A Mid Summers Night Dream
Project ReflectionFor this project we read and watched makes of shakespeare then performed a play. We watched Romeo and juliet and A Midsummer's Night Dream. Then we began auditioning for the play. In the play I was Theseus, the Duke of Athens. I connected to this project because I spent a lot of time working on it. Things like writing my final essay and memorizing all of my lines. What I liked most about this project was watching the movies and gaining background knowledge on Shakespeare. I also liked the Pyramus and Thisbe seminar because we could not talk during it and had to write all of our thoughts on a white board. I like this because it was something new and a different way to seminar. This project had many difficult aspects to it. One of the most difficult for me was line memorization for the play and just the play in general. This was particularly hard for me because my memory is not the best and acting is not something I enjoy. About 1 week before the play I only had about 5 of my 19 lines memorized which was a problem. So during that last week I had to buckle down and really persevere in order to memorize my lines and get prepared for the play. Looking back at this project I realize that it was a good project that pushed me out of my comfort zone and forced me to work very hard to meet deadlines. Something that I learned about myself from this project is that getting pushed out of my comfort zone is good for me and something I should do more often. I think that we still celebrate and learn about shakespeare 400 years after his death because he was and still is the best of the best at what he did.
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POL SMART GOAL for Semester 2, 2015
My SMART goal for this semester will be to keep my GPA above a 3.1. This will be achieved because every day after school that I have homework I will dedicate however much time is necessary to complete it and make it beautiful work. A minimum of 30 minutes will be taken into account. I will be held accountable to this by parents when I show them my grades weekly.
Death Penalty
Death Penalty
The death penalty is not a necessary penalty for any crime. It can be considered to be too cruel or unconstitutional. In the beliefs of some everyone has a right to life,it is just a natural right. It is not necessary to execute another human being no matter what the intensity of the crime. A common crime in which people are executed for is murder. This does not make sense and is not how the modern justice system should work. For example if someone was convicted of assault their punishment from the justice system would not be to get assaulted. So why is it if you kill someone then you get put on death row and eventually killed?
The people who are pro death penalty should really step back and observe what they are supporting. People who are for the death penalty are essentially supporting murder. It also takes a very large amount of money to put someone to death. On average it cost about 1.26 million dollars for one person. Is this person so bad that we want to spend over 1 million dollars of the states and taxpayers money? And if so you still end up killing a defenseless human which is according to the constitution a violation of your natural right to life.
The death penalty is the right penalty. It is of course saved for the worst of humans. Alot of people will argue that it is a cruel and unusual punishment or violating the right to life which are all unconstitutional. The death penalty is enforced by lethal injection which makes the person go to sleep and never wake up. This does not sound cruel nor unusual. The death penalty is most commonly given to people who murder someone. So if the convicted murder took somebody's life do they really have the right to keep theirs. In my opinion the minute they took someone elses right to life they extinguished their own.
People who are anti death penalty are not seeing the issue clearly. If you were put in the situation of having someone you love taken from you would you not want the person who did it to pay fairly by giving their life. Or would you want them to live the remainder of their lives in prison getting served 3 meals a day and having a place to sleep. Sure it cost a large amount of money and time but justice has no price.
The death penalty is not a necessary penalty for any crime. It can be considered to be too cruel or unconstitutional. In the beliefs of some everyone has a right to life,it is just a natural right. It is not necessary to execute another human being no matter what the intensity of the crime. A common crime in which people are executed for is murder. This does not make sense and is not how the modern justice system should work. For example if someone was convicted of assault their punishment from the justice system would not be to get assaulted. So why is it if you kill someone then you get put on death row and eventually killed?
The people who are pro death penalty should really step back and observe what they are supporting. People who are for the death penalty are essentially supporting murder. It also takes a very large amount of money to put someone to death. On average it cost about 1.26 million dollars for one person. Is this person so bad that we want to spend over 1 million dollars of the states and taxpayers money? And if so you still end up killing a defenseless human which is according to the constitution a violation of your natural right to life.
The death penalty is the right penalty. It is of course saved for the worst of humans. Alot of people will argue that it is a cruel and unusual punishment or violating the right to life which are all unconstitutional. The death penalty is enforced by lethal injection which makes the person go to sleep and never wake up. This does not sound cruel nor unusual. The death penalty is most commonly given to people who murder someone. So if the convicted murder took somebody's life do they really have the right to keep theirs. In my opinion the minute they took someone elses right to life they extinguished their own.
People who are anti death penalty are not seeing the issue clearly. If you were put in the situation of having someone you love taken from you would you not want the person who did it to pay fairly by giving their life. Or would you want them to live the remainder of their lives in prison getting served 3 meals a day and having a place to sleep. Sure it cost a large amount of money and time but justice has no price.
Mask Project
Socialization in my opinion is a key component in being human. It is how you interpret the norms or “rules” of society. Without being socialized in any way you would not be able to learn or act like a human.You would not be able to speak languages or interact really in any way with other humans. No matter where you are getting your source of socialization from it still affects the outcome of how you behave and what you become.
In this project we learned about society and how society affects individuals based on how they have been socialized. We then had to write an essay and construct a mask . I decided to write my essay on ways that I have been socialized according to different aspects of my life and who I am. Such as being a white male. I wrote about the positive things that come with being a white male. I then constructed my mask by channeling my ideas that where in my essay to illustrations on my mask. As we wrote our essays we under went a various amount of helpful processes. One my favorite ones was how we wrote the essay in sections. We started with our thesis and four body paragraphs. Once we finished those we moved onto our topics and conclusions. I thought this was an extremely helpful process in which removed stress. I think it removed stress because we were not overwhelmed with the whole paper right away. I thought this was a helpful strategy or technique and will be something I use in the future. Something that I am proud of as a freshman at Animas is my socialization project. This includes my mask and essay. I put a lot of work and time into this project. I am looking to improve on my work ethic for all classes and hopefully will have a successful first year here at Animas high school |
Fitting In
Mask Essay 12:01 p.m., August 9, 2014, Ferguson Missouri, shots are fired. They are aimed at a young African American male by the name of Michael Brown. He is fired upon by a policeman after being pulled over when walking on the side of the street. Brown had surrendered himself to the police with his hands up and was slowly advancing to their position. He was shot 6 times which resulted in his death. According to CNN there was documentation which showed that Brown was murdered within 3 minutes of meeting and interacting with the officer. There had not been any attempt on arresting him nor did the officer read him his rights. There was next to no precautionary actions taken by the police officers to avoid shooting him.This is a very unfortunate incident but is a clear example of how many Americans are socialized on how to discriminate each other based one race. To me my life is a journey, there is many twists and turns both for the best and for the worst. I have not fully embarked on this journey yet but when I do I am ready to experience the positive and negative aspects of it. I have been socialized positively and negatively by my race and class because I am a white upper middle class male Socialization in my opinion is a key component in being human. It is how you interpret the norms or “rules” of society. Without being socialized in any way you would not be able to learn or act like a human.You would not be able to speak languages or interact really in any way with other humans. A prime example of not being socialized at all by humans for a long period of time is the case of Oxana Malaya. She was neglected as a child by her alcoholic parents who showed next to no interest in her. The family also owned many dogs that were kept in a shelter outside the house. She was left outside the house at a very young age with nowhere to go besides the dog house. She lived and was raised there for at least the next five years of her life. She was taken from her parents custody after a neighbor reported her acting extremely odd. She acted nothing like a human. She walked on all fours barked and did other things that related to the dog’s nature. This is not very surprising since she was adopted by these animals at a very young impressionable age. Oxana had next very little socialization from humans because her parents neglected her. When she was taken in by the dogs who fed her and kept her warm she recognized and reflected the behavior that the dogs portrayed. As I mentioned earlier being socialized in some way affects the way you interact or act as a human. Another example of socialization to an extreme level is in the case of slavery. Way back in the days of slavery African Americans or other ethnic groups that were slaves were not thought of as human. The slaves were bought, sold and treated liked animals. I think a reason why it lasted so long was because it was passed down from generation to generation. What i mean is that the belief that people of colored skin are not as good as people with white skin was passed down to the next generation for many generations.This was just how they were socialized, they even saw it in the bibles being justified”1 Peter 2:18:Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh”.They also saw the elder generation treating slaves poorly or buying them which installed the thought in their heads that thats how its supposed to be. Thats how its always going to be. No matter where you are getting your source of socialization from it still affects the outcome of how you behave and what you become. Ways that I have been socialized vary from race to class and many other things similar to those. My race and class have affected me positively because I have not encountered many racial problems such as discrimination. My race doesn't just benefit me now but also will in the future. According to a recent national survey the incarceration rate of black males is 6 times higher than that of white males (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_States). Therefore I have a far less chance of being incarcerated as an adult than someone of a different race has. My class affects me positively because I have more privilege than most other Americans. Such as being able to participate in activities such as sports or camps. Things like those have gave me a stronger social identity and help me fit into society. My race and class also have negative effects. An example of this is at my old middle school. It was quite a diverse environment both ethnically and according to peoples social classes. There was “cliques” of people that belonged to those categories. The larger cliques where the upper middle class to lower middle class white kids and the latinos whose majority were lower middle class to just lower class kids. One day my friends and I were confronted by the latino “clique” and were asked if we thought we were better than them. Taken off guard we replied with no and things went on normally. Even though neither my friends or I had said that we were better we had realized that we were saying it with our actions. We had never talked to them very much or just never showed any friendly gesture towards them in general. So they just assumed we saw ourselves as “higher ups” or better than them. I have also been socialized positively by gender. As a male I have not dealt with sexism or other gender related issues as much as women have. Because I am male I'm able to participate in many more activities or sports physical and not physical. This is because in our patriarchal society men are thought of as superior. So when a girl tries to play a “guy” sport or activity they are thought of as weird or man-like. As a male I do not have to deal with these false accusations or stereotypes. Being a male will also affect my future. How it could affect my future is hugely career wise. A recent census about the gender wage gap confirmed that the average woman makes 78.3 percent of every dollar a man earns. Even more shockingly though women of color make about 68.1 percent to the man’s dollar (http://www.aauw.org/research/the-simple-truth-about-the-gender-pay-gap/). This shows that being socialized as a white male can and most likely will affect me throughout my life positively. Another thing that has affected me positively is being physically and mentally able. By not being disabled in anyway I am able to participate in physical and mental activities that help me fit into society. Most people with mental disabilities are unable to communicate with other people. Communication is very important because it is a main way to connect to other people. Without this ability to connect or communicate with other people you are almost an outcast to society. Since I am mentally able to communicate and connect to others i am able to fit into society and be “normal”. By being physically able I have the power to put myself out there to participate in activities. Reflecting back on the gender issue as a male i am almost expected to play sports or do some sort of outdoor activity. If I wasn't able to do these things because of a physical flaw I could be once again viewed as an outcast. However there are certain advantages of being disabled that non disabled people do not get to experience. Such as specific colleges like Gallaudet university. This university accepts only deaf or nearly deaf students and provides them with an excellent education and a real college experience. Even though being disabled in anyway is a tragedy and a disadvantage in society it also has its positive aspects to go along with the negative ones like anything else. As a capable white upper middle class male in American society I have been socialized rather positively. So far my journey has taken turns for the best, I have not had to encounter or endure many struggles or stereotypes that less fortunate or different ethnic individuals have. My life has been relatively more easy than most and I am a privileged child. My many social advantages will hopefully do me good and pave the road to success in such a biased, racial society such as ours. |