The Extent to Survive

If I was stuck on an island, and I did not have one thing. I would probably just let myself die. I do not ever plan on cutting of my arm, or anything to that extent. But if I believe that one risk can help me survive, then I might take that risk. I'd be willing to save others before myself anyday. Before putting myself in a situation to where I would be stuck or have the chance not to survive then I would not go through with it. I do not take many risks, especially anything that could risk my life.

Junior to Senior

Every student in a high school has a different experience throughout their school years. Some fly through it, struggle, experience drama, boyfriends or girlfriends and the list can simply go on and on. My junior years wasn't absolutely simple, just busy and important. Hoping that my senior year will be simple and the only problems I have are the stress of deciding which scholarships to take. Although my high school experience has been somewhat easy so far, senior year my surprise me and be the best time I will have a Batesville High School yet.

Grades start really counting your 9th grade (freshman) year, but they really start to hit hard your 11th grade year when you are making sure that you have enough credits to graduate. Do not get my wrong, your grades are important every year. My junior year has probably been my hardest year academically, and the easiest socially. Teachers are trying to cram everything they can into you before you only have two classes your senior year. Junior year has been absolutely wonderful because of 3 things; atheletics, friends, and the thought of being a senior next year. Atheletics, in my life being basketball then softball have been great because I had fun, and won a lot. I started to get know people this year that I wouldn't normally talk to and I learned that there are alot more people I can get along with than I ever could have imagined. Finally to get through a school year you need some motivation and my motivaton was the next year I will only have two classes, seniors get out early and we get to leave for lunch. Honest to goodness, it helped. Those nights that I did not want to stay up late and or do my homework I began to think about next year. All around junior year has been great and I hope every student who is coming into their 11th grade year will have as good of a time as I did.

Class of 2013; wow. I, Tess Hurley, am now a senior at Batesville High School. I can remember sitting in the library at West Elementary with Mrs. Pillow pondering on how I would be when I graduate. For example, I hoped I would be really tall around 5'10 or 5'11, skinny, have pretty teeth, be popular, good at sports and many other things. Althought I only can say I am covering very few of those things, I plan to make my senior year the best that it can possibly be. Yes I am ready to get out of high school, but at the same time I am not. I am about to hit the real world with blind fold over my face, and I am scared. Batesville High School has prepared me the best they can, and I thank every teacher here for that. I cannot believe I am senior.

Batesville High School, heres to you!

Anthropomorphism

Molly was lost.
Molly was an important dog.
Molly was at cost.

Pedro was large.
Pedro was the protector and was a dog.
Pedro was in charge.

Pedro sent out to find Molly.
He could not lose her.
He would have failed at his job.

He ran throught the forrests and never stopped.
First he would find Molly.
Then he would drop.

After he ran for days,
Molly was found.
Pedro was subsequently dazed.

He was the hero,
the protector of all.

The one in charge, 
whom would never fall.

Survival Synthesis Essay: Survivng 9/11

Six Word Slant:

• Towers tumbled as America began fighting.

140 Character Claim:

• Once the towers crumbled (subordinate clause), as did the many hearts and souls of family and friends of victims who lost their life on the 11th of September.

(140 characters)

Terrorist; a person, usually a member of a group who uses or advocates terrorism. Attack; to set upon in a forceful, violent, hostile, or aggressive way.  These words contain images of guns, blood splattering, poor men and women covered in their sorrows, the faces of those mourning a loss, photos of victims and non other than the ultimate scene of all the dead bodies occurring once the towers crumbled , as did the many hearts and souls of family and friends of victims who lost their life on the 11th of September, but we have fought back and shown that we can survive a terrorist attack. Currently American has the enemies, and also has the power to cause other “power-hungry” countries that believe that they are formidable feel the urge to attack. One thing that is certain is that we do in-fact have an incredibly powerful army, but countries have the ability to sneak attacks on us that we are not anywhere near prepared for. When has this happened? You’re correct; September 11^th, 2001… it happened. They attempted to pull or economy and power right out from under us at which they somewhat succeeded, but ultimately failed. Sadly enough in reality, an attack to this level or even worse could happen again, and hopefully our nation is ready.

During most emergency situations the key ingredient is to communicate and stay calm. When dealing with a crowd of people in one situation it is best to stay organized, and keep everyone aware and calm. Once you have recognized what may be occurring, you must communicate with others so that they will know what to do. Many people might feel a shake under their feet, or something fall off of a shelf and begin assuming many different situations. Jean Potter, a 9/11 survivor explains to ABC News “All of a sudden this massive explosion rocked the building and we literally swayed from side to side. “ Working in such a state of the art tower, Jean knew that she shouldn’t feel swaying and immediately felt danger. She looked out the window to find the other tower engulfed in flames then alerting all of her co-workers.  Knowing that she would need to get out of the tower as quick as possible, she got all of her co-workers to go down the stairs. Communicating with everyone else on her floor might have saved Jean Potter’s life. Another key ingredient to survival is to remain calm, but to do that you need to keep your mind set away from panic mode. Being calm and collective gets things done, which during a terrorist attack is what needs to happen.  Agreeing completely, Jean Potter in “By God’s Grace: Surviving 9/11 from the 81^st Floor” explains, “You’re thinking, “Is the building going to fall?” And I’m up 81 flights. How am I going to get out of here?” Although she began to panic, she remained calm enough to calm others and began to travail to get them down and out of the tower. Keeping calm and communicating with others might sound like something small, but it uniquely enough might have saved a lot of peoples’ lives that day.

Being on the 81^st floor of a tower engulfed in flames, any normal humans’ first instinct is to run which causes major chaos. An emergency situation will require emergency actions which call for gathering everyone and beginning to move down the tower as soon as possible. Simulating these things were Kevin Danni when he describes his plan to survive 9/11 in his interview “A 9/11 Survivor’s Story: A Look Back at America’s Unity”, “I decided to go to the opposite conference room when I looked out the window in horror and saw the North Tower in flames. I quickly went back to my group.” Acting in this way in fact was the best thing that Kevin could do. In no way did he act selfish and begin evacuating without everyone else on his floor; he showed heroism and put others before himself. Not only did Kevin act as a hero once, he was not done yet. After recognizing that he needed to get out the tower before he might have died, he learns that he needs to move quickly so he and his group began moving and did not even stop to something that would cause panic and freeze others. After letting his co-workers now of the tragedy in the earlier quote he continues on as hero. “…and we started to evacuate down the stairs. I got to the 55^th floor and then the second plane slammed into our tower only 20 floors above me.” Although Kevin was questioning his chance for survival he proceeded to move down the tower with his fellow co-workers and did in fact survive. Relating to a mix breed dog named Buck, in the novel Call of the Wild, Buck was put in a situation when the lives of his fellow dogs and himself were put into danger and he made the first move and saved many lives. These types of actions and acts of heroism are needed to survive anything including terrorist attacks.

 Injuries, tragedies, and deaths are three major examples of factors in life that always need the next stage…recovery. The base word of recovery is “recover” being the thing that America needed to do after 9/11. Not only did we need to recover, but we also need a new start. A start to show that we can fight back and bounce back from the hard hit we had just received from those terrorists. Mourning starts off the recovery process. No one can let everything stay inside them because at one point you need to let everything out to not only have a stable mind but also a healthy life. Many deaths occur during terrorist attacks which causes the families and friends of the victims to mourn for their losses. Many people still mourn of 9/11, but our nation as a whole was hit so hard that we were lead to a stage of morose mourning across the entire nation. Not saying that mourning across the nation was a bad thing, it was a step to getting back to normal in America. Mourning is ok until that point in which you need a new start, and for our nation “rebuilding” occurred to bring our nation forward. One example of this was a firefighter from 9/11 named William “Billy” Eisengrein. Sharing his motivation to rebuild America in his interview with ABC News, “9/11 Firefighter Speak With ABC News 10 Years Later”, when he helped raise an American flag on ground zero during clean up like an astronaut landing for the first time on the moon, “This country got attacked, there is all this devastation, thousands of people died; let’s do something good right now.” Just one man set the tone to rebuild American one step at a time, and showed that our free country can survive.

 Terrorism is everywhere, whether it be public or secret. There are different reasons terrorists attack whether a small or large attack, but they do happen. Different solutions can help us survive, and we can always learn. Even though America was hurt, we have learned from the situation and now can say that we as a nation are ready for anything. I challenge you as an American to see how you can help and prepare for any future acts of terrorism, and let’s show the rest of our planet that we are strong enough to handle anything.

Works Cited

Caron, Christina. "9/11 Firefighter Speaks With ABC News 10 Years Later." ABC News. ABC News 7th

  Sept. 2011. Web. 1 May 2012. <abcnews.go.com>.

Danni, Kevin A. "A 9/11 Survivor's Story: A Look Back at America's Unity." Whittier Daily News. Web. 1  May 2012. <www.whittierdailynews.com>.

London, Jack. The Call of the Wild. New York: Macmillan, 1963. Print.

Martin, Mark. "By God's Grace: Surviving 9/11 from the 81st Floor." CBN News. 30 Feb. 2011. Web. 1

 May 2012. <www.cbn.com>.

               

The Zeal of Responsibility

 Life.. A four letter word that means more than the world itself. It does not just mean to breathe in oxygen and repell carbon dioxide. Life is love, passion, personality, morals, and life is you. Looking through my morals, God has a plan. If God didn't believe in you, he would not give you the tests of the holding other human life in your hands. Throughout life, you take care of yourself... You worry about your survival. As you become more mature and exceed the knowledge of a child, the responsibilty of human life will be upon you one day, and the day that it shows up at your door you have to take it and put it before yourself alone.

100 years ago the Titanic painted the picture what having the responsibility of human life really means, and put it in a movie so that those who were not yet born to live it could feel the real meaning of what happened that day. In that time of the year icebergs were not unwonted, and were very common. The captain of the ship had many warnings of an iceberg that day but proceeded on because of his will to make the cruise go by faster. When the time came for the ship to completely sink into the brumal water, he slowly walked into his room with a morose look on his face, and stayed on the boat as it sank because it was his fault. Knowing not only did he think of himself, he killed many. This example shows that when other human life are on the line, yours should be at the very bottom.

Being taken from your home and having to start a new life in a place that was not meant for humanity is very difficult on you physically and mentally. Buck, a mixed breed dog, was kidnapped from his home in the novel Call of The Wild, and was forced to become a slave dog in Alaska. After working in Alaska for a while, he soon realizes that it is going to take his will power to stay alive and help his fellow dogs stay alive meaning that he will have to save others by being obdurate. In the novel, Buck becomes the main leader and feels as if he is formidable teaching the other dogs what they are going to have to do to stay alive. Giving us an example of how Buck took the responsibility of others lives and doing the most he could for them.

When having others lives in your hands, the best thing to do is to put others first and worrying about saving yourself last. Humanity has developed this zeal of responsibility to keep our humanity together. Hoping that everyone understands, some people are selfish and will put themselves first. Although there are those people, there is still those people who have that zeal about them and will be a hero.

Creating What I Think is Good

        If I, Tess Hurley, had the power to create life I would definitley create it. I would try my best to create something to help our world that we live in, instead of creating a monster. Creating life isn't just creating something that can walk and breathe, it's something that can also think and have feelings. If I created life I would want my creation to be caring and helpful.

       If I had the opportunity to create life, I would chose to do so, but my creation would hopefully be the total opposite and be there to bring good things. Choosing to do so, would put many responsibilities on me if something might go wrong, but I am willing to learn from the mistakes I made and make something even better. If my monster can help the world, and a good role model, I hope to make more than one.

      Creating life can go wrong with just the smallest mistake. So while attempting to create life, I want to make sure that everything goes as expected. But what do I expect from my creation? I want to attempt to create something that is indesrtuctable, but also has a heart of gold because if kids could see my creation being a good character they might want to resemble such things. That happening would help make our world a better place.


      Maybe later on if I have the ability to create life, I hope that I can make the right decisions and make the world a better place.
       

Thoughts Prior to Frankenstein

      Frankenstein has always been the story you hear on Halloween, but it is also a classic. The story of Frankenstein that I know is just the simple man made monster. I am ready to read the book to learn the actual details and learn more about the story that I heard about before.

     Now days being 19 means you are just settling into the real world and most likely entering college. Most 19 years old are just trying to make it out there, but this woman must have had some major issues or incredible imagination skills. This story consists of major immorality and a lot of evil, which I don't see how a normal "almost adult" could come up with such a horrific fiction novel.

     Many reasons can be given for why a man can create life and why a man shouldn't create life, while I argue that if the man is doing the so called "cloning", then it should be right. Although if man is switching up the genetics to create something other than what God had already created then he is doing wrong.

   I'm not one of the many people who have set aside time to read the Harry Potter series, but I do understand the meaning of the sorcerer's stone although I do not beleieve it is real. Nor do I believe in immortality.

Courage... Me, Tess Hurley, having courage?

        I chose the word courage because I am a person who can see chances that could change a lot of things for me, but I am afraid of failing o realizing that it was the wrong decision. Being afraid to fail in life, will keep you in the same place mentally, physically, and emotionally. This year I hope to gain more courage for not only in my social life, but in my basketball and softball career also.
            
       Being 16 years old, having never been in trouble, this year I want to bring more fun into my life. No I do not want to start doing drugs, or get arrested. I just want to be more fun when with my friends instead of just watching movies and not doing anything fun.

      So this year, I hope to do things that I have been afraid to do throughout my whole life. Whether it be shoot the last second shot, or finally telling the boy of my dreams how I really feel... I am going to do it, watch me. Whether the choice be the right or wrong choice, I do not want to regret but learn from this courage that I show.

     

Effect of Setting

"As I looked about me I felt that the grass was the country, as the water is the sea. The red of the grass made all the great prairie the colour of wine-stains, or of certain seaweeds when they are first washed up. And there was so much motion in it; the whole country seemed, somehow, to be running."


  The description in this quote makes you see a beautiful country that has plenty of land and food, and is also housing people well, helping them survive. Each thing in this description explains what the country should real look like. With this description is makes you think that the novel won't have any problems at all and everything is hunky dorey.

If I came up to a place with tall bright houses, with pretty yards and kids laughing and giggling while playing with their dogs outside. I would imagine that everyone is happy and nothing can go wrong.
But then if I came upon a plavce with all dark houses, with broken windows and kids dressed in black sitting on the porch crying would make me feel sad and gloomy and think that everything is going wrong.

My Antonia: Behind The Scenes

 Willa Cather suggests in her novel, "My Antonia", that she agrees that life back then was very hard if you did not have the necesssities. During that time, you needed land, know how to communicate with other farmers, money, and enough people to work your farm so that you can grow enough food to survive.

My Antonia is told in the perspective of another main character, Jim, but if the story was told in Antonia's perspective things would be different in many ways. Jim is on the richer side of it all, he was born and raised in America and had all the land for farming. Antonia was an immagrant who came with her family to America hoping to have better life. What Antonia got was a life of struggle trying to grow enough food and barely living right. If the story was told in Antonia's perspective, a lot of things that Jim did not know about Antonia would come out.

Cather being a woman does not tell the things that a man would do in the situation that Jim was in. If the author of this novel would have been a man, Jim would have acted totally different towards Antonia. The perspective of the novel is a mix of both sounding like a man writing, and sounds like a woman pretending to be a man. The perespective sounds like a man writing because of othe way that Jim did not help Antonia, but in the same way it also sounds like a woman because of the way Jim cares about Antonia.

Jim changes the title in my opinion because he understands Antonia, he knows what Antonia has gone through throughout the life that she has lived. They may have never became a "couple", but they were extremely close. Also becasue Antonia probably only actually acted a certian way towards Jim, meaning that she was his Antonia.

This novel shows the way that pioneers struggled during that time, and the hardships of being an immagrant. Willa Cather shows well how a person of Antonia and Jims caliber would handle situations. A book in Antonia's perspective would be an awesome sequel to this novel.





              

Cellphones in School.

Assertion/Claim

• Cellphones should be allowed in school.

Evidence-Concrete Detail

• Allowing students to use cellphones would help with the safety of the students and the mind set for the safety of the child for the parents. It would also allow the students to contact their parents during a time of emergency.

• Using the attack of 2001 as an example, we never know what could happen. If schools don't allow their students to have the availability of their cellphones, how will they contact their parents if a so called "attack" or "crisis" occurs and communication is unavailable through the students school?

• A student can get sick at anytime without any symptoms before, such as just throwing up on instant. If a student is in the restroom sick and no one knows that they are there, with the availablility of the cellphone the student can call a parent to notify them to come get them.

• Students would obtain more knowledge during school knowing that they have their cellphones instead of wanting to rebell against the "no-cellphone" idea and try to sneak their phone and text during class.

• Because of the 190 minute classes, students tend to get extremely bored and begin to have the urge of wanting to text during class while the teacher is teaching. Saying that, I believe that students should be aloud to have out their cellphones when the teacher isn't teaching and has done all of their work.

• High school students are at an age where they want to rebel against everything possible, which brings that students would rebel if they know that they can have cellphones on them during school.

Opposing Claims/They Say:

• The National School Safety and School Services state that "We have opposed policies allowing or encouraging students to have cell phones in school. On a day-to-day basis, they are disruptive to the educational environment."

• Some teachers from BHS state that, "Students would never learn anything with cellphones."

My Rebuttal/I Say:

• Although I agree with teachers up to a certain point, if students know that they can have their phones when they get their work done then they will get their work done and pay attention.

My Paragraph:

          Cellphones should be allowed in school. Allowing students to use cellphones would help with the safety of the students and the mind set for the safety of the child for the parents. It would also allow the students to contact their parents during a time of emergency. Using the attack of 2001 as an example, we never know what could happen. If schools don't allow their students to have the availability of their cellphones, how will they contact their parents if a so called "attack" or "crisis" occurs and communication is unavailable through the students school? A student can get sick at anytime without any symptoms before, such as just throwing up on instant. If a student is in the restroom sick and no one knows that they are there, with the availablility of the cellphone the student can call a parent to notify them to come get them. Students would obtain more knowledge during school knowing that they have their cellphones instead of wanting to rebell against the "no-cellphone" idea and try to sneak their phone and text during class. Because of the 190 minute classes, students tend to get extremely bored and begin to have the urge of wanting to text during class while the teacher is teaching. Saying that, I believe that students should be aloud to have out their cellphones when the teacher isn't teaching and has done all of their work. High school students are at an age where they want to rebel against everything possible, which brings that students would rebel if they know that they can have cellphones on them during school.

My Thinking:

This paragraph is mainly deductive thinking because of the theory and reasoning I presented.

Source:

• Cellphones In School: Pros and Cons

 

Running: Henry vs. Forrest

Running:
In intense situations, a persons instinct to run varies based on one's self preservation.



HENRY:
Henry Flemming wanted to perserve himself so he just ran. Ran like the wind, he did.



What do I think? I would've done the same thing, so I believe that he did the right thing. But compared to Forrest he ran for himself, so he is classified as a scardy cat.  






FORREST:
Forrest Gump didn't really know what to do. They told him to run, so he did exactly what they told him.






Forrest did what they told him, but he did it because he had no idea what to do. But instead of running for himself he turned around and ran to help out the people he was with. He was going to save them, because he didnt know any better. He didn't really care about himself.









In the end, Henry is a scaredy cat. And for Forrest, he is a hero in that movie.

Wounded Warrior Project

        The Wounded Warrior Project in my opinion is a project that helps the secret to war come out, and by looking over the websit and learning more about it, I began to realize the major effects it still has today even when the warriors do come home.
       The news always talks about how many were killed, but never the ones who were wounded. To me, the warriors who were wounded are just as important as the ones who died for us. Those guys will live with the effects of the war for the rest of their lives and cause pain while the others died on the battlefield. People think that when the guys come home from the war that everything is all great and everything. But what people don't know is that it effects them for their entire lifetimes.
        The warriors who are wounded are going to need help with the problems that they are going deal with for the long run. It's not just the families that help them, there are somethings going on in the soldiers head that cannot be seen on the outside. This project helps the soldiers by letting them tell the whole world what goes on in their head. So maybe one day a doctor can cure them.
         Soldiers are sacrificing their lives to save our country, with this project we can share out appreciation in totally different ways. You can send the soldiers who are over seas care packages, more letters of encouragement. You can also send the injured soldiers who are home care packages to help them along the tough road ahead of them.
          The website  http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org, shows everything you need to know about the project and I hope if our class begins to help that maybe it could start a national chain reaction to help more soldiers than ever.

War Is...

War is demolishing, killing cities and the people in it.
War is killing, adding more headstones everywhere.
War is crushing, ripping hearts apart.
War is needed, protecting our rights.
War is pushing, taking away love.
War is hating, expressing hatred to other countries.
War is changing, bringing peace and sorrow.
War is loving, fighting for your country.
War is reminding, showing us who our country is.
War is ending, taking all the problems away.

Book Review- What Happened To Goodbye

     Sarah Dessen's "What Happened To Goodbye" caught me by storm with the story of a girl around my age that I really related to. She has been scarred by her parent awful divorce and has moved from place to place and can't seem to find who she really is.
      The theme of the book is that you only find out who you are by being yourself. In the story this girl has moved from place to place, but each place she has used a different name and is a different person for each name. But when she shows Dave who she really is, she is really surprised.
In the story there is McLean or Liz Sweet, she is a girl who is currently moving from place to place with her dads job. Sarah Dessen wrote this character very well because I know some people included myself that are like her in many ways. In the story, McLean takes the effort to make new friends like Dave and Deb. She also takes care of her dad, and helps her mom with the pain. Dave is a genius who wants to be real, I don't really know if I like this character or not in the genius part, but I do like the strict parents and rebellious side. I can relate some people to that.
     The setting goes from place to place, but it is mostly in a small town. It takes a lot of time in the Luna Blu which is the restaurant that her father is helping rebuild.
      This book is just like a lot of movies that you see, such as the film "I Am Number Four" when the character moves form town to town because of his culture. It also reminds me of orphans who move from foster home to foster home.
      I thought the book was a fantastic and I recommend anyone who loves a good story about love and finding you real self.

Remembering 9/11

West Elementary is where I, a careless first grader was learning her spelling words when it all happen. What happened you say? A shaky voice came over the intercom and told not only our teacher, but every other teacher to go into the hallway. I was so confused. At first I thought they were getting in trouble just like the other little boys do when they are talking to much. But when Mrs. Kathy came back inside with a red face and tear filled eyes, I knew something had happened.

I remember it being a very weird night at my household. Everyone was sitting in the living room watching the news on tv, when I stomped in there wanting to know why I couldn't see the Lizzie McQuire movie on telelvision and it was the news on every single channel I went to. My mom was crying and my dad wouldn't smile. Then when they told me what happened, Lizzie McQuire could come on another night.

All these years that only thing that I knew about the attack was that airplanes crashed into the twin towers and into a building somewhere else, and that a lot of people died. But now as I've gotten older I have learned what all of this has been about. It's an attack on the United States because we aren't the same religion as the Islamic followers. They hate us, want us to be apart of their religion, and if not we are devil worshipers.

This has taught me that our freedom of religion has caused a problem and a war. It has also cause grief and sorrow from the loss of all the innocent people, because we aren't Islamic. The main thing is that I need to stand up for my religion and find a way to bring these people down.