Monster- Thursday July 9th

Steve Harmon is concerned about what people think about him because of the robbery he helped commit. Since he was included in the robbery where there was a murder, he is now charge with murder of the owner of the drugstore. He is concerned because there is a big group of teenagers that are coming to watch what is going on during a trial. `` I went into the courtroom; I saw a group of kids sitting in front. It looked like a junior high school class… When I looked at the kids in the class, they turned away from me quickly. `` (p. 97). This quote proves that Steve is concerned about what people think of him, since he is on trial for something he didn’t do. Steve sees one pretty girl but as soon as she sees him she turns around right away.

I think the whole reason why they looked away from Steve right away is because they are scared because of what he is charged for. Steve didn't say a word yet, but people tend to judge a lot before they even know his side of his story. I think that Steve is a stereotype, most people think that young black man are usually up to no good and all they do is bad stuff, because of that most people will judge him quicker especially with the charges he has.

They act like as if Steve is a monster because of what people say he did. However there is no proof that he was near the drugstore at all at this point in the trial. When you are on trial for murder every thing that is said is being considered for an innocent or guilty verdict. When you’re on trial for murder, you are all of the sudden guilty no matter what.

Steve Harmon is concerned of what people think of himself because he is at an age where young men start discovering who they are, and who they want to become. With everything that is going on, he is questioning if he is truly a monster or not,.

Monster - Monday July 6th

Monster is about a black young man on trial. This book is very interesting because of how it is written .The book is written like as if it was a movie. Its sometimes hard to read but its different. Ive never read something like this before but im starting to like it. The story line is very interesting because you see a lot of differentes stories during the testimony which could change your idea on  Steve. It also shows me a lot about what happens during a trial and in prison.

The first part of the book starts off with Steve in his cell alone in the dark. He hears noises but he doesn’t know what it is. He talks about how he hates this place and how he wants to leave but he cant because in the society's eyes, he is guilty even if they haven't proved it yet.

Steve is in the courtroom and he is talking to his lawyer and doesn’t feel like he's going to win. The lawyer said that he had to believe in himself so they can believe him. While they're in the courtroom, all the lawyers are introducing themselves and who they are representing. The jury is introduced and the testimony is starting.

While they question people Steve is writing in his book as if it’s a screenplay. The lawyers gets mad and tells him to pay attention or he may lose the trial. If Steve loses, he will go to jail for life or go on death row. This is a big trial for Steve so his lawyer is trying to prove to the jury that Steve is innocent of the murder charge.

Time To Kill and The Shawshank Redemption

Both movies were about to young prisonners but were very different. Shawshank redemption was about a young man behind the bars and Time To Kill was about a black man on trial. Both these movies you saw differents sides of courtroom and the prison life.

Shawshank Redemption was about a young man who was accused of murder of his wife and her lover. He ends up going to jail for a long time till he escapes. He bonds with one of the men in jail and also he helps around the jail as a bookkeeper and accountant. He escapes and ends up going south. In this movie you see more what happens behind the bars and how jail is really like.

The life behind bars is very hard and lonely for most people. The inmates are very rude and it scares a lot of people. A lot of the inmates scare them so much that the jail men want to kill themself. Most people in jail end up dying in jail due to the cause of suicide or life sentence.

Time To Kill is about a black man who gets charged for the murder of two young men. These two young men raped his daughter so he decides to kill both of the man. Most people think he should be innocent but others think he is guilty. Throughout the entire movie, it is mostly about Carl Lee and his trial. In the movie, you mostly see what happens during the trial. in this movie, Carl Lee kills two young men out of revenge and goes through the process of trial. After a hard battle in the courtroom, Carl Lee is found innocent.

These two movies really show us different sides of the justice system: prison and the courtroom.

There will always be more wealth for some people.

How do we make sure everyone has enough to live comfortably?

There is different situation in the world that makes them live a hard life. Everyone has a different way to feel comfortable to go through those hard moments in life. Some could be love; some could be a family or even to be around animals. No matter what it is, it`s going to be different anyone.

For people that need love in their life, they will mostly likely need a significant other. Most of them aren`t really independant. They dependant on other people, especially the person they love. They need to feel love or they will crumble down and go into a very emotional stage. That is one of the downside of needing love in their life.

The people that need money to feel comfortable are very hard working people. They will work a lot just to get money. When they don`t have money they won`t feel comfortable what so ever and it will make them go in a very bad situation. They`re will be jobs for anyone out there.
Certain people need to be around animals. Animals bring a good vibe to people and it makes them very happy. So the only thing they will need to do is buy an animal and they will be very happy and comfortable. Most people that need to be around animals are the ones that lived a hard life.

For me, is to have good people around me. I couldn’t care if I don’t have money, as long I have people that love me for who I am. Also being around an animal makes me feel happy.

Biography of Grigori Rasputin

Grigori Rasputin was born in Tyumen, district of Siberia. People believed that he was possessed by some inexplicable power that could heal people. He entered Verkhoture Monasterv but escaped to become a monk. Afterwards, he returned and got married at 19 to Proskovia Fyodorovna. Rasputin has 3 children and another one with a different woman.  

The first time he met Nicolas 2 is when his son was very ill and Nicolas needed someone to heal him. He knew that Rasputin had some sort of unknown power so he decided to take him. Nicolas son was ill with haemophilia. With Rasputin’s power he managed to stop the bleeding and was now a member of the royal palace.

After a couple of rumours that passed by, Felix Yusupov, Vladimir Purishkevich, the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich Romanov, Dr. Stanislaus de Lazovert and Lieutenant Sergei Mikhailovich Sukhotin, an officer in the Preobrazhensky Regiment, decided to kill Grigori Rasputin. The plan was to invite him for dinner and poison him. When they saw that the poison never worked, they decided to make Yusupov shoot Rasputin.

This is a quote Yusupov's said about killing Rasputin:

"Rasputin stood before me motionless, his head bent and his eyes on the crucifix. I slowly raised the crucifix. I slowly raised the revolver. Where should I aim, at the temple or at the heart? A shudder swept over me; my arm grew rigid, I aimed at his heart and pulled the trigger. Rasputin gave a wild scream and crumpled up on the bearskin. For a moment I was appalled to discover how easy it was to kill a man. A flick of a finger and what had been a living, breathing man only a second before now lay on the floor like a broken doll."

Rasputin’s body was found on December 19th by the river 65 metres from the bridge by a cop. The man that committed his murder got interviewed by the cops decided to drop the charges of murder.

How do you know your not in a dream?

The only way you truly know you’re not in a dream, is finding yourself a way or an object to know you’re in the reality. Also another way to know you're not in a dream is if you feel pain.Usually if you feel pain, it means your not dreaming. That is why poeple say the certain quote, pinch yourself to make sure you're not dreaming. A good example of bringing yourself back to reality is: in the movie Inception, he found himself back in reality with the totom. If it fell, he is not dreaming.

How does the movie truly end.

Inception end in a good way. Cobb finally sees his children. I know he is not in a dream because of the small details they said in the movie. The way the movie end, it makes you think that it is a dream, but it isn’t. When Cobb was in the dreams, he couldn’t see his children’s face. But at the end, he saw their faces. Meanwhile that proves that he was in reality.

Bloc Lost

May 2^nd was the day of the elections, and it wasn’t a surprise win. The Conservatives won, but it was a bad day for the Bloc. All that Gilles Duceppe wanted was sovereignty and it was definitely not what he got. The separatist party lost a lot of seats in the parliament, and is now down to 4 seats. In the next 4 years, the Bloc won’t be counted as an official party due to the small amount of seats. This is a big disappointment to the Bloc.

I think that the party didn’t win because all they wanted was to become their own country. But no one let them be. They lost a lot of confidence in the Quebecers because of what happened during the elections. But they said that they will try to get their confidence back from the NDP. Sovereignty is as alive as ever. 

Willaim And Kate: The Royal Wedding

The Royal Wedding was today, and it seemed like everyone was watching it. There will be a recap tonight if you missed it. The wedding was a beautiful ceremony. Kate’s dress was beautiful, Prince William was looking charming. Many countries were talking about the wedding. It seems that this subject will be very popular for a very long time. Meanwhile, there is other people that couldn’t care less about the wedding. Many people said,

 To me, it is two normal people getting married. Why should we watch it on the TV or hear about it everyday.

Our only comment is that it really shouldn't have anything to do with us in New Zealand, 12,000 miles away. Personally, I didn’t really care about the wedding.

Dream in another dream...

You’re in a city filled with men and the sky is orange and pink. It's almost night time and the men are looking at you. You see a café and you run towards it, hoping they won't kill you. You’re in a café and the tables are all taken but everyone is alone. You find a spot beside a man, he seems normal looking but then he turns around and he has no face. You’re scared and confused. You don’t know what to do and finally wake up.

Now you’re in Africa. Giraffes and elephants are everywhere. Every step you take, the animals come closer towards you. As they come closer, you try to run so you can get away from them. You finally ran away from them, but now you can’t see anything except a puddle of water and sand. The closer you get to the water; you wonder how you got there. You decide to jump in the puddle, but you forgot you can’t swim. You sink towards to bottom and cannot breathe anymore.

Bloc Quebecois

Bloc quebecois is the first party to officially have their full team for the elections, this means that they are a very organized party and are ready to fight for what they want. Thye bloc quebecois are trying real hard with the NDP to prove Harper wrong by saying that the coalition was clearly on the table during August 2004.

Why should the canadians vote for the Bloc quebecois?

The Canadians should vote for the Bloc party because if they do not vote for the bloc, there will be a big chance that the Conservatives would win and that is not what we want. The conservatives do not help anyone that the bloc would like to help. Like the elderlys and the people with no jobs. If the Canadians decide to vote for the Bloc, Gilles Duceppe will actually do what Harper said he would do and do it. Also, if the Canadians vote for the Bloc québécois, would make it a better place to live for everyone including the quebecois. They would make the country a better place to live by making it fair for everyone, by helping out everyone. The people from quebec always be last with all the budgets, and that would change if you vote for them!

10 minutes with everything off..

Recently, I was asked to turn off everything for 10 minutes and see what would happen. Surprisingly, I started to read a very interesting book.

I usually never read books, or actually finished one. It really surprised me that I took a book and started to read it. This so call book was called The confessions of Georgia Nicholson.

When I was reading Georgia Nicholson for about an hour, I found different words that I didn’t understand and it made me feel smarter. Also, a couple of them were in different languages like for example schiessenhausen.This word means a place where you poop, Schiesse means poop, and hausen is a house.

The book was really good, also very funny and I recommend it to many people that do not like to read. It was really easy to read because it goes by the time like for example: 8:30 pm, or 5 minutes later and not chapters. Because there is no chapters, it makes the time go by faster and makes you feel like your reading for hours you don’t realise it.

Map Your Valentine a good site?

Google invented this new site just in time before Valentines Day which will help you with some ideas. But is it really a good site? I personally think it is. This can help that special someone remember a specific place and just some last minute ideas.

Some people have troubles with Valentines Day, because it stresses them out with what to buy your partner. With this new site it could just help them out during those rough times. You can decide on the first place you met, or a first date. It could also be a place that reminds you of them. The good part of this new site, is after you decided a place, it sends you to a site where you can send flowers and chocolate. It could be a little surprise for them. It is not something big, but it is very thoughtful, and that is always a good thing.

Also, it doesn’t have to be for Valentines Day, you could just send them a couple of stuff if you just feel like being a good person. You can take this site as an advantage for good occasions, like an anniversary or just to surprise that special someone.

So next time you don’t have any ideas for valentines day, go check out the site and it might just help you win a couple of bonus points and some good ideas for Valentines day. 

The media controls your mind.

I personally think that the media can control people’s mind because they say what's on the news and you want to know all about it. They are the only way we can know what is going on these days.  If you want to knowsomething that is going on somewhere else in the world then you must watch the news or read the newspaper, and that is how they take control of people’s mind: Through television and the newspaper.

The television is the biggest reason why people can’t think for themselves and get their mind controlled. The media is one of the most powerful things these days because they have all the information to everything now. One example of a mind controller is Glenn Beck. He talks with a lot of power, which make it seem like he is right about everything. They listen to him because they can’t think for themselves; they can’t have their own opinion. That is how the television controls people minds. Also, I find if you can’t have your own opinion, you will be easily influenced to do certain bad things in your life, in this case, it would be listening to the nonsense the media says. They don’t really talk about good things that happen, only bad things. That is why it's bringing fear towards people. For example: the more we talk about people being poor, more people will become poor.  

The newspaper isn’t as bad then the television because no one actually read a long article these days. But the newspaper still has the same effect than the television. It still brings fear into people and because of that; people actually believe and go with the medias opinion instead of they're own.

I find if the media started to talk more about good things and not so much about bad things, people won’t be feared anymore. But I'm guessing that bringing fear into people's lives is the whole point of the media taking control of people’s mind.

People that don’t have an opinion on things that they hear on the news or read in the newspaper will be controlled by the media easily. If you have your own opinion on things, you will be able to think for yourself and do what is right and think what is right.