Sunday, October 18, 2009

Communication or Adrenalin Rush

I am supposed to start this paragraph off by telling you what I think value is. But to me value is a word thrown around from person to person stating one person’s idea about something another person has thought of or had done. When people say something has value, it is up to the creator to accept or reject that person’s criticism. To me the only person who should decide whether something you made has value is yourself. Because people in this world can have so many things that could change their prospective on what you did like race, religion, relationships, so you can’t trust anyone other than yourself. So value is what you make of it and no one else should change your decision.

It is Friday, during school I can think about is the game this afternoon. Minutes seem like hours and as the time passes my mind thinks of winning. Throughout the day I question myself on how good the other team is going to be. Are they fast, strong, tough, soft, weak, slow? All these questions and more zoom through my head. Finally I hear the bell ring and it’s the end of school time to get to the locker room and change for our battle against the other team. As I walk from Ms. Cross’ class I meet up with some of my fellow freshman brothers (team mates) and we walk through the thick doors to the locker room. The smell in the air is of sweat and smelly shoes. I walk over to my lockers, put in the combinations and slid my locks off. Push up on the handle and pull the door open. I take out my pants, jockstrap, and girdle first. Take off my pants and shoes, and put on my girdle then my jockstrap, and lastly my pants. I throw my game jersey on without my shoulder pads, grab my cleats, shoulder pads, and helmet and go into the school’s back gym. When I sit against the wall my mind wonders off into a calm environment. Everything around me disappears and my mind gets set on what’s going to happen later on. I visualize myself running the ball on a 221 guard trap or a 825 belly, breaking through a couple of guys on the other team and running in the open for a touchdown. Then Coach Lafortune and Coach Sabbs walk into the room, the place goes quiet as we listen for instruction. As we go through role call I hear my fellow players anxious and ready for what is in store. Next we head up to the field where we warm up for our fight to win. As soon as I walk onto the field my heart rate speeds up, my adrenalin starts pumping, and I realize that it is in fact " game time."

I wake up turn to my desk and press the off button on my phones alarm clock. It is five thirty am. And my phone has just woken me up to start my school day. I own a black LGTU720 or commonly known as the LG Shine. It is covered with black thin metal and a glass screen that also works as a mirror. It slides up to show the dial numbers/ alphabet for texting, and also has a joystick to move left, right, up, down, and diagonal. It does so much for me like lets me communicate in different ways to friends and family. Lets me listen to music, play games, take photos, and videos. Without my cell phone it would be very hard to live my life. I am constantly away from home so it I need a ride or just to say what’s up then I use my cell phone. Not to mention that it is convenient if I’m not at someone’s house. So it has many uses which is why it is so valuable to me. That and the fact that I spent one hundred and fifty dollars on it, which I hated to spend, but I was in need of a new cell phone that wasn’t from 2000 (just kidding my other phone I had before was like from 2007 and I got the Shine in late 2008 early 2009).

So if I had to choose which was more valuable, the feeling I have on a freshman football game day or my cell phone, I would have to choose the feeling on a Friday football game. I mean don’t get me wrong I love my cell phone and I wouldn’t be able to function without it, but I barley got to tell you the feeling I feel on Friday freshman football games because it is an indescribable feeling that runs through my body and it makes me feel happy, intense, ready, excited, etc... all together. One last thing I would like to leave you readers with is that probably in every accession I would pick the priceless moment because you can buy more things that expensive things and make them the same value as another priced item, but at least for me it was hard to find a priceless moment in my mind because a lot of times priceless moments are hard to come by. At least that’s what I think, but who really cares what I think anyway right?

Sunday, October 4, 2009

First Quarter Outside Reading Book

First Quarter Outside Reading Book

Trouble Comes Back by Keith Snyder. Walker Publishing,1999. Genre: Suspense Fiction

Trouble Comes Back is the third installment of the life of Jason Keltner. The story is about three young men named Jason Keltner, Robert Goldstein, and Martin Altamarino who help out rock star Dwight Copper. In return Copper lets them take care of his daughter Donna , who became fond of Robert. They soon find out that there is a kidnaping threat and Lissa Court, Copper’s ex-wife is a suspect. Then later in the story Donna gets kidnaped and the Kidnaper want Lissa to pay him/her one million dollars for her return. After Lissa pays, Jason hires a loan shark to find and kill the kidnaper, who they later find out is Martin’s mom’s ex-boyfriend Ed. The story ends with Jason living in a beach house in Southern California with his new girlfriend he met when investigating Lissa in New York City. The setting of the story is mostly in Southern California, but also goes to New York for a short period of time.

"An amusing mystery.... It’s always a good idea for an author to keep the action slightly ahead of the reader, and that’s how Snyder operates during most of this entertaining high-tech tale." -Los Angeles Times , reads the book jacket.


Trouble Comes Back show the three main character Robert, Jason, and Martin a little older now and starting to settle down until Martin asks for help. This book is similar as two earlier books in the series Show Control and Coffin’s Got the Dead Guy on the Inside as it too follows Jason and his friends in crime-solving mysteries. CSI, NCIS, and The Mentalist are all crime-solving, mystery show that remind me of this book with kidnaping, drugs, vulgar vocabulary, and murder.

"The gray door opened in and the iron security door swung out and Lissa Court shot straight at Jason. Her nails came up and raked his forearms as he raised them to protect his face."
"You f**k!" she screamed. "You goddamn f**k!"
" He didn’t have a reaction ready, so he just kept his arms up and blocked her reasonably well. Frannie the makeup lady, standing in the doorway, dropped her tackle box and hurried after Lissa." (166)

After reading this book I really want to read the first two and the fourth installment he Snyder wrote. I would like to read one of his books not in the series to see what other kinds of writing he writes. I think I really liked the topic of this book because I am a huge fan of crime and mystery books so I had a fun time reading this book. Also another thing I liked about this book is that it kept me guessing which I liked and which made me want to read on.

Friday, September 11, 2009

A little help from a stranger

The first book used in this story is A Child Called It, the character used is David. The second booked used in this story is The Contender, the character used is Alfred.

It was a Wednesday around noon time, Alfred was sweeping the floors of the Epstein’s store. Everything was going all right in Harlem. Then suddenly Alfred heard Mr. Epstein yell,"shoplifter!" Alfred turned around and Mr. Epstein told him," go get that kid"

Alfred ran out the door and saw a kid running with food in his hands. Alfred ran as fast as he could run over to the kid. It didn’t take long for him to catch the kid thanks to all Alfred’s conditioning. When he grabbed the kid he turned him around and said,"what were you thinking little man you could get in big trouble stealing."

"I’m sorry Mr. I’m just so hungry", said the boy. Then Alfred noticed that the boy had bruised arms, legs, and tethered clothes. "Hey you got a home little man?" Alfred asked.

"Yes Mr, why do you ask?" said the boy.

"Then why do you have bad clothes and bruises everywhere?" Alfred asked. After a while of talking with the boy Alfred found out that the kid’s name was David. Also he found out that David and his family were out here on vacation and David ran away. Alfred also found out why David has bad clothes and bruises everywhere. After David told Alfred about his life and the sick games David’s mom plays with him, all Alfred could say was," Wow if I had your lifestyle I don’t know if I would be alive right now, I might of not had the courage you have to go on and live.

"Alfred now knew David’s life sucked and wasn’t going to turn him in. So Alfred told David to wait where he was, Alfred went back to Epstein’s store with the stolen food, told Mr. Epstein that when Alfred was closing in on catching him the boy dropped the food and kept running. "So I picked up the food forgot the kid and walked back here" explained Alfred. The store was closed when he got back Mr. Epstein closed it early that night so Alfred ran back to David and invited him back to his house for dinner.

David agreed and on the way to Alfred’s house Dave and Alfred talked about Dave’s childhood before his mom went crazy. When they did get to Alfred’s apartment and went upstairs Alfred introduce Dave to his aunt Pearl. Alfred then told Dave to go in the living room and watch some t.v. When Dave was gone Alfred told his aunt about Dave and what he’s gone through in a short version. Alfred’s aunt felt so bad that she went out and bought food for a feast Dave would never forget. When aunt Pearl came back and was done cooking all the food she called Alfred and Dave in from the living room. When Dave saw that he was gonna eat roast beef with gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans, and with a side of cornbread, his mouth started to water up.

"Is this for all of us?" Dave asked. Yes, aunt Pearl replied. Dave loved the whole meal and ate as much as he could taking helping after helping. It took almost and hour for to finish the meal. After they were all done aunt Pearl went into the oven and pulled out a pie. David’s eye’s grew wider as his mouth dropped to the ground. He was so happy and thankful for everything he jumped up ran and hugged aunt Pearl.

After desert Alfred told Dave that he was going to sleep over that night. "But I don’t think my mother would like that" Dave said.

"I wouldn’t worry about your mother anymore Dave" Alfred said. The next day Alfred brought Dave to the police and Alfred explained to Dave that if he told the police officer about his mom then he wouldn’t have to worry about her ever again. So Dave started to explain everything that his mom did to him for the past years to the police man.