The Goldent Compass (12)

Some people believe that when filmmaker, directors, and screenwriter make a movie it is for a reason. Unless the movie is documentary, that might be a different story. The movie is primarily for entertainment. The Golden Compass is a prime example of this. Some people say that the movie attacks Christianity. The author of the first book of three, Philip Pullman, wrote the book to entertain people and to make money. If anything he was implying what may happen to the world and Christianity if we found something that was like dust. I do not believe that he wrote this book just to cause turmoil between religions.

I have not read the book yet but I believe since I watched the movie I would like to read the book. Mr. Hughes said that the director of the movie watered down what was in the book that was concerning Christianity and the church because he figured this would happen. I am really curious about the difference between the book and the movie. Like I said before though I am really interested in this series now that I have seen the movies. It got me interested in the series, so it should be interesting how everything turns out.

What the future holds for me?

When we were little we all had dreams of becoming a doctor, a teacher, or even a lawyer. Once we got into high school we HAD to know what we wanted to after we graduated. Well since then I know I have changed my mind many of times. As of right now, after I graduate, I plan to go to University of Louisiana at Lafayette with one of my best friends and one of her friends from Dutchtown. We will leave in an apartment very close to school. I am going to get a degree for pre-pharmacy. After 4 years at ULL, I plan on going to University of Louisiana at Monroe to become a pharmacist. These are my career plans.

Every little girl has there fantasy of having a big wedding with family and friends. Right now I have a boyfriend. We have been dating for almost two and a half years. If we are still together when I go to college, after I am in there for a while, we will probably take our relationship to the next level. What is that level? I don’t know right now. But after I get married I plan to have 2 to 4 kids. That’s really all I have thought about so far.

Prom Night

Well as most of ya’ll know prom was yesterday. I had so much fun. In the group I went in I was the only one who had a date. I enjoyed prom because we didn’t have to worry about the drama of other couples. At first we thought we were going to have a lot of time to kill but as the night went on we were wrong. My day started at 11 in the morning. I got my hair and make-up done. It took them two hours to do my hair. After, I went eat lunch with some friends. Then we went back to one of their houses to do their make-up. Then my best friend and I went to my house to get dressed and another one of my friends came over and met us. Then my date came. We left about 4:15 to go take pictures but the line was out of the door, so we left to visit a few family members. Then we went back to take pictures, and stood in line for over an hour. Then we had to go get cars to bring them to my aunt’s house in St. Amant so we didn’t all have to drive out there at 1 in the morning. Finally we got to go eat. We ate at Kevin’s Seafood. It was really good. After all of this we headed back to Gonzales for the dance. They announced prom king and queen. Immediately after that the civic center cleared out. To end our night we went to Wal-mart and got some junk food and then went back to my aunt’s. We changed out of our formal wear into comfortable clothes and took our make-up off. When we sat down we all fell asleep and that is how our long day ended.

LA's Educational System

In school systems of the United States, especially in Louisiana, teachers have to teach by a certain curriculum to meet the needs of every child. To make these curriculums, they make students take standardized tests, which supposedly show where these children are at for that certain level. Despite what standardized tests do for a school, it could cause a lot of pressure on a child that is about ten-years-old. Most children do not work well under pressure therefore Louisiana’s educational system should not solely depend on standardized testing.

Standardized tests cause a lot of pressure for any student taking them. These standardized tests consist of Graduate Exit Exams, iLeap, Leap, Iowa, ACT, and SAT. As students prepare for these test throughout their learning experiences, all they hear about is how important it is to do well on these types of tests. They have to hear it from the school administration and staff because if the results do not come out well, the state assists the school in trying to improve the scores before other actions are taken. The surrounding parishes and communities put pressure on these students because if the scores are not good, then that makes the parish and the communities look bad. Then there are the parents of the students who are taking the test and they make their kids seem as if they have to do well to make their parents proud. Not only do the students that are taking the tests have all this pressure on them, they also have the pressure they put on themselves. They feel as if they have to do well just to make all of these people happy. Children should not be placed under all this pressure just for a test.

Teachers teach by following and meeting guidelines of a curriculum. The state makes its curriculum according to how well the students have done on previous test. If they do not reach a certain point by a certain age, then the state must change the curriculum. The better the scores, the more the state feels as if they need to challenge the students. When there are several students that score low on the test while others score tremendously high, then why should they keep the curriculum the same? They believe the children need to be challenged, so what happens? They change it again. Changing the curriculum benefits some, but for others, such as the ones who scored lower than the rest of their class, what happens to them? They get left behind. How could this be though, since there should not be any child left behind? George W. Bush passed an act that was simply called “No Child Left Behind.” It says that no child should be left behind no matter what the excuse may be. One day maybe all of these people that are making decisions like these, not only Bush, should go sit in a classroom and see how hard it is for a student who has a learning disability to keep up with his or her classmates. Even the slower learners have a hard time keeping up with the others. Sometimes people need to step out of their own lives.

Even though scores of standardized tests are important, so much pressure should not be placed on the younger generation. Times have changed, and they will keep changing. Just because something worked for a while, does not mean it will work forever.




How Standardized Testing Damages Education. 20 August 2007. FairTest: The National Center for Fair and Open Testing. 6 April 2008.

Standardized Test Pressure Buildup. About.com: Elementary Education. 6 April 2008.

Why? (7)

There is always that one celebrity who pretty much just goes crazy. They lose themselves in the fame. It is especially shown in today’s celebrities, such as Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, and many more. The writer of “Down In A Hole” by Alice in Chains is Layne Staley. He expresses how he became depressed and self-depreciated of himself. He is one of the many celebrities who gets tied up in the fame.

In the 1990’s, Staley become very addicted to a variety of drugs. These drugs included heroin, marijuana, LSD, cocaine, and ecstasy. He died in 2002 from injecting an extremely large amount of heroin and cocaine.

Throughout the song, he uses irony, simile, metaphor, and repeatedly anaphora. After becoming a drug addict, he found himself becoming depressed. There is this saying, “You are digging yourself into a deeper hole,” which means you are just getting yourself into a big mess. He uses “down in a hole” to show that he is in a big mess and he can’t get out of it now. The anaphora that is used is repeating that he is down in a hole at the beginning of each line in the chorus. When he says “…flowers in a tomb…in bloom,” shows irony. Flowers are supposed to be beautiful when they are blooming. A tomb makes you think of death and sad and gloomy. At the end of the song when he states “I’d like to fly but my wings have been so denied,” he uses it as a metaphor to say that he wishes things were back to the way they used to be when he first started. Now that he is addicted to drugs, he can’t soar anymore in his career. His example of a simile is “see my heart I decorate it like a grave.” Once again when someone thinks of a grave they think death and gloomy. A grave is all dark. His heart is dark. The line, “I have been guilty of kicking myself in the teeth,” is just saying that he has been tearing himself up inside for his stupid mistakes. He lets us know that he will keep everything to his self when he says, “ I will speak no more of my feelings beneath.”

His depressive, self-depreciating, helpless ridiculed tone sets an argument of forensics. He blames his self for the many things he can’t do now because of his mistakes. He could be trying to get the message of what drugs really do to you out there to people who may or may not do drugs already. Before this argument they may think it was a cool thing to do but now they realize it isn’t so cool what happens to you in the long run. The addict’s appeal to the audience is very emotional, which shows pathos.

Staley’s overall argument is just not to get involved in those situations that he put himself in because it doesn’t really get you any where in life. I agree with what he says. Why would you want to throw your whole life away on drugs? I just believe that to be immature and insane. If you have a good life why would you want to turn it bad? I just don’t understand what would make someone want to do such a thing.

"Victorious?" (6)

Pearl Jam's "Jeremy" could be examined in more than one way. The first time someone might hear the song, they may think that Jeremy killed his enemies. Then the first time someone might watch the music video for the controversial song, they may think it was an action that was undecided. Many people believe the song may have influenced some of the school violence that happened after the song was released.

The speaker is trying to say that even though you are having fun making fun of someone else, it is hurting him or her more inside. If someone is not paid attention to by their loved ones, it can hurt them more inside too. It could hurt them so much that it could make them violent. The antecedent would be everyone one pushing him to the edge by hurting him. The consequence would be the violence he resorted to. "Jeremy" appeals to pathos. It has a lot of emotion in it. "Jeremy" is evaluation. The bully, the speaker, places blame on himself and Jeremy's parents.

Actions could speak louder than words. Jeremy's action of either killing his enemies or committing suicide definitely spoke louder than anyone could have spoken.

{XOXO}

My Imperfections (5)

Throughout my years of attempting to write an interesting essay or story, I feel as if I have failed to do so. My weakness in writing is making it interesting. I don’t know how to make something interesting to where people would want to read it. I also know I need to stop using “in my opinion” or “your” or “you” or anything like that. Another thing I am aware that I need to do is explaining myself better. Just because I know what I want to say doesn’t mean someone else does. I am sure there are many more flaws in my writing but those are just a few.

XOXO

Intelligence.? (4)

According to Mr. Webster, he classifies intelligence as the ability to learn or understand from experience. He also puts it as the ability to acquire and retain knowledge. There are a couple ways to tell if someone has intelligence or not. One way is talking to them. When you are talking to them about something and they fluently keep a conversation going about it, then I would say they have intellect. The main way that I tell if someone is intelligent is by the way they present themselves. Someone’s actions could define his or her intelligence. If they are doing something just out-of-this-world crazy, then he or she probably isn’t the brightest crayon in the box. Actions speak louder than words most of the time.

The Knowledge of Truth and Belief (3)

Truth? Knowledge? Belief? What are these things? Why do they all coincide with each other? Let’s look a little bit deeper! Truth is an idea or concept that is true OR accepted to be true. Knowledge is what someone knows. Belief is what you believe in or you could also put it as faith. So what do these have in common? You start with your knowledge. Most of the things that you know are true. That’s truth. Then off of knowledge and truth you get belief. This is so because most of the things that you were taught were true. You base your beliefs on what you know are true.

V (2)

Since the terrorist of 9-11 ran the planes into the Twin Towers, Pentagon, and attempted to run one into the White House, the line between our safety and our freedom has thinned out a lot. As citizens we have all these rights that the government gives us. Also we still want to be safe. In all actuality, we, as citizens mess these things up. We take advantage of our rights sometimes or other people can mess them up as well, such as the terrorists.

A guy with a mask on shows this in a movie, V for Vendetta. His name is V. In my opinion, V represents the arguments between the government and the citizens of London. He presents a means to an end argument in his speech. In V’s speech, he comes across as understanding, candid, earnest, accusatory, and confident. Throughout his speech, he tries to make citizens of London realizes what’s going on in their own country. Many are oblivious to what the government is doing. The people who do realize are upset about it and just pout about it. However at the end of the speech, after he got the attention of everyone, he offered an idea or solution to fix it.

V blew up the Old Bailey showing the ethos of the situation. He is being superior to the government. V understands that the people didn’t do anything showing logos, because the High Chancellor Adam Sutler promised things to them that have gotten way out of control. V took control using ethos trying to catch the citizens of London’s attention. V’s convincing speech could be considered as evaluation and forensic if you look at what he says in parts. He blames the Chancellor but mostly the citizens of London. They let things get this bad. The people also are having a hard time deciding whether it is the right or wrong to go against their own people.

The fine line between safety and freedom depends solely on the people of the country. You can always depend on it. If something happens that makes people feel unsafe like the activities of 9-11, you can bet there will be some change.

All About Me (1)

Let me think! I am Jodi. I am a junior at EA. For a 16-year-old, I like to hang out with my family. They are crazy but I still love them. Reading is one thing I love to do in my free time. I enjoy laying around in my bed all day watching movies. These are just a couple of things that I like to do.

Most of the time my attitude is positive. However, sometimes if I begin to get too stressed or upset, I tend to want to just blow up at the world. My personality is similar up to my attitude. My personality I would describe as caring, strong, worrier, and outgoing.

As for my goals of life, I don’t really know what I want to do after high school. However my goals for life in high school, is to graduate in at least the top 20. Thinking about goals after life in high school, I am thinking about going to ULL and becoming a pharmacist.

As I mentioned above, I enjoy hanging out with my family. I am, of course, a daddy’s girl. My dad will do anything for me. My mom and I used to not get along sometimes but it's getting better. When we do get along and have fun, I feel like I am hanging out with one of my friends. My brother and I are starting to grow closer now that we are both maturing. Along with hanging out with my family, I like to hang out with friends too. My best friends, that are pretty much sisters to me, are Devon and Megan. Through fights and everything we are still friends. Some of my other friends are Courtney and Papi. My boyfriend of two years, Jeremy, is there for me whenever I need him.

That is just a little about me. Catch ya later!

Jodi Lynn