10. Shit on the Matt Shepard murder: Matthew Shepard's funeral

At Matthew Shepard's funeral, a shit ton of people showed up, they filled two churches and were spilling out onto the grounds outside. The Westbro Baptist Church showed up to protest his funeral and a lesbian college student got about 12 people to go surround him with angels so he couldn't be heard. This really spoke to me because that's exactly what I would do, those assholes deserve anything they get. It was really cool how so many people showed up to mourn Matt, it goes to show that people care no matter how controversial it is.

I reflect on the first act of The Laramie Project

The first act of The Laramie Project is mostly about the background leading up to the murder of Matt Shepard. One line really struck me, "Conservative Christians use the Bible to show the rest of the world, It says here in the Bible. And most Americans believe it, and they do, that the Bible is the word of God." This is from the Unitarian minister in Laramie. He said this because he believed that the Bible isn't literal, in today's times at least, and should be taken as guidelines to live by, not literal definitions.

This is a picture of Matt Shepard, probably his senior picture. This shows him as a happy boy, not the beaten pictures of him after the hate crime. It's terrible that this happened to him, and it's also terrible that some people thought that it was the right thing to do, and were very apathetic about his case.

This tells me that his parents were hurt even more than shown on TV, it also shows me that they really wanted the men who did this to Matt to go to hell, I would too if this happened to my son.

Reflections on the 2nd week of presentation

Lucky

This woman has had a terrible life, and yet she still makes it through, if this happened to me I’d want to die, and they called her lucky. The man who did this is disgusting; I don’t know how he can live with himself. The tone of the story was very dark, and was very bad. She was pissed at this guy, I would be too, and I would be just as angry. I’m amazed that that disgusting man tried to apologize after he raped her, if you wanted to apologize you shouldn’t have done it in the first place.

Scar Tissue

Kiedis has had some problems in his life, namely drugs. Interesting background to the band, I didn’t know Kiedis met Flea and Hillel in high school. Chad Smith really pushed the band in different directions. Coke really fucked him up for a lot of his life, and so did heroin; he fought with his addiction till about three years ago. Hillel’s death really messed him up bad, he denied the fact that Hillel had died, and this messed up the band a lot, Flea left for a while. The main message of the book was stay true to yourself, which really rings true with me.

Marley and Me

Jenny and John Grogan take on Marley, an out of control dog, they do this because they want to practice raising a dog before raising children. When they go to Ireland, they hire a dog sitter, and Marley is just out of control while they’re away. Jenny has a child halfway through the book named Patrick. Patrick and Marley end up being best friends. After moving to a rich town, they decide they don’t like it and move to Pennsylvania. Marley gets a stomach condition near the end of the book, and the Grogan family has to put him down.

The Liars Club

The tone was funny, but with sad parts. In trouble a lot, but very hard headed about it. Lecia was the real house runner, Charlie Marie just didn’t do anything to try and run the house. Charlie Marie was not a very good role model, like at all, she was insane. J. P. Karr was an alcoholic with few ill side effects. Charlie and J. P. fought a lot, the little sister pretended to film it, and they fought so often that she got up to reel 1000. Her mom went crazy, like absolutely insane, shattered the light bulbs, and tried to kill them with a butcher knife.

Cinderella Story

Bill Murray has been in over 30 movies, including Caddy Shack, Lost in Translation and many more. It takes place on golf courses all over the world. The book is about his career as a golfer, from his beginning as a caddy to when the book ends playing with famous people. This is mostly just a book about experiences, not a life changing epiphany.

A Stolen Life

Lucy Dugard was kidnapped at age 11 and kept in the backyard of Phillip Garrido and his wife Nancy, she’s writing the book to show Phillip that she doesn’t have to hide any more. Lucy was always hopeful of rescue, but she still hated her captor with a passion, I would too. Nancy and Phillip were in it together in kidnapping Lucy. The Parole officers are really stupid, they never freaking checked in the back yard. She’s given animals throughout the book, but that asshole Phillip took them away as soon as she got attached to them. Her first child came into the world on August, 4, 1994, and another one, she refers to them as A and G.

The Glass Castle

The entire book takes place in deserts. The dad is very smart, but has a drinking problem, but she still loves him. The mom is the child of the family, not working and thinking of herself before others. Her sister Lori, was different from her siblings, she wanted to be an artist. The narrator’s name is Jeannette Walls, the mother of the house. Brain Walls is her brother, she’s the closest to him, and he’s the father of the house. Maureen is the youngest of the Walls children, and she’s the most distant from Jeannette and the rest of the family.

Lone Survivor

Lone Survivor was a book that didn’t quite resonate with me as well as it would have if I had been related to a soldier or someone who had died in 9/11. Luttrell used slurs in his book that just lost me; he is just too racist for me.

Long Way Gone

Beah connected me by the way he told the memoir. Beah really told his story well, and made me think about wars in Africa. Beah was saved purely by chance a lot, and it’s just amazing that he made it to the US, and how his friend Gasemu found them again, and how he still, through all his experiences, he still keeps a positive attitude.

Two Kisses for Maddie

Very sweet book. I didn’t connect to the book as much as some people because no-one near me has died; but I can understand why people connect to it and I repect him for treating their daughter right instead of blaming her for his wife’s death.

Chronicles Volume One: Bob Dylan

Confusing timeline, but still puts his life in perspective. It expresses his opinions really well, and it puts him into new perspective.

A Long Way Gone

Background is terrible, I feel terrible for the people of Sierra Leone. Child soldiers had a terrible life, they never saw their family again and the RUF and army treated them terribly. Uncle Tommy was Beah’s rock after his rehabilitation. 

Trevor Hagerty

9/26/13

Period 5

The War

By Trevor Hagerty

            The War is about a Vietnam War survivor and his Vietnam War PTS. Stephen Simmons is a man struggling with PTS, he disappears for months at a time to a hospital to try and cure his PTS; his daughter (Lidia) and son (Stu) miss him greatly when he’s away, Stu barely talked when he was away, but when Stephen comes back from the hospital Stu is very talkative again. When Stephen gets back, he starts to tell Stu about what happened to cause his PTS, he’s interrupted and post-pones the truth. Stu fights with the Lipnickis, this represents his father’s fight against PTS, every time Stu wins or loses a battle against the Lipnickis his father suffers about it because he knows how futile the fight is, Stephen tries to convince Stu to work out things with the Lipnickis peacefully, he thinks that if the US government had tried to work things out with the Vietnam gov. then the entire war could’ve been avoided, he thinks the same about Stu’s fight with the Lipnickis. If Stu had been willing to listen to his father and the Lipnickis were less willing to fight and more willing to talk, the entire fight could’ve been avoided and both sides been stronger for it.

            Stephen has been in and out of jobs since he got back from Vietnam, he can’t hold one down because most employers see that he was in a mental hospital, they automatically assume that he’s got some kind of mental condition that makes him unstable, but what they don’t know is that he checked himself in to the hospital to see if he could get help for his PTS. He got a job as a school janitor, but they fired him because of his hospital stay, he gets a job as a potato farmer after that and meets another worker who has a better job opportunity, all he needs is a car. Both Stephen and his friend got the new job, it’s as a sewer worker, but one day, they’re working and someone turns the water on, this causes a collapse in the cave system and traps his partner, Stephen then grabs a lever to get the rock off his partner. Stephen manages to get the rock off his partner, but is hit by a rock in the process, almost killing him. Stephen is in the hospital for a few days and dies there because the doctors were not able to heal him. Saving his partner in the caves alleviates his guilt for leaving Dodge behind during Vietnam, so he dies a man free of guilt.

            Lidia is Stephen’s daughter, she doesn’t respect him as much as she should because she doesn’t understand PTS, and she thinks that her dad is just a dead beat who can’t hold a job. Throughout the story, she comes to realize that her dad is suffering from a condition that makes it very hard for him, and respects him more and more throughout the story. Lidia and her friends (Elvadine and Amber), want to build a fort in a tree, the same tree Stu and his friends (Marsh and Chet) want to build their fort in. Stu dares Lidia to find all the parts needed to build a fort, he doesn’t think she’ll succeed, but she does, she had to bribe the Lipnickis youngest though (Billy), this will come back to haunt them later. Lidia succeeds in getting all the materials she needs and Stu becomes her “slave” for the rest of the summer, in actuality Stu just has to build the fort without any of the girls help, after a week or so of this, the girls start to help Stu build the fort, they get it done a month or so later. In the meantime Billy has been saving his money and buys out an ice cream truck, he gets sick and his dad gets pissed at him, the Lipnicki kids torment him till he tells them who’s been taking stuff from their junk yard, when Billy tells the kids decide to wage war on the fort. This conflict, which has been escalating the entire movie, finally comes to a head when the Lipnikis stage an attack on the fort, but the Simmons gang is ready for them, they’ve prepared apple cannons and tar buckets, the Lipnickis brought Molotov Cocktails and started throwing them at the fort, this ended up in an all-out fist fight. Billy saw his chance to stop the fighting and went to go get the key to the fort, it was up on top of a rusty old water tower, Stu and Billy’s older brother saw him go up there and they both tried to save him, but Stu was the one to jump into the writhing water to save Billy, not his brother, Lidia and Stu breathed the life back into Billy and the Simmons-Lipniki fight was over. This represents the escalation of the Vietnam War, just hit after hit after hit. They were fighting like children, if someone hits you, you hit them back. It’s also like the Vietnam War because it could’ve been avoided had both parties talked things over before the fighting started.

            In The War, the Simmons parents were the mediators between Stu and Lidia. Stu and Lidia fight a lot, it’s just a brother-sister thing, but go to their parents to solve issues when they can’t work things out themselves. Sometimes they’re at odds with their parents, like if their parents take one kid’s side over the other, but sometimes, both Stu and Lidia are at odds with their parents, like when Stephen gives Lidia and Lois’(the mother) cotton candy to the Lipniki kids, Stu finds this unforgivable and criticizes his father for doing this, and his father says “I have a feeling they ain’t been giving anything in a long time,” meaning that the Lipniki dad is a drunk and disorderly man, and Stephen wanted to make their lives just a little better. This signifies Stephens desire to make the world a better palace before he goes. 

Stephen Hawking through my eyes

Write a reflection on what I just read (Chapters 2-6 and a little of 7)

Stephen Hawking started out as just a mid-range student, in England he was in the “Academic school, section 1” which was for the smart people. He applied to Oxford at 17, “I took the test, and I thought I failed because all the professors talked to other students, never me, but a week later I received a letter stating that I received a scholarship to Oxford.” This started his career as a mathematician. He studied under Dennis Sciama “Sciama was usually around and available to talk, unlike other professors.” Sciama introduced him to the field of cosmology, where he expanded on definitions of black holes, quasars, and other phenomena in space. “I realized that I could apply to black holes the causal structure theory I had developed for singularity theorems. In particular, the area of the horizon, the boundary of the black hole, would always increase.” He realized this while getting into bed, just after his daughter Lucy was born.

Describe a memory that impacted you. Use vivid detail and sensory imagery-see, feel, hear, taste, and smell, the memory.

When I was in 2^nd grade, I decided that it was a good idea to jump off a stool with my socks on, needless to say this was a bad idea, and I broke my arm. I remember lying on the ground holding my arm, my dad asked me with a concerned tone in his voice if I was OK and if I could move my arm, I said I couldn’t and we went to the hospital to have it checked out, luckily we were about two minutes from the hospital at the time and got to the emergency room right away. When we got to the emergency room the nurse at the front desk asked us what happened and we told her, we were seen soon after. They stuck needles in me, I don’t like needles, so I kind of freaked out. As my arm was x-rayed the doctors discovered that my arm was broken, they casted it and sent me home, my brother got home from a school trip the next day and we showed him the cast, he was pretty surprised. My mom got home a couple days after that, of course she knew that my arm had been broken because we called her the night it had broken, she was still a little freaked out about it though.

Reading while Skiing

My two favorite things to do in the world are skiing and reading.
Books offer me an escape, I especially love fantasy books, they're the furthest from reality and makes me think about my reality. Well written books are few and far between in my favorite reading genre, but every so often one comes along and I devour it, then I recommend that book to other readers and a library.

I've been skiing since I was two, taking lessons since I was five, and skiing double blacks since ten, needless to say I'm pretty good at it. My ski town of choice is Winter Park, that's where I grew up skiing, my family had a small condo in Fraser, it's right next to WP, so we skied a lot in the winter, almost every weekend in fact. I remember complaining to my parents about not being able to sleep over on weekends, or not being able to friend's houses either. Now as I grow older, I appriciate my lessons more, and as I improve my skiing ability on my own I look back to my foundations in lessons.