Qfwfq's Shame and Pride.

Throughout each of the stories, Q often goes back and forth between prideful arrogance, and shameful embarrassment.

Qfwfq faces different emotions while being a new member of the New Ones. Towards the end he begins to realize the real reason why dinosaurs decided to give up and leave the world when he saw one of his brethren dead and fossilized. He began to see the similarities of him and the dead dinosaur when he says; “If one of them had looked from the skeleton to me, as I stood there staring at it, he would have realized at once that we were identical.” (PG108) When Qfwfq say this, he compares his physical resemblance to the dinosaur. His mouth open as if in his last cry before being defeated. Q feels a bit shameful when looking at the fallen dinosaur because it reminds him of how vulnerable the dinosaurs were in the first place. But at the same time, he felt that the essence of other species questioning whether or not dinosaurs actually existed made him feel special.

In the story The Aquatic Uncle,Q is also shamed by his uncle, N’ba N’ga, because he is not as evolved than Q is. Qfwfq feels that N’ba N’ga is an embarrassment to him whenever he says things about water. Q expresses this when he says, “Yes, we had a great-uncle who was a fish, on my paternal grandmother’s side...(the fresh-water branch: who are, for the matter, cousins of the others..)” (PG71)When Qfwfq states this he is reluctant to show that his great uncle is any way related to him. Later on in the story he feels embarrassed when his girlfriend Lll meets his uncle because she is a land animal. To Q, land animals are a more advanced species of organisms so when N’ba N’ga talks about the greatness of water he is very ashamed.

In The Dinosaurs,  Q is a new member of the New Ones, but as he adapts to their ways, he realizes the similarities between the New Ones and the Dinosaurs. When he found out that the Dinosaurs were coming back, he detested the concept. Qfwfq states, “If the Dinosaurs were trying to re-establish their rule with invasions and massacres, it meant they had learned nothing from experience, that they had survived only by mistake.” (PG106) As a result to this, the New Ones turn to Q for help in defeating the Dinosaurs. He feels that they are taking the easy way out by giving responsibility to a mere outsider. Later on he states, “I wanted nothing to do with either side: let the rip each other apart in turn! I didn’t give a damn about any of them.” (PG106) When Qfwfq say this he feels shame in both the New Ones and the Dinosaurs and wants no part in them anymore. Being alone and traveling by himself was a better idea to him than being with these clans.

Friendship. Response to Rokhsor

After reading Rokhsor’s blog about friendship, I realized how important friendship is and how powerful it can be. In her blog she states,

What is friendship? That is one thing us high schooler's do not know the definition of because no one knows the first thing about friendship. Friendship is the most precious thing in the world. It is about trust, loyalty, and fun. .....Being trustworthy is a big thing. High school students do not take it seriously but it is definitely an important thing. It takes a very long time to earn someone's trust, and when you do, it is in you best interest to not ruin it.

Throughout her blog she explains the main parts of a good friendship: trust, loyalty, and fun. I can relate to her thoughts about friendship because I understand how hard it is to build a really good relationship with a friend. Trust is a big factor to friendship. Without it, the friendship would fall apart. A good friend is somebody who can keep your secrets without telling one person hoping they won’t spread the rumor. I believe trust is the most important part of a friendship because it determines how long the friendship will last. Friends that have a hard time trusting each other won’t be able to have a healthy friendship. Loyalty. Similar to trust but at the same time has its differences. One can be trustworthy to a friend but not be loyal at the same time.

During my time at ASTI so far I have learned more about myself by the people I hang out with. I’ve built good friendships with the people that I feel that I can trust, and that are really fun to hang around. Friendship is a key part of my life because my friends are some of the people I know I can count on later on and even though they won’t be there forever I know I can count on them right now.

2010 US Soccer Regional Camp

Over the summer I was invited to go to the University of Idaho to participate in the 2010 US Soccer Regional Camp. After months of training in the 97’ Girls Cal North State Olympic Development Program they chose the strongest players to attend the camp. At first I had mixed feelings about it, knowing that it would be very competitive and I was going to be gone for a week with non-stop soccer I was scared. At the same time I was ecstatic to know that I was chosen. After an hour on the plane, and another hour on a bus I was finally at the University of Idaho. When I got there I noticed right away the Cal South team glaring at us. Cal South was our rival team which didn’t make sense since were both from the same state. I looked around and I saw each team that represented their state. The girls that attended were from: Hawaii, Idaho, Utah, Alaska, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Cal South, Cal North, Ohio, Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico. There was a total of 264 girls fighting for 30 positions. The competition was very tough and to make it onto the regional team would take more than just luck. Each day girls would have packs of ice wrapped around them, some passed out from the workouts. I was lucky enough to not get injured.

Our daily schedule was breakfast at 7 a.m. or 8 a.m. depending on what time our morning game was. Tardiness was not acceptable. After the morning game we would go back for lunch and then have our class session. In the class session every team gathered into a room and talked about strategies and techniques of how to be a good soccer player. Once the class was over our team would have to rush back to the dorm to get our bags and go to our workout session. Since I am a goalkeeper I had a different workout from my team. Workouts were then followed by the invitational games. Players could only play in the invitational games if they were asked by a regional coach. Finally, once the invitational games were over my team went back to the dorm to go to sleep with only half an hour for five girls to shower.

Regional camp was not one of my most favorite experiences because I didn’t like the high level of competition. It made me feel intimidated whenever I saw a regional coach watch my games and when this happened I started to play horrible. At regional camp I can honestly say that I sucked. It was weird playing on a team that wasn’t like my club team. I played with different girls in Northern California that all had different methods of playing. After going to regional camp I noticed that I don’t perform well under pressure. I regret not trying harder at regional camp because in the beginning I didn’t want it as bad as other girls. It wasn’t until the end that I actually wanted to try to make the team.

Although this camp felt like torture to me I feel that now it has improved the way I play. After going to regional camp I learned more about myself and the passion of soccer throughout the U.S. Even though I did not make the regional team next time I know what will be coming my way. Right now I am getting ready for my State ODP tryouts in October and hopefully I go farther than State. My goal is to at least try harder to make the regional team. This past summer didn’t mean much to me because it was my first year doing this and being in the youngest age group I wast still naive about what I was going through at the time. Hopefully I can go far in the Olympic Development Program and understand what it takes to be a good soccer player.

Word List.

1. acquisition
2. coherence
3. forthcoming
4. intrinsic
5. albeit
6. hierarchical
7. phenomenon
8. ideology
9. integral
10. allocation

First Month at ASTI-freewrite

After having a quick write in class about my thoughts of the first month of ASTI I was inspired to write a post about how it went. When asked about ASTI the first thoughts that came to my mind was, challenging, a lot of homework, and social suicide! At first I thought ASTI was simply a nerd school. Knowing that I was the smartest out of my group of friends I guess I am considered a nerd too. On the first day of school I was shy and didn't really know who I was going to end up becoming friends with. After the first week I made new friends and started to enjoy this school a lot. My thoughts about ASTI being a nerd school started to fade away as I saw the different types of people around me. I didn't realize that some people that came here just wanted to better themselves educationally.

When two weeks went by ASTI seemed like paradise to me. The homework load was fair, I met new people, and after the end of the day I was always excited to see what will happen the next day. My favorite class was P.E. I enjoyed interacting with other people and found myself counting down the minutes of each period to get to the next. ASTI wasn't a nerd school to me at all. I was having the time of my life.

Once I began settling in at ASTI and school started to get more serious I was still able to keep up with my classes finding everything to go by smoothly. Later on I ran into a bit of drama but found my way out of it. School was the same and every new day seemed like the one before. This is when I realized that I adapted to how things went at ASTI.

My first month of ASTI was exciting. I remember telling my sister how glad I was to be here. Every school day went by so fast that I couldn't wait for another one to come. This first month has been a great experience for me and I am excited to see how the rest of the year goes.

Life at ASTI.-Response

After reading Nawara's post about her experience at ASTI and how she feels about the school I was inspired by how she explained in detail her opinions. In her post she stated:

When I think about school, I imagine homework, quizzes, breaks, gossip, etc. When I came to Alameda Science and Technology Institute, I learned that I was in a smaller environment and in an area that is full time work, work, work. When it was my first day of school, all I was thinking about was college. I felt like I was not in a high school where they have rallies, dances, and football games. I was in a community where we succeed in higher educational standards.

 I can relate to her thoughts on her first impression of high school because, before I came to ASTI I wished to go to Alameda High School. I wanted to have the full high school experience and be able to take part in school rallies, dances and football games. Seeing how amusing and fun others made it seem I was excited to be in a "regular" high school. When I found out I was going to ASTI I didn't know if I should have been ecstatic, or if I made the wrong decision. I knew ASTI was a better choice for me educationally but at the same time all of my friends were attending AHS.

I am glad that I made the choice to go to ASTI because now I realize how important this school is to me. With less students I don't have to struggle with crowded hallways and constant drama. Leaving my friends was tough since I've known them for so long, but I feel like this was a big step for me independently. Although I still wish I could attend games and homecoming events at my school, I know that ASTI will give me better results for my future and in the long run those things don't matter as much as the college you are accepted into.

Nawara does a good job explaining her thoughts on ASTI and after reading this she helped me realize that I made the right choice on coming to this school.

Rebuttal. Abortion-PRO. Yen and Melissa

Rebuttal: Abortion PRO

Pro Opener:
Abortion is not an act of murder, it is rather a case of a decision on whether or not a baby should be kept for the better or struggle through life. We believe that abortion cannot be called murder because a fetus is not yet an infant until born. According to W.G. Derbyshire, PhD and senior lecturer at the University of Birmingham fetuses are unable to feel pain until birth. Having an abortion is a mothers choice. They should be able to decide the options in which can benefit the incoming child. For example, if a fetus is diagnosed with handicapped abilities and the parents are unable to afford certain necessities for the child, it is unfair to bring the baby into the world if it cannot be treated correctly.

Con Opener:
Our opponents, Alex and Victor, stated that abortion is murder of a child, and should not be legalized. (A fetus is not a child until born, also they are unable to feel pain until birth.)  Another one of their arguments was about the hypocrite oath in which doctors swear that they will not abort a baby. (This cannot be proven because there have been many cases of abortion.)  They also stated that 2 million parents are looking to adopt a child, while only 130 thousand are actually up for adoption.  They made an invalid statement that future heroes may be aborted, and never have the chance of contributing to the world(they have no proof of this because how many heroes of America have actually been aborted?).  Alex and Victor also referred to the Bible as one of their sources. We believe that it is an ineffective and unreliable way of collecting information. Religion is not a good way to get information. They responded to the Bible saying that abortion is not humane and should not be done. Yet this is not enough information to persuade us to make abortion illegal. The last statement they spoke about in their opener was that mothers who abort a child may have remorse about their action, and that it may lead to depression and/or suicide(we are debating on whether or not it should be legal, so it is the mothers decision on the abortion. if the government forces a mother into having a baby, it may affect the mother and/or the child in the future.)

Abortion should be legal. -PRO yen and melissa

Pro: Abortion should be legalized.

Mothers who wish to have an abortion should not be penalized for the mistakes that they have made in the past.  Stated by the Supreme Court, “It is a woman’s fundamental right to make the choice to have an abortion.”  Abortion cannot be considered murder because a fetus is not a human being. Having an abortion is relative to terminating a pregnancy, not a defenseless child.  Also, according to Stuart W.G. Derbyshire, a senior lecturer at the University of Birmingham, fetuses cannot feel pain until birth, therefore having an abortion will not harm the developing infant. Fear of unsafe procedures during abortions are common, but modern, professional abortions are quite safe;the numbers prove that: 1 in every 100,000 women die in an abortion, while an average of about 13 women die out of 100,000 from pregnancies.  Keeping abortions legal, prevents women from having to preform illegal, unsafe abortions, that may cause death and diseases because of unsterilized tools, or amateur experience; according to The World health Organization, over 68,000 deaths have occurred because of non-official abortions in countries that outlaws it. 1 in 800 babies are born with Down Syndrome, and 1 to 4000 males/1 to 8000 females are diagnosed with X syndrome; It is unfair to bring a child into the world who will face a lifetime of handicap-ability.  

Having an abortion is a mother’s choice.  73% mothers who have abortions do so because their finances would not be able to support another human being, while 38% say that their baby would interfere greatly with their studies or pursuit of their career.  If the mother is unable of providing for her incoming infant then it should be her choice on whether or not to keep the child. Legalized abortion lowers crime rates by 50% . When a teenager or poor parent is forced to raise a child because of a mistake he/she made in the past, they must resort to crime to pay the bills and keep the baby alive.  But when a baby is raised in a crime filled neighborhood, he will grow up seeing crime all around him, and wont be able to differentiate crime from survival from unnecessary crimes.  They will grow up thinking that exploiting theft, or other sorts of crimes, not because of bad parenting, but the environment they were forced to grow up in because the parent was not financially ready to support a child.They cannot bring up a healthy child because of the influences around them.  By having an option to have an abortion it gives mothers a second chance to decide if they want to raise their kid in an unsafe environment.