Unit 10 Vocab Sentances

accord :
My mom and I came to an accord that if I get a ninety-five on all my math tests, I get an I Pad for high school.

barter :
On Facebook there's a group where a bunch of girls meet up to barter and sell clothes they don't want.

curt :
My brother is so curt to me when I'm around my friends, probably to make him feel good about himself.

devise :
Before completing a project you should always devise it so that its more organized.

dexterous :
My friend is very dexterous, he made his own gun!

engross :
The exciting new film engrossed everyone in my class that knew about it.

entail :
I feel bad for people whose parents entail them about school work and only school work.

ferret :
If I smell something yummy I ferret the smell and find out what it is.

habituate :
After my pet hamster died, I habituated to live without it.

impending :
Since I studied hard, I won't have to worry about my impending tests before the school year ends.

personable :
Cook O' Donnel is so personable. I die everytime I see his face he's so perfect oh my god.

rue :
My brother will rue the day if he doesn't give me my sandwich in the next 3 minutes.

scoff :
I feel bad for people who get scoffed at.

transition :
I hope the transition from middle school to high school isn't hard.

trepidation :
I have a trepidation of the dark which is why I sleep with a night light.

upbraid :
My mom upbraid my brother for dropping the pencil sharpens on the ground.

veritable :
Non-Fiction books have veritable information.

vex :
My brother is always vexing me.

vitality :
I need vitality to go to school so early in the morning.

whimsical :
I love people who wear whimsical clothing on the street.

Blog Post on Coming of Age Book (Speak)

     I read the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson for this Coming of Age reading unit. The book is about a young teenager named Melinda who suffers through many different issues and problems in her teenage years. The main problem that happens in the book is that she goes to a party over the summer and calls the cops because she almost got raped. Then when she goes to high school, all of her old friends that she knew before give her an "attitude" and hate her because of what she did at the party. Little do they know that she almost raped at that party. I think that the protagonist in this book (Melinda) has changed a lot. She was a dynamic character because if you take all the big events and her attitude towards them, and turn it into a timeline based story, she does change a lot. She becomes a much stronger person.

    In the beginning of the book shes just a young teenager who's very excited to start high school until she begins to notice how everyone hates her. She walks through the hallways and see's everyone giving her dirty looks and then she hears people talking about her in the gym locker room. She tries to confront some of her friends but they just give her an attitude just for calling the cops. But then again, none of her former friends knew the reason behind the call. Melinda goes to high school hoping to start fresh, hoping to make new friends, get good grades, and be ready for a change and transition from middle school to high school. She feels deceived to know that all her friends hate her after such an incident. Because of all her friends hating her, and making fun of her, she suffers through a silenced high school year. She keeps everything to herself and she never really expressed her feelings out to everyone. That was just her school life. Since Melinda felt "unwanted", she couldn't concentrate on her own studies except for Art class. She got D's and C's and even some F's in all her classes except in Art she got an A. I think this happened because in the book the author really spent a lot of time talking about how Melinda put a lot of depth and thinking into her art. She relates her own life to her artwork. She is able to express herself. Also after getting her first marking period report card her parents get calls from teachers saying that they expect more from her. Also her parents are getting her really stressed because they aren't recieving the grades there child is getting.

    In the end of the book she changes a lot because she becomes much more stronger.  Loneliness is a really big issue in this book too. This is because Melinda has been through such a big incident in her life and really has no one to talk to and share her feelings with. The entire school pretty much hates her for calling the cops at the party so there's no one at school that is willing to talk to her and be there for her. Her parents don't have any time for her and shes slacking in most of her classes and because of that, her parents are always yelling at her and they don't know about the rape and she feels its embarrassing to tell them. She really has no one to talk to because no one has time for her. If the rape hadn't happened then she would be lonely at all! At times I've been pretty lonely my self and it feels like you have no one that cares about you, and you have no one to ask for advice for. Its just like a scream of voices in your head struggling of what to do. This is how loneliness is a really big issue in this book.

   In conclusion I think that rape and loneliness are both really big issues in the book because they both affected Melinda's life a lot and its very scary and sad. Rape affected her life because she got raped over the summer and called the cops and because of that she isn't who she used to be. Loneliness is a big issue in the book because she has no one there for her and she has trouble in a lot of things but no one to tell too. This is why rape and loneliness is a big affect on her life. 

Monologue and Essay about Coming Of Age

Aarti Chopra, aged 16, a high scholar going to Brooklyn College Academy, my cousin, is wearing a plain white tee shirt, her basketball team logo shorts “The Bobcats”, a dog tag, and hair tied back in a ponytail. She dribbles her basketball as she is speaking. She doesn’t seem to take the interview very seriously, and she’s roaming around in place on the porch. She walks around but then when she’s talking about something, she stops walking and her voice tone gets stronger and louder.

Don’t Judge Monologue by Pooja Chopra

Um

Before I used to be mad conscious about what people thought about me, how they think about me, how they talk about me and stuff

Like

When I was little

I was a

tomboy, and well

I still am (grins, and winks)

And all my,

Like I had best friends that were girls and boys

But mostly boys

And many people would say

“Oh she’s a thirsty hoe because she’s hangin’ out with all the guys and she

Doesn’t like females la la la la la”

I was mad conscious

Like I started being mad girly and shit

Like I would wear hoops and earings

And I wasn’t into that typa shit

But like I still wear hoops but I wasn’t into that back then

Because like

I was being mad girly more then I was being myself

And

Like I started feeling mad uncomfortable

But then I realized that like

Its better to be yourself because its easier

You won’t be

Fake

And now its just like

I don’t give a shit what people think about me because when I do me

I’m prosperous for myself and when I’m prosperous for myself

The people around me

Will also be prosperous as well

And like what made me change that about myself is that like

Yo its just mad fake yanno

Like

Like I was unhappy and shit

Why

Why should I care about what you think?

Are you me?

Do you know what I’ve been through?

Like

You know my name but you don’t know my story

And um

When I signed up for stuff like

Tumblr

And stuff

Well mostly tumblr

Like Facebook is so fake

Because like

I don’t understand the concept of you

Tiny ass teenagers

Well I’m still a teenager

But y’all addin’ people that you don’t like

Like

What is wrong witchu

Y’all not friends so why you addin each other..

Stupid hoes

And um

I just wanna say that Tumblr is good

Because like

You can express yourself in a

Like

Visual way

And people don’t judge you as much as they do on Facebook

And I just think that

Uh

And I just think that

I don’t know

Judging people is stupid

Like if I see a girl

I won’t be like

Oh

“she’s ugly I won’t talk to her”

Like no

Shut up

When I first found out we had to do an interview I knew just who to interview. My cousin! I think interviewing my cousin was a very good experience because I’m very close to her and I found out more about the way she thinks and how she feels about different things. At first I was sort of nervous because I didn’t want my cousin to think that the questions were really dorky or that she wouldn’t give me enough details for the interview but she did. In the beginning of the interview I thought that the interview was just going to be a boring old interview and I didn’t really care about it but then as the interview went by I became my intrigued in what my cousin was saying. I think some difficulties that I had was that I wanted to just start a conversation with my cousin after each answer she had because I wanted to reply to that but I just had to ask more questions so that kinda sucked. Something that went well was that I was very focused in what my cousin was saying and she gave me very detailed responses. Overall I think that the interview went very well and I feel very good about interviewing my cousin.

I definitely learned a lot about my cousin. I think that an overall general topic that my cousin discussed was people and who she is as a person, what she thinks of other people, what she thinks is wrong and right. For example in the interview she said that she thinks people who smoke weed and get high is stupid because they can’t seem to find fun in anything other than drugs. Also I learned about the people that she respects like her old basketball coach because he was a fatherly figure. I learned that I actually take up a lot of my cousin’s life and she really loves me because when I asked her about favorite memories she talked about the sleepovers that me and her had.

I think that this coming of age unit was actually very fun because I learned more about people and I think that its very interesting to hear different things from different points of view and what people think about topics. I think that the book “Am I Blue” and reading it was actually very interesting. I think that the book showed different perspectives. In the book a young child is gay and he gets bullied and the book is from the perspective of him and how he feels. In the end of the book, he feels much stronger. I think that this is a very interesting aspect of coming of age. I think this because in regular books you don’t really see a general change over a specific issue, its just a big change in the story but in a coming of age book you see a change in the character.