# 8

I have a pet octopus, the day that i got him was on the 8th of october, I was in eighth grade, when i picked him out he was a octuplet which means he was born him and his brothers and sisters would make make a octagon if you drew a line to connect them. when i brought him home i brought him home on a octocycle with my friends.

Outside reading #3

I decided to switch to a new book, because i didnt really like a million little pieces so far. The book that i switched to is called Perfect by Natasha Friend. From the summary that i read on the back of the book i can see that this book is about a girl who doesnt like the way that she looks, and she has an eating disorder. Personally i can relate to this is many ways. Some of my friends have had some types of eating disorders in the past. I think that eating disorders can be very hard on a person and their friends and family. The girl in the book has also been dealing with the death of her father, so it seems that she doesnt have the easiest life and there seem to be many challenges throughout her life so far.

3

There was a set of triplets in my third hour class, my third hour class was choir, those three triplets sang a trio, they sat on tricycles and put them in a triangle, the song they sang was about a tripod of triceratops. 

Spontaneous word poem

I jump when kelly pees

it looks like lemons thrusting

kirstin likes to yell at sprinkles when they start to slide down the sides of her ice cream

when kelly jumps her earlobes tend to bounce, like lemons being dropped 

when kelly tripped her phone slipped out of her shirt

the book that kirstin likes to skip with is 31 pages 

her book is about how trees and grass are sweet tasting

when a hand falls and hits the car next to her it leaves a small scratch.

outside reading blog #1

I have just started the book A Million Little Pieces by James Fray. The reason that I chose to read this book is because a lot of my friends have said that it is a very good book, even though it might be full of lies I still think it can be a good book. The second reason I wanted to read this book is because I heard that it is about addictions, and I suddenly made a connection to addictions. My dad is a alcoholic so therefore I knew I could probably understand to some degree about what's going on during the book and how his family feels.

So much depends upon...

So much depends upon

a purple egg

smooth and shiny 

smells of its taste, brown and smooth

with a crunch

So much depends upon

the sweet chirps of birds in the background

the trees are bare

the smell of the gentle wind

it feels like the wind of relief

Causes of the Holocaust body paragraph

There were many causes that lead up to the Holocaust happening. Its important to examine these causes because it is such a horrible event that many people can not understand how it happened. First there was a lot of political success id the Nazi party in Germany. Then after numerous military successes which were from 1939 to 1942 they continued to gain government control. This included invading East Europe, France, Denmark, Holland, and Russia, not just thousands of Jews. This was made worse because the economy was so bad and times were very tense. This control that Hitler tried to have was often focused on the Jewish population. There was a lot of blame going around and it seemed "easy" to make the Jewish population an easy scapegoat. Hitlers ultimate goal was to "purify" Germany by sending Jews to concentration camps. Not everybody agrees on all the causes, some would evan argue that Hitler has syphilis which caused paranoia, a bad temper, and unrealistic goals (Kimel, 1). Whether or not everyone can agree on the fact that it happened and the effects have lasted many life times.

SOURCES:

http://kimel.net/direct.html

http://www.kawvalley.k12.ks.us/schools/rjh/marneyg/05_holocaust-projects/05_sobba_causes-statistics.htm

Global issue's (poverty)

There are people in poverty across the world, about half of the people in the world are suffering from poverty, that is about 3 billion people, most of those people are living  on less than $2.50 a DAY. One billion of those people are children. 10.6 million children in 2003 died before they reached the age of five because they are living in poverty. I think this is a really big issue in the world today that needs to be changed. When I think of poverty it reminds me of Nectar in a Sieve, because the food is very scarce in the book and many people who are living in poverty can't afford meals. People who grow up living in poverty usually don't have the chance that kids get who live in a normal home, they don't have any education, which can cause them to end up living in poverty when they grow older, also they don't have health care. Without health care I wouldn't have the shots I need to prevent sicknesses that I could possibly die from, imagine not having health care. Around the world everyday 27-30,000 children die every day, one child dies every three seconds, twenty die every minute. There clearly needs to be something done about poverty. 

picture: http://www.borgenproject.org/sitebuilder/images/Africa_poverty-383x480.png

http://www.globalissues.org/issue/2/causes-of-poverty

National Holidays (April Fools)

I read an article about April fools, also known as All Fools Day, it is known as one of the most light hearted days of the year. There is really no origin of this holiday, and there is no calender that can show when the first april fools day was. Some people might say that the holiday represents the change of seasons, and some people just say its the adoptin of the new calendar, i think it represtents the change of seasons because its a fun day around the change from winter to spring. 

picture: http://blog.redfin.com/sfbay/files/2008/03/april-fool-illus.jpg

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/aprilfools1.html

http://wilstar.com/holidays/aprilfool.htm

Causes of the Holocaust

Some causes of the Holocaust were:

1. The political success of the Nazi party.

2. Hitler's diplomatic and then military successes from 1939-42, invading France, Denmark, Holland and much of Eastern Europe and Russia, giving the Nazi regime governmental control over millions, not just thousands of Jews

3. Nazi's took advantage of Germany.

4. Communists 

5. Hitler wanted to "purify" Germany.

6. Hitler blamed the Jews for loosing WW1, so thats why he sent them to the concentration camps and why he hated them.

7. The economy was bad. They needed someone to blame for that so they blamed the Jews.

8. According to Alexander Kimel Hitler's mental health was a direct cause of the Holocaust. It is thought that his brain was damaged by syphilis; this caused him to be paranoid, brutal, and have illusions of grandeur. 

  

Culture (food)

The Mexican culture is a lot different from the American culture. For example the food is a lot different. In the Mexican culture they eat a lot differently when they are eating traditional, everyday meals. I can make a connection to the Mexican culture. I went to Mexico in 7th grade and i ate a lot of traditional Mexican food from there, like salsa, nachos, tacos and much more. I think the food in mexico is erally good and i like it because its a different typer of food from american food.

Change

The article that I read was about Climate Change. The earth today has been heating up because of pollution, like power plants, cars and many other sources. There is a thick blanket of pollution over our planet. Personally i think that this is a really big issue because global warming is causing many problems. Some issues are that the polar bears are dyeing because the planet is getting too warm for them which is causing them to die. Climate change can also cause stronger hurricanes more drought and increased coral deaths. I can relate climate change to Nectar in a Sieve because they had a monsoon, which is a huge rain storm, which in some ways is like a hurricane. Then there was a drought, which is caused by global warming. So therefore change is a issue around the world, but change can also be good. 

http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/news/science/topics/globalwarming/

http://www.nature.org/initiatives/climatechange/activities/art19631.html

Hope

I read a poem called "Hope" by Emily Dickinson.   She writes about hope using the metaphor of feathers, feathers give hope to a bird by letting it fly.  If we can not fly, we are literally stuck on the ground and cannot reach for our life goals.  When she says it perches on our soul, I think it means that everyone has hope deep down.  It sings without words because we are not hopeful about the same thing all of our lives, but hopeful about different things at different time.  Hope never stops.  You are always going to have something bad happen, life is not perfect, there will be storms that take away our hope for awhile.  Hope is a gift to us all, it never asks anything from us.  We just must let it have wings.  

Hope      Hope is the thing with feathers  That perches in the soul,  And sings the tune--without the words,  And never stops at all, And sweetest in the gale is heard;  And sore must be the storm  That could abash the little bird  That kept so many warm. I've heard it in the chillest land,  And on the strangest sea;  Yet, never, in extremity,  It asked a crumb of me.

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/hope-is-the-thing-with-feathers/

picturehttp://thedemocraticdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/hope-300x200.jpg

Religion

I read an article called Simple Solidarity on the Catholic Spirit website. The article was about fasting during lent and eating simple meals with the money we save on food we can donate that money to operation rice bowl which is a program ran by catholic relief services. Last year operation rice bowl raised more than 7 million dollars, 75% of the money is used to fight hunger in 45 countries. The other 25% of the money supports food shelves and soup kitchens in the US. This year catholic relief services hopes to send relief to Kenya. Across Kenya children are dyeing approx. 10 million Kenyans are effected by the food shortage. The pathetic situation in Kenya was caused my drought in 2007 and by violence that steamed from the 2007 election in Kenya. Through out lent simple recipes will be published in the catholic Spirit from countries that are served by catholic relief services. People are asked to put the money that they save from eating simple meatless meals into the Operation Rice Bowl box to donate to catholic relief services. Every day on the news and in newspapers we hear about the world hunger crisis by substituting simple meals for costly meals and donating the money we are standing together with or world wide brothers and sisters. 

http://diosav.org/files/orb-round-logo.gif

http://www.thecatholicspirit.com/

Gender Roles

The role of women and the attitude towards women has changed a ton throughout the past decade. Women didn't have as many opportunities as men, women went allowed to have some job like being doctors, being the president, going to college and also education. There has been an increase in women's employment rate. In some countries women don't have the opportunities that women in the US have. Some women don't even know how to read or write. In india what their "roll" is is to have women and do the housework pretty much. I think that living in a different country would be a lot harder because the role of women now is a lot better than it was 100 years evan 40 ago. 

http://iss.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/9/1/87

picture:http://iamasonofgod.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/gender.jpg

Culture

From the novel that we have read in our english 10 class i have learned that my culture is very different from the Indian culture. In the indian culture they have arranged marriages, In my culture we don't have arranged marriages. The indian culture the wife has to give a dowry which is money that the wife bring to the husband when they get married. In my culture we dont have to do that. There are many differences between my culture and the Indian culture.  

Overcoming struggle

When I think of overcoming struggle I think of Dr. Mel Goldstein. He has been living with a type of bone marrow cancer for 11 years. He was only supposed to live for an estimated 2 or 3 years and now he has been living for 11 years. He reminds me of my moms good friend, she was diagnosed with breast cancer a little over 2 years ago. She has gone threw therapy, surgeries and many other things. Now to this day she has been cancer free. It can take a little or a lot to overcome a struggle. Struggles can be something bit or something small, for Dr. Mel Goldstein and my moms friend i would say that their struggles are pretty major struggles. 

http://healthcorner.walgreens.com/display/1679.htm  

Natural Disasters

In this weeks article that i read about natural disasters i read about hurricane Katrina that happened in New Orleans, i thought that this is a important natural diasater because it happened in our country. The article was about rebuilding 2 years after Katrina, it was about a 52 year old man whose house got destroyed my hurricane Katrina. He had to watch his 3 year old granddaughter fall off the roof and disappear under the water and his mother die on the roof. This reminds me of Nectar in a Sieve when there is a monsoon and everything gets destroyed. There are similarities and differences in both texts. The similarities are they both had a type of rain storm, people loose their houses, loose jobs and crops. The differences are in Nectar in a Sieve Rukmani and her family are in poverty to begin with and don't have much, and Robert Green wasn't in poverty. I think that both situations would be very hard to be in. 

http://sks.sirs.com

I was reading another parenting article and it was about how to prevent yourself from spoiling your kids. At first when i thought about this topic i was thinking that it really wouldnt be that hard to spoil your kids, when i thought of "spoiling" what first came to my mind was just dont buy your kids what they want when they want it or giving them money whenever they need it but as i started to read the article on spoiling your kids it got interesting and i leared a lot. Teach your children the difference between wants and needs, for example every child needs a pair of shoes. There is no reason to get a new pair of shoes every time you go shopping.

Teach your child to save and budget.

Donate items that are not needed or played with.

I didnt realize that simple things like donating toys that children dont need could be a part f spoiling your child.

I was reading a article on preventing childhood obesity, i learned a lot from the article. Child obesity rates are rising. According to the American Obesity Association, obesity among children ad teens is reaching epidemic levels. Around 30% of children and teens are overweight and about 15% are obese in America. I think this is a issue that needs to be changed, Personally i think parents need to set a good example for their kids and they should eat healthy, and right from when their children can start eating real foods they should be eating food that are good for them and they should eat foods that are low in fat. Also i think that exercise is a big issue also, children and teens should be involved in activities and should be exercising daily, like taking the dog on a walk to playing sports. By doing those things i think children and evan adults would be a lot healthier and in better shape. 

I was reading about cancer research, i'm reading about this topic because its very important to me, both my grandpa and grandma passed away from cancer, and my mom has skin cancer, and we have family friends who have cancer and who have passed away from cancer. I think that cancer is a very sensitive topic, well it is to me. What i read about cancer research today was interesting, i read that they are finding everyday changes to prevent breast cancer, it said thatAlong with age and family history, diet and physical activity are important risk factors for breast cancer. And cancer experts say it’s important to focus on the factors you can control. 

“We know that for breast cancer that develops after menopause -- which is by far the most common type -- maintaining a healthy weight and avoiding weight gain, being physically active every day, and limiting or avoiding alcohol, all seem to lower risk substantially,” explains AICR Nutrition Advisor Karen Collins, MS, RD.   

I read the fishing report for Leech lake with my little brother because he likes to fish a lot. For ice fishing this winter has been very good on Leech lake. When the lake isnt frozen its a great lake for muskie fishing, there are a lot of people who go up to Leech lake to go muskie fishing. 

I read something about fun facts about gymnastics and some of the questions were:

Where did this sport begin?


What's the estimated number of participants of this sport in the USA?


How old is this sport?

• Gymnastics, as an activity sport, has been around for over 2000 years but as a competitive sport it is a little more than 100 years old.
  
  
• In the 1830s, the sport of gymnastics was introduced to United States and its school systems by such immigrants as Charles Beck, Charles Follen and Francis Lieber.
  
  
• The first large-scale competition was the 1896 Olympics in Athens, Greece. There, Germany have been the dominant team by almost sweeping every medal. Five countries have participated in this event. Men's competitions included horizontal bar, parallel bars, pommel horse, rings, and vault.

I was reading a article about USA junior diving and the program is for divers who are 18 and younger, and you can start from learn to dive to the gold team which is the team that travels and competes in different states and sometimes even different countries. In the spring there are 10 region championships, from there divers will qualify for other big diving meets, like the speedo invitational. 

I was reading about cancer and i found out that about 1.4 million new cases of cancer will be diagnosed in the United States in 2005, and more than 550,000 people will die of the disease. Cancer is the second leading cause of death in this country. However, improvements in cancer detection, diagnosis, and treatment have increased the survival rate for many types of cancer. About 64 percent of all people diagnosed with cancer will be alive 5 years after diagnosis.

I also learned that cancer is a disease that begins in the bodies cells and that you can get cancer in almost every body part of your body, i thought that that was really interesting. 

I was reading a article from the Star Tribune and it was about how in small towns they dont have very many doctors or even  none. In Waseca in the emergency room there are no physicians for the ER in this small town, so they have hired "midlevels" which are nurse practitioners and physician assistants. They do all sorts of things like cut fingers to heart attacks. I thought this article was really interesting because i didn't know that people a step lower than nurses did all the same work that doctors can do. 

I was reading about strange facts about animals and here are some facts that i came across. crocodiles are not able to stick out their tongues. Hedgehog's heartbeats beat over 300 times per min. A snail can sleep for 3 years. cats pee glows under a black light. camels have three eyelids to protect their eyes from blowing sand. The longest flight record for a chicken is 13 seconds. elephants are the only animal that can't jump. Porcupines float in water. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain. Slugs have four noses. Robins eat 3 miles a earthworms a year. Worms have ten hearts. Goldfish have a memory span of three seconds. Snakes can see through their eyelids. Kangaroos cannot walk backwards. A cat has 32 muscles in each ear. A woodpecker can peck a piece of wood 20 times per second. Tigers have striped skin, not striped fur. The praying mantis is the only animal that can turn its head 360 degrees. Hamsters blink with one eye at a time. A full grown bear can run as fast as a horse. 

I was reading facts on sharks and i came across a lot of cool facts bout sharks. Sharks have the most powerful jaw out of all the animals in the world! Sharks bit with their lower law first then bit with their upper jaw. Then the shark tosses its head back and forth untill a piece of meat come loose the it swallows the piece of meat whole. In a sharks lifetime they will grow and use 20,000 plus teeth. Sharks have been around for over 400 million years, they have been around evan longer than dinosaurs. 

I was reading about frogs and i came across a few interesting facts about them. I learned that frogs are carnivores, which means they eat meat. Small to medium size frogs usually eat insects like flies, mosquitos, moths and dragonflies. Large frogs eat worms, and grasshoppers. Some large frogs will eat small snakes, mice, small turtles, and evan smaller frogs.

I also learned that frogs and toads are totally different from each other. Frogs need to live near to water, have eyes that bulge out more, smooth skin, have longer hind legs, take long jumps, and have many predators. Toads don't need to live by water, bumpy skin, football shaped eyes, and will run/walk or take small jumps because they don't like jumping.