sutherland's second final

    Having a blog throughout this whole year has been a blast for me for many reasons. For one it improved my writing greatly. Before this year started I honestly never had even thought of creating a blog since I didn't see the point writing stuff to share with others. At the beginning of the year when I was told I had to turn in a 300 word blog weekly, I had one thought in my mind, which was that i would never finish it and that it would take up a whole lot of time. As each week went by, my opinion on the blog changed dramatically. I actually started to enjoy the weekly blog post and thought it was a great assignment that also helped me on my writing skill that happen to be in need of improvement. Throughout the year my writing slowly improved and I was becoming surprised with myself. My first blog post had quite a bit of errors but as time progressed and the end of the first semester it started to look more like this. Now that we have reached the end of the school year it looked more like this with an increase to 500 words a week. 

    The topics that are usually on my blog are how good or bad my skating session was that week. I think this is one of the reasons that my blog post don't consume much of my time. Blogging along with quick writes have improved my thinking speed that will help me prepare for the SAT because once they give me the topic I will be able think on my feet and complete the essay in the given time.

    Before we started writing blogs, I thought of writing as the most boring and pointless thing that people have ever came up with that just makes your hand hurt and waste your time to keep you out of trouble. Since we got to picked our topics that we were writing about, it made writing better then I thought it was going to be. I Believe it is the fact you can just write freely with no one telling you what to put on the paper that makes blog writing enjoyable for me. It is much different for me on a topic that I am unfamiliar with because then I am not really inspired to write it besides that fact that I am getting graded for it. Because of the blogs that we had to do weekly, I now see the positive side of write and not just the bad side.

    My weekly activities is were I get most of my weekly blog post topics. The reason that I decided to write about my weekly activities is because it keeps me from getting writers block, which leads to me stressing out on the assignment. The reason that most of my blog post are about skate boarding is because it is the most time consuming thing in my life. There was also a couple blogs about call of duty, and god of war 3 which are both games for the Play Station 3. One of the more random blogs were about Pokemon and Yugioh, which I just randomly felt like writing about for the hell of it.

  

    At first, before all this blogging, the only time that I actually did any write was if it was for school since I would fail if I did not do it, even though I hated it. When sutherland actually told us that it was going prepare us for the writing part of the SAT, it greatly encouraged me to do the the weekly blog post. As time went on, I got the idea that I could save my post and look back at time to see how my skating style when I was just starting out and how greatly I had improved or even inspire young ones to keep skating if they were in to the sport but felt that they sucked at it.

    

    There was two games that I had blogged/review about. The first one was Modern Warfare 2, which was one of the most anticipated games of 2009 and probably one of the top games of that year to. I wanted to write about this game mostly because I believe that the deserve props for creating a great video game like this. Another inspiration   was that I was basically addicted to the game for about a month non stop still I finally got myself out the house to go skate since I was getting hella fat sitting at home all day. The other game that I blogged about was God of War 3, which I believed is one of the most anticipated games that came out this year because the had pushed back it's release date a couple times before the final release date which was earlier this year. I hope to be come a part time video game reviewer to make a couple easy bucks while enjoying the games before they come out. 

   

    As I said before, my english is not the best and my determination to improve it was the strongest inspiration for me completing each of the weekly blog post. One of the main ways that my writing has improved is that I can start writing and brain storming while I do so which is going help me a lot when it comes to the SAT since we are not going know our subject or topic before you take the test. Since I found many mistakes in my blog post while looking over it, I told myself that I would start proof reading my work before I turned it in, but to be honest, I was to lazy to do that which is bad because I am going on to my senior year. But I found that has time progressed, the mistakes migraines started to slim down, which makes me proud of myself cause I have work the whole year with the goal of improving my writing which was reached with the help of Sutherland course.

    

monthly review

    Armageddon Summer by Jane Yolen and Bruce Coville is a first person novel that switches between two characters by the chapters. The first person is a girl named Marina that lives with her family. The other person is a boy named Jed. They are both teenagers. Another weird thing is that each of them have one parent that is a believer if Raymond Beelson theories. One day, their parents tells them that the world is to end on July 27 of that year, which is reveled when  Jed's dad said "On July twenty-seventh the world as we know it is going to end."(page 8). Marina nor Jed really believes that the world is going to end, though Marina finds comfort in the religion while she mourns for her dad, who was left below the mountain in the arms of another lady. Jed's mother ran off to Colorado with a photographer, and Jed's dad has immersed himself in various things since her departure, including this cult.

    The thing that is cool about this book is that the end of the world is July 27th. The leader of the cult, Reverend Beelson, says world will end on July 27 in the year 2000, and 144 of the faithful people must go to the top of a mountain and set up a camp there. Only those who seek heaven at the top of a mountain will be spared from the fiery wrath that God will rain down upon non-believers. As the cultists prepare for Armageddon, Marina and Jed happened fall in love during the journey.

    The two main characters of the novel are Jed and Marina which have many things in common. Like both have one parent that had left them for someone else and the parent that stayed became a believer. The first main person is Marina, who happens to be living with her mom and brothers after her dad had left because he did not want anything to do with the Armageddon crap nor did he want to be a believer. When it was time for them to go up to the mountain top to be saved from the end of the world, Marina happened to be one of the few youngsters that were there. She had fell in love with Jed after the second time she saw him which was weird considering that they barely even knew each other. As time went by while they were on the mountain, they started to have feelings for each other and hung out more often and begin to grow a strong relationship with one another. Also since her mom was obsessive with the believer and Armageddon crap, she has to be the parent figure for her little brothers and takes cares of them while her mom goes and spend her time with the believer stuff.

    The other main character of the book is Jed, who also has a single parent because his mom had left his dad and him for an other guy and photography. Another thing that they have in common is that they both were not sure if they believed if the world was going to end or not. There are also things that he believes in that is reveled when he says" I believe there's something bigger than us that we're a part of. I believe there's something inside us that you can't kill, that lives on afterward. I believe no one has a lock on the truth, or the Truth for that matter. I believe people spend too much times fussing about details and not enough time looking at the big picture. I believe you have to connect, with people, with the world to be really alive. I believe you are the best thing that ever happened to me." which was part of an email that he sent to Marina after he had moved to Colorado up in the mountains. After the Armageddon had happened, There was a bunch of people that had died including Jed's father and Raymond Beelson, who was the one that came up with the idea that all of that stuff was going to happen in the first place.

    I think that this book was intended for teenagers and young adults because not a lot of the other adults are interested with love stories and the world ending. I thought the book was alright but not great so it might just be intended for the young adults but I am not one hundred percent sure if my opinion is correct or not. But then again it might not depend on age but the types of things that you are interested in. If your a type of person that is fun of love stories then I would recommend this book to you, but if you like a fun of action books like I am, then this book probability would not be a good read for you, even thought it is not that bad of a book. I thought that having two authors writing the same book and breaking it up in to parts was a pretty good idea, and kept the book some what gripping and readable. I would like to see other books that try this style in writing with different prospective by having different people writing as different characters. This idea to write the story in this way was thought of by Yolen, who later had asked Coville to co-write the story with her. Yolen was the one that wrote Marina part while Coville was writing Jeds part.

     

    

    

lite circle 2

    So far, I still am enjoying the book as the story goes on. One of the cool passages that I found interesting is when Jed is thinking to himself while outside Marina tent to." as Marina and I headed down the mountain a jumble of thoughts ran through my brain, including: A. I'm glad she;s with me B. She's a major pain in the butt C. What would happen if I tired to hold her hand ? D. Reverend Beelson really does nBeelson's problems are none of my business, and I don't need to tell him a damn thing." It is interesting to get in to the mind of Jed and what he is doing while he is away in the camp with the rest of the "believers". The thing that I still like a lot about this book is that it switches between the two characters making keeping the readers attention which is a good thing so they don't get bored and never finish it. 

    It seems to show that the two have a thing going on between them and also they have a ton of trust for each other in which Jed lets her barrow his laptop. It is also obvious that he has fallen for her when he thinks to himself of what would happen if he tried to hold her hand.
     One of the messed up parts that made me feel sorry for Marina was when her mother slaps her and she starts crying because her mom said that she didn't want her and it was her dad's idea to have Marina, which would be pretty heart breaking to hear from your own mother that you had thought to have loved you all along. But even after what her mom had told her she had to strengthen to clean up her little brother after he had had and accident in his pants.

lite circle 3

We have finally finished the novel Armageddon Summer by Jane Yolen and Bruce Coville. This book was a pretty good read and enjoyable for me. The ending of the book was pretty cool because it ended with e-mails in which the to lover sent to each other after Jed had moved to Colorado. One of the quotes from the last part of the book that I liked was 

    " What do I believe?........ So here it goes : I believe there's something bigger than us that                         we're a part of. I believe there's something inside us that you can't kill, that lives on afterward. I believe no one has a lock on the truth, or the Truth for that matter. I believe people spend too much times fussing about details and not enough time looking at the big picture. I believe you have to connect, with people, with the world to be really alive. I believe you are the best thing that ever happened to me." ( page 265)

This was a cool passage at the end up the letter that Jed sent to Marina. In away I can relate to this. As a child I grew up believe in God and going to church every sunday. But as I got older in my teenage years, I stopped going to church and my family said that I was being disloyal to God and other stuff like that, but even thought I didn't go I still knew for a fact that there was something other there that is bigger then us humans, and I didn't see how going to church made that idol happier with us, I though that believing in its existents was good enough. It is also true that those religious people really do spend to much time fussing when they could be out doing something else and just seeing the big picture and letting the others worship the "God" the way they want to, because in the end for all we know is that we could be worshipping the same God but in different ways.

game

God of War is hands down the most anticipated game to be released this year. They pushed the release date back like 3 or 4 times and now it is really coming out for real. The best part is since I am 17, I don't need an adult to buy it for me because i am pretty sure that if my parents saw the game they would not want to buy it for me. What made me want to buy the game is that the trailer for the game was mind blowing and the graphics were among the best that I have ever seen in my life. The fact that God of War III also was awarded the Most Anticipated Game of 2010 award made me really want it even more.

    I haven't played the first or second one yet since I Did not get a PS2 till a couple years after the second one came out. They had a remake of the first and second one on one disc for the PS3 but I never got to buying it. I am really excited about playing it because it got a really good review from game informer, which gives truthful reviews and explanations of why it got the score it got. Game Informer had gave it a 10 out of 10 which is the first in a really long time. Not even Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 got a 10 and I was hooked on it so I am waiting to see what God Of War 3 can do to me.

    God of War III is an action-adventure video game for PlayStation 3, developed by Sony Santa Monica, published by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was released on March 16, 2010 in North America and will be released soon after in other territories. It is the fifth and final chapter in the current story arc, chronologically after God of War: Chains of Olympus, God of War, God of War: Betrayal, and God of War I. God of War III, however, will not be the last God of War game of the series. The Ultimate Edition was announced on October 30, 2009, and includes exclusive content which cost about 150 bucks so I am most likely not buying it.

     From what I have heard there are seven weapons: the Blades of Athena, the Blades of Exile, the Claws of Hades, the Nemesis Whip, the Blade of Olympus, Apollo's Bow, and the Nemean Cestus, which is a pair of fist gauntlets shaped like lion heads acquired from Hercules. Combos from previous titles also make a return as well as new combos. The number of enemies onscreen has been increased to 50 as opposed to the maximum of 15 in previous God of War installments. The game happens to also include a challenge mode called the "Challenges of Olympus" as well as a battle arena which I am also looking forward to. In the demo, it is revealed that Kratos keeps the Golden Fleece and the Wings of Icarus from God of War II, however, whereabouts of the Blade of Olympus are unknown. Even though I was waiting a long time, after I got the game I didn't play it that much and it got really boring to me for some reason, maybe am not a fan of hack and slash games so I went back to Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 2 which is a great game in my opinion.

Ever since I started skating life has...

     Ever since I started skating life has been great for me. There are some mood killers though. The one I hate the most are when cops or security are being complete douche bags.

   

     Two weeks ago when I went to San Fransisco, we were riding on the sidewalk and a cop motorcycle road by and told us to get off, but none of us heard him. He then circled around the block and got off his bike then grab my friend in the arm with all his might, I could tell by his facial expression that he was putting lot of force into it. He then ask my friend to give him the board but when he said no he turned my friend around and threw his board on the ground. After he asked us to to have a seat on the dirty floor and ask used our names and birthdays and our "sign". My friend didn't even know what that was so the cop threaten to throw him in jail and fine him 200 bucks which is ridiculous. Then he moved on to him and asked me my name, birth date, and sign. After that he let us go pretending he was all nice and shit, but that was total bull crap, the funny part was that someone was filming us after he had made us sit down. That skate day ended pretty good after we skating the civic center and met a cop that was much nicer and was willing to move away and let us skate at the library as long as we didn't tell anyone else that he was there.

    

    South Shore is also one of those places with the mean ass security guards. The last time that we went there, they came in a group of 3 people and said that they had us on film and were sending it to the Alameda police department to throw us in jail, which seem every unreasonable. Then I asked him simply and nicely why we were not able to skate there and being the man he was he decides to call the cop instead of answering my question. We had to leave before they came because we didn't want to have something stupid like that ruin our day so we went to go chill at other skate spot.

 

    This other we were skating the 3 stair over near the city hall, five women that didn't even work there decided to come and try to start stuff with us. One of the white women start saying oh you can't skate without a helmet and all this other crap, just being a complete ass. And after we agreed to leave they even told us that they were going to call the cops if we didn't hurry up when I was trying to put my jacket on.

 

     What I don't understand is why us skate boarders aren't allowed to skate basically anywhere. I wish the world were much nicer to us skaters and treated us like normal people instead of villains, after all we are just trying to have fun, not hurt others.

 

 

Lit circle fixed

    Armageddon Summer by Jane Yolen and Bruce Coville is a first person novel that switches between two characters by the chapters. The first person is a girl named Marina that lives with her family. The other person is a boy named Jed. They both have a couple things in common including being in the teenage years. Another weird thing is that each of them have one parent that is a believer if Raymond Beelson theories. One day, their parents tells them that the world is to end on july 27 of that year, which is reveled when  Jed's dad said

    "On July twenty-seventh the world as we know it is going to end."(page 8)

Marina nor Jed really believes that the world is going to end, though Marina finds comfort in the religion while she mourns for her dad, who was left below the mountain in the arms of another lady. Jed's mother ran off to Colorado with a photographer, and Jed's dad has immersed himself in various things since her departure, including this cult. 

    The thing that is cool about this book is that the end of the world is July 27th which happens to be my birthday also. The leader of the cult, Reverend Beelson, proclaims that the world will end on July 27 in the year 2000, and 144 of the faithful must go to the top of a mountain and set up a camp there. Only those who seek heaven at the top of a mountain will be spared from the fiery wrath that God will rain down upon non-believers. As the cultists prepare for Armageddon, while Marina and Jed happened fall in love during the journey.

    So far I think that book is pretty good and am looking forward to finishing the rest of the book because it is interesting to me. What I like about the book the most is that it is written in two prospectives.