Jimmy Santiago's "From Violence to Peace" 

Let me start off by saying that I didn't read the whole poem. Honestly I thought it was too long and got bored, however the beginning of the poem really intrigued my interest. I'm currently in 5th period and the teacher let us work on our own. The room has some talking of people close by me. I went on Poetry Foundation and looked for Jimmy Santiago. I found this speech From Violence to Peace and started cracking up on the first three stanzas. Never in my 16 years of life have I heard this type of language from an author. 

Twenty-eight shotgun pellets 

crater my thighs, belly and groin. 

I gently thumb each burnt bead, 

fingering scabbed stubs with ointment. 

Could have neutered me, made extinct 

the volatile, romantic man I am. 

“He’s dead,” 

doctor at emergency room 

could’ve easily told my wife that night. 

Instead, “Soak him in a bath twice a day. Apply 

this ointment to the sores. Here’s a month’s supply 

of pain killers.” I remember the deep guttural groan 

I gave, when the doctor pressed my groin. 

                  Assured 

I could still make love, morphine drowsed me 

and in a dull stupor I don’t remember 

police visiting my bed, or laughing so hard, 

they scowled for a serious answer. 

I howled a U.F.O. shot me along the Río Grande, 

and they cursed and left. 

The fact that he has to make sure that he can still make babies almost killed me. I was choking on laughter, the girl sitting next to me right now was looking at me as if I was crazy. I LOVE THESE STANZAS! This is not little baby poetry but actual poetry. Jeez I just can't with this man!

Immigrants in Our Own Land (Discussion)

Theme: In the very beginning I thought the theme would be freedom. However continuing reading, the theme changes. I feel as though the theme is just Change. 

Tone: The tone of  the beginning is hopeful/curious. Towards the end it is devastation/ monotone.
Mood: Discontent.

I skimmed through Jessica's post, yet it was very easy to understand. I agree with her on this being a poem on people coming to a new country in hopes of better things. I liked her main image on comparing people coming to a new world to prison. Re-reading the poem it does feel like prison then a new country. 

Stanza 1: 

• Description of their travel to a new land i.e. doctor, papers, court, jobs
• Jobs in different country (what they're meant for) they won't be able to do in this new country
• The tests they take remind me of history where immigrants from Italy going to New York would need to have a painful eye exam  
• Baca states "...counselors orient us to the new land we will now live in." I feel like it sounds like school where counselors show you the new school. From the stories I've heard of my people migrating here from Mexico, the officers don't show you around. It's a double meaning of some sort.

Stanza 2:  

• Baca states again that " The administration says this is right, no mixing of cultures," I feel as though the administration is still living in the 20th century where people stay in their lanes; where this is still segregation. This poem must be around that time.
• Low paying jobs, just like immigrants now
• "Temporary" is a plain out lie said by administration so they can keep working
• Rehabilitation? Prison or Migrating!? 

Stanza 3: 

• Getting away to go to a new, beautiful, safe world
• Beautiful, safe= (Reality) horrible, same as usual
• "lives" don't matter
• people don't care about them

Stanza 4: 

• "bars"= prison?
• house tools (i.e. sinks, bathrooms) malfunctioning
• clothes on lines, no dryers?
• old days? Seems like before 1920s
• Joey and Felipe- Two men of different race

Stanza 5: 

• new immigrants with dreams and hopes
• Just like him back in the day
• look down? Cell on the top?

Stanza 6:

• explains what happens to those dreams
• different way people cope with it
• Many things changed since being in there
• few make it out of here

Question: Jail, Rehabilitation center for immigrants?

HAPPY THANKSGIVING DUDES✌✌

It's name is Lesley!😉🐤🐤

AN EARTH-SHATTERING FART!

I started reading "A Sound of Thunder" at about 9pm Sunday night, and honestly I have no words for it. I'm not going to lie and say the story captured my interest. I basically had to read the sentences twice just to make sure I understood what I read. However I really did like the story. I thought it was funny how in the beginning of the story it talks about the election, "Makes you think, If the election had gone badly yesterday, I might be here now running away from the results." This was me the day I found out about our new president, yet my thought was in the opposite way. 

Even though I wasn't interested in the story, I kept reading. I came across a sentence that started with ("Christ isn't born yet," said Travis, "Moses has not gone to the mountains to talk with God. The Pyramids are still in the earth, waiting to be cut out and put up. Remember that. Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler-none of them exists.) Never have I ever heard of people talking about Christ being alive. I am Catholic and believe in Jesus Christ so reading this has shocked me. People don't like to mention religion because a lot of people get awkward or get very upset. Also, the fact that people don't express their thoughts on there being a God and if he did create us (people fight with scientific facts). Just seeing this sentence has me shocked and grinning from the diversity in writing.

Travis was a little smarty-pants when he explained the butterfly effect to Eckels. It was quite cool how he gave so many reasons on why you shouldn't alter the past. Everyone always talks about the butterfly effect yet hardly anyone gives multiple examples that doesn't involve butterflies. 

Is hunting dinosaurs really cool? Hmn..

At the end of the story Travis shot Eckels because Eckels stepped on a butterfly causing the world to change. Is killing Eckels going to solve the issue? 

Emerson Project

So basically my project went haywire in class. No one understood the basic idea of it. I apologize for the ideas not being exactly written down for it to be better understood. So here I am going to explain the whole brussel sprouts, farmer shenanigan. 

Hardly anyone in class likes brussel sprouts, yet most have not tried them. Brussel sprouts is a sort of metaphor for ideas. (Understand guys? Brussel Sprouts= Ideas.) Because of this, we are the farmer who harvests them. 

The farmer knows that people hate brussel sprouts yet he (or she!) still process them and they're still in our market. This relates to Emerson because people tell us that our ideas suck yet we should believe in them. We should be the farmer, we should trust our ideas no matter who doesn't like them. 

    

Some people write to make something ugly beautiful, some write to leave a part of themselves to be remembered, some write to give words meaning and soul and others write to exist in nonexistence

Decades can pass. You can move countries. Wars can be fought. People can die. But the stars stay the same. They stay constant. They are really the only reliable things in life