Rules-review [[If it fits in your mouth..Its food]]

Rules by Cynthia Lord.

A very common story about a girl who's younger brother has a disability and she feels like she gets thrown to the side...

You have heard this story before right...WRONG! I started reading the book and I had to keep putting it down because it made me so frustrated. This girl I thought was too shy. She was very selfish and I could not even get into the book let alone think about writing a review about it.

However, somewhere in the story I was pulled in.

Yes the girl is embarrassed by her disabled brother as they are in most the stories.

Yes. She is overly shy around boys even though I am sure she is very pleasing to the eyes

But this girl has rules in which to keep her brother in check.. SHE HAS RULES.

These rules tell him how to behave in public and how to respond to people. Some of the rules are made to make his life better.... however others.. are just to keep him from embarrassing her.

SELFISH.

She finally meets a friend that she thinks she will like and the only thing she worries about is is her brother gonna embarrass her... [[Catherine]]Is only twelve years old. Having a "normal life" is pretty important to her and just the crazy things she goes through while attempting to create this normal life is worth the 200 pages.

NO bad-mouthing at the lunch table!

The biggest and longest fight I had ever had with any of my friends, and it included my ENTIRE table....

I had been best friends with *Samantha since the fourth grade. We did everything together. We were sisters at heart. However, there was one thing that we did not have in common. I was in band and she was not. Granted, that is not that big of a deal. If you think that. You have never been in band. Band is a social paradise. The people in band are the people you spend all your time with, your best friends sometimes. Samantha was not in band and Breanna was. That is how it all started.

Sam and I had been best friends for so long that it was hard for both of us when we could not hang out as much because of my band trips and football games. We both changed in the three years from seventh grade to tenth. We had both found totally different types of friends and we were not the same fourth grade girls talking about Jesus, music and playing on the computer.

One day Sam came to me and said that I was stuck up. My head was spinning! Really? I am stuck up? All day long I was running round and round thinking "How in the world am I stuck up?" So finally I texted her. She cannot give me any reasons I thought to myself. But oh she had reasons...

1. I was mean to one of my BEST FRIENDS

No. I will not even listen to that , I thought. She is my best friend and I am NOT mean to her.

2. I talked about people.

Haha. I refused to listen to that one too! I talk about people the same way I did when I was in the fourth grade. Not excessively and not in a gossipy like fashion......

3. I was hanging out with Breanna.

She thought Breanna was just so mean and so horrible. Note: She did not hate Breanna. She just did not like her.

NOT COOL. Breanna had become my very best friend and I could not let her talk about her the way she was. She said Brea was rude, stuck up and she basically was not a good christian. SO SO NOT COOL. I stood up for Breanna and told her how great she was and how nice she was. I also told her that she cannot just make accusations about people when she really does not know them at all! Of course Breanna did not need my help too much...she also stood up for herself.

Needless to say Sam did not like that one bit. There was a big, long argument that went on for a couple weeks. Our relationship is still strained to this day. We get in arguments all the time about the same subjects. Sam still thinks the same things about Breanna and me but I know that Breanna and I will always be close because we always have each others back in any situation. It feels good to know I always have one person that will side with me and vise versa.

* name changed to protect her identity.

The Giver Review

Do you ever wish life was not always so complicated? That you did not have to make as many tough decisions?

The Giver by Lois Lowry gives you just that. A perfect community, a utopia. In this community everything is the same, everyday. They always know what to expect. They always have enough food. They are always happy.....no [precision of language] satisfied.

The main character in the story is Jonas. Jonas was weighted with memories from the past, before the sameness. Memories the rest of the community could not carry on their own or at all for that matter. They were raised in a world of sameness. Can they have real feelings? Real emotions?

When he was twelve he was entrusted with all the secrets the Chief Elder was hiding from the rest of the community and he had to bear that weight alone. Many people can identify with Jonas. Having to grow up too fast. Seeing the world from a different view point than everyone else.

I complain all the time. Why does she get all the best clothes? Why can not i have shoes like that? I worry about what I will do in the future. What career I will have. They did not have to worry about those things... it was all decided for them. They all wore the same clothes. They all had the same belongings.

But what happens when one or two people decide to push the limits of the community. Decide that they know whats best and only they can bring the people real and true happiness.

The Giver by Lois Lowry. READ IT. It will give you a whole new outlook on life....It did me.

Sophmore Reflection...

Half the year is done. I wish i could turn back the hands of time and live it all again. There are so many things I would do differently. You never who you affect when you do or say certain things until it is too late. This year has had so much drama. I have lost friends and made friends. I have been up all night debating topics, wrestling with my own thoughts. I have grown more in this one semester than I have my entire life. When I first started tenth grade, I hated it, every aspect of it. The hallways were dark, the teachers did not know me, and the food seemed to taste worse than before. I wanted so badly to be a Junior high student again. To walk down that long, hill of a hallway towards Mamie's room and straight thought the door. I saw myself grabbing the first dry erase marker I could find and writing in big print "I love Mrs. Cuzzort." I told her about my hatred for this school after about the second day and she simply said to me " You will like soon enough, it just takes time." Sure it will, I thought. However I now realize she was right. As much as I love and miss the Junior High School I became so accustomed to. I could not go back. I have to move on and now that I have I can fully enjoy the High School. Although it has dark hallways, rude seniors and much more homework. I love it and I can not wait for the rest of this year.

Was it fate..or was it just me?

The conspirators in Julius Caesar believed it was fate that Caesar be killed. Was it really fate or was it a sorry excuse for murder? In Shakespeare's time fate played a major factor in every one's life. Your child has small pox and is going to die.... its fate. You go to war get stabbed and are in critical condition.... its fate. Nothing can just happen according to fate. If fate wants something to happen it WILL happen, but was it fate that stabbed Caesar? Was it fate that schemed behind his back and betrayed his trust? No, it was not. Did the conspirators have a choice of whether or not they would kill Caesar? Of course they did! They were not held hostage and threatened. They believed they could do better than Caesar could and they planned to prove it. This was a plan they created on their own and they dealt with the consequences of what they did. Therefore, fate determines nothing, we do. We make our own decisions and no one can MAKE us do anything.

Leadership and Julius Caesar

The Tragedy of Julius Caesar is a play by William Shakespeare. Julius Caesar, determined leader, was brutally murdered by the people he trusted the most. They claimed to have only killed him for the good of the country. They, the conspirators, believed that Caesar had let his position take over him and that Caesar was mad with power. Other people however believed Julius was a great leader who was just determined enough to run the country. Leadership is a funny thing. There is a very thin line between a good-natured leader and a power-hungry dictator. Good leaders are firm but nice. They know how to get the job done without stepping on too many toes. Bad leaders are overbearing and mean. They get the job done as well, but at what costs? There are always power struggles when you have a bad leader because everyone thinks they could do a better job and in some cases, they could. However, a power struggle can also happen with a perfect leader. Determining if a person is a good leader or a bad leader depends on your moral standings. If you have any. What is bad for one person might not be bad for another.

Think Win-Win

Habit four of Sean Covey's book The Seven Habits to Highly effective teens, Sean Covey states that "Think win-win is and attituede toward life, a mental fram of mind that says i can win and so can you."According to him not everyone has a win-win attitude. In face there are many different attitudes people in todays society thinks with. Such as the win-lose attitude, the lose-win attitude, the lose-lose attitude and of course the win-win.

The win-lose attitude,totem pole, says "I don't care how good I am as long as I'm a notch higher than you are." The world has trained us to think win-lose but win-lose always backfires. The totem pole always has one loser left on the bottom and the winner to rub it in his face sits at the top. Everyone thinks win-lose sometimes but its important not to stay in that way of thinking because you become filled with pride.

The doormat, lose-win, say's I dont like to fight so I'll let you win. Yes, this attitude is perfect for situations where you don't care either way, but you should always know when to back down and when to stand strong. If your attitude is lose-win you will always be following everyone else just to please them. Everyone steps on a lose-win person. That is why it is called the doormat.

The lose-lose or downward spiral attitude thinks "If Im going down, then you're going down with me!" Lose-lose occurs mostly when two win-lose people get together. Lose-lose is nothing you want to be associated with in any situation. Then of course win-win says I can win and so can you! When you have a win -win attitude all your relationships flourish. At times it can seem almost impossible to have a win-win attitude but it always pays off in the end.