Chocolate Milk

Chocolate Milk
Oh how you are so good.
Your smooth and chocolatey  taste
And rich flavor

Delicious when I begin to taste the flavor.
Oh how, I love chocolate milk

Right to be Free

Do you ever feel like your parents don’t trust you to make your own decisions? Sometimes they forget that you really are mature and you can make your own decisions. But what would you do if they started taking control over your body? Is that taking it too far? Anna Fitzgerald from My Sisters Keeper is sick of her parents having control over her, and her resolution is…Suing them. Not something the average person would think of doing.

Anna Fitzgerald was born with a purpose; to save her sister, Kate. She has leukemia and needs bone marrow transplants and she needs an organ donor. Leukemia is a cancer that affects the blood and the bone marrow. That’s why people with this type of cancer typically need bone marrow transplants and blood transfusions. The long term prognosis for Kate probably isn’t very good because with leukemia it’s a very hard cancer to get rid of and then to keep clear of it, so for the time being everybody is doing as much as they can to save Kate, and hopefully increase the chance of her living longer. 

Imagine not feeling loved by your parents. Imagine not getting any attention. Imagine your parents making you give blood all the time and bone marrow, and think about what that would be like. Probably very different from how your life is now. Anna has to go through this almost every day. Recently she has gotten to the point where she doesn’t want to deal with it anymore. Her solution was suing her parents for rights to her own body. In her house all the attention goes to Kate because she’s in the hospital and always sick. Now it’s switching because everybody is trying to stop Anna from suing them. Her parents had her, “The perfect baby” so she could save Kate. 

The parents aren’t supportive of anything. They never understand the way Anna is feeling. Sara Fitzgerald, the mom, wants Anna to cancel the lawsuit and just try and work it out between them. Brian Fitzgerald, the dad, actually is starting to understand how Anna is feeling and he is starting to support her with her decision. With all the struggles Kate’s had in her life, she’s supported Anna with whatever she wanted to do. There’s no better support than having a sister that will always take your side and give you advice when you need it. 

When you get overwhelmed with what’s going on in your life, you are quick to make a decision like Anna chose to sue her parents. Maybe it wasn’t the best choice, but she went with what she felt was right. 

 Everyone deserves to be able to make their own decisions and do what they want in life, and if Anna felt like her parents weren’t doing what she wanted then I believe she had every right to take them to court.

Mother to Son Response

In the poem "Mother to Son" there is a lot of figurative language used. One example was when Langston Hughes  said "Life for me ain't been no crystal stair." This means that his life or his past hasn't been easy.  That was probably the most common metaphor throughout the whole poem. The meaning and purpose of the figurative language used is to give you a better idea of how bad his past was, and make it easier for the reader to understand what it was like. Also by using metaphor "Life for me ain't been no crystal stair" it helps you in-vision what his life was like. In this poem the mood is very serious and the tone is inspirational because it's written from his mothers point of view, so it's telling him to keep going in life and never give up.

Anna Fitzgerald

Authors Note- This piece is about Anna Fitzgerald, a character from My Sisters Keeper. My focus for this piece was using figurative language.


BAM, Anna Fitzgerald just walked into Asa Clark Middle School. All eyes were on her… who is this girl? Her slow walk, it looked as if she was trying to go unnoticed. The whole lower level of the school froze, and everybody looked at her. She was a medium height, and fairly a thin girl. The one thing that stood out was her pure brown hair, it was gorgeous! All the students were very welcoming to her. She looked like a really sweet and nice girl.

One girl noticed a distinct smell around and she asked if it was something Anna was wearing. It smelt as good as a freshly cleaned house.  Another thing  that stood out about her was her clothes, she was wearing a very fancy dress. Her clothes really stood out, they were as colorful as a rainbow.  She said it was her Chanel perfume that she had gotten for her birthday. Anna was as quiet as a mouse most of the time but there are other times that she can be very loud and attention seeking. No one knows much about Anna because she is very secretive about her life at home.  People don't know her life story, no one knows who she really is until they know about Kate and her family. Normally doesn't like to talk about Kate and how she has to give Bone Marrow and organs to her.

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.