Book Bucket List

1. The Lord of the Rings trilogy- J. R. R. Tolkien 
2. The Casual Vacancy- J. K. Rowling (Queen Rowling!)
3. Divergent Series- Veronica Roth
4. Columbine- Dave Cullen
5. Teen Angst? Naaah...- Ned Vizzini
6. Looking For Alaska- John Green
7. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
8. The Great Gatsby- F. Scott Fitzgerald (I've already read this one, but it was so good I want to read it again.)
9. Brave New World- Aldous Huxley
10. Lorien Legacies _ Pittacus Lore (Started this series, still have not finished it.)

Junior/Senior

My senior year is almost here, and I could not be happier. This is what I've been waiting for for eleven years, and it is finally here. See? I am so excited I am being redundant, which is a habit I need to get out of.

In retrospect, my junior year could have been worse. I was not in many clubs and mainly focused on my school work, which really did not help much because all of my teachers decided to assign everything all at once. However, I tryed my hardest in all of my classes and I am okay with my final grades. I also took college classes for the first time, which proved itself challenging.

For my senior year, I plan on having fun in my last year of high school. I only have two actual classes, along with Art I, and I made the Prancer team. I hope that next year will be less stressful than this year was and that I can make the most of it.

It has not really hit me that the year after next I'll be an adult in college working towards my carrer. I just hope that next year will be one of the best experiences of my life.

The Extent I Would Go to Survive

So. Let us say I am stuck on a remote island with nothing but the clothes on my back and my wits. I would do everything in my power to survive- except maybe cut of my own arm- to survive. However, seeing as I'm a small girl with no upper arm strengh, I would probably die the second anything tried to attack me. Like a lion, or a tiger. Or maybe even a bear. (Oh, my!) However, I would do whatever is in my power to survive, like using common since, finding water, and building shelter.

Survival Essay

“The Man owned the land. Then he give you the cotton seeds, and the fertilizer, and the mule, and some clothes, and everything else you need to get through the year. ‘Cept he don’t really give it to you: He let you buy it at the store on credit. But it was his store on his plantation that he owned… Supposably, you gon’ split that cotton right down the middle, or maybe sixty-fourty. But by the time the crop comes in, you owe the Man so much on credit, your share of crop gets eat up.”- Denver Moore

Sharecropping- the modern slavery. Even though slavery was abbolished after the end of the Civil War, it still persisted. Farmers, in the south especially, changed the name of their crime from ‘slavery’ to ‘sharecropping,’ offered free land in trade for work, and sat back and grinned at their genius. However, the people who were trapped in this never-ending cycle of work without pay could survive if they were willing to either A) pick cotton for the rest of their lives or B) be homeless.


Two options presented themsleves when one was a sharecropper: staying or leaving- and both offered their own problems. One problem with the former were the high interest rates landlords, or the “Man,” charged. According to Digital History’s page on sharecropping, landlords charged “as high as 70 percent a year.” To help articulate this, imagine yourself as a sharecropper- you bought a block of cheese at the landlord’s store. At the end of the year, when it came time to get paid for all of your hard work, one would have had to pay the landlord back for the cheese, along with 70 percent of the cost of said cheese. Seeing as sharecroppers only got paid once a year, the cost of buying things of credit became pricey. In short, sharecroppers rarely had spare money. Denver Moore, a former sharecropper who escaped his circumstance and went on to write a book called Same Kind of Different as Me, remembers his time working on a plantation in Red River Parish, Louisiana- “Lotta times the men would be sharecroppin on them plantations and look around and wonder why they was workin the land so hard and ever year the Man that owned the land be takin all the profits.” This kind of unfair treatment lead to the saying “freedom could make folks proud but it didn’t make ‘em rich.” Sadly, this was the reality for almost every sharecropper because, as Moore would say, “you never stopped owning the Man.” Poverty was the norm on most plantations because of these unfair interst rates, and even though most sharecroppers had enough food to survive, they never had money to impove the situation they found themselves in.


As bad as staying might sound, leaving could be considered worse. Leaving meant throwing yourself into the unknown and learning to adapt, much like Buck in the Call of the Wild. Ex-sharecroppers faced the same problems Buck faced, like finding means of nourishment, finding proper shelter, and learning, for lack of better words, “the law of club and fang.” Denver Moore escaped Red River Parish by jumping on a passing train and ended up homeless, and he even says “we was like animals livin in the woods, just tryin to survive.” He recollects his experience with being homeless in Fort Worth, Texas, and the lengths he went to to obtain simple things like food and water. One of his schemes, something called ‘hamburger drop,’ was his favorite way to get food.

“After I’d get my dollar for the day, I’d go on down to the McDonald’s and buy me a hamburger, take a coupla bites out of it, and wrap it back up. Then I’d pick me out one of them big, tall office buildins that’s got a trash can on the sidewalk out front. When nobody was lookin, I’d stick that wrapped-up burger down in the can and wait. Soon as I saw somebody comin, I’d pretend like I was diggin in the trash. Then I’d come up with that hamburger and commence to eatin it. For sure somebody always gon’ stop and say “Hey, don’t eat that!”- and they gon’ give you some money…”

 Moore also remembers bathing in the Water Gardens Park. According to him, he and one of his buddies would go and stand by the fountain, “act like tourists,” and wait until the coast was clear. Then his buddy would push him down in the water, “laughin and jokin like we was just friends horsin around on vacation,” but in reality they would be scrubbing themselves as fast as they could. Money was another hard thing to come by when one was homeless. Moore found work at the local Labor Force, “doin work nobody else want to do- like pickin up trash, cleanin out ole warehouses, or sweepin up horse manure after a stock show.” At least with staying on a plantation, you were guaranteed some food and (mediocre) shelter. But becoming homeless starts the process of dehumanization, making one an animal just trying to survive.

Some would argue that sharecropping was not as bad after all; some would argue that sharecropper’s thrived. My great-great aunt was a sharecropper; Pearl and Lawrence Taylor moved to Oklahoma in the early 1930’s and started their new lives as sharecroppers. In one of Pearl’s letter’s home, she comments on how tired she is of pinto beans and and how thankful she was that Lawrence had gotten some real meat as payment for helping a neighbor. In another letter, Pearl writes of her garden worms and how they had eaten through all of her potatoe plants. She also says “have about eighty little chicks. Sure are proud of them. Am going to try to have some cotton if I can get some to a hoe.” In yet another letter she speaks of sending her kids to school. She states that they all loved it and that she lets them “wear anything just as long as it’s clean.” In spite of poverty and unfairness, My great-great aunt Pearl Taylor, a sharecropper, was happy with the things she earned. She and her husband worked hard for what they had, sent their kids to school, and had food on the table every night.


Even though sharecropping is illegal now, some of the survivors are still alive. They live everyday with the horrors of poverty they experienced in their childhood, haunted by the lengths they went to survive.

Survivor Synthesis Essay: Sharecropping

Six Word Slant:
Sharecropping: pretty much just modern slavery

Claim:
The people who were trapped in sharecropping as an occupation could get out if they were willing to survive being homeless and poor. (132 characters)

Book Review: The Call of the Wild

Jack London's The Call of the Wild  chilled me with it's story of survival and domination. This book tells the tale of one dog's struggle to overcome the brutal environment he was sold into and become the lead dog. Buck was a farm dog who lived with the Miller's. He hunted, played, and slept fireside along with his masters, living a boring life. On of the Miller's farmhands, Manuel, steals him and sells him into the world of gold mining.

What makes London's novel  so interesting is how he brings his characters to life. At this point, as an eleventh grader and avid novel devourer, I was not too excited about reading a book who's main character is a dog. However, as the novel progressed, Jack London proves his writing skills by bringing Buck and the other dogs to life. He shows the personal revolution of Buck and how he goes from stuffy farm- dog to alpha male.

Another key writing style London adds to The Call of the Wild is his use of figurative language. His beautiful metaphors and similes breathe life into the novel and his use of anthropomorphism molds his animal characters that are human; making them more relateable.

I recommend this book to outdoor-lovers or adventure-seekers. The Call of the Wild takes you on the adventure of a life time alongside Buck and tells a great story of trials and tribulations, too.

What Does it Mean to Be Human? Essay

"I feel like a loser, I feel like I'm lost, I feel like I'm not sure if I feel anything at all. But believe me, I'm not helpless. I just need someone to love. So my situation's rough, that just makes me a dumb human like you." Darren Criss' song Human explores the equality of the human race. We all have the ability to think, feel, and dream. He touches on the given fact that all of us- no matter race, sex, or social class- can feel. His song, however does not offer an answer to our essential question: what does being human mean? A possible explanation to this was given in YouTube's video "What Does it Mean to Be Human?" People walking along the street were asked to give theri opinion on what seperartes homo sapiens from ever other species. Most participants agreed on the collective answer that human beings are set apart from all other specices on this planet because of ones simple physical factor: thumbs. And I msut say, I am quite disappointed; that is not what it means to be human. It is not what makes us different. I share Criss' viewpints on humaninty. It is not any outlying phycial characterisctic that sets us apart, it is one of our inner oragans- or should I say, the ability of one of our orgas. The brain. We have the campcity to think, feel, ananlyze, solve, proscess, rememeber, and from opinons all at once- an ability that all other specices are not able to preform. The human mind is what sets homo sapiens apart.


The phrase "put yourself in someones else's shoes," is a perfect example of this of this ability. Humans and develop a way of compassion by looking at things from a different perspective, a level of thinking no other animal can acheive. Granted, this higher level of thinking is not developed until the late teen years (and sometimes never developed at all), but the ability to think of others will always be there. That is why you can expect so many school age kids to bring cans for the charity Christmas Brings Hope. As humans, we can feel empathy. Look at the Kony 2012 campaign. Joseph Kony is not threatening Americans. Joseph Kony is not hurting us. But as human beings, we feel the need to help the people of Uganda stop this killer. Love is another level of thinking no other species can take on."But my dog loves me!" No, no it doesn't. Dogs have a sense of protection to survive. On the contrary, humans can feel agape love, or love without limits. This powerful feeling comes with an impression of protection, true, but the feelign is more developed that the survival sense animals feel. In fact, this feelling is so powerful, few can put in into words.


Now, there are arguments agaisnts alsmost everything I have stated. So, if you are not convinved, reddle me this: Can any other specices of this planes form an opionon? Has any other species developed a government? A society? A form of currency? Being humans means being able to think for oneself, to think of tohers, and to extablish morals; to coexist. Take Frankenstein's monster for example. He was created out of one man's hubris, true. But all he wanted out of his horrible existenve was to be normal. Why do you think he started stalking the DeLacey's? He wanted to learn to be human! And he eventually aciehved his goal. He learned to read, he learned to chop wood, he even learned to love another. In his own way, the monster became a very effective part of society. He only became a killing machine after society handed him a very unhealthy dose of rejection because of his physical apperance. And sadly, I believe this is part of being human, too. We humans, when we really boil it down, only seek to survive. Our mainds our programmed to seperate the wheat from the chaff- to seperate that which will help us survive and that which will ultimitely kill us. in Suzanne Collin's The Hunger Games, Katness Everdeen tags her fellow tribute, Peeta Melark, as a threat before the Hunger Games even begin. She changes her mind only after the Gamemakers announce that there can be more than one victor of the Games. This soon leads to the discovery that a love realtionship between herslf and Peeta mean support from the Capital, which means money for food in the arena, and in due course, her own survival. Being a memember of the human race not only means loving and helping and being productive, but surivivng.


Some may aruge that my own perosnal view points are wrong. Some would argue that the bigger the breain, the greater the itelligence. As a species, we ahve realatively large brains. However, we do not have the largest. Some types of whales and dolphins have larger brains than we do. So it makes sense that these animals should have a greater brainpower. Yet, this is not the case. It all depends on the body-brain ratio; the human brian, in relation to its body size, is larger than that of a dolphin or a whale.

To end my case, I offer you another song lyric to ponder from a song called Awake My Soul by Mumford & Sons. "Lend me your hand and we'll conquuer them all. But lend me your heart and I'll just let you fall. Lend me you eyes, I can change what you see. But your soul you must keep, totally free. In these bodies we will live, in these bodies will die; where you invest you love, you invest your life."