Blog #5

One day, in the year 2017, I was planning a plot to rob a bank, code named Operation L. For Operation L, I enlisted my friend Nick, the alien from Vega. "Nick, what time do you think we should rob the New York State Bank?" I asked. "Midnight," Nick replied, "they will never see it coming!" So we went to the airport and got on my private jet. As we walked up to the jet, I had to give an eye identification to gain access into the high tech jet. We flew overnight and arrived in New York by 7 AM. We waited in our hotel room that was about a block from the bank. As it grew closer to midnight, we gathered up our spy gear and lock picking equipment and left the building by 11:30. We gained access to the bank's roof and once the clock reached midnight, we began our entry. I cut open the glass window as Nick set up the machine to repel us down to the lobby. I finished cutting the glass and strapped up my harness. I climbed into the hole and began my descent. I slowly lowered myself until I reached the floor. As soon as I reached the ground, a security guard entered the room and I was forced to shoot him with my silenced pistol. The bullet went straight through his head and hit the fish tank that was directly behind him. The pressure of the water shattered the glass and water went everywhere. At this point alarms were going off and I knew this wasn't going to end well. I radioed to Nick to get me out but he bailed on me. Within two minutes of trying to escape, the police were inside and tazing me. They handcuffed me and took me out of the bank. Once they put me into the police car, I blacked out. 

Story Blog #4

One evening, my dog, Smokey, ran away from home. Normally, if he gets out of the house, Smokey will eventually just come back shortly. After an hour of Smokey not returning, I decide to go looking for him. I grab Smokey's lease, a flashlight and magnifying glass, lock up my house and begin my journey. The first place I decide to check is the park were I normally walk him. In the park, I check the tree we normally we sit under, but unfortunately he's not there. I then go to the playground. When I arrive, I find a young boy hanging from the monkey bars. I ask him if he had seen my small black lab, but he had not. Although he hadn't seen Smokey, he agrees to help me look for him. After no luck at the playground, we venture towards the fountain. As we get closer to the fountain, I notice wet paw prints on the pavement. I pull out my magnifying glass and observe the prints and conclude that they belong to Smokey. We continue to follow the prints toward the woods. We decide to split up and star to call out Smokey's name. After five minutes of searching, the boy points and yells "Look!" There Smokey is playing with a ball he had found while he escape. I put Smokey on his lease, thank the boy by shaking his hand, and return home.

Story Blog #3

One day while traveling around the world on his private jet, Bob was reading a book on how to be a lawyer. Bob waved to his pilot and said, "drop me off at Egypt, I have business to tend to!" The pilot replied, "okay sir,  I'll turn up the speed". Once over Egypt, Bob got the key to open the plane hatch and jumped out. Once Bob got the the appropriate distance from the ground, he pulled a string and his parachute came out. Bob gently floated down on top of a  pyramid and began his undercover mission.

Story Blog #2

One day Joey was home sick. Joey had a terrible cold and was coughing up a lung.  Since Joey was bored, he decided to play Yatzee with his brother. He rolled the dice and got a Yatzee on his first try. Frustrated with Joey's excessive celebration, Tom, his  brother, picked up a magnet and chucked it at Joey's head. Joey was instantly knocked out and began to see stars and rainbows. Joey reached for the rainbow because there was a leprechaun with a pot of gold running on the rainbow. Joey chased after the leprechaun following the arrow on the rainbow to direct him towards to the gold. The rainbow came to an end and the leprechaun was cornered. The leprechaun pulled out his wand and blasted Joey with a spell. After being blasted with the green spell, Joey woke up from being unconscious and began to think about what his dream meant.

Story Number One

One day Little Baby Joe walked in the woods by himself. He found a large tree and climbed it. He was almost to the top when he slipped and fell from a high branch. He bonked his head and became dazed and confused. Little Baby Joe began hallucinating and stumbled upon a Navajo Indian Reservation. The camp was empty so Little baby Joe found a tee-pee and passed out. While he was asleep, an evil spirit emerged from Little Baby Joe's shadow. This evil spirit tormented Little Baby Joe while he slept by sending dark magic lightning into his brain. Because of the dark magic lightning, Little Baby Joe had terrible dreams. Little Baby Joe dreamed that he was acting in a drama course at school when he was abducted by the evil spirit. The evil spirit took Little Baby Joe to the top of a sky scrapper and attached him to a giant magnetic arm that extended over the edge of the building. Little Baby Joe's biggest fear is heights, so naturally he cried and pleaded the evil spirit not to harm him. Meanwhile, back in the tee-pee, the tribe returned from their evening hunt. A Navajo Druid walked into the tee-pee and found Little Baby Joe's body engulfed with black energy of the evil spirit. Having seen this sort of demonic presence before, he gathered some special herbs and ignited them so they smoked. The smoke infused with the dark energy. The Druid then proceeded to open the Navajo Sacred Book and recited a chant. As the process progressed, Little Baby Joe screamed in real life as the evil spirit was extracted from his physical body. After the spirit was removed the dark energy dispersed across the forest, never to be seen again. As Little Baby Joe woke up, he was relieved because he was no longer possessed. Because he was interested in what had happened to him, Little Baby Joe stayed on the reservation in order to become an apprentice druid.  

Renaissance Poetry Blog Post

What Queen Elizabeth attempted to express in On Monsieurs Departure is that whenever some event happens, the opposite of what she is expecting occurs. Elizabeth is unable to express her true feelings and opinions about a man. The poem is about a relationship with a man and how Elizabeth is unable to talk with him.  “His too familiar care doth make me rue it” (Line 10) is a clear example that shows this forbidden love.

When I was Fair and Young is a poem about past love. Queen Elizabeth reminisces about an old lover she had feelings towards. She came to the conclusion that her love for her past significant other no longer exists and there is nothing she can do about this situation. Venus's son  helps Elizabeth deals with her sadness, and claims “I will so pluck your plumes that you shall say no more” (Line 11). After this experience with Venus’s son, her attitude is changed and no longer mopes about what could have been.

The poet of To Plead My Faith Where Faith Had No Reward expresses how he has been hurt because of unrequited love. The woman’s actions in the poem tore them apart, and he says “Forget my name, since you have scorned my love” (Line 9).

What is Our Life talks about how life is one enormous spectacle, “The earth is the stage, Heaven the spectator” (line 5). The poem is essentially saying that a superior being is just observing us for entertainment.

The Death of Raleigh provides an overview of Raliegh’s death. The poem describes that “A scaffold was erected in the Old Palace yard, upon which after 14 years of reprivement head was cut off” (Line 1-3). Raliegh died a horrid death on the scaffold. 

Conceits: Edmund Spenser and William Shakespear

Sonnet 30, by Edmund Spenser uses a conceit throughout the entire poem to compare his lover to ice, cold hearted and a tease, and himself to fire, with a burning passion for her love. He uses this conceit in a way that makes it apparent that it is a situation of unrequited love. Spenser says "Or how comes it that my exceeding heat Is not delayed by her heart-frozen cold". This is just one example throughout the poem that expresses how he longs for her, however she always rejects him.

Sonnet 130, by William Shakespeare, uses a conceit of nature throughout the entire poem to compare his mistress. However, these conceits are unfavorable towards Shakespeare's woman.  The first six lines are all comparing the mistress to nature, and in Shakespeare's opinion, cannot match the beauty of the nature. Shakespeare starts off the poem by bashing his mistress right away; "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;". He then goes on to compare her hair to wire, saying that she has black wire growing from her head. Another comparison he makes is roses to her cheeks; Shakespeare believes her cheeks lack the rosiness that he values. However, in the final couplet, Shakespeare claims his love for the mistress and says that she is as specials as other lovers who are more attractive.

Calories or Proportions, Fats or Proteins: Which takes priority in a healthier diet?

Today, America has become one of the largest countries in the world. American is one of the biggest countries not only in land, debt, and military power, but also in terms of weight and size. Obesity is on the rise and has become one of America's most prevalent problems. When you assess the voluminous problem, obesity comes down to the lack of healthy eating education, and the lifestyle choices of the individual. What the person chooses to eat can be reflected in their overall appearance; "you are what you eat" is one of the most common sayings that summarize this concept. One way to reduce ones figure is to cut down on portion size. However when it comes down to weight gain, proportion size takes priority over Calories at the end of the day. This may seem obvious to some, but a new study conducted by “researchers at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge shows, however, that it’s not what you eat but how much that matters when it comes to body weight” (Song).  This study, led by Dr. George Bray, took a sample of 25 healthy, normal weights from the Baton Rouge area and put them on a high calorie diet for eight weeks.  The difference of the diet depended on where the calories came from- proteins or fats.  After the eight weeks, everyone gained but weight. The group with the low protein, thus higher fat content, diet gained less weight, about half as much, compared to the normal-high protein intake diet. Surprised? When you take a closer look at the health of the individual, the higher protein diet was the clear winner.  Although the high protein diet gained more weight, only half of it was fat. So in the overall picture, both diets gained the same amount of weight in fat. The extra weight from the high protein diet comes from the extra body mass.  Also, the low protein diet caused the participants to loose approximately 1.5 lbs. of body mass, which is not a good thing. Overall, it is clear that the diet with smaller proportions and more protein will be the winner.

Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2012/01/04/low-protein-diets-lower-weight-but-dont-cut-fat/#ixzz1ivVqpFuz

Recess equates to Academic Success

Every time I recall the memories of elementary school, one of the most vivid images I have were those of recess. This hour after lunch was the time to run around, climb on the play set, swing on the swings, and play sports like football, basketball, and soccer. Personally, this was one of my favorite periods of the day. Recently, research has been found that "shows that physical activity may help children do better in school" (Park). This research was conducted by Amika Singh and her team at VU University in the Netherlands. Her report, which was published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, concludes "that physical activity is associated with better academic performance, as measured by higher GPAs and better scores on standardized tests" (Park). The academic success of kids, who received a sufficient amount of exercise of at least one hour a day to remain healthy, excelled particularly in math, reading, and English. According to a study conducted by the Center for Disease Control in 2009, only 18% of high school students met the necessary one hour minimum and 23% had not exercised at all during the specific time frame. Singh concludes “being more active may improve blood flow to the brain, which provides more oxygen to cells involved in learning and attention” (Park). This data gathered by Singh and her team at VU University could affect the way our government cuts spending. Some schools feel that gym class is a subject that could be cut in order to reduce district spending. However, this data concludes otherwise, and shows that exercise is an essential part to academic success. 

http://healthland.time.com/2012/01/03/let-the-kids-play-theyll-do-better-in-school/?iid=hl-main-lede