The Concept of Home

 Felt I felt that I was most powerful is when I was commander in my JROTC unit, at my old school. I was the highest rank and everybody had  to listen and answer to me. All except the administrator who had to make sure that we were safe and alive. In JROTC, and I know it sounds cliche but, I felt like I belonged and that I was important, I never really found a place where I felt at home. At home or even at school, even with all the children, I never felt that way. I place where I felt powerless was here. Here in August 2016, I felt the exact opposite and I was placed at the lowest rank.  I was completely knew I had no friends and I was here with the expectation of me just being able to come in and be able to adjust and fit in. I was always behind in the normalities of the school, and the way the school ran. That's when I felt powerless, because I knew nobody and  everything that people said affected me, I felt that I was of no authority, and eighth grade is when you are supposed to rule the school but here I was brand-spanking- new. As low was the 6th grade newcomers of the school. But now I feel like I'm home, and  who ever thought that your home could be ,not where you grew up, but where your life, friends, and excitement are.
                                              (That's a picture of my ROTC drill team)

Stop The Abuse

     Domestic and emotional abuse is something that impacts many young kids and teens. It can mess with their trust issues and the way that they treat other people. From the current years of the events or even up until adulthood. A persons perception of how normal life is supposed to be lived can be thrown off very badly, and it could happen two ways. One way that we see multiple ways in movies and literature, but another way that you don't hear much of but that is very real.
     After experiencing something like that, a person can perceive that behavior as normal. So when they create their own family, they'll treat their children and/or significant other in the way that they were treated as children or throughout their lives.  So they're taking another human life, and hurting them and abusing them and altering their state of being. A person can live a happy life and live it to it so that it's for filled, but all this could be altered because of  someone's actions and the way you are treated by another person. And then these children will continue to treat their children like that, and it's an ongoing cycle of mental and physical abuse. Sometimes these never stop any create a community where this abuse is normal.
      Or there's people where the abuse very much so, mess with their minds, so they use their abuse as an excuse to live her life in a terrible mood. They do things that are illegal, they missed treats other people, and they know that what they're doing is wrong,  but  in their head though create some sort of  advantage and they'll use it as an excuse. So they'll use that as their free pass to do things and say that it's their off mentality. This is what people like to call " The victim", they try to get what they want and blame in on poor circumstances.
      This isn't me trying to excuse the people who actually hurt the victims, but there are two outcomes that could occur. But to stop the comes from actually happening, we could just stop the violence and stop the abuse. There shouldn't be parents telling their kids at they'll never amount to anything , or that they'll never be who they want to be, or who they want to be is wrong. It should never be a parent beating their child, and I can't even articulate how there should never be a child in the hands of a person who doesn't love them.

Mi Abuelito

This week on my blog, I want to talk about mi Abuelito. For the non Spanish speakers, mi abuelito is my grandpa. I love him so much, I was his oldest great grandchild, so I was told I made him feel young again and I was his favorite. My grandpa was funny, loud in a good way, and loving. So loving. He loved so many people and was loved by so many more. I was so excited to find out that i would be spending my spring break with him. I, along with all my cousins, were counting the days until we could see him. The first day of spring break we saw him and we found out that he started losing his memory, and sometimes he wouldn't recognize the people he had known for years. When we found this out we were upset, but at the same time we thought that he MUST remember us. I still remember when we walked into the room and when my brother called his name. Mi abuelito said hi, and that was it. There was no instant recognition, excitement, or his thumbs up that he was known for. We all looked at eachother, could this really be happening? I walked up to him and he recognized my face and he lit up, he gave me his normal firm handshake and a thumbs up. We stood with him throughout that whole day, and we planned to return the next day. I said goodbye to mi abuelito and kissed him on the forehead before leaving.
     The next day we got a call at 5 am. As soon as the phone rang, I knew something was wrong. There was something in the pit of my stomach that told me it wasn't right. My dad picked up, I could already hear my Tia Maria sobbing over the phone, he had lived with his son and daughter in law, Juan and Maria. I slammed my body into the wall behind me and slowly fell towards to floor beneath me. I couldn't believe it, I had just seen him yesterday. My dad told us all to get into the car, we drove to get to that house as fast as we could. When we got there Abuelito was already gone, only our mourning family was left. The only thing we could do at that point was support eachother through the first night.
                                       

Father or Dad

So does he identify as my father or as my dad
I do not know
Does he have to be responsible for my raising to be my dad
He is responsible for my life so I know he must be something to me
Which pronoun is good for the one who raised you
What do you call the man related to you only biologically
I do not know whether to call him my father or my dad

I do not know whether to call him my father or my dad
What do you call the man related to you only biologically
Which pronoun is good for the one who raised you
He is responsible for my life so I know he must be something to me
Does he have to be responsible for my raising to be my dad
I do not know
So does he identify as my father or as my dad

The Sky is Everywhere

     This book is about a young girl named Lennie. She had a good life, a great sister, and a happy family. She and her sister, Bailey,  lived with her grandma and uncle, because her mom had disappeared when she was younger. Its a mystery where she is and why she left. That didn't really matter to Lennie because she had her sister, her sister was her whole world. But, one day her world was taken from her and Bailey was killed. Only nineteen, that's how only her sister was, and Lennie was younger. When its finally time to go back to school after mourning, Lennie meets a boy, a new boy named Joe. At first she doesn't like him, but as the story continues she finds something in him that is special. Joe is in her band class so they have a connection through music. Joe started coming around Lennies house very often and he grew bonds with her family, this becomes a distraction from their loss. But, out of nowhere, Lennie grows interested in finding out who her mother is. She finds an item in her sister's things that could lead her there, to the arms of her mother. In doing so she uncovers some secrets about her family and even some dark ones about her sister. And Joe finds out secret information about Lennie from poems that were written by her and that she left around town. And to make matters worse and stress EVERYONE out, there is a love triangle with Lennie and Joe, including Bailey's boyfriend.
     I really did like this book, did I say like? I meant I absolutely loved this book. There's so much going on all at once but, that's what makes this book great. I never wanted to put this book down in my process of reading it for the first time. This book is very mature, it feels like you are watching a Drama TV series, but in reality, you are just reading a really great book with topics for an I older audience. There is so many twists and turns that make you wonder how could one, single author come up with this all on their own. It must have taken meticulous planning and great attention to detail to get every event in order and make the whole book come together perfectly. Its not a short book, but you can definitely read it in one or two days from excitement and anticipation. I definitely, 10/10,recommend to anyone looking for a good read.
                                             

Deep Green: Color me Jealous, Actually Color Me Intrigued

     One of the books I read this quarter is called Deep Green by Melody Carson. This book is about a girl named Jordan, she used to be best friends with a girl named Shawna. They had just recently contacted and were on the verge of being friends again, until Shawna breaks up with her boyfriend Timothy. Timothy expresses love for Jordan and then they start dating. This ruins Shawna and Jordan's friendship, and this is when everything falls apart. Jordan misses having a best friend so she goes out of her way to make her feel good about her self and make her feel happy. Jordan ends up cutting off time with her family and giving Shawna things that are valuable to her. Jordan just really wants Shawna to like her again. Her need to be liked gets out of hand, all the way to the point where Timothy notices and questions it. But, Shawna has a plan. A plan to get Timothy back and get Jordan out of the picture, completely put of the picture. Jordan that that Shawna was reliable so she didn't see it coming.
     I really liked this book because it had to offer readers, even if readers had a different view point on somethings.  This book mentioned about some things about God, and the things that were said in the book were vague, so you could either read a lot into it and get the religious aspect of the book, or you could completely ignore that message. The other message was more for the average American teenager reading a book about drama. That message was that jealously can make you do some crazy thing and those things can make you lose sight of what's important. I am in the middle of those two things so this book offered a lot to me and that is why I liked it so much. This book is part of a series and I can't  wait to read more.
                                                       

The Holocaust, Nothing Can Ever Amount

   The movie shown to the whole class today was the 1997 film, Life is Beautiful. This was a movie that gives a glimps of how the holocaust was, this was a very serious film. Although the film had somewhat of a fairytale ending, which isn't what all people got when they were involved with the holocaust, this was a very insightful and in depth film about the happenings of the Holocaust.Yes this was a movie, so many things are different, dramatic, or maybe there were even some things were taken out that would be too real to be put into a film like this. Things that would be considered the same from the movie and based off of what I read is how casual of a conversation the Aryan superiority is. Or was, so they thought. There is a scene in the movie where a woman and a man are causally having a conversation at a dinner table, during their conversation the topic of the Aryan race comes up. The two proceed to talk about how their race is the superior to any other, the two people have this mind set where talking down on other races is a normal. It's mindsets like these that slowly made the events of the Holocaust seem normal for the people involved. This was something that I previously wondered about, how could people talk this was about other people so nonchalantly? I personally think that showing people's attitude in a movie, is a great was to show people how thinks used to be, and how people used to think.
     Aside from things in the film that were very similar, there were things that were also different. The real people involved and hurt in the holocaust were beaten, tortured, and starved. Nobody of authority in the camp was in favor of the Jewish people so, all of the people were very vulnerable to being mistreated. There wasn't much people in the camp that looked as healthy as the actors in the movie. This is the sad truth, the people   Couldn't possibly have looked the way that the people in the actual holocaust looked, and have been healthy enough to act.  Another thing that, sadly, would it be a stool in the Holocaust is the fairytale ending that this had. The movie made it seem that all of the  action of affection that the man showed toward his wife while being held prisoner was an easy thing to do, but in actuality the man would have been beaten and killed for doing such things. And in the movie the mom and the son both survived to live and be happy afterwards, but the boy went throughout life in the camp with ease. In the actual holocaust that wouldn't have been true, I'm sure he was just as painful for the children as it was for the adults, emotionally and physically.
      The beginning of the movie was very lighthearted and funny, but towards the middle it started to become sad. The parts when it became said was the parts of the movie involving the Holocaust, but even during the scenes of the holocaust there were parts that were lighthearted and  could have made a viewer smile. Scene in the movie that could have been like these are times during bonding between the son and the father, times when the father wanted to make it known to his wife that he was alive, and times when the son was just being a kid. I'm guessing not too many of these times or events could have taken place within the gates and walls of concentration camps during the holocaust. This is why the moods of the movie and events of the actual holocaust differed.  Yes, there were times in the movie that made you see how people of the holocaust where affected very negatively and how they could've hurt them, emotionally and physically,  and that's what I think so many people like this movie. It's because you get a good look into life of the Holocaust, but you know it's a movie and you still get a laugh and fairytale ending out of it.
      Before I saw the movie I knew that Jewish people were kept in concentration camps and we're mistreated. I knew this before I had even stepped foot into the Holocaust Museum. But, being in the Holocaust Museum and seeing pictures and hearing stories about what went on with in the walls and gates of the concentration camps made everything very real. Everything  I took away from the museum, mentally, became more real than it was before. It was very terrifying for me to think about and keep this image in my head, it got even worse once I saw actors take out the actions of what went on in the camps. Seeing it actually happen is something that never came to my mind when it comes to thinking about the Holocaust, it never occurred to me that I could watch a movie and see the cruelty. Although, in my head, I know that no one could ever do, act, or have the same terrifying experiences that people Jewish people had within the walls of concentration camps during the holocaust.
      The movie was very sad and morbid, made very solid point across. Therefore the title fits, life is beautiful. One of the ways that the movie shows that life is beautiful, is when dad goes on the intercom, and risks his life, to speak on the intercom so that his wife can hear his voice and know that he and his son were alive and well. This little thing that the husband did, which wasn't really a little at all because he was risking his life, mad a huge difference yo the woman. Just hearing his voice made the woman smile and  cry happy tears. Her reaction was solely because she knew that her family was okay, even with everything she had been through just the thought of knowing that they were alive meant the world to her. And that's saying a lot because the movie showed how much the poor woman was worked and how much the woman work and how difficult her conditions were.  But for those couple of seconds her mood has totally changed.
       Another point in the movie that shows that life is beautiful is when the mother and the son are reunited at the end of the movie. The father had worked and gave everything he could to the son to keep him alive and healthy throughout his life at the concentration camp, he worked to his death to keep  his little boy life.  He even lied to his own son to keep his sons mental health at a point where the boy would be happy, even though his own father in the people that were around him every day weren't, at all. This shows that life is beautiful because the man gave his own, he devoted it to making sure that his son survived. And it all was appreciated  because the woman got to see her son after being worked and starved, it was like seeing her son had made everything better. I can also imagine that to the son, seeing his mother for the first time, in a long time, meant the world to him. So life is a beautiful thing because what you do with yours can determine how others live their's.
       To sum up the whole holocaust unit worked on, the Holocaust was a very terrible event that happened to a certain group of people just because of one thing that related them all. It led to a very large and terrible genocide that should never be repeated.  We should all learn from the Holocaust and learn about it, whether it's from going to museums that are dedicated to it, or watching a movie that exposes you to the experiences of it. The holocaust made a difference and affected us all.  Everyone should be exposed to this knowledge and look back at it and know the damage that was done. Maybe if everyone did that, it would never happen again. If it happened, it would be for the better.