2012 NBA Championship

There's one chance to win the game. One chance to make your team the 2012 NBA Champions. One chance that doesn't come around very often. What will you do, pass the ball or shoot? There's only ten seconds on the clock so you have to make your move fast.

TIMEOUT! Says the Miami coach.

" Are only enemy is the time. We have need to beat the time!!" If we can't get a quality shot off in ten seconds, we aren't gonna win this game. Lets bring it in 1, 2, 3 HEAT.

Dwyane Wade passes the ball in to Lebron. He squares up... and shoots the three!

SWISH!

THE MIAMI HEAT JUST WON THE GAME!!!.. Said the announcer.

Wow, that was a outstanding win by the Heat tonight. "Yeah, that shot was just awesome" said the other announcer.

Lebron James was the key player in this game tonight. He is was a factor on both ends of the court.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Letter to Andy

Dear Andy Evans,

I will never forget, or forgive you for what you did to me. Not only did you make me feel terrible about myself, you made me loose my self confidence. Freshman year is hard enough because you are the youngest kids in the school, but then on top of just getting raped over the summer by you I had no friends by my side. At one of the lowest times in my life when I needed someone by my side, I had no one. Have some respect. Holding in that secret is just to hard, everyday it just eats right through me and scares me. Thinking that someone could do that to an innocent young girl like me is scary. My wishes for you are to regret everything you've done to me. I hope karma comes around and takes you down one day, because honestly that's about the best you deserve. You deserve nothing good in your life, because of the trauma you've put me through. Just think about that Andy…

~Melinda Sordino

Holding in the Truth

Have you ever had a secret that you held in for such a long time it started to bug you? Melinda Sordino from the book Speak has been holding in a major, traumatic secret. Along with holding in this major secret, things at school aren't going good either.  Sometimes when you hold the truth in for too long it can be harmful to you, and it can cause self confidence issues.  

Starting freshman year of high school, you want to have a solid group of friends by your side.  So far things aren't going to good for Melinda. All of her old friends aren't talking to her anymore; they're giving her mean looks and basically acting like they don't even know her.  I mean imagine that, going into a new school, with all older kids and you have no friends.  That's definitely not the way she planned on starting her freshman year. In the summer before freshman year, something happened that would change Melinda's life forever. Andy Evans, an older guy raped her, something she never expected. What she really needs is someone to confide in, but she has no one.

Think of a time that you had no one on your side… that's the feeling that Melinda has every day. The problem is that she doesn’t have the confidence to speak the truth about what really happened at the summer party.  In art class she got an assignment to draw trees. When she drew them, first the trees are dead, which represent how she feels no life inside herself, she feels alone, and she has no one. If she could just put herself out there then maybe there's a chance that people would start liking her, and stop thinking of her as such a bad guy. Personally I know from experience if you’re in a fight with a friend or something and you just talk to them about it usually everything works out. It’s just you have to take the initiative to make the first move. 

Melinda never had enough confidence in herself to go talk to anyone, so in her case things just got worse… and worse… and worse. She suffered for such a long time because she had no one on her side. The way things got resolved for her probably wasn't the best but again at some point everything had to end. Andy Evans tried to rape her again, but this time someone caught him. The girl’s lacrosse team was in practice and they heard something so they came to see what was going on, and then they caught Andy. Finally, the truth could be known and people really knew what happened.  Melinda finally got that sympathy and compassion that she always deserved. A knew beginning would start from there on out. People could finally know the real Andy Evans, not the one they all thought he was.   

When you have something that’s bugging you, the best thing is to go talk to someone about it. If you don’t do anything about it, you’re not helping yourself. It will just be a problem for you every day until you get the weight off your shoulders. The best thing is to find a friend that you trust and tell them what’s really going on.

Speak

Authors Note- I am choosing a sentence from the book Speak, and then evaluating its meaning.

"The next time you work on trees, don't think about trees. Think about love, or hate, or joy, or rage- whatever makes you feel something, makes your palms sweat or your toes curl. (Page 122) 

This is a really important quote for Melinda, because it's giving her inspiration with her art. Mr. Freeman is telling her that when she does her artwork, put your personality into it, and art is basically a way to express all you feelings and emotions.Melinda has a lot of issues in her life, so art is a way for her express her feelings and that's what she really needs. In all of Melinda's art classes, she's normally drawing trees, which represent life. At the very beginning they were dead, and then as the book started getting going the trees started to have more life, so that could represent that Melinda is feeling more alive. 

Setting- Speak

Speak mostly takes place at MerryWeather high, and I'm not sure when but it could be any time really because the events that happen are realistic. In this book Melinda, the main character is having issues because none of her old friends will talk to her ever since she called the police on them for drinking at a party. I think since this book mostly takes place in a school, it contributes to the way Melinda feels and is being treated. Since she has to go to school with these people everyday, it probably puts a lot of tension and pressure on her, and she also has to deal with a lot of bullying. If the setting was different maybe she wouldn't have to deal with as much bullying, because when you're at school people tend to gang up on you and that’s different than being outside of school and having one person individually come at you. Melinda would maybe have more friends than or maybe she could at least find someone that understands where she is coming from. Where at her school no one see's her side and everyone hates her now. But I think if the setting was different it would be beneficial to Melinda.