" has given us of homeless people, without realizing that there is so much more to homeless people drugs and alcohol. They look so stoic to us, but we never know what's going on in their hearts. We tend to have an inveterate negative image about homeless people. Some people might even identify them as a group of fractious and incorrigible people. They might even see them as rancorous people and others even worst as putrid animals. We see them asking for money, and we disparage them among ourselves, instead of trying to do something to help them.

I lament our lack of modesty that stops us from helping those in need. It saddens me to see how serene we can be even when we hear that our brother screams for our help. We choose to ignore the screams. We never take the time to get to know the story behind the homeless person that we see standing in the corner every day. We never take the time to see beyond the obvious, to see what those people have in their hearts. We don't see the melancholy they are going through or the things they have gone through.

I hope on day we all learn to be more prudent, and help to end homelessness, instead of ignoring the problem. I hope one day Americans have a more comprehensive understanding about the importance of solving this issue.

Essays

Our English teacher instructed us to write an analytical paper on the book we were reading. She wanted us to focus on on excerpt from the whole book that seemed to us to be the biggest phenomenon in the book and connect it to the rest of the book. She also wanted us to do research and connect it to our idea. This was probably one of the hardest assignment I've had to do because it was so hard to make a rational connection between on little part, the rest of the book, and the research. Plus we had to be meticulous with out research and make sure we didn't plagiarized. We also had to make sure we had reliable sources. If there seemed to be anything that discredited the authority of our sources, we couldn't use them. This paper had to be an eclectic paper, and I was so intimidated by it. I had to put together an incredibly well written essay that was somehow composed of different sources from my research and from the book.

I had ample worries about this paper, but the paramount concern was that I had no idea at all to write about. I was completely clueless. I often have copious notes about things I would like to talk about, but this time there was nothing. I hadn't understand half of the story because it was so filled with metonymy and oxymorons that I failed to comprehend. It all seem to me very contradictory and unknown. I mean some of the stuff they mentioned, I hadn't even heard before. The author also used a lot of periods that I hated so much because they were so complicated. The story was also filled with so much vocabulary that I had to look up a word in the lexicon every three second, which would make me loose the flow of the reading. On top of this she used to much abstraction and no concreteness in her story, and so many things just seemed out of place. Idea after idea was simply an anachronism. There just seemed to be no sense of sequence in the story. So as I finished the book, I realized I had to idea what it was about; hence, I had no idea what I was going to write about.

But with the help of my teacher, I was able to come to a conclusion, and form an idea. This was simply a nascent idea that eventually turned into a huge on, and resulted in my senior thesis.

I Will Succeed

Sometimes I feel alienated from my distant family because we rarely talk. They are in Mexico, so I don't see them often. They live a different life, which is the reason they don't understand why I study so much. Some of them are still dogmatic in their belief that women belong at home raising kids. Some of them don't believe there's a purpose to school, which is why no one in my family has even finished high school, and only a few have finished elementary school.

But I refuse to follow their believes. I'm a maverick; I'm an independent. I will diverge from the path all of my family has taken; I will go to college. Despite my family's dogmatic believes about education, I have no ambivalent feelings about my education. I only feel on things that is that getting an education is the best decision that I will make in my life.

I will no let my family's negative opinion about my dreams impede my progress. I will not let them impinge my education. I will not let anybody or anything get on the way. When people, even if it's my family, try to put me down, I won't let it happen. When I'm condemned for fighting for my dreams, I will not listen. I will ignore all the negative comments because I don't need to be worrying about things people say to subdue me; I will ignore all pejorative terms addressed at me. Yes, I will train myself to not let people's negativity have a deleterious effect on my spirit.

I will go to college and achieve great things in life because I simply refuse to have a mundane life. I will dare to go take risks and do things that no one else in my family has dared to do. My life will be exciting and fun. I learn new extraordinary things everyday. I will leave behind all that's prosaic and carry with me all fascinating things of life I encounter. With all those fascinating things in my heart, brain, and soul, I will go and reach for the greatest things in life. Oh no, my life will not be ponderous at all.

It won't be facile to achieve my goals, but I will do it. I will go out in the world and be intrepid. Despite what my family or others might say, I know I will be successful because I will continue with my dogged effort. I will continue with my assiduous ways because my mother taught me well the importance of being diligent.

I'm replete with hope about a better tomorrow for me and my family. I bet my premonition will come to being. Just wait and see.

Not Insipid At All

http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/object2/1240/47/s177688341247_1823.jpg

The classes I took in public school were insipid. I was bored almost all the time because they were just too uninteresting. I'm glad I came to Chinquapin because here, unlike at my old school, the classes are challenging and interesting.

Learn to Write!

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It's too difficult to understand what you write. You need to improve your cryptic writing if you want me to understand it.

Free Shirts

When we volunteer with Interact, we usually get a gratuitous shirt. For example, last week we got a nice shirt fro free from the YMC.

Egregious

"Susan hates it when we make egregious errors in our essay."

Come one we all know what that means by now.

My Naked Opinion

I have never suppressed my feelings. I say my opinion without fear of what others might think. I give no florid speeches; I just say things how they are. I don't try to make it sound all flowery and whatnot. I want people to understand me, so I don't want to make my comments cryptic because of all the superfluous description and flowery language. I just give my naked opinion.

Life Changing Experience

I went to a retreat last week, and it was incredible. I was surrounded by wonderful young women that love God. We had many poignant moments, moments that marked our lives forever. Those touching moments brought us together.

We came out of the retreat with such a sense of ebullience. We were signing to God. It was amazing. I could feel the positive energy and happiness. We were frenetic when we got back, screaming, dancing and singing.

We gave testimonies. Some of us were very effusive when we gave our testimony. We had tears in our eyes when telling our story. I will never forget this experience because it has changed me forever. God's existence seemed dubious to me, but today I know he exists and loves me like no one else will ever do.

Alliance

Many countries formed an alliance during the World Wars.

Friendships

We shouldn't be haughty because arrogance only leads to loneliness. We shouldn't have a patronizing attitude because we are all equal. Yes, before God we are all equal. We should be affable with others because they are our brothers and sister in God. Let there be camaraderie among your group of friends. If you carry yourself surrounded by positive energy, we will definitely built true friendships. Friendships that aren't transitory, but that are forever. These will not be superficial relationships, but profound relationships with people that will love us and that we will love. Just be cordial and those friendships will come. Friendships that aren't tenuous, but strong. Friendships that will be full of candor because they will be friendships with sincere and open-minded people. When you find friends that you can have this kind of relationship, your misconceptions about friendships will die, and you will look at friendships from a different perspective because you will have a lot more perception about what true friendship means.

Fidel Castro

Many would characterize Fidel Castro as a despotic leader, who had a dictactorial way of governing. Many would say he had an imperious way about him.

Cheaters! The Show!

The video, which the Cheaters production gave her, that showed him kissing another girls gave her incontrovertible evidence of his affairs. She confronted him with the evidence, but he denied that it was him. He started giving excuses and explanations that weren't plausible. He said that it was his cousin that really looked like him, then that it was all a conspiracy against him, and other things. He fabricated all sorts of lies. When he realized that his wife didn't believe him, he fell on his knees asking for forgiveness. He really seemed penitent, but she didn't take him back. He had cheated, so she felt hurt and to get back at him, she was contemptuous of the little scene he was making. He was literally crying like a little boy. After a while, he understood that it was futile to keep on asking for her forgiveness because she would never forget or forgive that he cheated. He understood that his offense wasn't trivial and that it would end his marriage.

Justice? Yeah, Justice Because of Democracy

An arbiter shouldn't have any biased because he or she should be trying to help both sides. But how do we know that the judges that help to dispute issues are really impartial? How do we know that they are treating the cases with objectivity? For all I know, a judge might feel disdain or any other negative emotion for homosexuals or women or whatever, and that feeling will have no matter what an impact on the judges decision. Isn't that so? The people that the judges don't like might have a substantiated case, but the judge could decide to exculpate the person they like best. If this occurred, many people would then be vindicated. Good thing we live in a democracy and things like this are not allowed to happen. I mean they happen sometimes because we are not perfect. Democracy is not a perfect government systme; it has just proven to be the best one that exists.

'member Susans's Class Back in Tenth Grade?

I remember Susan's class back in tenth grade? Men, I was so intimidate, and scared by her and her assignments. Every time she would tell us, "you have a paper due next week," I trembled! I was horrible at writing, so I knew that my weekend would be ruined by the paper I had to write. I mean I tried, but my essay were just not cohesive. They were always all over the place. When I would read them, I could tell that the sentences weren't fluid, but I would just turn in the paper however it was cause I would be tired of revising.

I mean I guess I should have used the didactic work sheets that were supposed to instruct us about how to write an essay. You 'member? The sheets that had the thesis, the three topic sentences and the prove. But sometimes I was just too indolent to do all that work, so I would just type the paper as it came to me. I tried to control it, but torpor would take over me at times.

It wasn't like that all the time, some time I was honestly listless, and I couldn't even try to work more. Feeling without energy or feeling lazy and the convoluted assignments we got from Susan were never a good combination.

Even though that year was hard, our tenacity helped us to get through the year. We weren't so great at writing, or at least most of us weren't, but look at where we are today. We have proliferated as writers. We should feel very proud. We have come so far, just take a second to remember how we were back then and how we are now.

Do you 'member how it was back then cause I 'member?

Ladies Love Yourselves

Ladies I want to emphasize that y'all need to love yourselves no matter what. Love yourselves even if others do not. Love yourselves just how y'all are. Don't be fooled by a guy who tells you nice stories about his life or about y'all's future life together, even when he's looking like a mess. No, no, no, no. If his stories and his life right now don't seem to match, to be coherent, you need to watch out because he might be lying to you somehow. Use your woman's intuition, if things don't seem right.

Ladies don't let anybody buy you. Don't let anybody use you. Your a treasure, so treat yourself like so. Respect yourself. Don't let a guy give you expensive things for no reason because the lucid implications behind those fancy gifts will hurt you if you accept.

I'm telling you, don't be fooled into thinking you have control. Don't be fooled by his words because many of these guys are experts in the art of rhetoric, so they know what say to convince you of anything.

Do not have sex because he said he loves you! Not all guys have the integrity they seem to have, so don't trust everyone just like that. Even if the trust is there, like I said before, you have to watch out. You have to respect and love yourself not to have sex. If he loves you, he'll respect you, and he will know to wait.

Love yourself because you have to love yourself for others to love you and for you to love others. Don't complain about yourself. Your height, your weight, your nose, or whatever. No, don't complain because you are beautiful. Yes, you are so beautiful.

Cogent

If your argument about topicality had made sense, then you might have won. But your argument wasn't cogent, so you lost the debate match. Seriously, put it together. Where's the eloquence you showed to have at the try outs? I just don't understand what's happening to you.

Assertion

http://thebsreport.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/declaration.jpg

This document is the assertion of the United States' independence. What a wonderful day it must have been when the founding fathers made this statement.

Sex, Sex, Sex

Sex is everywhere. Yet, it's no where. Parents fear to speak to their sons and daughters about it. At so many churches, it isn't even mentioned. People don't understand that ignoring sex is not the right way to condemn it. People don't understand the importance of talking to the young generation about sex. Some teachers blush if you bring the subject up. It's a taboo! But how dumb is that. Come on! Sex is everywhere that it shouldn't be the taboo it is in so many places and families.

It's sad because at a time like this when young people have so much access to pornography, condoms and anything and everything that has to do with sex, parents should have more than ever communication with their children to educate them about sex. Parents should be able to speak with clarity to their children about the subject without trying to use other language to substitute for the actual things.

No, it's not called anything else but a vagina. We are taught that in school when we are about 13 year old at the latest. Yes, we know more than our parents would want us at a very young age. For this reason, parents should sit and have a discourse with their children in which they teach the children how to use the information about sex they are given at school and everywhere else (e.g. TV, radio, magazines, etc.) in a positive way before someone else comes into the children's lives with malice to turn the information into something toxic. Instead of trying to ignore that sex exists, parents, teachers, some churches, and everyone else should prevent children from being harmed by all this information by admitting it's there.

Serve

When you do something, do it with love, never because you were forced to. When you serve others, do it with a smile in your face. Let it come from the heart. Let your service be sincere and full of love. What's the purpose of helping others, if we do it because it is incumbent upon us to do it? No, my friend, help because you feel it in your heart to do so. Give people a hand because you hold a conviction that using your blessings to help others is the right thing to do. Help people, and once again I tell you, do it with love. Because like Mother Teresa said, "It is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing. It is not how much we give, but how much love we put in the giving."

Don't be condescending when you serve others. No, be humble. Always, always be humble. Be humble if you're serving the poor, be humble if your serving the rich, be humble if you're serving God. No matter who it is you serve, just be humble when you do it. Be servile. I'm not saying this in a bad way. What I mean is that you should be willing so serve when others need your service.

Be willing to be the server, and keep in mind that people need different things. Sometimes those who seem to have the most are the ones that need the most; sometimes the person next to you is the person who's in need. Sometimes they don't need food, but a hug and words of encouragement to alleviate their pains. People lack different things; not everyone's hunger is the same. Just be willing to feed whatever that person's hunger might be.

Be benevolent because of the love you feel for your brothers and sisters, without ever waiting to be rewarded something back because the act of giving is a reward itself. Remember that "It is more blessed to give than to receive" Acts 20:35 (2).

1. http://www.writespirit.net/authors/mother_teresa/mother_teresa_quotes/2
   
2. http://www.christianpf.com/5-bible-verses-about-money-every-christian-should-know/
   

Welcome

I created this blog for my AP English Class. Here I will explore different ways to show mastery of vocabulary words.