Assignment #10:Bullying

There isn't many times where I can recall being bullied right out front. In today's society people tend to be bullied behind their backs. There are so many ways to bully without actually even saying it to that persons face. There are social networking sites online. These would include myspace, twitter, facebook, etc. Another way to bully without telling a person to their face would be to use you cell phone. This could be done through text or you can even call and leaving threatening or suggestive voicemails. There is a term for this type of bullying and its called cyber bullying, the sad part of it is that it's very common in my generation.

There are no times in my life where I can remember being bullied as bad as Jamie Nabozny was bullied during his middle school and high school careers. In fact, I don't recall ever being bullied that bad to the point where I didn't even want to go to school. I have been bullied though. This is not a time in my life that I prefer to remember but it has happened. A girl who is the same age as me and is in the same grade was a huge bully. Even to this day only I don't just let her push me around anymore I learned how to deal with it. This girl will always be in my memories because not only was she bullying me but also my best friend. It had gotten so bad that my friend had to take to the principal with the problem. It did not get that bad with me, however, because my mom knew the girl that was the bully and the girl knew my mom.

I think she bullied both of us because that's the only way she would get attention. That's the only logical way that I can see it. I know that she had a single mom supporting her and she is an only child. Since her mom was raising her by herself that means that she had to have a few more jobs than most parents to stay on top of the struggles of financial problems. This meant that the girl would be alone most of the time. I think this was brought to school and school is where she got the majority of her attention from. I know that some kids gain their attention in a negative way and some do it in a positive way. She was being a bully and this is how she got her attention. This all occurred in middle school. Again, it never got that bad to the point where I didn't even want to go to school.

The way it made me feel inside is frustrated and sad. I felt frustrated because I was never anything but nice to this girl and neither was my best friend. Yet she harassed us and harassed us. I was starting to take it out on my little sisters at home just because I was frustrated. I was also frustrated because I didn't want to tell my mom or dad because I don't like unnecessary drama or stress so why would I want to bring these childish games into their lives. I thought it was better just to deal with it on my own. I also felt sad because she didn't have to be doing this to us and be a mean person. I felt bad for her. I just wanted us all to get along.

There also comes a point in our lives when we have to stop and think if we've done the same to another person. The sad part is that most of us have. I know that I have maybe bullied someone before but it wasn't just outright how this girl was with me and my best friend. I bully in a sort of sly way people have to think twice to actually notice if I just insulted them or if it was just a clever joke. I don't like how I can be too sarcastic sometimes because I don't know how it affects the other person. For all I know they could laugh about it on the outside and in front of everyone but who am I to know that I just didn't give them yet another insecurity to worry about on the inside?

I have also seen people bully other people right before my eyes. It's a hard thing to watch but it happens more often than not. Mostly at school is where I see this bullying. When I'm out in public, maybe with some friends at the mall, we can walk into a store and automatically since were teenagers were thieves. I find this to be a form of bullying in itself. I don't think people should judge a person like this. It's understandable that people will have their first opinions but you shouldn't let that affect the way you react with that person. So, I see this type of bullying all the time because of my age and the way that society perceives my friends and me. In these situations though I respond by sort of acting above my age. It takes the bully by surprise and they gain just that much more respect for me because I didn't go down to their level. I like the feeling of gaining respect too. I don't like when I prove people right when they assumed that I would do something bad and then I do it. I think that if this would happen to a friend that I was with I'd tell them the same thing. To either walk away and let it go or to be the bigger person and be more respectful and be the bigger person. I would never want a friend to prove a bully right.

All in all I think bullying is a problem in our society especially with all the changes that we as a Nation are going through. There are problems with cyber bullying, bullying against gay people, and so much more that it is a growing problem. We can do things to help stop or help prevent it. For example, we can show educational movies in the classroom like the one I was shown, Bullied: A Teaching Tolerance Documentary. This really helped me to see the effects of bullying in schools. I think that we need to think of more effective ways to stop bullying, however.

Assignment #9:Alien Contact

Wow, it's rather cold for Halloween night. I mean it's always cold but, this is intense, if that's the word I'm looking for. I still have a few more blocks to go. My little sisters just love this night, I think I recall one of them mentioning that this is their favorite holiday of the year. If it just wasn't so darn cold maybe I could enjoy it too. I should have checked the weather channel or something before I left because these light jackets I have chosen for the three of us just isn't doing it.

"Can we go to that house Joce?" my little sister Samara asks.

I look up at the house her frozen little finger is pointing to. It looks kind of scary and since its Halloween night I can't tell if it's meant to look like that or if it's genuinely haunted. I don't think twice about it, I make my sisters a deal.

"If we go to this house it's going to be the last one, after that we should start heading home. Then we can look at all the candy you guys got. Does that sound like a plan?" I say, hoping they won't start complaining at the thought of going home.

They look at each other and sometimes I swear they can hear each others thoughts. They're really close in age, only two years apart. When they've finished thinking things through to each other (silently I might add) they turn back to the house and reply to my bargain with a simple "Okay, sounds like a plan."

Thank God, is what I think this weather is not suitable for any person in their right mind. So we walk up to the house and strangely it gets kind of warm, it kind of feels like I'm standing next to a heater. It was freaking me out to say the truth. My sisters noticed it too, I could tell by their expressions and the way they were silently conversing with each other. This feeling made our approach up to the door seem to take hours instead of minutes.

We finally reached the front door. I extended my arm as far as I could- I didn't want to get any closer than I already was- to ring the doorbell but with a loud BANG the door flew open right before our eyes. It took the breath out of me because it scared me so bad. I looked down at my sisters but they didn't look scared at all in fact they looked sort of like they knew it was going to happen. All of a sudden I just see my youngest sister, Samara, run as fast as I've ever seen her run into the house. I was just terrified I stood motionless unable to comprehend what she had just done. I snapped out of it as quickly as I could and grabbed Mari's hand and ran in after her.

When I reached the flight of stairs the temperature seemed to drop. "This is not good" I thought to myself. Why does the temperature feel like it keeps changing? I was getting really worried right now, where had my youngest sister run off to?

"Samara?!" I called out hoping that this would solve everything, knowing that it wouldn't.

Out of nowhere I heard a loud thud and this sent a ring of alarm throughout my whole body. That couldn't have anything to do with Samara. I was freaking out. I grabbed Mari's hand tighter and went running looking through all the rooms as I went. My breathing was picking up and my imagination was running wild. I thought I was seeing shapes or various objects when in reality, nothing was there. Then I heard it. I heard my little sister's voice.

I stopped right where I was and picked up Mari knowing that that would not be an easy task being that she was already seven and in second grade but I had to move faster, I had to follow Samara's voice.

I heard it again, I followed. Mari began to cry silently on my shoulder and I knew that this was not right at all. We had to leave this house and NOW.

I finally followed my sister's voice to a door. This door was unusually older than the other ones, I noticed. I grabbed the doorknob and held my breath. What could I expect? Never mind that, my sister was behind the door I had to go in no matter what was there. I had to save her.

I opened the door and there she was safe and sound but she was just standing in the middle of the room talking to someone that I apparently could not see. This is weird I though but there was no sign of alarm or panic in her face. Right when I thought that no one was in immediate danger there was a giant flash of purple light! I couldn't see and was momentarily blinded. I grabbed the back of my Mari's head and held it to my shoulder I didn't want her to see this light. I shut my eyes and was yelling for Samara to come to me. Just when I thought nothing else could go wrong a high pitched buzzing sound went off and I could no longer even hear myself yelling my sister's name.

Then there was just darkness through my eyelids and silence in my ears.

I looked over to where my little sister was standing and she wasn't there but there was a black ring of burnt wood where she had been standing. I ran over to where that ring was and felt the temperature change yet again. I began crying because I didn't understand anything that was going on. I looked around then I saw it.

There was a large opening in the ceiling that was the cause of this temperature change in this room. Beyond this hole was what looked like a motorcycle or a jet ski of some kind, only this device was floating in midair! On top of this, thing, there was a great beast! It had really big eyes and had purple skin, a shade lighter than the bright light had been. The worst part of all, I see Samara sitting right behind him in some sort of cage. Only this cage is made of electric waves not the regular ones you would see normally. I called out her name through my tears and before I was even done with the last syllable of her name she was gone.

Assignment #8: The Necklace

In the story, "The Necklace", there is a moral implied. This moral is that you should tell the truth. If Mathilde would have told the truth ten years before, when she had lost the necklace, she wouldn't have to have spent most of her life the way she did. The moral also implies that if you tell the truth no matter what you think the consequences will be you will not have to worry or even have to pay for your actions. Mathilde should have just told the lady so that she wouldn't have had to get all the money back and it changed her life forever.

 

Mathildes' attitude is superficial. In other words she is a shallow person. If she had not been so envious of others and their material possessions she would not have had such a rough life, working to pay off a debt that was unnecessary in the first place. Being envious is just one of the many "wisdom teachings" that can be found throughout the story, "The Necklace". An example from the story of when Mathilde showed envy would be, "She looked at him out of furious eyes, and said impatiently: "And what do you suppose I am to wear at such an affair?" (Page 3, The Necklace). When she said this she said it out of envy and maybe even a bit of classless. Her husband had just offered her an exclusive invitation to a great party and she was just flat out rude about it. Envy would be the teaching that is that is noticed the easiest but there is also other ones that are hidden deeper into the story.

Another "wisdom teaching" that had to be looked for deeper in this story is about trust. When Mathilde had borrowed that special necklace from Madame Forestier she had made a promise to Forestier to return it safely and to take good care of it. Mathilde also made and internal promise to herself that she would return it, that's how she ended up going through all the trouble of ten years of hardships to pay off her own promise. So the key issue here would be trust and promises. It kept the story going and gave it a purpose. This particular "wisdom teaching" may not have been as obvious but it is definitely there. It "secretly" made the story into its final product.

There were so many teachings that one could grasp from the story "The Necklace". The ones that I happened to grasp and get out of it were the two main teachings. One was rather obvious and shown throughout most of the story, this was envy. Mathilde had no right to show this feeling but yet she did and myself as a reader has learned from it. There is still the matter that there are teachings that weren't so obvious like trust and promises and the relationship between them. This was a little bit harder to see but if you look hard enough it's the teaching that shaped top whole entire story. So the two teachings that I found were the felling and consequences of showing envy towards other people, and the relationship between trust and promises.