"The Cherokee River Reservation"

        Going to the poorest place in America really changes you. You feel better for helping. You feel angry because these people aren't getting the justice they deserve. You feel lucky for the things you have. Most of all you feel sympathetic towards these good people. I believe helping people and being happy is all you need to be a good person.

          After a fourteen hour car ride we finally made it, we made it to the Cherokee River Reservation in South Dakota. My point of view changed forever. The town was full of run down businesses and houses, scrap metal, stray dogs, and cluttered backyards. The kids and people however, were some of the most happiest people I ever met. Here I was in a town overcome with poverty, with some of the happiest people on earth. They lived in poorly kept houses, there was litter everywhere, and their family could barely feed them. They were so happy and optimistic. It made me realize that you don't need a perfect home and family to be happy. 

         It surprised me, these people were the first people to live in this country, and the government forced them into a far corner in the country to live there for generations. We were there to show them support and charity. I learned several lessons from this experience, including you just need love to be happy and helping people makes you feel better. This gave me a whole new outlook on life. I realized I shouldn't take advantage of the life I have, but I also don't need things that aren't necessary to be happy. 

          The main things I want you to take from this is helping people makes you happy and a better person, and you don't need material things to be happy. I just people to appreciate what they have and help people who might have less. 

End of Year Reflection Blog

1- What are the three most important things you learned this year?

     I learned several important this year, however the three most important things I learned were procrastination makes you more stressed than actually doing what you need to do, do your work and actually try (you might surprise yourself with what you can accomplish), and don't fall behind catching will be torture. I've actually learned these things over the past two years, but really figured these lessons out this year. 

2- What is something we did this year that you think you will remember for the rest of your life?

     I will definitely remember reading To Kill A Mockingbird and reading Tuesdays With Morrie. I will remember reading these novels because I enjoyed them, and they taught me valuable lessons. Lessons such as trying to see things from other points of view, life is unfair but you can still enjoy it, death isn't something you should be scared of, etc. The things I've learned from reading the books will stay with me forever.

3- What was the nicest thing someone in our class did for you this year?

    The nicest thing someone did for me was when Mrs. Larson gave me the To Kill A Mockingbird movie. I missed seeing the movie and the book vs movie blog was due. She gave me her personal copy of the movie so I could be caught up. Even though she could have just told me to go to the library or find it online she actually just gave it to me, I thought it was very nice of her.

4- What is something you taught your teacher or classmates this year?

    I'm not really sure if taught my classmates or teacher this year. If I did I probably taught them something about my Butterfly project and other things like that. It might have not stuck with them however. I might've even unintentionally taught my teacher or classmates something though. I wish I knew if I did or didn't.

5- In what area do you feel you made your biggest improvements? What is something you accomplished this year that you are proud of?

   I definitely made my biggest improvements in my writing. We did lots of writing this year and the practice must have really helped. Obviously there is still room for improvement, but I'm proud of how far I've come from the beginning of the year. I'm extremely proud of my argumentative essay against animal testing, and my "Night book vs Life is Beautiful film blog". I worked very hard on those two pieces, I'm very proud of how they turned out.

6- What was the most challenging part of this year for you?

    The most challenging part of this year was our To Kill A Mockingbird unit. There was a lot of things you needed to do like the chapter chart, annotations, and answering the questions after each chapter. On top of that we still had our weekly blog, AOW, and vocab tests. I was also absent so I had to catch up with all that too. It was a rough time, but I still enjoyed the book.

7- What was the best piece of writing that you did this year? Why do you think it is your best?

     Like I said the best pieces of writing I did this year was my argumentative essay against animal testing, and my "Night book vs Life is Beautiful film blog". I can't decide which one is better because I worked equally as hard on them. They were my best because I used bigger vocabulary, I worked on them for a while, and I put lots into them. I'm very proud of how they turned out.

8- Of the books you read this year, which was your favorite? Why?

    Honestly, Tuesdays With Morrie was my favorite book this year. However I still do love To Kill A Mockingbird. Tuesdays With Morrie was my favorite because it had so many great life lessons that I will remember. I also enjoyed it more because it was a beautiful true story. 

9- What advice would you give students who will be in this class next year?

      My advice to next year's class is work hard, do your homework, and don't get left behind. If you do these things your year will not be torture. If you don't do things try your hardest to get back on this track. I used to not do these things and this class was extremely difficult and it was very hard to do these things. If you start off in the right direction, this class will be much better.

Aphorism project

           The aphorism I chose was, "Sometimes you can't believe what you see; you have to believe what you feel." In general I just thought this quote was very powerful. I think Morrie was trying to say you can't judge things by the way they look or their labels or anything else; you shouldn't look at everything with clouded eyes. He was saying you have to try to look deeper than the surface. You can't just go around seeing things and judging things not knowing the whole story or only seeing things from your point of view. Basically what Morrie is trying to say is to put all differences aside and look at things with understanding and empathy.

             I can relate this aphorism to several different things. However, I'm just going to relate it to one thing. A few days ago I saw a video called "I am not black and you are not white" the whole point of the video was to get people to stop seeing things with labels. I feel that this relates to Morrie's aphorism because the message was to basically see things with your heart, not just your eyes. The message of both the video and the aphorism is to look at things label free and judgment free. Basically we just need to look and see things with an open heart and an open mind.

              I completely agree with this aphorism and its message. I agree with it because the message is just so positive and powerful. I believe that everyone believes what they truly feel, we would have a much more peaceful world. I think this because people are so quick to judge, even if they don't know the whole story or something like that. People have clouded vision because of what they are taught and what they think they believe. Deep down I know if people dug deep and saw things without bias or clouded vision, there would be a lot less problems.

"Uncloud your eyes, look at things with your heart." -Lilly M.

Socratic Seminar Reflection

These past four Socratic seminars have really made me realize that Tuesdays With Morrie was really deep and metaphorical. The aphorisms became more intense or deeper because of these conversations. We went more in depth with his point of view of life. His way of thinking shows me that in order to be a good person you just need to be loving, compassionate, caring, forgiving, and follow the right things. 

              Trends I noticed with myself during the seminars were that I would only speak once or twice, but I was really listening. My goals didn't necessarily help me, expect the last seminar was slightly more successful for me. I guess as we kept doing them, I became more comfortable with the idea. Even though I didn't contribute as much as I should have, I really understood the other points my classmates were making. They really helped me with finding a deeper meaning of the book.

               Some trends I noticed in the seminars were that we changed topics very quickly and people kept interrupting each other. Even though we did those things, we were still able to have in depth conversations about the book or similar topics. I also noticed towards the last two seminars we didn't necessarily feel the need to talk about the book. We talked about related topics. We were having one big, real conversation which is really what a socratic seminar is about. All in all, the seminars were successful.

Tuesdays With Morrie

In the novel Tuesdays With Morrie every chapter is about a life lesson. Each Tuesday is a new chapter and lesson. These lessons include the world, feeling sorry for yourself, regrets, death, family, and emotions. These are all powerful and important lessons. They have all spoken to me on a personal level. However, the one that impacted me the most was Death.

        The Tuesday about Death just really opened my eyes about life and the way we live it. The quote that really blew my mind was, "The truth is, once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.” This is basically saying you should have a life you love so much that you would have no problem dying tomorrow because you are completely satisfied with what you have done and accomplished. This could also mean there is no better time to live in than the now. Morrie is just trying to tell us to live for the right reasons.

        Another Tuesday that really inspired me was Emotions. Emotions play a big part of our lives. We have feelings for evolutionary reasons. Sometimes we do not wish to feel, or at least do not wish to have bad feelings. Morrie's take on this really interested me, "If you hold back on the emotions--if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them--you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid. You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief. You're afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails. But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your heard even, you experience them fully and completely." This means if you avoid your emotions it makes everything worse. Pretending like bad emotions don't exist is like pretending you don't exist, it doesn't end well. Avoiding emotions like these cause them to bottle up and they will eventually explode out into one big meltdown that could last as long as you've been holding things in. All Morrie is saying is, to not be afraid to feel, feeling this way is something you can't avoid, so you might as well fully experience it.