#6

Breaking Dawn has been very interesting, but lately it has been getting kind of boring and repetitive. I'm currently still in the section where it is from Jacob's perspective. Bella isn't really improving much, but Edward told Jacob that Carlisle predicts she will give birth to this vampire baby in a few days. The main reason it is boring right now is that not much more is happening to Bella, and there's kind of a cycle of Jacob patroling, then talking with Seth and Leah, then going in the Cullen's house to see Bella and get updates, then he sleeps. It's this constant pattern with not much change each time it repeats itself. I'm still wondering if Bella will ever become a vampire. I'm starting to think she will never be changed into one. Another thing I've thought about is if Jacob will keep his mini "pack" or if he will go back to La Push and lose his Alpha role he has now and just follow what Sam says.

#5

Since last week's post, I have finished Eclipse and am about a third of the way through Breaking Dawn. Breaking Dawn has been full of surprises. You find out right away that Jacob is missing, but you don't really figure out why, which is surprising and mysterious. But, shortly after that, at Edward and Bella's wedding, he shows up. His apperance was a surprise, but of course, turned into trouble. While dancing with Bella at the reception, she tells him that she is waiting to be changed to a vampire because she wants to have a 'real honeymoon' and that was part of the deal she had with Edward. Jacob got really upset in this, and the other werewolves there had to take him away. While on the honeymoon, Edward and Bella try having sex, which was actually really funny because Edward ended up biting pillows and breaking the headboard. Anyways, something absolutely shocking happened that no one saw coming. Bella got pregnant. I was completely shocked when I read that! This isn't a normal pregnancy though, since the father is a vampire. The baby appears to be more vampire than human, so it is killing Bella. The werewolves, even though they fought with the Cullens in Eclipse are now going to fight them to kill Bella because they believe that this baby is going to be a threat to them. I was kind of mad at them for wanting to do that, but I was very happy when Jacob stood up to Sam and for once took the Alpha role, leaving Sam and creating his own "pack" with Seth, and later, Leah. I was happy when Jacob finally came up with an idea that I had been thinking of: that the baby is more vampire than human and it is probably thirsty for blood. What came next was absolutely repulsive. My stomach was actually churning while I read it. They had Bella drink extra blood from a cup. And she even liked it, and found humor in it, by saying things like how she will be prepared for becoming a vampire. Breaking Dawn so far has been crazy. So many things have happened, and all of them were huge. I'm beginning to wonder if Bella will ever become a vampire.

Homework

Research Question:
Are standardized tests unfair for minority and disadvantaged students?

Rothstein, Richard. "Leaving "No Child Left Behind" Behind." SIRS. 2008. American Prospect. 7 Dec 2008 .

In his article, Richard Rothstein analyzes the negative effects of the No Child Left Behind law. One thing he mentions is that one reason disadvantaged kids have a poor performance is that they don’t have adequate schools to attend, and also that those same kids will come to school scared or hungry, which doesn’t help their performance at school. Also, children who do not pass the tests given to them receive more attention and instruction than children who do pass. Therefore, schools with many children like that focus more on good instruction than preparing for tests. Another problem with NCLB is that they expect high standards and if they keep increasing these standards, the already large number of schools failing would increase. The article also states that schools get punished for not making “adequate yearly progress” towards getting students to be proficient at these challenging standards, even if the students are disadvantaged or disabled.



Zehr, Mary Ann. “Hurdles Remain High for English-Learners." SIRS. 2008. Education Week. 7 Dec 2008 .

In this article, Mary Ann Zehr tells the story of Ong Vue, who came to the U.S. as a refugee from Thailand. She only spoke Thai and Hmong. Although she had made huge progress throughout high school, she had to take the state of California’s math exam twice before she passed, and also had to take the English exam multiple times. Also, since she wasn’t passing the state tests, it was taking a toll on the school’s hope to reach the national adequate yearly progress. An issue that is brought up in this article is that some schools aren’t preparing students for these sorts of tests. Instead, in the days leading up to one of these tests, some teachers go on teaching the regular curriculum and only briefly mention the test and say things such as “get a good night sleep” and “eat breakfast.” While these tips are helpful, it is suggested that teachers should be preparing students more for the tests.

Note: For some reason the URL is not showing up, and I tried multiple times to get it to work...

#4

So far, my overall opinion of Eclipse is that there is more action than Twilight or New Moon. As usual, Bella keeps getting herself in more trouble and it's becoming more serious. Another thing that is becoming more serious is Bella and Edward's relationship. Bella is determined to become a vampire soon, so she can be with Edward forever. Part of the deal was that she had to wait until she graduated high school, but now that that has happened, Edward has put a new twist on it. He will not change her into a vampire until she marries him. Bella will marry him, but she doesn't want to right now. She doesn't want to marry right out of high school, which I agree. Even though she would become a vampire, I think it would be weird to get married that young. Edward and Bella are now engaged, but while she is trying to figure out how to sneak off to Vegas with him to get married, there is trouble with vampires. For once, Bella made connections among certain events that involved vampires. Now all these newborn vampires, most likely made by Victoria, have come to Bella's house to get her scent, and are now after her. I was really surprised when the Cullens agreed to join forces with the werewolves from La Push and try to fight off these dangerous newborns. Although, it is most likely because Jacob is also in love with Bella, and both Edward and Jacob want her to be safe. This is definetly an action-filled book, with the action getting more and more intense. I'm starting to wonder if Bella will ever become a vampire, since she's been talking about becoming one almost the whole book, and she hasn't really made much progress towards getting changed by either Edward or Carlisle.

#3

New Moon was so amazing that I have already finished it! Although compared to Twilight it's really not that great. Through the middle, Edward and the other members of the Cullen family have left, and the only thing that really reminds you of them is that Bella can't let go of Edward. Towards the end though, things start getting better and it got hard to put it down. First Alice comes back. Alice and Bella take a trip to Italy to save Edward from getting himself killed by the Volturi. Edward wants to get himself killed, because Rosalie had told him that Bella had gone cliffdiving and she thought Bella was trying to commit suicide, so Edward didn't want to live without Bella. That's pretty much the main action of the last part of the book. I have a good start on Eclipse now, and from what I've read so far, it is definetly better than New Moon, but still, nothing beats Twilight.

#2

One thing I found interesting about what I have recently read in New Moon is that Bella is still emotionally attached to Edward even though she hangs out with Jacob almost every day and is starting to like him more. When Jacob and Bella hang out they are fixing up these two motor bikes that eventually lead to some trouble. But anyways, I find it kind of entertaining that Bella thinks she is a big rebel for using these bikes without Charlie knowing, but really, she is not that big of a rebel. After she figures out that Jacob is a werewolf, I thought that it was strange that she is so attracted to these guys that are not normal at all since Edward is a vampire and now Jacob is a werewolf. It is also weird that she is attracted to these kind of guys since she has so many accidents and these types of guys aren't helping her with that at all. In the part where she sees Laurent again and he tells her about Victoria, it was at first confusing and then intense because you didn't know if Victoria was going to come hunt down Bella at Charlie's house. It is actually still kind of intense because Jacob tells Bella that Victoria keeps coming and going and Bella tells him that Victoria is looking to kill her. There was so so much that happened in the book lately that it is hard to remember everything, and it is amazing, but definetly not as amazing as Twilight.

#1

I am reading New Moon by Stephanie Meyer because I read Twilight and loved it and I have already started the book and I can't wait to finish it, even though I heard it isn't nearly as good as Twilight.

Post #7

Last week I picked up New Moon by Stephanie Meyer again. There were some major events that occurred during the last set of pages I read. While Bella was forced to celebrate her birthday at the Cullen’s house, she got injured and being around a family of vampires, it wasn’t the best situation. Luckily Edward’s “father” Carlisle is a doctor and can control his thirst for blood and gave Bella stitches. After that though, Bella and Edward started going downhill. Edward started acting really weird at school and not only that but Alice and Jasper, Edwards “siblings” had left to go to Denali, where another family of unique vampires similar to them lives. Finally one night Edward comes over and takes Bella for a walk in the woods. During their walk, he suddenly announces that they are leaving. Bella figures out that the whole family is leaving. Edward tells her that everyone has left already and he only stayed behind to say goodbye to her. But suddenly Edward ran off forever and left Bella alone in the dark woods where she fell asleep, but then woke up to someone shouting her name. Bella had forgotten about her father, Charlie, who had sent the men into the woods to look for her. Bella is now remembering Edward’s words “it’ll be like I never existed” because she doesn’t want to forget him, but he even took the pictures she had of him out of her scrapbook.
This book is getting better and better all the time, and it was hard to put it down each time I picked it up. There is something about the way Stephanie Meyer writes, but it really grabs you and makes it hard to stop!

Post #6

Since last week’s post I read another book from The Clique series by Lisi Harrison. It was another book from the summer collection, but this time it was about Dylan’s summer. Dylan’s mom is a famous talk show host and for the summer they went to Hawaii so she could cover a huge tennis tournament. While Dylan is there, she meets a guy who she really likes, but he only likes tennis players. Dylan has some major self-esteem issues and thinks she is really fat. Another person she meets there is a tennis superstar, Svetlana. She was amazed to see her because Svetlana has really bad anger management and had just finished some treatment for it. While she is there, Dylan enlists Svetlana to teach her how to play tennis. They start to learn a lot about each other and for a short time they become friends. Dylan even gets her curly hair super straightened so it looks just like Svetlana’s. Although later on Svetlana found out that Dylan was just using her to get the tennis skills she needed to impress this guy. Apparently Svetlana liked him too, because they got in a huge fight about it, which I thought was incredibly stupid. In the end, Svetlana and Dylan didn’t end on a good note because Svetlana made Dylan sign a contract saying she wouldn’t talk about anything personal Svetlana said over the summer. Overall I thought this book was better than most of the books, but I am interested in tennis. I enjoyed when they mentioned the actual tennis stars that are famous today, because I knew who they were talking about.

Post #5

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=22191827&blogID=440826157

This week I read a long blog post by the Jonas Brothers. It was recapping their past week, which was spent in Europe promoting their new album. They really emphasized in this post how much the fans support and encourage them. At their first stop in Milan, Italy they said there were 20,000 people waiting for them and other people lining the streets. They said they weren’t expecting that big of a response, which makes it even more crazy! The insanity didn’t stop there, though. In Madrid, Spain, they sang in a major shopping area because their concert there this summer had been canceled. They said the crowd was huge and it sounds really crazy because it said they had to shut it down twice to call in more security and then they ended up having to leave because of how crazy it got. As much as I am happy for them that they have international support, it is kind of sad that they couldn’t even stay because the crowd was so overwhelming. That reminded me of when their new album “A Little Bit Longer” came out this summer and when they were in New York to buy it at midnight, times square shut down and they could only go in, buy the CD, then leave because the crowd was actually dangerous. Through the rest of the Jonas Brothers’ trip to Europe they went to Germany, London and Paris and they said that there the fans followed them everywhere and were waiting outside every TV show and radio station. At the end of their blog post they say, “To all the fans…Thanks for being so amazing. To our fans in the US that have been there from the beginning. To the fans in Europe that encouraged us this week. To the fans we still need to meet…WE LOVE YOU.” I loved reading this part because they seem like very sweet guys and they love their fans so much and try their hardest to meet as many fans as possible. Hopefully I’ll get the chance to meet them someday!

Post #4

The past week I read a book called The Clique Summer Collection: Kristen by Lisi Harrison. It was a short book and easy to read, but it is part of a series that I really enjoy reading. Kristen is one of the girls in the pretty committee, which is the name of their clique. During the summer each girl had different adventures, so there is a book for each of them and this book was all about Kristen’s summer. For Kristen, she doesn’t get to go somewhere extravagant like Massie, Alicia, Dylan, and Claire. She is stuck home in Westchester. Kristen gets a job tutoring a ten year old girl named Ripple, who has an older brother, Dune, whom Kristen really likes. While Ripple is using Kristen to get to her friend Massie, who is the alpha of the clique and extremely popular, Kristen is using Ripple to get to Dune. But one major thing gets in the way of Kristen and Dune. Skye. She is a year older than Kristen and is just like Massie – everyone wants to be around her. Kristen has to come up with a plan, which involves replacing the country club’s pool water with jello and having to keep it cool on a hot summer night. Of course, in the end everything worked out ok, and Kristen and Dune got together, but right before Dune announced to her he was moving again. I really liked the book, but I wish it was longer. They cram so much into 100-150 pages and I wish there was more about her summer than just that.

Post #3

http://www.thefutoncritic.com/news.aspx?id=20080930abc01
For this post, I read an article online about the ratings of all the shows that premiered last week on TV. I learned that ABC had the most viewers during the opening week of shows and it aired 3 of the top 4 shows for the premiere week. I found it interesting that over the course of its 3 night premiere, “Dancing With The Stars” was the most watched show during that time. Another interesting fact about “Dancing With The Stars” is that on the results show last Wednesday, that show was the most viewed during the 8:00-9:00 hour since last November. Although that is not surprising, since performing on the results show that night were popular bands/singers such as Jesse McCartney, and my personal favorite, the Jonas Brothers!! “Ugly Betty”, “Desperate Housewives” and “Grey’s Anatomy” had its biggest amount of viewers in almost a year. What I find even more amazing about the number of people that watched this, is that most people record shows on DVR or TiVo and just watch it on their time. But all these records were from live TV, which to me seems pretty incredible since more and more people are using devices such as DVR.

Post #2

http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b29249_jonas_brothers_no_mandates_against_fan.html
For this post, I read an article online about the Jonas Brothers. In this article, it talks about how in a recent post to their MySpace blog, they answered a couple questions fans asked them. When asked if they would ever date a fan, they said “The answer is YES,” and they also said “We have already dated fans or girls that are not celebrities. In fact, we really like to believe that the girl we will spend our lives with will be our biggest ‘fan.’” The article goes talks about how this will most likely fuel their fans obsessions even more, which I can believe, because I am a huge fan and also kind of obsessed. Another part of this blog post was quoted and it says, “It is our rule to not talk about our personal lives, especially who we are dating," they wrote. "The same would be true if we were dating you.” I support their decision for doing this, because I know from past articles I’ve read, girls have sent death threats and other horrible threats to girls that one of the Jonas Brothers are supposedly dating. Even though it is pretty obvious who they are currently dating, I think it is good that they aren’t sharing it, both for their own sake, and for the sake of the girl they are dating. Also, one interesting thing I noticed in the article is that it used the word "deign" which was a recent vocabulary word.

New Moon by Stephanie Meyer pages 1-29

"But this was no dream, and, unlike the nightmare, I wasn't running for my life; I was racing to save something infinitely more precious. My own life meant little to me today." (p. 1)

At the start of New Moon, which is the second of the Twilight series, it is Bella's birthday. Prior to this, Bella and Edward are the same age, 17. But Edward is a vampire, so he never gets any older, he will always be 17. Now that Bella turns 18, it depresses her that she is now officially older than Edward. Edward and his sister, Alice, are excited and try to wish Bella 'happy birthday' but Bella is so depressed its her birthday, she doesn't really want anyone to know it's her birthday. Also, she doesn't want any gifts from anyone. Edward, Alice and the rest of their vampire family want to throw a party for Bella and even though she refuses, Edward forces her to come. Everyone keeps trying to get Bella excited about her birthday and give her nice presents, but she still refuses to be happy, all because she is now older than Edward.