School Uniforms

Yes, this is a random topic. It came up in my history class a few days ago and it got me thinking. Should we have school uniforms? Many schools  in America already have school uniforms. I don't really have an opinion, but there are good and bad reasons of uniforms.

School uniforms could be beneficial because every day, you wouldn't have to struggle with the idea of what to wear that day, you would just wear the same outfit every day. They would be beneficial to the teachers because the uniforms could be designed however the school board likes. Which probably means no pockets for cell phones. The uniforms could also promote more support from the students of their schhol. Also, there would be no dress code. There would be less reasons to bother mom at home to bring you new clothes. Another reason is that no student would be judged by another, because if you tell someone that they looked stupid, that means you look stupid too. Moving on.

The uniforms could be bad to have because the kids at school get no freedom of their clothing choice. Also, providing uniforms (not to metion extra pairs of them too) would be very expensive to the school. We are already in debt from the spending on sports (cough marchingbandisnotasport), and even more on school lunches and several other needs of the school. The costs would also be bad on any families that are already having financial issues. Students would be very upset if we got uniforms. I'm pretty sure that I can envision "The Kindest School In America" throwing a protest. Especially if the change is made really suddenly and out of no where.

I really would lean towards no school uniform, because I really don't see that there are any issues with the dress code that we have now. The only risk of turning down uniforms is that you probably see a lot more skin than necessary when warm weather starts to kick in. Yuck

 Click here for an article that covers information on school uniforms.

If You Find Me Predictions

I have just started reading the first few pages of the book If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch. The action of the girls being hauled away by strangers is already taking place. On page 7. So far, I haven't been totally impressed by the book, but I 'm going to need to read into it a little further to determine my feelings for it. The only thing that really bothers me about the book is that the grammar is very poor, purposely. The girls have no education and talk very southern-like. For example, the author decided to make EVERY -ing word end with in'. So instead of walking, the narrarator (who is the main character) says walkin'. And that drives me nuts.

Anyways, predictions. I think that these girls are going to be taken away from everything they feel comfortable with; the woods, nature, etc. and are going to be suddenly thrown into a modern environment. They may have to learn to use technology such as cell phones (if that is the seting in the book), meet new people, and go to school where they will learn to talk the right way. I think that the girls will resist at first, maybe hate everyone, not talk to anyone including teachers and adults. But as they adapt to the new environment, they may become more comfortable with the people around them and learn to use new ways to be more modern and well- put together people. But along the way of all of these new changes, I think that Carey  will dig deeper into the situation of the untimely death of her mother and why her mother has been so closed up. Carey's mother abducted her, but I'm not sure if it was for Carey and Janessa's benefits, or for their mother's benefit. I think that maybe Carey was about to be given up for something/someone, and her mother resisted. So she took her babies into hiding in the foret. I don't know. I'll have to keep reading to find out. :0

Romeo and Juliet Movies: Similarities and Differences

We have watched a few scenes of the movie Romeo and Juliet, both the more recent version and the older version. There were really not too amny similarities between the two films. Some similarities are: In both the movies, all of the characters from the actual text are there; Romeo, Juliet, Tybalt, Lady Capulet, etc. Another similarity is that both of the movies follow the same script, the original text. Another similarity was that the scenes were all in order the same way, but there were some variations in the ways that the directors presented the scenes. This brings me to differences.

There were a lot of noticable differences in the movies. An obvious one would be that the newer one had more recent celebrities, such as Leonardo Dicaprio. Another difference is that the newer movie was a lot sillier than the old movie. For example, the beginning scene of the older movie was a pretty contained fight scene. In the newer movie, the fight scene was very violent, and the references were'nt as serious. An example was when the one man pulled out a gun that said "sword." Additionally, the charaters in the old movie were true to the text; clothes from that time period, correct and formal use of the Shakespearean language. The characters in the new movie were a little different. For example Tybalt was a drag queen. And Romeo's character was high on drugs when he was attending the party. Eeverything was just a lot more modern than the older movie. Their Shakespearean language was also very scattered and blurted. It did not seem very natural. Overall, I think that the old movie did a better job of explaining the true story of Romeo and Juliet, while the newer one just got the gist of the story in a silly way.

Romeo and Juliet

In class we are discussing the epic love story, Romeo and Juliet. I'm super happy because I just read a book about a love story, that had a lot of references to the story. We have watched and read the first couple scenes in class, an I'll just say that Shakespeare is a cornball. His romance lines are really cheesy while he has his characters "wooing" women. I think that some of the lines he uses are very confusing! I get that he likes to be poetic, but I wish he could be poetic and make a little more sense, too. So far, Romeo has met Juliet, but he was just obsessing over a woman that he claimed he was in love with. I really hope this guy isn't a player because he sounds pretty loyal to the women he thinks are attractive.

If You Find Me

I have just discovered a new book, If you Find Me by Emily Murdoch. I've never heard of it before, so I thought I'd give it a try :) So, from flipping through the pages and reading the inside cover, I decided the book would be somewhat of a mystery... The main character's name is Carey, who has lived in the woods with her mother who abducted her ten years ago, and her sister Jenessa. They are depending on even the smallest things for their survival. Once their mother dies, someone takes them out of the forest, and thrust her into a new life of high school, new clothes, and everything possible to make her feel like she's a new person. Carey must find out why her mother abducted her, while her haunted past keeps her wondering. She must keep Janessa close, and her secrets closer, or else she may come to see her new life come crashing down.

I think this book sounds pretty interesting. I'll let everyone know how it's going after I've read a little it of it. (=^_^=)

Finally Finished Warm Bodies!

Yes, I've been posting a lot about this book.... But I have just recently finished it! I really enjoyed this book. It had really great imagery; it could paint a picture in your mind as you read further into the book. I updated my Book Recommendations post... I added this book to the list! Warm Bodies is probably the perfect book to be reading right now, it's like a Romeo and Juliet! But with R and Julie. I watched the movie before I read the book (sorry) and as I read the book, I noticed that there was s much more description in the book than the movie. In the book, there were a lot of scenes that were never in the movie, and vice versa. In the movie, R is played by Nicholas Holt, and Julie by Teresa Palmer. If you're interested in reading the book or watching the movie (read the book first!), here's a quick trailer you can check out:

Shakespearean Language

In Honors English, we are discussing how to read Shakespeare's work, because... it's really confusing. We read and analyzed a piece written by him where he was trying to "woo" a woman, and it made almost no sense, except for the fact that he was obsessed with this woman. For example, on of the lines in the text was "I will unrip my very bosom to you." To me, that seems a little extreme for being in love with someone. But it is very persuasive. Throughout the piece, Shakespeare uses his fancy words to impress and compliment his woman. It got really creepy after reading like 3 pages of that, but if you were that special lady, you may have thought differently. Obviously if a man said that to a woman now, she would probably run away. And never come back, ever.

Another page we looked at was an entire page of insults that Shakespeare threw around in his writing. Some of the phrases are pretty deep. For example, I came up with the combination,"pribbling, rump-fed maggot pie." There are probably over one thousand different combinations you could make on this list. Fishified, clapper-clawed popinjay. I just looked up popinjay- Its a woodpecker. Wow what an insult! Wart- necked, goatish pigeon egg. Wow.