Social Justice

My school year is split into four quarters. In my third quarter I took a class called Social Justice. I spent ten weeks taking this class. After those ten weeks I knew I'd never forget anything I learned. This wasn't just your average class, it wasn't some boring math class that you forget over the summer. This class actually made me engage and understand what was happening around me everyday. It opened up my mind to new possibilities. We learned about classism, sexism, racism, discrimination, communism, resistance, women oppression, capitalism and a lot more. These were just some of the topics that stood out to me. This class made me realize that were not living in the world that I thought we were living in. It expanded my mind to think critically of the world and in every situation I'm put in. We took the ten weeks we had to break down real world situations and analyze them. I loved this class so much and I really wished that this was an all year round class but unfortunately you can on,y take the class once. There are many other classes/events that you can attend to fully get an understanding of social Justice and I encourage you to take one.

Flipped

The book I read was called Flipped. This book is by Wendelin Van Draaned and it's Fiction. This book is about a boy named Bryce Loski and a girl named Julianna (Juli) Baker. Bryce had just moved in across the street from Juli. When Byrce first met Juli he ran but when Juli first met Byrce she fell in love. Bryce never really liked Juli, he'd always try to avoid her and make the least possible conversations with her. Juli always felt differently about that, she was in love with him. She'd always talk to him and be near him at all possible times. However in 8th grade their perspectives change. Bryce starts to realize that he actually does like Juli back and perseveres to try and win her back but unfortunately he's to late. Juli starts to realize what a jerk Bryce has been to her for the past six years and she realizes that she's through with Byrce Loski. Now it's up to them to see if they will end up together or not.

Personally I loved this book and I wish I would've read it sooner. I loved seeing both sides of the story because every chapter it switches off between Bryce and Juli. It was a really adorable love story and it's not like one of those cliche love stories this one is different. I really enjoyed seeing how badly Bryce was willing to go to win Juli back. I've always known that this was a popular book but I never really bothered to read it until now. There's was also a movie made based on the book and I recently watched it once I finished reading the book. The movie was amazing, I loved it even though it missed out on some parts I loved seeing the book on an actual movie screen. If you ever get the chance to watch or read the movie I really hope you do.

   

Here's the link to the movie trailer 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RDlXdujRSD8 

Milk and Honey

The book I read was called "Milk and Honey". The author and illustrator of the book is Rupi Kaur. Milk and Honey is a book about The hurting, The loving, The breaking, and The healing stages of a heartbreak and rape. The book is basically poems about Rupi Kaur's life. In the beginning of the book she explains that she was raped and the hurt she went through.  She wrote this book because she went through a bad heartbreak and was emotionally hurt. On the back of the book she writes that she wrote this book to help people who have been through what she has. Everyday she would still feel the hurt until one day she started writing and it relieved her.

Personally I really enjoyed reading this book. Even though the poems are really short they still have powerful meanings to it. I've never really been through a bad heartbreak but the book itself was still really relatable. It has a lot of good life lessons that can help you in the future. She touches briefly on loving yourself before being able to love anyone else, but she put a lot of emphasis on it. She teaches you that you should always make yourself the first priority because you are important. I recommend this book to anyone who has ever been though/struggling through a heartbreak. I loved this book and if anyone gets that chance I suggest they read it.

48 Hours of 13 Reasons Why over Spring Break

My Spring Break started on April 1st and ended on April 10th.  I didn't really do much over my spring break besides sleep, eat and binge watch shows on Netflix and Hulu. However one main thing that I did was watch a show called 13 reasons why.The show is based on the book by Jay Asher but it's not a true story, it's realistic fiction.  It's basically about a girl named Hannah who was bullied throughout her high school life and she reruns the idea of how she ended up like this. Eventually she grabs a pen and paper and draws out how her life went wrong, so she decides to make 13 tapes. These tapes are about people and reasons as to why she decided to kill her self. The show really identifies the idea of suicide and bullying, it really emphasizes how you can change a persons life with just a word. This show not only has a good lesson but it also changes people's perspectives on everyday things they see in their lives. Even though kids should already know that bullying is wrong and it hurts people feelings, this really proved what bullying can actually lead up to. I think Jay Asher (author) and Selena Gomez (director of tv show) an amazing job with portraying how you can affect a persons life, and I really hope there's a season two.

Life is Beautiful if you make it that way

In the movie Life is Beautiful and what we read articles on in class are similar. They both talked about the concentration camps and uniforms. They all had the same uniforms and they all had the same living conditions. The place they stayed in had bunkers and they basically slept on wood with blankets. All of them were in terrible living conditions, which is why most of them kind of looked the same. The movie also showed that they had the same tactics such as when a person in the movie got hurt they just pushed along told him to keep working and all they did was give him a band-aid. Another tactic that they used was with the kids and the gas chambers. They would tell the kids that they had to take a shower but in reality they would send them into a room and gas would drop from the top of the ceiling and they would die. Overall I think this movie had more similarities than differences with all of the articles that we read in class. However a huge difference was the point of view. In the movie he looked at everything so positively, but the majority of the articles that we read as a class pointed out all the negatives and talked about all the bad stuff that happened. The only part that was positive was when we read the resistance and upstander articles.

Some similarities and differences that the movie had were mood and and perspective. Guido had a more positive way to look at things throughout the movie. In every situation he was in he found a way to make it funny and happy. For example when he was on his way to the concentration camp he told his son Joshua that they were going on a trip. He told him that the camp was a game and each day you would earn points. He made up all these rules to the "game" and how you had to score one thousand points to win. Even on his worst days at the camp he still manged to stay positive. He had hope and by the way he would live his life you could automatically tell that he lived life to the fullest and never took anything for granted. He was different than everyone else, he was living in the worst time of his life along with others, and while everyone else was miserable he found the positives. I think he even cheered up a lot of other people as well. For example when he would talk to his son and explain to him how many points they had gotten that day, it put a smile on other people's faces. They knew that even though he was lying to his son he could still be grateful that his family was alive.

Life was shown as beautiful throughout the movie when Guido took any opportunity he could to talk to his wife (Dora). When he was supposed to be "working" he would go into the announcement room and play the song him and his wife first danced to. This way Dora would also have support and hope, she knew that he was still alive and she was always on his mind. Another way life was beautiful was when he knew that he was going to die he still had a smile on his face and was goofy about it. He had hope that his son and wife would live and be free and his hope turned into reality when the United States came to help everyone. Even though he didn't survive he manged to keep his family happy and I think that was goal. As long as he had his family nothing could upset him because just seeing his family happy brought joy his eyes. Life was Beautiful to him no matter what the scenario was he didn't care about his living conditions or that eventually he knew he was going to die, he persevered and in a way he brought his family back together even though he wasn't there to see it happen.

Butterfly

Fear

Today the ghetto knows a different fear,
Close in its grip, Death wields an icy scythe.
An evil sickness spreads a terror in its wake,
The victims of its shadow, weep and writhe.

Today a father's heartbeat tells his fright
And mothers bend their hands into their hands.
Now children choke and die with typhus here,
A bitter tax is taken from their bands.

My heart still beats inside my breast
While friends depart for other worlds.
Perhaps it's better-who can say?
Then watching this, die today?

No, no my God we want to live!
Not to watch our numbers melt away
We want to have a better world,
We want to work-we must not die!
 

Lockdown

The book I read was called Lockdown. This book is about a juvenile detention center and how each kid in the book got into Juvy.  The book mainly focuses on a boy named Reese and his friend Toon.  Reese wants to get out of juvy before he goes into the real jail but his best friend Toon is going to get jumped. So he has to make a decision, get out of Juvy early or heall out his friend. Later on Reese finds out that he actually has a chance to get out early. They assign him to a nursing home and the person he gets a assigned to gives him a hard time. They gave a second chance and he has to prove that they made the right choice.

Personally I really liked this book because it shows how Reese is really determined to have a better life. It shows how he really wants to get a second chance and it proves that people can turn their life around. It made me realize that everyone deserves a second chance and that people can actually learn from their mistakes. I really enjoyed this book and I would recommend it to people who are struggling to forgive themselves for things they've done and it helps you get closure on your past.