Trayvon Martin Case

To be completely honest, I do not know too much about the Trayvon Martin Case. I heard about it once on the radio when I was driving to school one day. The name "Trayvon Martin" just sounded familiar but I did not know anything about the actual case. After I did some research on the internet, I learned that Trayvon Martin was an African-American who was shot by George Zimmerman. George was the neighborhood watchman and he thought that Trayvon looked suspicious. He called the police and told them that he was going to follow him because he looked like he was up to something and the police said not to follow him. Zimmerman disregarded what the police told him, and he continued to follow him and shot him out of "self-defense" (according to George). No charges were pressed against Zimmerman which made the event very controversial.

I really think that the Trayvon Martin Case is very sad and I definitely see how it is a very controversial topic. It definitely would not be as talked about as it is now if there were actually charges pressed against George Zimmerman. In my opinion, it was clearly a racist issue. The explanation that he shot Trayvon "out of self-defense" was a justification of the real reason why he shot him. There was probably quite a bit of racial tension, and the shooter wanted to get a point across. This can be backed up by when Zimmerman called the police and completely disregarded what they said to him which was to not follow Trayvon anymore. If Zimmerman would have not had any racial tension with Trayvon, he would have just listened to the police in the first place and the whole shooting and controversy would not have even happened. The whole Trayvon Martin shooting incident definitely relates to the essential question of how are we, as individuals, "products" of our environments as well as the how are we, as individuals, tied to our own past? The first question relates to this case because of all the racism going on in the world right now, Zimmerman might have felt pressured to shoot Trayvon Martin because it is what other people were telling him to do. The second question relates to this topic because the shooter might have something happen in his past that made him want to get revenge on a person. He might have had an incident with an African-American person earlier in his life which then resulted in his shooting of Trayvon.

Garcia Girls Reflection

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent was a very powerful book. I took away multiple lessons that I can apply to my own life. The lesson that I feel is the most important is to always remember where you come from and no matter where you go in life, always remember your heritage. This is a very hard thing to do because (as seen in the novel) the Garcia Girls assimilited to American culture and pretty much disregarded and did not really care about their Hispanic heritage anymore. They were introduced to some very unusual American parts of life and they thought it was rather weird. In my opinion, it is precisely these events that should be a clue to not forget about their culture. After all, where you come from really defines who you are and your heritage is a HUGE part of your life. You can turn to parts of your heritage, such as religion to answer questions in life that you are unsure about. Your heritage shows you how to deal with things in life that you might be unable to handle. It is always good to have something to believe in as well. This whole lesson of never forgetting who you are can really benefit me down the road. I am positive that at some point in my life, I will be presented with the difficult situations and How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents really showed me where I can turn to when these situations come up in my life. This whole book made me think about culture and it really made realize how important my background is to me. This book was a great read, and it was one of the more meaningful novels that I have ever read because it is not just a simple story. After you read it, there are many things that you can take away from the book. There is a story within the story. By that, I mean that the story is not just about the Garcia Girls, but it is about how you can apply what you learned from the novel to your own life.

The Big Tournament

March Madness. This is perhaps the most entertaining month of college basketball in the year. It is every single college basketball team's dream to play in the NCAA Tournament. Selection Sunday is when all of the teams gather together and watch to see if the selection committee chose their team to play for the National Championship. When a small school hears their team name being chosen for the big tournament, they are the happiest team in the world. They are not even thinking that they are going to be playing a probable one or two seed. The fact that they got into the tournament is satisfying enough. During this time of year, everyone fills out their brackets trying to pick the one team out of the 64 who they think will be the champion. Everyone really "gets into" their brackets and others just fill them out for fun. Personally, I just fill them out for fun with my friends, and even though I usually pick the wrong team to win it all, I still have an awesome time because it is quite nerve-racking to see which team will win, and which cinderella team will upset the one seed. People do anything they can to watch the games, and the best thing about them is that they are constantly on. If there is a game at 3:00 pm, there is probably going to be a game 3:15 pm. It is just a constant month of nonstop basketball. The kids on the team play with incredible heart and they leave everything on the court. I've never seen an athlete play as hard as these kids do for the 40 minutes that they are on the court. I like college basketball a lot more than the NBA for the reason that college students play harder and they have a reason to play, which is pride. They do not have to worry about money and get caught up in it like NBA players do. March Madness is the best time of the year.

http://www.todayspicks.net/handicapping-information/history-of-march-madness.php
http://coedmagazine.com/2011/03/18/10-greatest-march-madness-upsets-of-all-time-2/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/13/2012-ncaa-tournament-eight-potential-cinderella-teams_n_1339970.html

Blog Post 7

A work of art that I have recently enjoyed is the new tv series The River. Basically, what this show is about is a man named Emmet Cole and his camera crew travel to a river to try and discover a source of magic. Yes he is a little bit crazy. He leaves his family behind in order to pursue his dreams. Myteriously, he dissapears and aftert months of searching for his body, it is not found and he is pronounced dead. His family does not think this and they travel to the river to try and find him with the daughter of one of Emmet's camermen who also went missing. A camera crew comes with them as well. When they get to the river, they find out that Emmet was not crazy. There is magic in the river, dangerous and haunted magic. The show is about their journey to find Emmet. When they get to the river, they find the abandoned ship that Emmet and his crew were on, and they get the ship's motor to work and they travel the river on the ship, which is called The Magus. Essentially, the crew is alone because they cannot really come into contact with any other human beings since they are pretty much in the middle of no where. It is honestly a great television show and I complteley reccomend it to anybody who likes horror stories and/or thrillers/suspense. There are great inner conflicts within the main story such as that Emmet and his wife were separated and we find out that his wife left Emmet, not the other way around which is what his son, Lincoln thought. Along their journey they find one of Emmet's crew members and he is cursed and it is just a great story. Also, the daughter of the camerman who disapeared found her dad on another boat but he was a ghost. It literally keeps me on edge the entire time because you do not expect anything that comes next.  This, in my opinion, is what makes a great tv show: an unpredictable plot. I cannot wait until Tuesday night at 9 o'clock to tune into ABC and see what mysterious thing is going to happen next. Also the story isn't solely about this. it teaches the values of a strong family, and sticking together which is what also makes a great tv show: a great plot and at the same time, a message is sent to the viewers. I really cannot wait to see if the crew finally finds Emmet. Everybody should watch this show.

Blog Day 6

1. The best food item that can be found in this area is 100%, definitely the pizza around here. There are so many restaurants that you can just walk into and get the best slice of pizza ever. For example, I could go a minute down the road to Palermo's Pizza. I look forward to everytime I go there because, there pizza is absolutely perfect. The sauce, the cheese, the crust, the everything, is perfect. Also, everytime you go there you get a little magnet and if you get a certain number then you get a free pizza which is the best. I could eat their pizza all day everyday. Then, I could go across the street to Carmine's which is almost as perfect as Palermo's but it is still fantastic. There, the pizza slices are huge and completely satisfying. In Ambler, there are so many little pizza places that you would not expect to be anything special, but their pizza is absolutely delicious. I do not know what it is, but there is something about this area that says "we have the best pizza around." It is not even just one great pizza place in the area; there are so many that you could go to hungry and leave just realizing you had the best slice of pizza in your whole life. The pizza in this area is the best!

2. A famous person whom I can't stand is LeBron James. Ok, we all know that your the greatest thing ever since sliced bread, now STOP BEING SO COCKY. Why can't you just be like Derrick Rose who goes on the basketball court, does his thing, and leaves. You guys are both the same except for the fact Derrick doesn't throw his powder in the air before every game like an obnoxious person who needs to do that to make people notice him. Yes, I will admit that you are an amazing basketball player and drop about 30 points a game and probably average around 10 rebounds a game, but you do not have to be so obnoxious about it. I really can't stand people who are good at a particular sport, know they are good, and need to make their image publicly noticeable just to satisfy themselves. I am not denying the fact that LeBron is a fantastic basketball player, because he is. Just the way he goes about that image really gets on my nerves. Some people say that if you are "that good" at something you have the right to brag but I do not think this is true at all. No matter how good you are at something, it is always rude to brag. LeBron James is the prime example of a bragging obnoxious famous person.

3. Hey, you girls out there, take some advice from a guy, WE ARE NOT ALL BAD PEOPLE. Every single girl thinks that guys are selfish people who don't care about anybody but themselves. We have important things to say too and if you would just give us a chance, maybe we could help you out with your problems. Some of us just don't want to help you out with whatever you are going through only because you will stop bothering us or just so you would like us. Some people actually care about you and want to help. This isn't going to happen if you just let your emotions out on us and don't listen to what we have to say. I really can't stand when girls don't even give guys a chance to talk. Like what are you doing? Do you just want to be all sad for the rest of your life? If you took the time to appreciate that someone actually wants to help you, then maybe you wouldn't have all these problems that you complain about on Twitter and Facebook. NO ONE ONES WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT ON THESE WEBSITES SO JUST DON'T POST ANYTHING. Maybe if you realized that some guys actually cared, then you wouldn't have all these problems.