literature circle book response #2

Section A:

I think that what is most interesting about this book is how there are many similar themes in Amir's life and many average American's life. It's interesting how people who live in completely different worlds and have completely different cultures can have certain things in common.
I like the book a lot and I think that it is very engaging because of the descriptive words and it is a captivating story.

Themes
1. father son relationship
2. guilt
3. honor
4. pride
5. culture

Section B:

Our group was wondering why Baba didn't tell Amir that Hassan was his brother? Personally I think that it was to protect Baba's honor, because honor is so important in the Afghan culture. I was also wondering what important events occurred in Amir's teenage life.

Section C:

My most memorable quote is on page 157 paragraph 1. The book states:
"What's going to happen to you, you say? All those years, that's what I was trying to teach you, how to never have to ask that question."

Baba is telling this to Amir and it explains his shame during Amir's younger years. I think that this shows that he was embarassed because he wants he to be tough and self sufficient. This is because Baba was extremely self sufficient and made a life for himself, for that reason Baba wants Amir to be like him.

literature circle reflection

The book that I chose to read for literature circles was Kite Runner. As of our second literature meeting my group and I have reached page 147.

1. PREDICTING
I predict that Amir's relationship with the Soraya Taheri (the swap meet princess) will grow. Also I think Amir will get a job, because he will have to support Baba. Of course eventually I think that Baba will pass away and it will be a huge event in the book. Maybe Amir will enroll in a University as well, instead of a Junior College, perhaps he will take classes other than creative writing too.

2. Picturing
As I read I was able to picture almost everything that was occurring. This was because of the descriptive writing that the author used, also it helped that I took notes of important events and new characters as I read. This helped a lot when the author discussed characters or referred to previous events. I was able to just look at my notes and easily picture what the author was referring to.

3. Making Connections
I started to think about illegal immigration into America when I read the section about Amir and Baba being smuggled into the country. When they spoke of the numerous people in the buses and trucks trying to get to the border and through it I thought of the project we recently completed. Although I personally did not focus my project on illegal immigration, I learned a lot about it when doing the project. I thought of the people smuggling stories that we were told when I read that section of the book.
Another thing that I thought of was Nazi Germany during World War II. When Amir and Baba were sitting and hiding in the basement with many other people and it was cold and dark and smelly, I thought of the Jewish people hiding from the Nazi's. I also thought of this in the beginning of this section when they spoke of people ratting each other out. I find it interesting how history seems to repeat itself.

4. Identifying a Problem
I didn't expect the author to skip from when Amir was 13 to when he was 18. This surprised me because the author skipped a lot of his teen years, which could have been very interesting because that is when kids really grow up and change. I do think that the story will still be good, but it could have been an interesting section (especially for teen readers).

5. Identifying a Solution
When I was unclear about different characters (mainly because of their names that I was not used to) I took notes on a separate sheet of paper. This helped me to better understand the story because I could easily recognize each character. I think that this was especially helpful because there have already been so many characters in the book.

Overall I have enjoyed reading this book. With my reading strategies I have been able to better understand the book and the characters. I look forward to finding out what comes next in the KITE RUNNER.

tuesday

today danielle, coco and i worked on our movie. Since we only have two and a half weeks till it is due we know we have to work hard. Today we uploaded some images and our flash onto vegas, which took a long time because our computer froze up a lot. We decided we needed more pictures after so we went to Trader Joes and took pictures of the produce. The man at the front of the store said to not take pictures of the people. Because of this I am in a few of the images to block out people shopping at the store.

Tomorrow we want to upload our interview and work on vegas.

BASICALLY I HOPE WE FINISH EARLY.

fires

so the mexico trip is postponed because of the fires. These same fires gave us the week off. I hope we weren't supposed to blog. I volunteered to help with hth. What is happening is horrible and I truly pity those people. School starts on tuesday so I will see everyone there.

The Weekend

I am currently in Yuma Arizona for a river trip so I haven't got to do much packing for the trip. I am very excited and think being a group leader will be fun. I hope that my group is cooperative especially when cooking. Andrew already said that he wants to cook, but he can only make breakfast. I said I don't mind pancakes for dinner. The family I went here with has been to San Quentin and their main comment is that it is very windy. I plan on brining jackets for night because it is going to be cold.

BASICALLY I AM EXCITED FOR MEXICO BUT MONDAY MIGHT BE KIND OF HECTIC.

Thursday

Thursday we had a field trip to do some wawter testing to prepare us for Mexico. We went to the first site that was like a block behind the school and the water seemed clean. It was the same as most of the other water in SD I thought. My group didn't go first, we walked around on the rocks and threw rocks into the water. We also enjoyed watching another group go EXPLORING. It was nice to watch them go first so we would know what to do(and what not to do). We went in search of our next place with Spencer leading us but I guess the construction site was in the way because we couldn't get through. We went to Starbucks and TJ's instead, which wasn't too bad for a field trip. Then we went to Shelter Island but since it is super far away we didn' t get all the way there.
After we tested the water we got about the same results as all the other groups, which is kind of interesting. I am kind of excited for water testing in Mexico.

BASICALLY STARBUCKS IS A NICE FIELD TRIP DESTINATION.

wednesday

wednesday was a half day at school. I was very happy about this but I had my slc so that was about all I was happy about. During school we were visited by the leader and creator of the Border Angels. To find information about him visit:
http://www.borderangels.org/index2.php?PHPSESSID=5490d78c0c1f9270152a8a7adf1dd7d8.
Basically he told us about his story and how he came to found the organization. He worked for the Padres, but he didn't say what he did for them. I think he did something with their business department but some people in the class thought that he was implying he played for the team. After he told us about himself he talked about the horrible thing that are happening in terms of crossing the border and the immigration laws. Personally I found him to be very biased and he seemed to drop a lot of names. Then he told us stories of horrible things he encountered in the dessert. They were interesting but when he started talking about the people he found racist he seemed unreliable. Overall I think it was interesting and useful for the groups who are reporting on immigration issues. I think when discussing such a multi-faceted issue it is important to hear every side.

My student led conference was after school on Wednesday. Some people were standing outside kind of nervous, I didn't see why because we were just talking with our teachers and our parents. I got all my stuff ready (it took forever to print my agenda) and I went into the great room with my mom after school. Julio came up to us first and he talked to us about my progress in the class, the mexico trip and stuff like that. Then I went in for my SLC. I talked about all of the things on the agenda and it didn't seem very difficult. I am hoping that I did a good job and it was supposed to be pretty easy. I guess I will find out when I get my grade. My friends were kind of nervous for theirs but I guess some people have different fears.

BASICALLY IT WAS NICE HAVING A HALF DAY AND THE SLC WASN'T TOO BAD.

Tuesday

Today in Spencer's class we read over our script. We did this to find out how long our movie would be (roughly). When we timed it, it was a good time. We of course did not include our interview, and took that into consideration.

Other than that we did not do much else, tonight I prepared for my SLC that is tomorrow. Oh ya in Anne's class we had a SUPER LONG TEST. I worked for 2 hours straight and couldn't finish completley.

BASICALLY NOT MUCH TO BLOG TONIGHT BUT I AM SO SUPER TIRED.

Monday

Today we turned in our final script for our news movie on pesticides. Many people during the work time in Spencer's class were still working on their script. I heard my friends talk about having to work on it over the weekend too, which I thought was interesting because we had it done way before that. I am very happy that in comparison to other groups we are really on schedule. Hopefully even with the Mexico trip and many other things coming up, we will continue with this MOMENTUM and get assignments done before they are due. I think this is very important especially when working with Sony Vegas.

When using Sony Vegas before I learned that it can be unreliable and sometimes it doesn't work. Another common occurence with Vegas is deleting of the entire project. If we get our project done early than we will have time to recovery from any Vegas related disaster. And getting our work done early will give us lots of editing time.

I prepared for my SLC a little more on Monday but since I had a volleyball game (which we won) I didn't have that much time for that.

BASICALLY MEXICO IS COMING SOON AND VEGAS CAN BE ANNOYING.

Friday & weekend

This weekend I looked for pictures for our movie.
Here are some links to pictures I found:

http://www.fels.org/Images/hazcom.gif

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/biopesticides/projectoverview/lettucesimage.jpg

http://www.buyfreshnwj.org/WebPages/Images/BFBL%20Farmers/CS%20Garden%20@%20GF/csg1.jpg

http://stoneypointmachine.com/photos/P3020107.JPG

http://www.mikelevin.com/Tomatoes1024.jpg

http://christine113.sharpcast.com/get/image.jpg?album=12021_51629801872805&photo=28221_121208272060702&photoSize=image

Since we are ahead on our projects we don't have much that we have to do this weekend. On Friday I prepared for my SLC and went over our script.

We had 2 quizzes today, I am pretty confident about how I did (knock on wood). Spencer's quiz took a lot of time, I even had to finish it during Spanish class.

BASICALLY I'M EXCITED FOR MEXICO AND CAN'T WAIT TO DO OUR MOVIE.

Thursday

On thursay we had our water presentations. Our group presented on pH. As I have said before we finished this project early so I think our group was pretty confident. We went up there and slip up the speaking evenly, we went in an order but we added to each others slides if we had something to say. When we went up we knew we would get a lot of questions, the other groups were practically bombarded, I am glad we didn't go first so we knew what to expect. We did recieve quite a few questions but they weren't as off topic as the groups before. I think we did a pretty good job and I hope we get a good grade.
We:
~ answered the questions professionally and adequatley
~kept on topic
~spoke clearly
~kept the time limit
~had good info
~ and I think overall we did well.

Before Anne's class we worked in Spencer's on the script and flash. We cut our script down substantially and made the edits required. Also I worked on the Flash. I changed the mouse (it was a cartoon) into a picture of a real mouse. I think that it made it look more professional and I am very pleased with it.
Hopefully we can start recording and working on our actual movie soon.

BASICALLY I AM HAPPY WITH WHAT HAPPENED ON THURSDAY.

wednesday

Today I went over our presentation for our presentation. We will have to teach the class our subject of pH tomorrow so I think that it is beneficial to at least look over the powerpoint. I am very glad we got our presentation done on time so I will not have to worry about it tonight or tomorrow. Hopefully when we actually present the information that we have gathered and written we will succeed.

I am excited for our field trip that is next week. We will be testing water and actually using the information we learn tomorrow. I think that that is what is most interesting about this water quality project, we actually use our project for real life.

Hopefully Mexico will be fun. I helped at the bake sale today, which will hopefully contribute to our trip.

BASICALLY I AM HAPPY FOR PRESENTATIONS TOMORROW BUT I HAVE NOTHING MORE TO WRITE.

Tuesday

Tuesday during class we finished our entire pH presentation. I think that we did a pretty good job of working together and splitting the work up equally. When we first got into class I showed Danielle and Colette what I had already completed Monday night.

After that we discussed what each of us had reasearched over the time we were given. There were a lot of aspects of our assignment that we had to present in our powerpoint. During the time we were researching we had to make sure we kept the assignment in mind so we would focus on all of the subjects. Even though we had all researched pH we had each focused on different things. This was very helpful for our porject because that meant our group new about all of the subjects that we were presenting on. Some of the slides we had trouble on, but it was mainly the ultra specific details that we had trouble on. It took us both periods that we were given, but we did finish our entire project on Tuesday. This made e very happy that we were working so effeciently. Our effeciency was also very important because we knew that we would not get work time on Wednesday.

That night I did not work anymore on the pH presentation. I read the story that was assigned for Spencer's class and I completed the exeder hw.

BASICALLY I AM HAPPY WITH OUR WATER PROJECT.

monday

Today we had a volleyball game at our home court and we won. When I got home and ate dinner I started on my homework.

I began by working on our water quality project. After getting out the project sheet I started on a powerpoint. I made the title slide, the first slide descibing what pH is, and i formatted the other slides so all we have to do tomorrow is fill in information.
Anne said that we would not have much time during class to work on this project so I wanted to make sure that we worked on it regularly so we are not having to rush at the end. The project is due on thursday which gives practically two days to finish the project (which is not much time). I hope we get it done, but we all seem to work well after school.

I sent the powerpoint to my school account, hopefully we will get to work on it tomorrow during Anne's class.

While setting up the powerpoint I found parts of information that I had not researched in depth yet. Today I focused on "Buffering Capacity".

Here are some links and information I found:

http://fins.actwin.com/mirror/begin-chem.html
Buffering capacity refers to water's ability to keep the pH stable as acids or bases are addedIf the water has sufficient buffering capacity, the buffering capacity can absorb and neutralize the added acid without significantly changing the pH. Conceptually, a buffer acts somewhat like a large sponge. As more acid is added, the ``sponge'' absorbs the acid without changing the pH much. The ``sponge's'' capacity is limited however; once the buffering capacity is used up, the pH changes more rapidly as acids are added.Buffering has both positive and negative consequences. On the plus side, the nitrogen cycle produces nitric acid (nitrate). Without buffering, your tank's pH would drop over time (a bad thing). With sufficient buffering, the pH stays stable (a good thing).

http://kywater.org/ww/ramp/rmalk.htm (****)
Alkalinity refers to the capability of water to neutralize acid. This is really an expression of buffering capacity. A buffer is a solution to which an acid can be added without changing the concentration of available H+ ions (without changing the pH) appreciably. It essentially absorbs the excess H+ ions and protects the water body from fluctuations in pH.

http://www.water-research.net/Watershed/alkalinity.htm
Alkalinity is the water's capacity to resist changes in pH that would make the water more acidic. This capacity is commonly known as "buffering capacity." For example, if you add the same weak acid solution to two vials of water - both with a pH of 7, but one with no buffering power (e.g. zero alkalinity) and the other with buffering power (e.g. an alkalinity of 50 mg/l), - the pH of the zero alkalinity water will immediately drop while the pH of the buffered water will change very little or not at all. The pH of the buffered solution would change when the buffering capacity of the solution is overloaded.

Alkalinity refers to the capability of water to neutralize acid. This is really an expression of buffering capacity. A buffer is a solution to which an acid can be added without changing the concentration of available H+ ions (without changing the pH) appreciably. It essentially absorbs the excess H+ ions and protects the water body from fluctuations in pH. In most natural water bodies in Pennsylvania the buffering system is carbonate-bicarbonate ( H2CO3, HCO3, and CO3).

BASICALLY I THINK I GOT SOME GOOD INFORMATION

this weekend

The weekend is coming to an end. Which means it's time to blog.

Saturday:
On saturday I spent the entire day completing community service. It was the day of the Pacific Beachfest and I went there at 7 in the morning. I performed numerous tasks at the Beachfest and I stayed there for 12 hours, so I was really tired when I got home. Since I just about passed out after I ate dinner, I did not have time to work on any homework.

Sunday:
Today after I worked on my Spanish homework and looked over my presentation I reseached some more about pH. When I was in my garage today I found spa tester strips that tested pH. This made me want to look into pH in everyday life. There are a lot of things that I didn't think pH had anything to do with. Shampoo is probably one of the more interesting things that pH plays a big role in.

I am kinda nervous about getting my test back from Math and doing my presentation for humanitites. But I am very happy that Nicolette and I worked so effeciently on our project, I even had time to read in class because we finished early.

HERE ARE SOME LINKS:

the standards that the epa has on our water: http://www.epa.gov/safewater/consumer/2ndstandards.html

different way pH effects life: http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/aug97/867515717.Ch.r.html

same as ^^^^ : http://web.jjay.cuny.edu/~acarpi/NSC/7-ph.htm

pH in shampoo: http://www.hairfinder.com/hairquestions/meaningofph.htm

pH in aquariums: http://www.firsttankguide.net/ph.php

general information: http://waterontheweb.org/under/waterquality/pH.html

Friday

Today in class Nicolette and I put our slides together to form our Independence project. Since I have a mac I had to re-find all of the pictured that I found last night. It did not take that long, and I was very grateful of htis. When I first walked in I had to finsih the other half of my responsibilities for the presentation. I had to write slides about enlightenment's relationship to the Chilean revolution and what type of post revolution government was formed after the revolution.

Right now I am researching more on pH in water.

some links and helpful info from those sites:

http://www.ncsu.edu/sciencejunction/depot/experiments/water/lessons/pH/
pH is determined and recorded as a number between 0 and 14. Pure deionized water has a pH of 7 which is neutral.
An acid has a range of 0 to any numerical value below 7. For example, 6.9 would be a weak acid.
In the United States the pH of most natural water systems range from 6.5-8.5.

http://ezinearticles.com/?Your--bodys-pH&id=575
A chronically over acidic ''pH'' corrodes body tissue, slowly eating into 60,000 miles of veins and arteries like acid eating through marble. If left unchecked, it will interrupt all cellular activities and functions, from the beating of your heart to the neural firing of your brain. Overacidifcation interferes with life itself, leading to all sickness and disease.
pH = power of hydrogen.
pH has a logarithmic function (mathematical - meaning ten-fold). In other words, a change in pH from 7 to 6 means 10 times more acidic water. A further drop to a pH of 5 equals 100 times more acidic water

BASICALLY I PLAN ON RESEARCHING MORE TONIGHT AND THIS WEEKEND.

thursday

Yesterday we had a field trip that took up the majority of the day. We went to the Museum of Man and we focused on two main exhibits. Those exhibits did not apply to any of our projects but the field trip was pretty fun.
When we got back Coco, Julia, Kayley and I stayed in Spencer's class until 4:30 to work on various projects. We worked on our independence presentation mainly. There is a lot of research required for that and it took a while. I continued to work on that later that night and finished half of the presentation. I found it somewhat easy to find information on some of the topics I was focusing on. Others were not as easy though.
I looked up important people that influenced the Chilean Information. One of the "heroes" of the revolution was extremley hard to find info on. Apparently there is a terrorist group named after him, so it was almost impossible to find a bio on him that wasn't in Spanish. I did find info and I am very pleased with the progress I mad yesterday.

When we were at the field trip we were shown how to test different things in water. It was especially informative to our group because we tested the pH of the water. I did find info on how they test pH when I was researching but it was extremley helpful to actually see the testing. The water testing field trip will also be very helpful to our project.
I did a little more research on pH last night also.

BASICALLY THE INDEPENDENCE PRESENTATION TAKES FOREVER.

wednesday

Today I have so much stuff to do. I will be posting about my ph research because I won't have time when researching Chile. I am so stressed out about all of the projects that we have. Also we even have a test friday. Urgh.

Right now I am researching ph levels in water. There is a lot of information that I am finding that seems reliable, so it makes the research process a lot easier.

some links:
http://www.water-research.net/ph.htm

http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/phdiagram.html

http://www.state.ky.us/nrepc/water/wcpph.htm

http://extension.usu.edu/files/publications/publication/NR_WQ_2005-19.pdf

http://www.fivecreeks.org/monitor/pH.html

Calculating Ph level seems to have something to do with logarithms which I did in 8th grade so maybe i will understand it. It's really just the acidity of the water.

Tomorrow we have a field trip so I am worried we won't get any work time at all.

BASICALLY I AM SO STRESSED.

tuesday

Tuesday we were presented with yet another project. This one is practically due friday. I am partnered with Nicolette H. and we are to make a powerpoint about Chilean Independence. Tuesday night I researched Chile. I knew that I would become overwhelmed so I tried to get some out of the way. Coco called that night and told me that our interview with Dr. Weiss was moved to 11, so I realized I needed to work.

Chilean Independence didn't seem particularly different from the other Latin American countries but I did find some good information.

helpful links:

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-25249/Chile

http://www.emayzine.com/lectures/HISTOR~5.htm

http://www.country-studies.com/chile/wars-of-independence,-1810-18.html

Also I have some helpful information on the World Book encyclopedia that I have on my computer.

Independence. In 1808, the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte seized control of Spain. He removed King Ferdinand VII from the throne and appointed his brother Joseph Bonaparte king of Spain. Meanwhile, a movement for independence had been growing in Chile and other Spanish colonies in South America. With the French army occupying Spain, the colonies took the opportunity to revolt.

On Sept. 18, 1810, a group made up chiefly of large landowners formed a junta (council) and declared that it would serve as an independent government. A Chilean aristocrat named Jose Miguel Carrera became head of the government in 1811. His rule was challenged by Bernardo O'Higgins Riquelme, son of an Irish immigrant who had been viceroy of Peru. While Carrera and O'Higgins feuded, Spanish forces loyal to Ferdinand entered Chile from Peru and regained control of the colony in 1814. Carrera and O'Higgins fled to Argentina.

O'Higgins returned to Chile in 1817 with the Argentine general Jose de San Martin. They led an army that defeated the Spanish at Chacabuco, near Santiago. On April 5, 1818, O'Higgins and San Martin won a final victory over the Spanish at the Maipo River. O'Higgins became the new nation's first leader.


BASICALLY I GOT SOME GOOD STUFF DONE BUT THERE IS SO MUCH MORE.

monday

yay I'm actually blogging ON TIME.

Today we accomplished a lot in a short period of time. The border patrol agent came and talked to the class, but we are not focusing on the border at all so although it was very interesting and informative, the information was not going to be channeled to our project.


After that we had work time for an hour (the last hour of school). During this time we made changes to the script since the second draft is due tommorow. We even had time to read over our script to see about how long it is. It was about 10 minutes, which means we will have to cut it down (but I personally think that it is better that it is too long than too short). I am very happy that we finished our script already.


Danielle even called our expert source while we were working too, we set up an interview with him on Wednesday October 3rd. I am very excited and I hope all goes well when we meet him. We wrote the interview date on our calendar binder, but I'm sure we will remember it (hopefully).


BASICALLY I AM HAPPY ABOUT MY GROUP AND OUR PROJECT.

Weekend

This weekend I mainly was watching some other 60 minutes videos on Youtube. I think that it is important to know a lot about the show we are basing our project on. There is a definite format and some details that are hardly noticeable on the show. For example at some point the logo is in one of the bottom corners of the screen. We should consider adding this to our storyboard, I think I will suggest that the rest of my group watches some more 60 Minutes clips.

Speaking of the storyboard we should start using it and begin working on our actual movie. I hope Dr. Weiss pulls through with an interview, because its seeming kind of iffy. I do have hope though and I think that maybe if that doesn't work we will find an alternative maybe even a better one.

HERE IS THE YOUTUBE LINK FOR THE 60 MINUTES SEARCH:

http://youtube.com/results?search_query=60+minutes&search=Search

BASICALLY I AM BOTH NERVOUS AND EXCITED FOR STARTING THE ACTUAL DOCUMENTARY.

Thursday

Since Friday was the day that we had our storyboard due we worked on it during class. Our group also worked on finishing our script that day. By finishing I mean writing a conclusion aka wrapping it up.

TO SEE OUR SCRIPT GO TO COCO CONOVER'S BLOG.

We knew from experience that it is really difficult to write as a group when everyone is at different homes and different places. Usually we use AIM but the work is never divided equally. Our group solved this problem by working harding during class and even working during lunch. I think this was very helpful and I am very glad we did this. We didn't even have much more work to so we had time to eat and hang out. I think that if we would have worked over the phone or over AIM it would have taken us so much longer and it wouldn't have been as good.

On our way to volleyball Coco and I called our expert source, unfortunatley his mother is not well so he is not sure on his schedule. We are going to continue to keep in contact with him so he will fit us into his schedule. This is extremley important for our project.

BASICALLY I AM SO HAPPY FOR OUR GROUP AND OUR TEAMWORK.

wednesday

On this day our flashes were critiqued by the class. I thought it was interesting that RJ had an enormous amount of comments and suggestion, after yesterday he had none. I think after watching everyone else's movies there was something to compare our movie to.

Most of the suggestions we recieved were helpful and we are defintley goingto consider them. I found it strange that some of the changes that were suggested were about the theme of the movie, this means we would have to redo the entire movie to fit their suggestion.

I think the most helpful suggestion was about the tone of the movie. Since we are making a news broadcast, it was suggested that our movie have a slightly more professional tone. We are considering changing some of the images to make them more professional. This will set the standard for the rest of our movie and will defintiley help us overall.


BASICALLY PEOPLE ARE MORE HELPFUL IN DIFFERENT ENVIRONMENTS, BUT HELP IS HELP.

tuesday

Yes I know i'm late but better late than never. Okay...

Tuesday was the day before the flash was due. Luckily we got it done a bit early so we would have one less thing to worry about. Mainly I worked on the flash while Coco and Danielle wrote the script next to me. All of us offered suggestions on the things the others were doing. I think this was a very good system and it seemed to work quite well. When we finished our flash we asked some of our peers for suggestion and their opinions. RJ said it looked great, but some people said that we should change the spray can image. I worked hard to make changes, and we were happy with the results. I am not very good with flash but through basically messing around with some tools and asking advice I think I can be pretty successful with it.

While we were in our group we started on our storyboard because we knew there was a deadline for that on Friday. We each had something that we were working on at one time. This was very effecient and I was very pleased at the work we were getting done. I want to make sure that we are on time for our deadlines for the project, because I know that is important.

We also made sure that we were continually trying to keep in touch with our expert source. He does have a busy schedule so we want to make sure that we can arrange a interview with him.

BASICALLY teamwork plays a largel role in this project. Every group has to work together to get the project done.

carter's blog

I just finished reading some of the posts on Carter's blog. It was very interesting to me that Carter did not write very much until a certain point. I'm pretty sure he started writing more after we were graded and Spencer gave us a talk. I think many people in the class were not sure what we had to do for our blog and I think the talk was helpful.

After that certain point Carter's blog was very informative. I think that it is one the better blogs information wise. If there is one thing for him to improve on I think a reflection about what happened with the project that day or what's going on with his group would make it even better.

I focused on his blog on the 20th. He posted the link: http://www.livingwithbugs.com/organic.html . This post seemed most relevant to my subject of pesticides and herbicides. This was an extremley good website and I definitye plan on using it for our movie. It gave a lot of basic information explaining what pesticides are and about the differences between all the different types of pesticides. You can tell Carter looked at the site before posting the link on his blog.

Overall Carter had a good blog but I think that he could have gone more in depth and he could have be more reflective.

Austin's Blog

This blog was completley different from the other blogs that I read. All of the blogs were about one sentence and one link. They resembled not much effort at all. I think that if he spent more time on it, or any time on it, it could have been so much better. It seemed like he tried to write in it every day.

WHAT WOULD BE HELPFUL:

~ more information about the source
~ a reflection about his group or what is going on with the project
~ more than one source
~ more on what his subject was

I looked at his post on the 17th. He posted the link; http://www.dep.state.fl.us/gulf/files/files/WaterQuality_Florida.pdf
After looking up this website I found it interesting that it was a paper about the water quality in Florida. I do understand that they share the gulf with Mexico but it might have been better if he found a paper about Mexico's water quality. It kind of said to me that he didn't look at his resource and it showed somewhat in his caption that I didn't understand.

Andrew's blog

I read Andrew's blog and I found it interesting how similar it was to RJ's. Not the information, that was his but the format was similar. Maybe their group decided that was the format that they would use, I'm not sure if it would make a difference but it might be helpful in some way.

The post I focused on and looked into was his post on the 13th with the link: http://www.coha.org/2007/08/13/pesticide%E2%80%99s-victims-will-finally-come-before-a-us-court/. I looked at this website and it did seem informative. It was very easy to find information on the page, both about the article and about the orginazation that wrote it. I think it will be very helpful for their movie and I might even consider using a bit of it in our movie.

I can't think of much else to say about the format of the post because I basically already talked about it on RJ's post. I think that there was some good information on the blog and it was reflective also.

rj's blog

I read RJ's blog a few minutes ago. It was interesting to say the least. I read his blog and they all differed extremley from eachh other. The first posts were resources and some were opinions of certain things. I think that he did a good job finding resources and it's good that he wrote about what the resources were but he could have found more resources per post and maybe wrote a little bit more.

As I continued to read on the posts seemed less informative, and very diary-like (which I'm sure is ok, it was just different from what I expected). I think if there is one thing I would tell RJ is that his group might read his blog, and he should keep that in mind when writing about the people in his group.

Overall RJ's blog was entertaining to read and does keep you updated on exactly what is going on with the project.

Thursday

Yay I am caught up with my blog officially, but i'm getting a bit distracted (uh oh)

Today Coco and I worked STRENUOUSLY on the script. Dani wasn't here so we kinda fended for ourselves and worked hard both during and after school. During class we had a few tech issues but we did get some work done on the script and the flash. We figured that since we both can't write on one computer at the same time one of us can help and work on flash at the same time so we can get work done. It helps that Coco and I have very similar schedules. We play volleyball together after school so we can work over the internet around the same time. We solve the issue of not being together to work by using AIM. We stayed up a long time tonight working together on the script. We found it very hard because she had the script and I couldn't see it. I think that us overcoming this difficulty shows that we are good and solving problems. This problem solving will help us in the long run.

We wrote 2 1/4 pages of script and quite a few interview questions. Coco and I werevery pleased what with we got done, especially because we are missing a group member for today. We are doing well at keeping on track with deadlines , we desperatley want to meet them so work extremley hard. I am so lucky that my group is hard working. But I guess since I picked my group, it's not exactly luck, it's skill. I guess i'm skilled at picking partners, probably because I have been stuck with bad ones and i never want to be again (obviously).

BASICALLY AIM IS THE SAVIOR OF OUR PROJECT SO FAR AND I HAVE AWESOME PARTNER PICKING SKILLS.

wednesday

Wednesday Spencer told us that for blogs we could write about other peoples blogst that we looked at. I was planning on doing that Wednesday night but of course my sibling decided she needed the computer. Well that threw the whole thing off but I can deal with that... i guess. This weekend I will do the blogs about 5 other blogs. On this day I was nervous about finishing the script. Apparently there were a lot of jewish holidays so Danielle wasn't there. This made some things difficult, but I think that will end soon.

I was talking to various people about their blogs on Wednesday and what people said suprised me. I was under the impression the blog was only about the Beyond the Border project but apparently people blogged about their Indigenous peoples project. And also people were just putting some websites that they found on their blog, I did put info on my blog but I wrote reflections about it and the work i did that day also. Many people in class said that they thought that blogs were soley on information and not what they did that day. I think it would be interesting to see the grades that certain people recieved, considereing there were so many different techniques that were used.

We planned to work on Thursday on our script, we had to since it's due friday. Some groups in the class were already done with their script, which I found interesting becaue we used all of the allotted time and we weren't done. I still don't know how they did it. Did they do it on the weekend? Did they meet up some other time? Maybe it would be useful if some groups shared the different ways they were getting their work done to the class so we can share in their success. (just a thought)

BASICALLY I'M KINDA STRESSING ABOUT THE SCRIPT AND CONFUSED ABOUT HOW CERTAIN PEOPLE ARE WORKING AND HOW I SHOULD BE WORKING.

Tuesday

Tuesday we had one hour of work time during class. Our group got two computers and one I began the flash introduction and on the other danielle and coco worked on the script. It was then that we realized how much there is to this project. We got about a page done of our script and we got a substantial amount of our flash done. I also realized how importat revision is in the process of producing a film. Every group is going to have to revise the script numerous times, revise the flash and then when we get to putting it onto Vegas we will be doing a bazillion revisions. At least there are three people in our group so we can split up the work evenly.

Apparently I seemed to remember how to use flash suprisingly, which made it a lot easier because I don' t think my group members are very experienced ( but then again neither am I). Our flash is becoming very creative and something that i am very proud of. I tried to make sure i was doing the flash but i was still working with my group to finish the script since it is due first. Personally I think teamwork and equally divided work are going to be the hardest part of completing this project. But I have high hopes because my group is made of all hard workers and we are all determined to meet the various deadlines and complete the project.

The script proved to be as difficult as we thought it would be. We spent a whole hour and we didn't finish that much. We plan to work during the work-time that we are provided and after school over the internet. This is a difficult way to write one collective piece but we will make do. On Tuesday I had two tests that i had to study for and tons of homework so I did not get to my blog.

BASICALLY DEADLINES ARE HARD TO ORGANIZE, MAYBE A MAP ( HA HA MR SOLIS' CLASS) WOULD BE HELPFUL. I MIGHT TAKE THAT INTO CONSIDERATION.

monday

Monday in class we did not get time to work on our Beyond the Border project. I think work time would have been very useful, because the first draft of the script is due tomorrow. My group got around this obstacle by brainstorming ideas for the script. We made a list of what we want to include in it, but we did still realize that it is going to take a lot more to write the script than it did to brainstorm. I think an outline is very helpful especially this one because our entire group contributed. I find the hardest part of writing scripts is getting started and with an outline we know what we want to start with so it will not be as difficult.

We did get work time tuesday so I am very pleased about that. I think when working at school it is very important to make sure that you really stay on track and do not get distracted. I find I work better at home because even with the computer and tv there I don't have lots of people around me. But that all has to do with personal preference.

What I am finding especially difficult is writing in my blog every night. It's not the writing part that is hard to fit in, it is the computer part. I do have a sibling and my whole family shares one computer which makes it hard to use the computer for any period of time... actually just as I was writing this I was interrupted and asked if i was using the computer.

BASICALLY I'M TRYING SO IT WON'T BUILD UP

friday & weekend

Friday in class Danielle was absent. Coco and I filled in the required information on our calendar. It was approved by Spencer and will help us stay on track with the project. After we were done with the calendar we began to write our script outline. We realized that it will change a lot once Danielle comes back to school because we will have another opinion to influence the script. We also realized how difficult it will be to write an informative script. Last year I was the director of a play in Mr. A's class but since it was a creative script, I think it will prove much easier than an informative script.

Weekend
This weekend I brainstormed ideas for the script and flash. I plan to brainstorm even more with coco and danielle and hopefully we will get all of our ideas into the movie.

thursday

On thursday I had volleyball, had to study for a chemistry test and I had to prepare for a spanish presentation. I did research on thursday also but did not have time to blog. I researched restricted pesticides. I found that there was an extensive list of pesticides that have been restricted.

Some sites I found:

http://entweb.clemson.edu/pesticid/Document/FedRUP.htm

http://www.maine.gov/agriculture/pesticides/dealer/aquaticherb_list.htm

http://ianrpubs.unl.edu/pesticides/ec2500.pdf

http://ipm.missouri.edu/ipm/fieldcrops/ruplist.htm

wednesday

Wednesday i spent a lot of time working on my inca project that is due tomorrow. I was able to research after I was finished with my project. I focused on pesticides and herbicides on grocery produce. I assume that we could ask our expert about this since he is a nutritionist. Also we could also find many other experts, for example grocery store managers. I have to remember not to get into the other groups subject of organic vs non organic.

links I used:

http://www.thenaturalguide.com/synthetic-food-pesticides.htm

http://www.gelsons.com/services/nutrition/2003/September-2003.asp

http://www.wedge.coop/newsletter/article/127.html

http://www.ewg.org/node/22503

tuesday

Tuesday Danielle told us that she had confirmed our expert source. He is a famous nutritionist that has even appeared on tv numerous times. His name is Dr. George Weiss and he is a friend of Danielle's family. His website is: http://www.georgeweissmd.com/
I feel very fortunate that he is going to be our expert source because he has experience being on television and being interviewed.

I am looking forward to our interview and I hope that Dr. Weiss knows a lot about eh effects of pesticides on the human body.

monday

Monday I researched more about symptoms related to pesticide poisoning. I found a lot of information that I think I will use. Hopefully our expert source will know a lot about these symptoms and this will help us to ask more informative questions. The good thing about researching symptoms is that the majority of sources I found were very reliable.

websites that were helpful to me:
http://ianrpubs.unl.edu/pesticides/ec2505.htm

http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/facts-slides-self/core-tutorial/module09/index.html

http://www.safe2use.com/data/symptoms.htm

natural herbicides

Over this weekend when i was researching natural herbicides, I tried to focus on only natural herbicides. I found it somewhat difficult. I found out that all plants produce some sort of natural herbicides, I think that this was what made it hard to research them. I learned that when researching things it is important to watch out for advertisments. These ads are obvioiusly biased, but some are disguised as informative articles.




helpful links focusing on soley NATURAL herbicides:

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-some-natural-herbicides.htm - some info

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3741/is_1_49/ai_70451750 - lichens

http://ag.arizona.edu/yavapai/anr/hort/byg/archive/naturalherbicides.html - good

synthetic herbicides

Today I researched synthetic herbicides. The difference between herbicides and pesticides is that pesticides kill pests and herbicides kill plants. The two well known herbicides are ddt and agent orange. Just by the mention of agent orange it is obvious that herbicides have an effect on the human body. There are many different types of herbicides and not all are dangerous. It is difficult for some to decide on wether or not to use herbicides, because they may be dangerous, but they can be very beneficial for the health of the plants. Although this wasn't as interesting as my research yesterday but I found this somewhat interesting.

Helpful Sites:

http://www.nifatrees.org/herbicides.htm - some good info

http://envirocancer.cornell.edu/Glossary/GL.index.cfm - the first two are herbicides

http://cmte.parl.gc.ca/Content/HOC/committee/362/envi/reports/rp1031697/envi01/12-ch5-e.html - very sientific but alot of effects

http://www.fs.fed.us/r3/projects/ro/ea-noxiousweeds/ea-weedsappa.html - good but kind of long

http://www.social-ecology.org/article.php?story=20031118093210914 - really long

http://e.hormone.tulane.edu/learning/endocrine-disrupting-chemicals.html - the second part

http://www.rachel.org/bulletin/bulletin.cfm?Issue_ID=636 - search herbicides it's kinda far down

SELF NOTE : AGENT ORANGE IS AN HERBICIDE

natural pesticides

Today I researched natural pesticides. Before this I was not positive on the definition of natural pesticides. I thought that they were made with natural ingredients or something of the sort. What I came to find today is that natural pesticides are the toxins that the plants produce themselves to protect themselves against predators and other dangers. I also found that we eat a lot more natural pesticides that synthetic ( man made) pesticides. This is most likely because we have no control over the pesticides that the plants make themselves, but we can control how much pesticides we put on plants. I also decided today that it would be helpful to check out Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring", which i have learned about before but I could use a lot of the information from that book.

I plan on going to the library when I can to check out that book and see what else I can find. Until then I will find info from websites like these:



Helpful Websites:

http://www.nzgeographic.co.nz/web_ex.htm - what natural pesticides are

http://www.longevitymeme.org/articles/viewarticle.cfm?page=7&article_id=2 - some thoughts on natural vs synthetic (not sure on the reliability)

http://www.jyi.org/letters/l2e.php?id=1240 - lots of information

http://ipmworld.umn.edu/chapters/pimentel.htm - lots of info as well

http://www.beyondpesticides.org/watchdog/alerts/cc_cwa.htm - regulating pesticides

first day and post

Over the past weekend I began my research. I was very general with my research and because of this did not find information that I will definitley use in the project, but it did give me a general idea about the subject.

When researching today the most important thing I realized was how important it is to look at the source of the information you are recieving. I passed on certain information that was provided by random blogs or theorists or other sources which I did not fully trust. With this subject being enviromental there are a lot of theories that are unproven, also there can be many different scientific opinions on one subject.

I think tonight was very helpful for setting a foudation for the rest of my project. I am hoping that my group will have researched tonight as well so we will all be prepared. Tonight my research was about synthetic pesticides, although I attempted to focus on this subject only, i did find information about pesticides on a broader level.Tomorow when researching natural pesticides I will make sure that I don't find the same information and that i try to focus on natural pesticides.

Since this is my first blog I am not sure how much we are supposed to write. I can't imaging that we have to write more than this, especially because we are doing this every night).

Helpful Websites I used (not all the websites):

http://www.prn2.usm.my/mainsite/bulletin/sun/1997/sun6.html - the effects of pesticides on the body ( lots of info)

http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/531534/#imagetop - pesticides in 80% of American schools

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_6012.cfm - banana farmers suing for infertility

http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/health/human.htm - various pesticides and their affect ( not that good)

http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/06/06/synthetic-v-natural-pesticides/ - pesticides on food we eat, synthetic vs natural

http://ianrpubs.unl.edu/pesticides/ec2505.htm - scientific info