Response to Tram

I found this awesome quote from Tram Huynh's blog.

This story shows that no matter who dark the world is. Help is always there. You just have to look for it because people are trying to survive themselves.

      I strongly agree with Tram. In this world many people are in need of help everyday. It's not always about survival though. At school I've been noticing lots of drama involving people talking about each other.  I've also seen people crying. I think that sometimes the people who cause all the drama need help. They might think that they can get over it by themselves, and put it behind them, but later on it will come back.
      Some people try very hard to get help, but their are certain barriers stopping them. An example of this would be people who smoke. Lots of people try to quit, and get help but its so hard to quit because their addicted to it.          
      There are lots of people in the world that are just too busy to help some one. Humans have busy lives, and helping people might be very hard. I try my best to help my peers at school, but it's often just too much. People these days are so caught up in their own daily tasks that they have very little time to help people. I still don't understand how some of the teachers at ASTI have time to grade work, live their life, AND help students. The teachers at ASTI are so dedicated to teaching and helping other people.
      This means that helping someone requires a lot of effort and time. This is why people don't always get the help they need. Sometimes helping people can cause stress. This is probably what its like for some of the teachers at ASTI. They try their best to make time to help people but when there are too many people that need help, they get stressed out. This is why sometimes teachers are angry or annoyed.
      Unwind was a great book that had lots of morals in it. Unwind taught me that there is always hope for people in need, and that you have to push through all the hard parts of life. The people in unwind had to survive 1-5 years on the run depending on when their parents wanted to unwind them. There were lots of them that survived. If your life is on the line, then you better give it all you got to try and survive.

Last Unwind lit-discussion

      This discussion was by far the best one we've had. During this discussion there were a lot of level three questions and connections to modern day that came up. We talked about synthetic body parts, suicide bombers, and what our future might be like. 
      In Unwind, there are people from the ages of 13-17 that can be taken apart and used to save someones life. In our world, we have donors and synthetic body parts. A question that came up was, "Why don't they have advanced synthetic body parts in Unwind?" People in my group said that hospitals didn't need any parts because they already had a bunch of new healthy parts from real humans. This is very scary, because maybe if the world did have too many people, the government might start to make unwinding real. It's very possible. In science we learned about evolution and how Thomas Malthus stated that "if the human population continued to grow unchecked, sooner or later there would be insufficient living space and food for everyone." What if the future was crowded with little resources left? Would people be unwound?
      One of the character's in the story, Lev, became a clapper. Clappers are suicide bombers with explosives in their blood. Our group talked about if people could really do that and not be poisoned. It doesn't seem real to me. Terrorists probably have read this book and tried it already. They're most likely dead, maybe Neil Shusternam wrote this book because he knew this would happen.
      The future, everyone talks about it. After reading unwind I got some ideas of what our future might be like. In unwind people could get pigment injections to change the colors of their eyes. I remember Shannon talking about getting her eyes purple with stripes, Ebone talking about getting green eyes, and Melissa just not knowing what to say. There might even be pigment injections available right now. Our group talked about how everything we read in unwind is possible. It might just happen, unwinding, pigment injections, and clappers. Only time will tell.

Response to Camal

I found this awesome quote from Camal's blog that basically sums up what I feel about the future.

I should be thinking about my future and what I want to be. I should be having thoughts on what jobs I want to have, what fields I want take my path towards, and I should by now have ALREADY nailed what I want to major in. But right now…I’m not even close to knowing how to answer even one of these questions.

      My parents are always asking me what I want to be when I grow. They are always telling me that I should be thinking about my majors and what college I want to go to. Right now I still don't have any idea about my majors or what I want to be. 

      The reason for this is because I don't really know about some of the fields I'm interested in. The number of jobs in the world are so diverse that it's so hard to find a job that I know about and like. One of my favorite subjects is Science, but there are so many jobs that have to do with science. The problem is that I'm so caught up doing homework, studying for tests, and living my life that I don't have any time to look into jobs or careers.

      I think that knowing what you want to do, is built upon throughout your years at high school. You learn a whole bunch of interesting things during the four years of high school and it can help you plan for the future. Plans don't always work, so if you plan to be the richest surgeon in the world, it may now work. My point is, plan something and change it according to your lifestyle, it helps to build toward the future.

      When I think about my lack of knowledge of what I want to do later on, I feel a bit scared. I always have thoughts like, what if I major in something I don't like? I try not to worry, but sometimes it just to hard. I WILL try to answer these questions throughout my years at ASTI and hopefully write my future.

      

Unwind second lit-discussion post

      This literary discussion was better than the first. We talked about the important events, clarified parts that were confusing, and gave our opinions on the events that happened. 

      Our group talked a lot about the events that are leading up to the climax. We talked about how tension between Connor and Roland are growing. There was a part in the story when Connor locked Roland in a crate and threatened him with a gun to get Roland to tell the truth. I think that Roland might try to kill Connor later on in the story because Roland is always planning his next move to be more powerful. Roland said, "Your're the Akron AWOL?!" The Arkon AWOL was a rumor that unwind were passing around about a boy who escaped from ten cops while rescuing two other unwinds (Risa, and Lev). When we were talking about this, I said that since Connor now seems more powerful than Roland, he will be Roland's next target. 

      There were some parts of the story that were a bit confusing, so we all reread it and worked it out. Ebone wanted to clarify a part where a kid named Ci-Fy had a temporal lobe transplanted into his brain. Ci-Fy had two personalities one was Cyrus and one was Tyler. When Ci-Fy got home the parents of Tyler and the parents of Cyrus were there. Ebone asked, "Did the parents live next door?" We all reread that part and came up with the idea that since Tyler was in control, Cyrus thought that Tyler's dad was also his dad. We were all confused, but when we went back and reread it, it made more sense.

      There were a lot of opinions that were expressed during this lit-discussion. Some people in the group thought the Admiral was bad and that he was secretly manipulation the unwinds there. I thought that the Admiral was a really great person from the start. There are probably some people in the graveyard that don't like the Admiral, so they start spreading rumor. The Admiral in charge of about 400 unwinds, and also declares himself dictator. He's bound to have some enemies, so all the bad things are probably just rumors. We also talked about Risa. Everyone thought that she was the reason that Connor hasn't been unwound yet. Risa always gets Connor out of trouble and is a great influence. Risa has gotten Connor to control his temper and be a better person. 

      Overall, this lit-discussion was far better than the second. I learned a lot more, and also got some insight on how my group mates felt about that characters. I hope the next discussion will be better.

First Lit Discussion

      Our first lit discussion was fairly successful. Everyone was engaged and contributed to the discussion. In our discussion we talked about the characters and how we felt about them. We talked about each character's personalities and how they became unwinds.
      We talked about why Lev would want to be unwound so bad. I don't understand why parents would raise their child, then have them salvaged for body parts when they are old enough. I think that Lev is very confused. One minute unwinding seems like a dream to him, but when pastor Dan tell him to run, he is suddenly confused. We think that Lev is a little crazy in the head and deserves to be be unwound.
      We also talked about the storking initiative, a law that lets teenage parents to put their child on someones doorstep. When someone opens the door and sees the baby, it would legally be theirs. I thought that was kind of wrong. Someone else said that it was better than moms just killing their child. What if someone already had been storked many times. How would that family support all the children. There was a part of the story when Connor said that he had been storked, "...the baby had been passed around the whole neighborhood" The baby eventually died because the people in the neighborhood just kept putting the baby on someone else's doorstop. The baby was basically tortured to death.
      So far everyone in our group thinks that Risa is the smartest character. Risa has helped Connor out of a lot of tough situations throughout the story. She got them clothes, food, and thought of some good ideas to help them to survive. She's the reason that they got out of that school. If it wasn't for Risa, Connor would have been unwound a long time ago.
      Connor is a very interesting character in the story. He sometimes goes on auto pilot and does lots of stupid things that could have gotten him unwound. He grabbed Lev out of the car, picked up a storked baby, and also picked fights with other unwinds. Even though Conner has done some stupid things, he still is very useful and keeps Risa company.
    

Response to Kim Alvarez

Thanksgiving recently passed, and I found a great quote from Kim's Alvarez's blog. It simply said,

"I have a lot to be thankful for."

      This made me think about what I have to be thankful for in my life. Even though Thanksgiving is over, I think people should give thanks everyday and be glad that they're not in a tough situation. The world has billions of people, some rich, some poor, theres lots of things to be thankful for. There are also a lot of people in the world that are spoiled and think that there's nothing worth being thankful for. I am not one of those people. There are way too many things that I'm thankful for, but the top three consist of my family, friends, and having an education.
       My family, especially my parents, have given up a lot to come to the U.S. so I could have a better life.  They gave up friends, money, time, and their home country to get here. They have helped me through all my struggles, encouraged me and also criticized me so that I could improve. I'm thankful that I still have both my parents alive, and together. Most of my friends' parents are separated, and some are no longer with them. It's very sad.
      I'm thankful for having awesome friends that I can go to when I need help. I treat my friends as if they were my brothers and sisters. I'm thankful that I always have someone to talk to and listen to me. My friends also teach me new things and help me with my problems. Some of my friends are so close to me that they'd take a bullet, any day. I'm thankful that I have friends like that.
      Without education I would probably be selling drugs, and getting drunk. An education gives me hope for having a good future and a job. I'm thankful that I have a school to go to, with the best teachers I've ever had.  Having and education is really important to me. I'm thankful, for everything, YOU should be thankful too.

Kite Runner Book Review

Kite Runner is a fictional narrative written by Khaled Hosseini. Kite Runner is a story written in a time of war in Afghanistan. In Kite Runner a boy named Amir witnesses his best friend  get physically assaulted. Amir never forgets this and tries to bury the past. Later in the story he and his dad move to America due to their safety. Once Amir is America he finally gathers up the courage to go back to Afghanistan and redeem himself.

Hassan was  a very interesting and loyal character in Kite Runner. Throughout the story Hassan’s loyalty toward Amir never changed. He never hit him back and always stood up for him. Hassan was a Hazara and Amir was a Pashtun, but their social status didn’t separate their friendship. When Amir won the Kite Tournament Hassan promised Amir he would get the kite and said, “For you, a thousand times over.”  It meant that he was going to get it, no matter what. When Hassan finally got the kite, he was brutally beaten and raped by Assef. All Assef wanted was the kite, but Hassan never gave it up because of his loyalty and his promise. After Hassan got raped, Amir kept ignoring him and didn’t want to be his friend. Hassan kept trying to restore their friendship by telling him he was sorry for whatever he did, but Amir couldn’t look at Hassan the same way. One day Amir told Hassan to go to the pomegranate tree where they used to hang out. When they got there Amir threw pomegranates at Hassan and wanted him to throw them back, but since Amir doesn’t understand the extent of Hassan’s loyalty he didn’t expect Hassan to smother a pomegranate on his own head.  Hassan probally thought that after some time, everything between him and Amir would get better, thats why he never retaliated when Amir was throwing pomegranates at him. I wonder what Amir would have done if he knew that Hassan was really his half-brother.

One thing that Hassan and Baba have a lot of, is Bravery. They both stood up for someone. Hassan deafened Amir with his slingshot when Assef first confronted  them, which is similar to when Baba defends the woman from the Russian soldier in the fuel truck. This is a very distinct trait that Hassan and Baba have, but lacks in Amir.  Amir has little, or no bravery in the beginning of the story, but gradually develops it later on.

Khald Hosseini’s purpose in writing this fictional story was to educate people on whats its like in Modern Afghanistan, and how it’s hard to bury the past. I’ve learned a lot on what it’s like in Afghanistan,  what some of the people there have to go through on a daily basis, some Farsi,  and Afghanistan culture.  There were lots of things going on in Afghanistan at that time. Some included the constant fight over power.

The whole story was basically about how Amir tries to bury the memory of Hassan being raped, but later on, it comes back. Amir tried so hard to forget what happened to Hassan. Amir was about eight when he witnessed it, and felt very guilty. When he moved to American, he had finally locked up that event somewhere in his head, but later on he gets a call from Rahim Kahn and the past just crept its way out. Near the end of the story after Amir rescues Sohrab, he has a dream where he witnesses his father fighting with a bear, 

“They roll over a patch of green grass, man and beast...They fall to the ground with a loud thud and Baba is sitting on the bear’s chest, his fingers digging in its snout. He looks up at me and I see me. He’s me I am wrestling the bear.” 

 Amir has finally realised that he has redeemed himself. Houssei incorporates a very strong moral into this story. The moral is, if your try to forget the past, it will eventually come back at you. I’ve learned that the best way to get rid guilt, is to confront your fears and fix things.

Most of the people of Afghanistan were already in poverty, then the Taliban came along and started  killing and harassing people.

“What is the matter with you?” Farid hissed.

“What?”

“Don’t ever stare at them! Do you understand me? Never!”

“I didn’t mean to,” I said.

“Your friend is quite right, Agha. You might as well poke a rabid dog with a stick,”    someone said.

This was when a Taliban glared at Amir. The Taliban were there just looking for someone to kill or start a fight with. Farid was telling Amir to not look at the Taliban if he didn’t want to die. That’s how bad the Taliban were. Even though the story is fictional, there are lots of events in the story that I wouldn’t be surprised to hear really happened.

Kite Runner had lots of information about Afghanistan culture, and taught me a little bit of Farsi. I learned that in Afghanistan culture couples don’t get to choose who they marry, the parents marry their daughter or son according to the other families ancestry. General Taheri says, “ Now this is the right way-the Afghan way- to do it, bachem.”After reading Kite runner, I’ve learned that Salaam means greetings and calling some one's name and adding jan is a form of respect. Knowing even a little Farsi can help me communicate with people if I ever have to go to Afghanistan.
Overall The Kite Runner was a very intriguing and informative book. It taught me life lessons, events that happened in Afghanistan, Farsi, Afghan culture, and how people are dealing with the crisis’ there. It was also very sad, but had a great ending. I would recommend this book to everyone that is over the age of twelve. I will always remember the this story.