In the poems, I think Langston Hughes is trying to say “don’t ever go through life without dreams”. If you have no dreams, you have nothing to look forward to in life, and what’s the point of that? What happens to dreams that don’t exist to you any more? Langston Hughes is trying to figure out what happens to dreams if you no longer want or believe in them. In “A Dream Deferred”, one of the picture created is syrup drying on a syrup bottle in “Or crust and sugar over— like a syrupy sweet?” In “Dreams”, a picture created is a bird falling because of a broken wing in “Life  is a broken winged bird that cannot fly”.  They show that life will be worth nothing if dreams are not with us.

I’m sitting in the doorway of the teacher’s lounge. I hope a teacher doesn’t open the door and hit me. I tell my friend L that and she cracks up. I’m here sitting and writing in my journal, but I’d rather be someplace other than here! Surrounded by white walls, and gray lockers. Outside it looks cloudy and deserted. Well duh! everyone’s stuck in school. I want to be someplace other than here. I’m physically in school, but my mind is some place else. It’s thinking of the sun rising and sparkling on the green/blue waters of Virginia Beach. Thinking of the boats steering around in the fake river in San Antonio. Dreaming of the warm snow-white sand of the Bahamas. It’s everywhere but at school. I’m thinking of sitting on the fake snow of Liberty Mountain Ski area, and watching the sun slip behind the tall mountains. Watching how the sky changes from blue, to light blue and purple, then to light blue, lavender, red and orange. Why must I be stuck here, at school, surrounded by creamy white walls and gray skies. When I could be someplace else that will mark it’s place in my mind. Wait, if I don’t go to school, how can I go to those places? Ugh!

Okay Mr.Mayo, my teacher, told us to go to Mr. Wilkoff’s website to check out what your class is doing. It’s a lot like what we’re doing, just in another format. I think it’s really cool that your teacher and Mr.Mayo thought of doing this weblog. If they had not done this, we’d never discover you have web blogs! By the way, I’ve got a few questions to ask. Please post a comment on you web blog tittling it: “Colorado Answers…” thanks!

1. What’s the weather like in Colorado in October? (It’s getting colder every day here in MD)
2. At your school, what’s the schedule like? (We have odd and even days meaning we have periods 1 though 8. On odd days we have periods 1, 3, 5, 7 and on even days it’s the same thing with even period numbers.)
3. What degrees would you consider hot over there? (For us, it’s over 90..)
4. Do some of you live near the mountains? Can you go skiing over the weekends during the winter?(In Silver Spring, we’d have to drive at least an hour and a half to get to Liberty Mountain or White Tail, two ski resort areas.)
5. Are any of you great snowboarders or skiers?

It’d be great to know these answers. Also, you guys posted some really good stuff. I like cheergrl’s post on eighth grade girls. I’ve written stuff based on school, girls, cliques. I also like basketballboy25’s posts, there are a lot of really good posts! Hey write more!

John Steinbeck says the only way to write a short story is to… write a short story.

I actually don’t recall reading a specific short story because I’ve read too many books. : ] I might need to change that. Actually, I do recall a short story, and one of my friends had written it this year. She wrote it for this class a couple weeks ago. I remember the story because it had a lot of potential, but it had a tragic story line. The main character’s mother died giving birth to her, and her dad was a con-artist. He was always stealing stuff, or something like that, and they were always trying to get away from the cops. One day her dad finally did go to jail, and she was sent to live in foster homes far away from her beloved New York, New Jersey. It had a great story line, but the ending was tragic. I asked my friend why it ended the way it did, and she responded by saying, “Mr.M told us to write a short story, and I wanted an ending without having to write a sequel.”

Kino and Juana live in a poor fishing community. They have one son, Coyotito, who is Juana’s first born. The family have the same routine every day, and one day something went very, very wrong. Kino and Juana were getting ready for another day at sea, when a scorpion started crawling toward little Coyotito’s crib. The poor baby was laughing and didn’t know anything would harm him, so he stuck out his hand and the scorpion came closer and closer. Kino slowly crept over to the box, and when he almost had it, the baby shook the box, and the scorpion fell onto little Coyotito and struck. Kino crushed the scorpion until he was dust, while Juana tried to suck all the poison out of the little baby. When she announced that they needed a doctor, the whole village came with them. The doctor would not see them because they were Indian. He thought that they were stupid animals, that didn’t have any money at all.. His luck turned around that very mornig when he went to fish. Guess what he found?

I would definitely say that I have had more than my share of traveling. Maryland to Vietname, up to Canada and down to the Bahamas. I’ve definitely covered a lot of ground in my 13 years, and I’ve loved every place so far! The funny thing is that if someone asked me where I would go if I had a choice, anyplace in the world, where would it be, my answer would not be far from home. Actually I consider it a home away from home, it’s Virginia Beach, only three and a half hours away from here. My most memorable day ever year is the first summer day I actually jump into the cool, polluted water (eww!) I’d wade out to my waist, it gets further from shore every year, and flot ontop of small waves and dive throug big ones. After playing in the water for a while, I’d walk back to the umbrella, my feet burning with every step on the frying hot sand. I’ve seen the beach go from boring and ugly to fun and amazing. I’ve been to the beach since I was five, and now I’m thirteen, the beach is constantly changing and so am I. If I couldn’t go to Virginia Beach just for a week every single year, I don’t know how I could live. It’s amazing. and gets all my stress out of me. When I’m there, I’m not afraid of anything, and I’m free to be me!

I was walking through Tyson’s Corner with my arms filled with shopping bags from my favorite stores. “Hey you guys, let’s do one more store, and then go eat. I’m starved.” A told her friends. “How about Nordstrom?” S suggested. A looked at her other friend E who shrugged, she wasn’t very much of a shopper. They walked into Nordstrom, and looked through the racks. “Ohmygod, I can’t believe we bought this much stuff.. in two hours!” S giggled. “I know! Now I’ll definitely need a second closet…” A laughed. E looked at her arms, and said “You guys, I’m gonna need someplace to put all of this down, like right now! My arms are gonna break in like a minute.” A sighed, E could definitely ruin the fun and could be such a drama queen. Suddenly A felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned around in time to see a fist flying towards her face… the next thing she knew she was on the ground with S and E looking at her with worried faces. “A what happened?” S practically screamed. “I dunno…” A replied feeling her face, it was swollen. Her bags were rigt beside her, and so was this… box. “Uhm, guys who does that ugly trunk belong to?” A asked. S shrugged, and handed her a note.

Dear  Reader,

I am sure you are wondering what had just happened. Rest assured that everyone who that box has belonged to has come to a fate somewhat like that. What exactly is this box? Well, I can tell you that I don’t know myself. I just know that if you open it, something will happen. I don’t know if it is good or bad, I just know that the person who gave this to me told me not to open it. The story goes back a long while, and might take a very long time to explain. The bottom lines is: don’t open it. End of story.

Sincerely,

You-don’t-need-to-know

Avalon High is a realistic fiction book writtenby Meg Cabot. The book is pretty much based on King Arthur, his friends, and Camelot. Even though they’re dead, people believe that they can reincarnate. Everyone thinks that Elaine is Lady of Shalott… who she is or isn’t. I really like the book!

The Clique, welcome to the world of mean girls;

Who flirt, shop, scheme, and dominate.

They wear designer clothes in size two’s and zeros.

Making the rest of us wonder when they last ate.

The hottest or cutest girls at school,

The ones who spread rumors and gossip about others.

Adults always talk to them, they’re heaven’s little angels

But when they scheme, the adults don’t bother.

They come in every form and on every continent.

Girls who live by taking and demolishing,

Your life.

You’ll begin to crumble and then start falling.

Friends who stab each other in the back,

Friends who lie and steal important things from you,

Friends who only like you because of material things,

Friends, that’s what you call them, but they’re untrue.

Why choose this lifestyle?

The urge to be liked, to be popular, to be the best,

To be the prettiest, to have the best clothes, and make up,

Will I choose this life? No, I’d rather be one of the rest.

In this post we’re suppose to write about our purpose and the rules. These are our online profiles, to update on our ideas and opinions about what we’re learning about in class. Our class rules are:

1. Do not give out ANY personal information

2. Never plagiarize. Always use your own words

3. Use appropriate style of writing

4. Do not change your weblog’s email, username or password

5. Blog responsibly

6. If you break any of the rules you will lose your weblog for the year

My opinion on this whole online profiles is kind of mixed. I like the fact that our teacher trusts us to use it responsibly, and that we have a place other than the classroom to share our opinions or ideas. I don’t like the fact that we have to go step by step because some people aren’t as fast as others. Oh well, we’ll just have to wait and see if my opinion will stay on the “I don’t like it” side or “I really llike it” side.