I GAVE YOU A HOMEWORK PASS, SO I DIDN'T DO THIS ASSIGNMENT.

I gave you a homework pass.

Entry#12: Research on Child Abduction Response.

I did some research about child abduction, hoping to find about the trauma victims of child abduction have. I thought I would find some solid, cruel facts.  However, what I came up with was more than cruel-It was very twisted.  Children who are abducted at a young age often suffer little to no psychological trauma at all.  You'd think this was good, right?  Well, think again.
The reason their abductions don't haunt them isn't that abductors who target children very young are kinder to them than people who abduct kids closer to their teens.  It isn't that because their very young, they'll totally forget about all that has happened to them later.
Children who are abducted before they reach around 8 years old have no clue that what is happening to them is wrong.  They often don't even know they're in danger.  Because that's the tricky thing about abductors, they lull children into a false sense of security.  I've heard way too many stories of kids who only get found when they are nearing adulthood; children who were repeatedly raped and otherwise violated, who were comfortable with their lives before they were saved.  I distinctly remember hearing a story on the today show of a woman who was abducted when she was 7, and never tried to leave.  She actually had 3 of her abductor's children.
That actually appalls me. It scares me.  And the deep root is that these kids are too young to know what is right and what isn't yet.  They can be persuaded easily. Kids believe abductors who tell them that their parents were just lying to him or her, to keep them from from having fun.  Kids believe abductors when they say that the reason they're hurting them is because they love them.  And kids are so easily impressionable that the beliefs of their abductors often stay their beliefs.
For instance, there is the case of David Goldman trying to retrieve his son Sean from Brazil.
Although it's true that Sean wasn't treated poorly in Brazil, how he was snatched is illegal and immoral.  However, Sean didn't want to go back home to his father.  No, he wanted to stay with the family he'd lived with his whole life; no matter the circumstances of how he got there.  In Sean's perspective, a man he hadn't seen in over five years was trying to bring him back to a life he didn't want to go to.  Although much of the reason it took so long to return Sean to David was the Brazilian government not acting;  Sean also didn't want to return.  The family he was living with had convinced him that they were who he really belonged with, and Sean is a child, impressionable.
This case and so many others show the cruelty of abduction.  Not only does it take children from their parents, split apart families, leave physical marks on children and leave mental marks, children who were abducted and then rescued often hate their life after they get saved.
Really, it comes down to who we are as humans.  Not just kids.  As humans, we love the familiar.  We believe what we are told and find it hard to question what we are told.  And that one "insignificant" flaw can be the difference of a child who tries to escape and a child who is willing to stay in a dangerous situation.

OTHER FACTS:
-Girls between ages 10 and 14 are most at risk of attempted abduction. It scares me that I fit into this group.
-A large portion of children who are abducted are abducted by family.  This happens often when parents divorce and one parent gets full custody of the kids while the other never gets to see them.  This often makes the other parent do crazy things. Because the children are familiar with who has taken them, they often don't see it as an abduction.  This happened to my 2nd cousin.
-In most cases of attempted abduction, kids' own pure strength and resistance help them get away.  In only 16% of cases do adults step in to help.

Social Awareness Week 2-Two more things off of the list.

Analyze Social Problems In IRP.
Well, currently I'm not really reading a book with outlying social injustices.
So I'm going to go back to "Story Of A Girl", which I read in about a day a little while ago.

Story Of A Girl is a novel by Sara Zarr, about how the life of a small-town girl is completely turned around  when she is caught having sex with a high school junior-at thirteen.  For the rest of her high school life, everyone thinks of her as the school slut, because nobody forgets these things in small towns.  Or anywhere, really.

Some of the issues in this book just deal with how unfair society is:  How we are all programmed to believe in certain things, and we can't break this programming; how people are never really forgiven; the ways we label people; and what we'll do merely to do something.

In the town the character, Deanna, lives in, there really isn't anything to do.  And so she does what teenagers are supposed to do in small towns when they have nothing better to do-get drunk, high, have sex and be stupid.And she gets a reputation for being a slut that no matter what, she can't rub off.  I am so happy to live in New York where there are actual things to do with my time.

Another issue in the class system in our country. Deanna has it tough because she lives in the less wealthy section of her town.  And just because she doesn't have a family with income, it basically prevents her from leading a healthy life.  Her parents are never home, she does no extracurriculars, her brother Darren and his girlfriend live in her parent's basement.  Their the typical "white trash" family-- teenaged boy knocks up girlfriend, and they have no means of their own income because they're busy caring for the baby.

Deanna herself has no aspirations, she accepts the hardships of her life and she doesn't even try to run away from them.  She works in a Pizzeria, hoping to get enough money so she can rent an apartment with her brother when she turns 18. She doesn't even want to go to college.   It's truly upsetting that just being born from a family with low income assures you a bad life.  It really is sad.



A True Story About Someone Who Changes The World Every Day

The Dalai Lama is someone who changes the world every day.  In fact, it's hard to come up with a story on him just because it seems like every other day he is enlightening new people.
This isn't biased, I'm not talking about his buddhism speeches.  I'm not writing this because I'm a strong buddhist, in fact I have no religion.  But the Dalai Lama teaches  about peace, and how we can work to make our world peaceful.

The Dalai Lama won a Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, at the age of 59, and even now as he gets older he continues to fly around delivering his messages of peace to everyone.  After 9/11, he delivered a speech that many people took into mind.  He doesn't just fund causes to earn the name of a good person.  He really cares.   His speech on 9/11 was so moving that it made many people cry.  In it, he talked of how events of this kind of hatred "make it clear that if we allow our human intelligence to be guided and controlled by negative emotions like hatred, the consequences are disastrous." He analyzes our souls in ways that make it clear how truly brilliant he is.  (Okay, this is starting to sound really stupid.)

Also in his 9/11 speech, he gives americans guidelines for how to respond to an attack like this.  He doesn't just hate the people who committed the crime, he digs deeper into why the did what he did.  For more on his 9/11 speech: http://www.dalailama.com/messages/world-peace/9-11
That speech is just one of the many he has delivered.

Social Awareness-Entry # 10

of it.


DAY 5:
I found an article in The New York Times called "Haiti Fears Cholera Will Spread In Capital."
The article claims that a total of more that 2,674 cases of Cholera have been found, which is very extreme.  Because of how bad the Haitian economy is, and how little funding it gets from other countries, treating the sick will be nearly impossible.  Cholera is a disease usually spread by dirty water, and we had thought we had gotten rid of it completely.
This article addresses the social issue of poverty, and does this in a really touching way.  It brings social awareness to everyone who reads it, and I applaud the author.  It is truly upsetting how little help Haiti (Port-Au-Prince) gets.

Final Reflection: 
This experience really did make me much more socially conscious.  I came into the project with the mindset of "Yeah, I already know that there are tons of issues that exist-Our world is much less than great."  Although I did know already about most of the issues I wrote on, I was informed of some things that were really just so terrible. So bad.  This assignment did not inform me of many things that I didn't know about, but it did make me learn more about the cruelties of the world.  In some ways, I hate this assignment.  And I hate learning more about our world, because the more I learn, the more I lose faith.  Sometimes it just hurts me how screwed up our world is.
But in other ways, this assignment is great.  Because the more I learn about these issues, the more I appreciate my own life. And the more I want to change it.  Because sometimes I just can't bear this world, and it doesn't do me anything to sit here.
I appreciate this assignment because it made me appreciate my own life,  and want to do more.

Respond to a Song/Poem on Social Issues:
Working Class Hero- John Lennon
Although this is not a song to be proud to decode, the message is still great as any.
Lennon complains in this song about the woes of society.  He complains that "As soon as your born they make you feel small/By giving you no time instead of it all." He complains that throughout life, your peers and the people you look up to only try to make you working class.  Nobody expects to get to the top, and nobody aims for the top.  And that's just one of the reasons he is against society.  Also, he addresses the issue of how everybody is subjected to conformity.  Everybody strives to be working class, and the authorities "hate you if your clever/and despise a fool."-Verse 2.  John Lennon writes about how the authorities torture you throughout your whole lives until you become one of the mold.
And that's an issue we all have-None of us want to be just another kid.  We all want to be something more, but nobody wants to let us.  They tell us that the top exists, but don't help us find our way up.

Observations Of My Surroundings:
1) My neighborhood has become very wealthy very quickly, and we can barely afford our tiny apartment. It seems like  Everyone I see on the streets around me is either a hipster/yuppie, banker, banker's wife/mother with  $2,000 stroller, or just another rich young thing.  (Well, that's not including all of the old Italian ladies).  And you know what-Nearly none of these people are black.  It's almost surprising to see someone black on certain blocks of my neighborhood.  It almost comes as a shock.  I think this is extremely unjust.  It could mean that for some reason, african americans just don't like Carroll Gardens. OR it could mean that despite all of our countries achievements in anti-racism, white people are still earning more money.  And that's just sad.

2) Why in the world do adults sell drugs and cigarettes to kids my age?  That really is just sick. It shows how far people go just to scrape up a little bit of money, which can show how depressing our economy is.  It also shows how society pushes kids my age into thinking that drugs, cigarettes and alcohol are cool.  And it shows how much peer pressure affects us.

3) I realized that well, most of my friends are white. I'm not saying that I don't have black friends, but most of my friends are from pretty much the same background and financial situation.  At first I felt really bad, but then I got to thinking that I wasn't the only one.  At lunch today I watched all the cliques pass me by and realized that all of the friends were alike.  Most cliques were just hispanic, white, black, rich, "ghetto", and whatever else.  We don't mingle with anyone besides people similar to ourselves.

Entry # 9: Mother to Son Langston Hughes

The poem Mother to Son is beautiful in a simplistic kind of way.  When I first read it, I thought I already knew all of what it was about.  I was sure I had grasped every single bit of symbolism.  However, as the class discussed their opinions on what the poem meant, I realized that I did not know all of the poem at all. The beauty of this poem is that parts of it had a different meaning for everyone, and everybody can connect to it in different ways. In the poem, what everyone agrees on is that the stairway symbolizes life.  I'm sure it's not just life, but the journey of life.

In brief, The mother figure in the poem is recounting to her son about the hardships of her life, "Life for me ain't been no crystal stair, it's had tacks in it, and splinters, and boards torn up."  But, she says, I've kept on going.  She tells her son about how even though her life had been hard, she's kept on living it and persevered through it.  "I'se been a-climbin' on."  She says that she has kept on climbing, " and reachin' landin's, and turnin' corners." Basically, she is saying that her life has been tough, but she's struggled through, found the strength to live to live on, and has been rewarded with good times too.

When I read this poem, I envision an old, dark woman sitting in a rocking chair.  She's one of those southern women that you can tell is frail in body but strong in heart. And she's Langston Hughes' mother.  I imagine Hughes sitting by her, you can tell he feels weak and sad.  --This is how I think the poem was born.  Hughes was going through a rough time, so his mother gave him a pep talk.

But oh what a beautiful pep talk it was.  And, oh, how I wish my mother would talk to me like that.  Whenever she tries to talk to me, it just ends up sounding cheesy and insincere.  This poem could sound Cliche, cheesy and insincere-But it is pulled off really well, and it doesn't.  It just sounds beautiful, and maybe because it's so real.  While we can all say that our lives are imperfect, and "haven't been no crystal stair", I can almost assure you that the Mother has actually had a life with tacks and splinters.  Well, we all have-But you can tell her problems were big.  It may be from the limited knowledge I have of Langston Hughes, and I know that his mother was a black woman in the times where women and people of color had no rights.  So we can all complain about our lives sucking, but there are bigger things than just our petty problems.

There are so many ways you can reach deeper into this poem. I believe it was Fiona Socolow who called the  crystal staircase "Cold perfection," and someone else pointed out that crystal is sharp. Which led me to thinking deeply about the crystal staircase.  Because I feel that there is nothing worse than being cold, frigid.  Like the Ice Queen in Narnia.   If there is a Hell, I doubt it's burning.  More likely it is ice cold, and you're alone.   So I went into questioning whether the Crystal Stair is really good.  Because if there is one thing that I've learned from my life- Your problems build your character.  I know if I had gone through life without the problems I've faced, I'd be be a completely different person.  Living your life in complete perfection gets you nowhere as an actual human being.

This poem is great because you can dig so deeply into it- And everybody can have a different idea about it.  For instance, you don't even have to consider this poem as actually from a mother to a son, but more of a lesson to society.  There are so many ways you can think about this poem, and that's what makes it beautiful.

Appreciation Draft 1

A Wrinkle In Time is one of those beautiful books that you can never stop learning from.  No matter how many times you read this book, you can always come out of it with new knowledge of the book, and the world. It's wonderful how Madeleine L'Engle incorporated so many lessons, so many ideas into a couple hundred pages.  And what I truly appreciate is this: You can tell that these lessons and ideas mean something to her.  They aren't just BS to give the story props with the parents.  Madeleine L'Engle herself hates conformity.  L'Engle herself has had issues with being the odd one out. I'm sure that she has felt the ways Meg feels, in feeling insignificant and not special.
It's a problem I've always had in writing; I find it hard to connect my personal problems to others. Well, it's not even just a problem I've had in writing-It's a problem I've had in life. It's hard for me to understand that the problems that I have, other people have too.
L'Engle realizes what I haven't quite yet, and she channels this into her books. She writes about problems that not just her and I can connect to, the whole world can connect to.  She really hits home with all the issues in the book, to a point where I want to reach out and comfort Meg myself, tell her that she really isn't the only one. I want to scream to Charles Wallace, No! Even if it sounds good to have everyone think like you, you know conformity isn't right!  
 Last year i had a lot of trouble in my independent writing piece.  One night as I went to bed I listened to A Wrinkle In Time,  and felt the soul in the piece.  I realized that as I listened, I felt as if I were Meg. I felt her own emotions, and for that time as I was half-awake, I was Meg.  I realized what my piece was lacking.  In the morning I brought the book to school and used it as a mentor, and it really helped.  Now I know this was a cheesy connection, but that is the magic of the book.  It's the difference between the argument you make just for the sake of argument, and when others can tell that your argument is coming from within.
Madeleine L'Engle is my idol. She learned how to channel her emotions into writing so she did not only create this one brilliant book, but over sixty more. And all her work paid off-She received a Newberry Medal.   One of the things that really upsets me in my life so far is that I feel like I can't connect. Although a little part of me knows that many many people feel the same way I do, I can't bring myself to find out if  the people I know understand.  In this way, I'm caged.  I can't get out of this personal bubble of mine, because I can't talk to people.  Madeleine L'Engle  has popped the bubble that is more like a steel wall to me.  I know I'm only thirteen, but if I keep on doing this I know I'm only going to start hating myself.
Everybody can fall in love with this book.  Everybody can love and hate the characters at the same time, in the exact same way you love and hate yourself.
This book is fabulous, this book is life-changing. This book is one that not just I could appreciate, but anyone.

A Wrinkle In Time research

To understand more deeply the themes in A Wrinkle In Time,  I first looked up the author. I found her Official Site, and was informed of many things that surprised me.
I had picked up throughout the book that the Murray family was undeniably Catholic, but I had no idea what christianity actually meant to the book.  L' Engle worked as a librarian at The Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine for over 30 years, and was always extremely devout.  One of her books is titled "Walking On Water" and she writes repeatedly of God and greater powers than humans in her various poetry books.
The idea of greater powers is very much in fact what sparked the idea of A Wrinkle In Time.  Madeleine L' Engle often dabbled in thoughts of what was outside her own world, and Meg is thrown out in to a whole, huge world. Bigger than she ever imagined, where she learns that there are powers much greater than herself-Good and bad.
The three witches are on the good side, and Calvin even calls them "Guardian Angels, Messengers of God."  They represent some of what God stands for: Love, individuality, free will, and moral.
The Black Thing and IT are on the bad side, and represent Biblical sins. On Camazots, IT controls everyone's mind (DEFINITELY against the bible), and leads a nation through conformity.
The way IT leads Camazots has been called over and over a communism, and communisms, are, well, not saintly. (Look, I don't know much about God and religion, but I'm pretty sure these things are not good.)
If IT's ways don't actually fall under the seven deadly sins, I'm sure God still disapproves.
Also, when Meg and her comrades are on Uriel, the creatures sing a song that translates into the words of Isaiah.  AND the Gospel of John is quoted.
I'm sure I could keep going, but I really don't know anything about religion.  So I'm going to stop here.
Another deep connection in A Wrinkle In Time is to the Cold War.   Camazots, with everyone under the control of IT, can be thought of as the soviet union. Our world, Meg's life is the West.   When fighting a mind-battle against IT, Meg quotes The Declaration of Independence.
"... All men are created equal."
"But don't you see, Meg, that is what life on Camazots provides us......."
"Like and equal are not the same thing at all!"
In quoting The Declaration of Independence, it becomes clear that the author is speaking about the Cold War.
Another theme in the book is the moral intelligence of children. Madeleine L'Engle never got very good grades, but she was always very smart, with lots of things going through her brain. In her introduction to the audio-CD version of the book, she complains about having to go to many publishers before finally getting someone to publish her book.  She says that, well, it's because they were grown-ups.
"The trouble with grown-ups, you see, is that they spend too much time in their little offices with the closed windows and the closed doors; and they are never open for new ideas, whereas children are always open for new ideas."
In the book, Charles Wallace is the smartest of them all. Although he doesn't talk, and everybody says her and his sister are "not all there", they are two of the smartest children around.
 I wonder If Madeleine L'Engle meant to connect them to herself.  She was quite an interesting person, and i wish I could have met her.

Entry # 6- A Wrinkle In Time

On page 40 of A Wrinkle In Time, Charles Wallace and Calvin discuss the facts of them being "special."
Charles Wallace says to Calvin, "She'd be delighted.  Mother's all right.  She's not one of us, but she's all right."
"What about Meg?" Questions Calvin.
"Meg has it tough." Charles Wallace said, "she's not really one thing or the other."
This is one of the paragraphs that most sticks out to me from the entire book.  The first thing that interests/annoys me is Charles saying, "She's not one of us, but she's all right...Meg has it tough, she's not really one thing or the other." 
This classifying, analyzing is terribly annoying to me. Children of that age are not allowed to already be tainted by society's flaws, the ways in which we group each other. "Not really one thing or the other."
What a blunt, harsh statement.
Which leads me to my other thoughts on this paragraph.  I just criticized Charles Wallace for being harsh, yet if it were me I wouldn't know what to think.  If I put myself in Megs' shoes, how would I feel?
I really want to say that I'd mostly be proud.  Proud that I didn't fit into one thing or the other, proud that I don't conform.  But I'm not sure that would be my overriding feeling.
I have never really been able to fit in.  It's getting to a point in my life where people are beginning to accept me more for who I am, but it hasn't always been that way.  And I'm sure it will never fully be that way.
To start off, I'm a little bit odd. And on so many levels, I couldn't be called one thing or the next.  Not gorgeous or ugly, bone-thin or obese, Caucasian or fully Hispanic,  horrible or really nice.
So I can connect to Meg feeling like there's everything wrong with her, as she expresses in the first chapter.  I can connect to her feeling kind-of outcast.  But I also have pride that I am who I am, am from where I'm from.  I am proud of my little quirks that can make me something, that keep me from being nothing at all.  I can't say I'm proud of my whole self.  But I'm proud of a good portion.
Which is definitely not to say that I haven't been influenced by society.  I, like Charles Wallace and the rest of the world, have a good idea of what "normal" or "cool" or "special" is supposed to be.  And I, like the rest of the world, have no idea what it really is.
I know this is straying off topic a bit, but I want to expand to this idea of society telling us we're one thing or the other.  Because we've all been told the same thing.
In the book, a character quotes that Dennys and Sandy "seem to be perfectly normal, nice kids," while Meg "the unattractive older sister" and Charles Wallace, "the baby boy", "certainly aren't all there."
What makes Meg so unattractive?  What is our idea of beauty? What makes kids "not all there."
What makes me one of those people that people can't really classify when I ask them to? Although I'm not sure if the reason is that they simply can't or are afraid that they'd hurt my feelings, people who aren't afraid of naming kids "the popular crowd," or "those smart kids" are suddenly confused when I ask them about me--Why is that?
Who created these ideas of what normal and attractive and special are? How did they spread around, and REALLY, how can we prevent these kinds of labels?

Charlotte's Web: Theme-Entry # 5

     A theme I found very important in Charlotte's Web was the way we rely on others. In so many instances, the codependent fashion of, well, all of us, is brought around throughout the book.
     Wilbur often places himself in another's hands. For instance, Wilbur trusts Charlotte when she tells him she could save his life, without even asking. On page 51, "I don't want to die!" screamed Wilbur, throwing himself to the ground. "You shall not die," said Charlotte, briskly. "What? Really?" cried Wilbur.
After that, he was completely assured in Charlotte.  No second thoughts.
     I'm very skeptical about that. But that's the real reason I chose this theme. Because I don't think it's Ever a good choice to rely on someone.  It never turns out the way you want.  At least for me, I'm putting my own bias into this whole thing.  But how could I not?
     I realize that I rely on others for everything. There's the big picture: My education, my food, the roof over my head, even the way I act.  (We would all be different people if not for the people around us and our surroundings.)  But then there's the smaller, more important things.  Many times I've relied on friends to help me out in tough spots. I always assume that they know how to fix my problems, and often, they don't. It's not because I have bad friends, it's because they're human. But because I put all my trust in someone who really is just mortal, we both end up in bad spots.
    Can you think of a time where really putting all your trust in someone else was a good idea? Maybe once or twice, but not much more.  It's like betting on a horse, or gambling, when the odds are never in your favor.  It's kids who have spent their whole lives getting away with everything because of their parent's wallet, being thrown out into the world. Still just as mature as the day they turned 5.
    I'm afraid that I might be kind of like one of those kids.  Although my parents have never had much money to give me, they have supplied me with all my food and clothes and entertainment.  And they're helping me a lot in this high school process. I don't know whether to thank them or not. Because not only do I think it's bad to rely on others, I don't think it's good to let others rely on you. Like I said before, it doesn't work out for either of the parties.  I just know I'll be thrown into the world a baby, without any clue how to make a life for myself.
    That's a reason I think being independent is the best. Because being codependent keeps us children forever- and not in the good way. How does anyone ever mature if they're used to having everything done for them?
    In the book, even past the time he was adult enough to be killed, Wilbur acts like a baby. For most of the book, we could blame his immaturity on the fact that he was young.  But not forever.  Wilbur finally grows up when Charlotte is dying.  When he realizes that he can't rely on her any longer.  That's when, for the first time in his life, he takes charge and gets Charlotte's children.
He makes a plan to raise them, and he finally grows up.
I think the reason he stays acting immature is because he was given Everything.
So grow up, and do some things for yourself please.