The lottery

In the short story "The lottery" there are many themes such as luck ,fate and deception . But the theme that stuck out the most to me was the tradition of the lottery .Because through out the whole story Mr. Warner kept saying that the lottery was tradition ,and that the other towns that did not have the lottery were a bunch of fools. Another thing that struck me was that if you did win the lottery you would be stoned alive by the town and even your family. Which to me was a harsh hart pounding life taking tradition .

The decision

In the novel The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins Katniss Everdeen, a sixteen year-old hunter and gatherer must face an internal conflict--sacrifice her life for her sister's once human lottery results are announced. The lottery is based on a system where children under the age of 18 are selected to compete in a survival game from different districts throughout the country, as a tradition of obedience directed from the government. Her sister, Primrose, "won" the lottery by being chosen to represent her district. Katniss conflicted within her own mind with whether or not she should allow her sister to probably sacrifice her life or take the chance that she, Katniss, could win the games . There is a series of heroic challenges that she knows she must face in order to return back home. This includes watching the other kids die in the competition right before her eyes . As she escapes to the woods, she is scared to go to sleep at night because she might wake up with a knife to her neck . She also must endure other obstacles like fireballs and ferocious wolves. The resolution to her conflict is not only her taking the place of her sister, but also the winning of the hunger games much to her surprise and everyone else's. In the end she did make the right decision because of her gut instinct and a lot of luck.

What is the best theme park

During every spring break from school, thousands of people travel on vacations throughout the world. Two of the most popular places in the world to visit are the theme parks of Walt Disney World and Universal Studios/Islands of Adventure near Orlando, Florida. Families find that they enjoy the parks for their similarities, but also look forward to the variety of the two different concepts creating the atmosphere at each. There are many similarities when comparing the two greatest theme parks in the world. Both are located in what was formally marshes and swampland inhabited by alligators, rattlesnakes and other subtropical creatures. The parks are divided into themed areas; Disney World is split into six areas including Animal Kingdom, EPCOT, and the Magic Kingdom; Universal has three main areas, including Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure and a central entertainment/food plaza. The rides within these areas are thrilling with colorful designs and elaborate architecture that matches the overall theme of each "land". Smiling faces and courteous words from the park employees greet the visitors from the moment they come through the gates. The service is outstanding, making everyone feel like they have all the comforts of home--practically no wish is turned down. The streets of both parks are consistently clean. Food is served in separate "reserved only" restaurants and in fast food venues. Now as for the animated characters in the two theme parks, while both are fun and entertaining, there are some major differences. The Disney characters are from the cartoon classics beginning in the 1920's up through today and are mostly for the interest level of younger children. They include Winnie the Pooh, Buzz Lightyear, Peter Pan and, of course, Mickey Mouse. Universal's characters are, generally, are of a bit more recent time and are aimed towards older teenagers and adults. They include primarily Warner Bros. creations: the Amazing SpiderMan, Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, and the Incredible Hulk.These characters can be seen running around the park, trying to get all families in a good, festive mood. Everyone comes on vacation to experience adventures that they don't find at home. The rides at Disney World are of older construction then the rides at Universal Studios, but they still are a lot fun, including Dumbo, theTea Cups, the Haunted Mansion, and the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse. At Universal they have rides that go up and down and all around, causing some patrons to become ill; they include The Wonderful World of Harry Potter, the Mummy's Revenge, Doctor Doom and Ripsaw Falls. As noted, rides at Disney are not as wild, overall, as the rides at Universal, because Disney attracts more little kids while Universal attracts more teen agers. Escape from Wisconsin's dismal weather by planning a trip that will blow your mind with a variety of fun in Florida's sunshine state. Make your choice and make it with the valid information, provided by researching what fits your family's personality. Enjoy!

Hunger Games Nightmare

Today at school is the day of the reaping. It’s a day where everybody looks their best as they stand in line in the Asa Clark Middle School gym, waiting, hoping and praying that their name does not get called to go and fight to the death for our town, Pewaukee. All eyes are on our school principal, Mr Dull, as he is the one who will choose the names of four people from a basket, two girls and two boys that will go and fight to the death for our town in the Gladiator Dome several miles away. He calls off the girls names first as he does every year. There is an erry silence in the crowd before he says into the microphone, “Kay and Sofi .” You can see the horror on the faces of the two girls now as they walk by to get on the bus that will take them to the place where they will be picked by a trainer to prepare them for the bloody battle that will be televised across the nation. The two girls are in shock, and already have the look of death seared on their faces as if they have no chance to live. “Now for the boys, “announces Mr. Dull as he slowly rustles his fingers throughout the basket. The longer he takes the harder and faster my heart pumps. Boom, boom, boom my heart is now beating like a loud drum. Then he stops, plucks the names from the basket and announces, “James and Max”. I am frozen in place. I never thought that I would get picked. Not in a hundred years. I begin to process the fate that now lies ahead of me as I start the frightening journey toward the bus. I can’t help but think of all the people that I love that I may never see again. All the things I wanted to do with my life that I may never be able to do. It is unbearable As my feet slowly climb the bus steps, I start to pray that I will get picked by an excellent trainer. The bus ride seemed like forever, as we drove through towns with all sorts of people. We drove through small towns and big cities, picking up people along the way who had the same bad luck that I did. These were some of the same kids who would eventually be my opponents. The same unlucky souls who would be fighting for their lives and for a better way of living for the people in the towns they represented. No one could be trusted at this point. As my mind started to drift, I was called back to reality by the screeching halt that the bus made in front of a very large mansion. We had arrived at the place where we were to be picked by our trainers. My eyes popped open as we entered the mansion. Such a beautiful place with marble floors and crystal chandeliers. I felt as if this were a dream. I was escorted to a room by a big strong guy. The next thing I remember was getting called to a big fancy dining room where I was put in a line up to be reviewed by the trainers who were picking their fighters. Turns out that I was the third boy picked from the batch. My trainer’s name, the guy who would prepare me for the fight of my life, was Mitchell. It all seemed to be going ok until Rich, a small boy from Kewaskum, started to shout because he was not happy to be the last one called by a trainer. He ranted for a few minutes about how unfair the process was until two guards dragged him in front of the group and executed him on sight for being disruptive. We were all in shock, but knew to keep our heads down and our mouths shut. My trainer, Mitchell turned out to be a great guy. It was obvious that he had done this several times before. He helped me look up a lot of survival tips on the internet that I will need to know for the Gladiator Dome. Mitchell gave me a sharp throwing knife and advised me that it would be a great weapon to use in close combat, and that it would work even better as a long range weapon. Mitchell and I spent several months together working on strength training and on how to use a weapon, especially the throwing knife. I felt my muscles grow stronger, and my combat confidence also grew with Mitchell as my trainer. I was trained to perfection. Then came the day I had dreaded. The day I was to take the trip to the Gladiator Dome The bus trip to the Gladiator Dome was filled with anxiety. Especially after the bus driver began to instill fear in us with stories that the Gladiator Dome is filled with frightening creatures like a six hundred pound bob cat, twelve-foot poisonous snakes slithering about and a twenty three foot spider that is ready to strike at any moment. But as I got off the bus and entered the Gladiator Dome, I had to put all my fears behind me. I had to think like a warrior. This is the defining moment that Mitchell and I had trained for. The bell rang and I ran for my life. I fell face down in a pile of mud and hid there as I waited to be attacked. Then I felt someone pulling on my arm and calling my name. It was my mom saying , “Max, get up you’ll miss the bus”. I was relieved that my face was actually in my pillow, and all of this was just a dream, with scenes from a book I read the night before. This was one morning that I actually wanted to get out of my bed and on the bus to Asa Clark.

Songs

The’’Big Yellow Taxi” is an upbeat happy sounding song about how we need to save nature because we don’t know what we got until it’s gone.’’ Also Field Below” is about nature but it is a slow and sad and it sound like she is crying when she is singing. Another thing is although the songs sound much different they are very much alike. They both talk about a person also they both want to save nature.

Bravery

If you ask me what bravery means I would say that bravery is the word that our country is built on. It's what makes a boy into a man ,and what makes a soldier into a hero, which is exactly what Scott is in the book, The Journal of Scott Pendleton Collin. Bravery is an important life skill to have, something that takes a long time to acquire. Without the brave people of our nation, who knows where we would stand?

When Scott Pendleton Collin went back to get his friend, who was shot, he showed immense bravery. He went back into the heat of battle with bullets flying past him and six ounces of metal shrapnel flying past his head. He manages to keep his cool ,as he 'fireman carries' his friend back to safety. This is an example of bravery, in which Scott realizes what it really takes to be a man and a champion of life. If more men acted like Scott, the world would be a better place.

A different type of bravery that Scott Pendleton acquired was to know the difference between what was right and what was wrong. For example, when he was in a German house to take cover from falling bombshells, he told an old couple to get on the ground. He was protecting them because they were so traumatized; this was most likely because they had seen other family and friends slaughtered in a pool of blood without mercy. What price is mercy during this time?

Now, what may be Scott's most brave and heroic moment throughout the whole book is when he shoots his first guy, because when he does shoot him he does it out of pure instinct. As he raised his gun to take the shot, a tank rolled past on the hill where nearby stood a German commander just waiting to die, as the rest of his comrades had. So after he was killed, the German commander was on the ground with an inch-sized hole clean though his head . Scott started to think of what the man's life might have been like in the past--all his family and friends that he would never get to see him again

So now you can clearly see how brave and heroic Scott truly is . Also you can see that to brave you must be strong in your mind and soul.

free blacks in the north

If you ask me, if blacks were really free in the north, I would probably say "no". Even though they were classified as free, they did not actually have the same rights or privileges as all white people. I do not to me a person is a person, no matter the size, race, strength or religious belief of that individual.

Political freedoms were very limited for states in the north. The only state that was completely against slavery was Massachusetts, allowing blacks to vote and serve on a jury as a juror. In some other northern states, after the Emancipation Proclamation was enacted, blacks were allowed by law to vote, marry whites, and file lawsuits. Even when the rights were extended by the laws,the white majority did not allow it to happen. For example, in Massachusetts in 1795, judges came down with a decision that blacks could vote nor be elected to office because public opinion overruled the law.

Economically, blacks obtaining jobs in the north succeeded in making more money, but then began to understand what they thought was impossible, that they could be on equal footing with whites. Blacks were free, but could not share the wealth of the money earned by working communities, as they were not respected by the white population because almost all of their jobs were of being common laborers or washerwomen. They began living in ghettoes and slums within the larger cities throughout the north. Northern freemen needed to carry passes when traveling in some states and were sometimes forbidden to own property. Finally, they could, in some areas, not own businesses, so their economic resources were limited.

The restrictions, socially, for blacks in the north was much more complex. While they had freedom to believe in whatever religion they chose, they could not marry any white woman in their churches, or they would be sold into slavery for life. Punishments for blacks breaking the law were much more severe than for whites, including servitude and even castration.

So in Conclusion The north allowed all blacks to be free, but in actuality the northern blacks were not much better off than the southern black slaves. Despite the many laws allowing blacks "freedoms," they were heavily restricted by actual practices and white public opinion.

DEATH

DEATH is a part of living
EVERY living thing will experience it
AT the gate of heaven god will decide if you will be happy for ever or not
TIME is the thing that is the dynamite of living it can explode at any time
HOW and what are you going to do before the timer goes of

Scott Pendleton Collins

Whenever Scott Pendleton Collins walks in a room, you can see in his piercing blue eyes how confused he is and by his scraggly beard his lack of sleep. Because he is so active, he has rapidly grown in size since setting foot on the beaches of Normandy, but he is still a "stick" compared to the rest of his army buddies. His army clothes look like he was attacked by a lion and then took a bath in mud. He is a picture of a typical soldier.




You can see that all this 17 year old boy wants is to be as good a man as his father and his father's father. He wants to fight in the war and earn his "picture on the wall,'' where his father and his father's father photos were placed in the hallway of his house, as remembrance of being war heroes. On the battlefield he would never leave a friend behind. He always fought with great courage in defending his country and his loved ones .

Scott Pendleton Collins

Whenever Scott Pendleton Collins walks in a room, you can see in his piercing blue eyes how confused he is and by his scraggly beard his lack of sleep. Because he is so active, he has rapidly grown in size since setting foot on the beaches of Normandy, but he is still a "stick" compared to the rest of his army buddies. His army clothes look like he was attacked by a lion and then took a bath in mud. He is a picture of a typical soldier.




You can see that all this 17 year old boy wants is to be as good a man as his father and his father's father. He wants to fight in the war and earn his "picture on the wall,'' where his father and his father's father photos were placed in the hallway of his house, as remembrance of being war heroes. On the battlefield he would never leave a friend behind. He always fought with great courage in defending his country and his loved ones .

Cause/Effect Paper

What would you do if you were placed in an uncomfortable situation that you couldn't escape from easily? In the book, "Speak", by Laura Anderson, a thirteen year-old girl faces such a decision when she attends a wild party at a friend's house. This was a drinking party where a bunch of teenagers had met to have a good time. During the party her best friend's boyfriend. named Andy, approached her to talk, but quickly the situation got out of hand when he made "his move." Melinda did not know what to do or what to say, so she did nothing. There were many causes for her reactions and a number of effects that occurred, as a result.

The causes of how this excruciating event came to be was very complex. Melinda was a teenager who didn't have very many friends, because she was very self-conscious about her physical appearance. She always wanted to fit in with the other students at school, so when she got a chance to go to a party she was excited, yet terrified, because of how she might be perceived. At the party, they were pouring unlimited quantities of alcohol, which Melinda was not used to consuming at all. As a result, she became intoxicated and lost her sense of good decision-making.

Andy, a much older teenager who is dating Melinda's best friend, introduces himself to her at the party. He is a smooth operator, who is handsome with a muscular build; this is appealing to Melinda. Despite at first trusting Andy, she got caught up in the moment, so he decided to take advantage of the situation and raped her. This caused her to feel isolated and confused as to what to do. Should she tell the truth to somebody?

When the police had been called, Melinda was ignored by the students at school, who thought she wanted to shut down their fun. The effect on her was to experience an emotional meltdown with crying spells and long periods of silence along with her grades beginning to plummet, except for in art class. As an effect of her not turning in Andy to the proper authorities, he attempted to rape her again in a closet. This time she screamed and began to throw things at him violently. Andy ran out of the closet and left quickly. Once Melinda returned to school she talked aloud to herself about the raping incident and was overheard by a member of the school's lacrosse team. As a result, in the end, rumors flew and most students at the school realized that she had been horribly abused and mistreated, felt sorry for her and they tried to make her feel better about herself.

Life experiences that teenagers go through can be unbearable, as read in the book, "Speak". They should realize that an event like this can happen in today's world and if it does they should speak out to their parents and/or an authority figure, so that it never happens again.

My Prediction

My prediction for the book ''Speak '' by Laurle Halse Anderson. Is that she will tell everyone what really happened at the party, and why she called the cops. Bcause she can not hold it in any more,and also because the bullying she has to handle is getting to her. This story follows a tradgye mode of literature. I predict that someone at the party got drunk. And hit her but when the cops showed up she didn't tell them because she or he was one of her good friends. I am predicting this because I seen movies similar to this book and that’s what happened.

Alex Rider

Excitement ,thrills and chills is what Alex Rider experiences In the book, "Stormbreaker ," by Anthony Hurwitz. Alex is devastated when his uncle dies suddenly, leaving him living alone with his nanny. He picks up his uncle's mission to stop a dangerous evildoer before time runs out. With his physical skills and bravery, he comes out on top completing the mission and stopping the world from being taken over by mind control.

When he gets abducted by the same agency his uncle worked for, they ask him to help them with a special mission. He is quick to say yes, because his uncle has been training him for this moment without Alex even knowing it. He has developed a variety of skills, such as taekwondo and ski diving. He use to fight off evil spy agents by using his taekwondo foot-kicking techniques. And he was a great ski diver for his sneak attack on the evil agents. Also, he wishes to follow in his uncle's footsteps as a great and intelligent spy. All of these skills helped him to fight off the evil spy agents.

Along with his physical skills, Alex Rider's greatest asset is his amazing bravery. He never cracks under the heat of pressure, even when a ten pound poisonous squid tries to kill him. And he always comes out on top, even when a gun barrel is pointed at him and there is no where left to run. As a result, he is an unbeatable spy and an extraordinary teenage kid.

Any teenager would like to be a super spy like Alex Rider, because it would be a thrill to look danger right in the eye and survive.

The Thoughts

"Father, the bells are calling for me, I must go ." "No Jonathan, wait until I am better to go myself because war is a horrible experience that will change you for life." These two sentences set the stage and describe the feelings felt by the father in The Fighting Ground," by Ave. The story takes place during the American Revolution and tells the story, from the father's eyes, who is faced with sending his 14-year-old son, Jonathan, to war in his place because he was injured in a previous battle. One can only imagine the feelings of guilt and despair that this man was faced with.
Father's always want to protect their kids from harm, and this book goes into detail on how this father tries to let his son know that war is not all about glory and fame. He gives true details of blood and cries of men who are in pain after being wounded. The father realizes that all he has said will never compare to what Jonathan learns, for himself, on the battle field.