Reflection

I really think I've changed since the beginning of the year. Some ways I changed is I used to be late every morning, but now I'm on time everyday. I am about 15 minutes early, and I still am early to class. Also I getting used to managing my work in my major classes. At first I thought I wasn’t going to be able to do it, I used to always want to go to a different school. Honestly, I was going to ask my mom could I go to Overbrook so it could be easier. But I know my grandmother wouldn’t want me to go to that type of school. She would want the best for me, so I decided to stick it out and see how Parkway goes. If I couldn’t take the work, I would consider a tutor. My old school was pretty challenging to, but I went there for 9 years. So it was really easy after a few years. Also in the beginning of the year, I had C’s in English and Physical Science, but then I had B’s in both of those classes. In Journalism, I was and still am very overwhelmed with all the work. I feel as though I've been stressing a little bit. It gives me a headache every time I think about all the work I have to do. But I mean I guess Mr. Petro is preparing us for the future ahead of us. Plus, when we first started school, I didn’t know anything about writing articles, but now I'm actually good at them. My last article didn’t have that many mistakes on it than my first one. And I'm more mature, I don’t act all childish, but I'm still silly. But that will never change, so you could forget that.

Twin Babies killed by own mother!

On May 24, 2012 in Philadelphia, 41 year old Stacey Smalls killed her 1 1/2 twin babies Adam and Eve and tried poisioning her 4 year old daughter. She said the reason for killing them was because of her husband having an affair with her 25 year old daughter from a previous relationship. Like that is really crazy and dumb of her. Why would you kill your own kids, plus they were babies at that. If she was that mad her husband, she could’ve just tried to kill him instead of killing her kids. They also said she tried cutting herself by trying to slice her wrist. But the thing about that is she sliced her wrist horizontally, when trying to kill yourself you are supposed to slice your wrist vertically, right down the vein. I really cant believe that, when I first heard about it, I was really sad. I don’t have sympathy for Stacey, I have sympathy for the kids and her husband. Neighbors was saying that everything was normal and she seemed really normal earlier that day. Police say the way she killed the kids was drowning one of them, then suffocated the other. Like are you serious? I wonder when she was doing that, what was going through her head. Like was her conscious saying “STOPPP” or was it saying “YEAHHHH GOOD JOB.” Like honsestly I don’t even have enough heart to kill anybody or really even my own children I would ever have any. Well I hope the best for her other children and her husband. But most of all, I hope Stacey Smalls learn her lesson!

LINK - http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Ditman-Twins-Killed-Mother-Suicide-154065015.html

Seniors Against Abortions (Senior Project)

For the seniors, they had to do a senior project. The girls that came to our class had done they’re projects on abortion. They were talking about how it was bad for you and how it can harm your body, what it does to your baby. The two girls Shayira and Sierra, were against abortions, and gave details why it was. Shayira was saying that she was against abortions because that is a life that you are aborting. She also stated that if she had got pregnant at the age she is now she would get an abortion because she is not ready. That was really weird to me, like how you say you are against abortions, nut would get and abortion if you get pregnant. Sierra was saying that it is other ways to prevent/avoid pregnancy. She had said that you could use condoms, give the baby up for adoption, don’t have sex at all, or give the baby to a family member until you think you are ready to be a mother. Me myself, I am also against abortions. I think that is killing a life, like what if your parents killed you, you wouldn’t be here right now. If you think you are grown enough to lie down and have sex, you are grown enough to take care of the baby that you made. If you know you are not financially ready for a baby, don’t have sex at all. Sierra said she would not get an abortion; she would have her baby and take care of her responsibility. The same ting I would do, but I’m not even thinking about sex. I really enjoyed their presentations and thought they did a wonderful job. They were talking to us like we were they friends. They weren’t all scared, and they were really energetic.

Trayvon Martin story !

The Trayvon Martin story has been the talk of the streets and school. What actually happened was a disgrace! A 28 year old Hispanic American man named George Zimmerman shot and killed a 17 year old African American boy named Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman claimed that he felt that he was in danger, and took it upon himself and shot him. All this was located in Sanford, Florida on February 26, 2012. Martin was unarmed and had an Arizona Iced Tea and a pack of Skittles in his hand and Zimmerman claimed he was armed. At the time Zimmerman was a neighborhood watch man. According to the article, Martin was visiting his father and his stepmother at her gated townhome where Zimmerman was also living. That is really crazy Zimmerman should be ashamed in his self. Like how could you kill an innocent teen? That was someone’s child, someone’s brother, someone’s family member! I’m really thinking that George killed him because he was black in a nice neighborhood. On the police call, it was said that the police officer asked Zimmerman was he following Martin. He told the police officer that he was and the police officer said “we don’t need you to do that.” But Zimmerman took it upon his self and still continued to follow him. Like he should be locked up for not following a police officer’s directions. Also during the police call you could hear a voice screaming “HELP, HELP, HELP, HELP!” continuously, then you heard a gunshot and then there was no more screaming, and Zimmerman said it wash him screaming. How was it him screaming if after the gunshot, the screaming suddenly stopped? So that’s how you know he was lying! I feel as though Zimmerman should get life in jail since he took an innocent boy’s who Trayvon Martins life is! R.I.P Trayvon Martin

Link- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Trayvon_Martin            

Single Mothers Under 30 !

This article is about woman under 30 years of age is getting pregnant. They are either divorced or never been married from the start. The article states, “Among mothers of all ages, a majority-59 percent in 2009- are married when they have children. But the surge of births outside marriage among younger women- nearly two- thirds of children in the United states are born to mothers under 30- is both a symbol of the transforming family, and a hint of coming generational change. I feel as though that’s crazy. Like why wouldn’t you get married first? I understand that you’re probably in love, but if you’re so in love you could get married. If your not ready for marriage, then your not really in love, or committed to that relationship! Do you actually think that’s called love? That’s how men just get up and leave they children like that. They not married! My parents are married, and have been married for about 20-21 years! My mother has 4 kids and we all have the same father! Where full sisters. That’s why I think I still think like that. Cause that’s how I was raised! Marriage before babies is our family motto!!!!

Obesity

Childhood obesity has more than tripled in the past 30 years, according to the Center for Disease Control. Almost 20 percent of kid’s ages 6 to 11 are obese, as are about 18 percent of adolescent’s ages 12 to 19. I feel as thought its kind of crazy that, as many people are obese. Like that it really crazy! I’m blaming it on the fast food out here. It is like just so good so, kids enjoy! Also it is just so quick and easy access. It’s cheap and has a great taste to it! Another thing that I’m blaming is junk food. Like why would Herr’s, Wise, Lays, etc made good tasting snacks like that? They are promoting us to get fat, I think they like they make chips $00.25 and $00.35 so we can but more and more and more and more! Like really, do you like getting us fat and obese? Lol, but I don’t have a problem with it. I think people should eat my favorite chips, which are Jax! They are cheese curls with just 100 calories! No cheese curl is ever the same in the bag! Or they could try all the other snacks that they have that’s only 100 calories!

Website- http://www.volunteerguide.org/minutes/service-projects/childhood-obesity?gclid=CLy_8Jvr0q4CFeURNAodLX8eBw

Facebook= User Book

This article is about telling you all the things that Facebook I doing to you. How it shares things with other online sites. Also the things Google do is basically the same. I am a little concerned. My reason is what if I don’t want my stuff/information shared on other sites. I don’t put my address or nothing, but like my email. That is probably why I got almost 7 thousand emails, and some of them are viruses that I don’t know where it came from. Also the fact that when I used to get on Facebook, I used to get on it using my cell phone. Then on day somebody got my number ff of there. Like that’s really crazy what if I didn’t want to share my number with that person. The only good thing about that s the person was a good friend of mine and they didn’t have my new number. I really wanted to make a complaint about that but I figured it wasn’t that big of a deal. But now that I know what they are doing, maybe they gave out my number to! Like just to get money you give out people information? That’s how people credit get messed up, if someone finds out they social security number! I just can’t get over that, but I guess that’s how grimy people are!!!!!!

Photoshopped or Not

 When photo shopping a photo of someone you can take 10-20 pounds off of them, make them a couple of inches taller, take the wrinkles off or maybe a pimple. Also the article stated that photo shop is not good because teenagers try to look like a model or celebrity that is skinny and trying to become skinny. But the person advertising it is not really that size. I really don’t think photo shopping is really that necessary. You need to be yourself for the first time and not someone you’re not and that you want to be. If you really want to look like that try it yourself instead of depending on the Adobe Photoshop software all the time. See us normal people do not have that type of stuff. We try to work out ourselves and succeed to what we want to be. I feel as though this article is true and I really agree with it a lot. That is basically cheating from my point of view. Wouldn’t models and celebrities want to be role models to us young children and teenagers? So why do they go out and get photo shopped and not show they true colors. I wonder do they ever feel bad or have a guilty conscious.

Everyone is a Criminal?

I pretty much agree with Michelle Alexander about being a criminal then again I don’t. She said that everyone is a criminal. I understand that we all stole something a day in our life maybe when we were little and our parents didn’t buy us anything and we decided to take it ourselves. But what does she call the people that has raped someone, child abuse, or kidnapping. The people that kilt someone or maybe a couple of people at that, what are they considered as? Criminal’s… right? So I’m a little confused about what does she really mean? What does she call the real criminals that have life in jail, or that has the death penalty? Stealing is really not a real crime unless it is armed robbery. Also she said that most criminals couldn’t get jobs or welfare. Well I a friend of mines brother is a criminal, he is on welfare and has a good job. He has kids to take care of his kids and his girl friend. He is responsible now and is doing a good job. Not all criminals are bad and don’t get a job when they get out of jail. Criminals are not all bad and everyone is not actually a criminal…except for minor things!!!

Dr Boyd: Teenagers

In this article they are talking about a 34-year-old woman named Dr. Danah Boyd. She was stating that us teenagers really don’t have as much freedom. Adults are very over protective. Not jus over there children but over everyone’s children. Like why does the school district block certain websites? She also said that the death percentage is actually less then from when she was younger. Dr. Boyd said when she was younger, 13 of he classmates passed away. Some form overdoses, suicides, accidents and murder. Dr Boyd mentioned that kids go online and say the things they say for attention. They write depressing/suicide song lyrics for an ex boyfriend to see, not actually to kill their selves. When she was younger she said “I would spend my teenage nights talking to strangers online, realizing there were other smart kids out there” see me, I would never do something like that. Unless I know you, I wouldn’t really say anything to you. I like this topic. The reason I like it is because she really understands us teens. Even though she is 34 years old doesn’t mean anything. Dr. Boyd was a teenager before, so that’s why I'm not understanding why our parents don’t understand what we are doing and why we do it. I’m actually glad that she wrote this article. Maybe more adults/parents would read it. This article did make me wonder. It made me wonder about parents/adults, like do they remember when they were teenagers and the stuff they did. Like parents now a days really expect their kids to be perfect. But they have to realize, its no such thing as perfect! Nobody’s perfect, and no one will ever be.  

Blue Ivy Carter

Beyonce and Jay-Z had a babygirl. Her name is Blue Ivy Carter. She was born on January 7, 2012. There where rumors that she was born days earlier, but that was the officila date. Since she has been born it has been a lot of gossip, saying they did not have a baby, Beyonce was never really pregnant, etc. But to top it all off they said that Beyonce had someone have the baby for her cause she did not want to mess up her beautiful body. I personally think she did have the baby herself, like who would lie about something like that. Also there were rumors that Beyonce and Jay-Z had rented out the whole maternity floor with top sercurity. But the hospital denied the rumors. The hospital stated that "The suggestion that the couple paid $1.3 million to rent an entire maternity floor is simply not true. The family is housed in an executive suite at the hospital and is being billed the standard rate for those accommodations," Danza said in the statement. "Our executive suites are available for any patient, including the food service and amenities provided to the Carter family" So all the rumors can just stop now, was that all called for? I dont think so! All i have to say is im happy for the Carter family and i wish them luck on their newborn babygirl... Blue Ivy Carter (:

Most Popular Social Network: Twitter

Twitter is the most popular social network right now. Twitter seems to be so confusing to some people. Your goal on twitter is to have lots of tweets and followers. The more followers you have, the more popular you are on twitter. I am now working on my follower increase. On March 26, 2006 Jack Dorsey sent the world’s first tweet. A tweet is a post to the site. “Tweet” is also a verb, meaning to post a message.  Twitter didn’t become as popular until mid-2007/ 2008. I enjoy twitter a lot. Twitter mobile is more popular than the regular twitter. Some teens think it’s better because the way it is set up, it makes it easier to tweet. The definition of twitter is “to utter a succession of small, tremulous sounds, as a bird” and that is where the founders of twitter Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Evan Williams, and Biz Stone got twitter’s logo from, which is a bird. Lady Gaga is the most popular person on twitter with about 12 million followers as of mid- 2011. Twitter has more than 200 million registered users. It is also the 9^th most popular site on the web. Twitter generates about 200 million tweets and handles 1.6 billion search queries each day. I find twitter very inspiring because you can see things like what your favorite artist/ people say to and about each other. The “#” symbol, called a hash tag, marks keywords or topics in a tweet. When twitter is unavailable or over capacity, the “Fail Whale” graphic appears on screen. Twitter is also based in San Francisco. Twitter has never failed me, and I will continue to love it.

TV show: The Game

Popular TV show “The Game” had just had their fifth season premiere on Tuesday January 10 2012. This show was first aired on October 1 2006. The main cast of the show are Tia Mowry as Melanie Barnett, Pooch Hall as Derwin Davis, Hosea Canhchez as Malik Wright, Wendy Raquel Robinson, as Tasha Mack, and Coby Bell as Jason Pitts. This show is basically about football players and their lives. Like whats happening in them. Melanie Barnett and Derwin Davis got married in like the last episode of season three. So Melanie Barnett is now Melanie Davis. Also when Derwin and Melanie were broken up on earlier episodes, Derwin went out and got a new girlfriend which led to her getting pregnant. So now Melanie has a stepchild which she is not really proud of. Actually she doesn’t really like it at all. But in the last episode of the fourth season, Derwin found out that Melanie had got an abortion. The way he had found out was because Melanie and Derwin were trying to have a baby, but she couldn’t get pregnant. So they went to the doctor and he had found out. Derwin was upset about that. He had a big outburst about that. Then Melanie had told Derwin that the baby that she was pregnant with wasn’t his. It was from a boyfriend that she had when they were broken up. Also Malik has a girlfriend named Jenna who is going through some problems right now and his mother Tasha is not really feeling that. She is really upset about that. Oh by the way Tasha was Derwins manager but she had quit to focus on her son, because she is also his manager. The next episode comes on this Tuesday January 17 2012 at 10:00 pm on BET. All I have to say is I really love this show!!!!!!!

Biggest story of the year: Casey Anthony

From my point of view, I think that the biggest story of the year is Casey Anthony when she was not found guilty. She was only found guilty in lying to the police. Like that is so not fair. I feel as though she did kill her daughter. They had all that evidence, but she was still found not guilty. Troy Davis had the death sentence and they did not have any evidence at all. They did not find no gun shells or nothing. But yet they still continued to keep him in jail. Also I see if they left him in jail for a couple of years and then released him, but no they just kept him in jail until they decided to kill him. Casey Anthony got found not guilty cause she had a white jury. That is pretty racist to me, and to a lot of other people think so too! After a while don’t you think it would be good to tell the truth? When I first heard about she was found not guilty I thought to myself the jury must have been white. Its no possible way they had all that evidence and that girl was found not guilty. Or unless she paid the jury. Plus she should have got locked up for drinking and passing out. I wonder do she have a guilty conscience about killing her child, by the way an innocent child. Did you see that little girl she was beautiful! I really would like to interview her and ask her what did she get out of killing her child? Is she proud of herself? I dont care if they say she did not kill, I still believe she did!

"Plan B" pill

The Plan B pill is a pill that prevents pregnancy after birth control failure. Plan B instructions state that you should take 1 pill within 72 hours after unprotected sex and 1 more pill 12hours later. However recent research indicates both doses can be taken at the same time up to 120 hours after unprotected sex. The pills are more effective the sooner they are taken, so you should take 2 Plan B pills at the same time as soon as possible after unprotected intercourse. Plan B is being replaced in pharmacies by Plan B One-Step. Plan B is available over the counter to women and men aged 18 and older, and by prescription to younger women. I think Plan B pill would be a great pill for some adults and teens that have unprotected sex. Research read that it will help you a lot, but the big question is “will it work?” I sometimes think it will work but then it wouldn’t. like I see a lot of advertisements of pregnancy prevention pills but I also see bad reviews of the pills which I saw for Plan B pill. If this pill is as great as it seems to be it could stop some of the teen pregnancies that we have today in Philadelphia. I think if the Plan B pill meets the needs that they say they will meet, people will become big fans of Plan B pill and they will receive positive feed back from their customers. Also i feel as though Obama's decision was okay. I mean what if someone dont have that type of relationship with their parent or guardian and they cant tell them that they are having sex or not. But then again if thy know they can get the plan b pill, they are goning to go around having sex like a lot of teenagers these days. Other than that everything else  I agree with. I hope the Plan B pill will bring success to each and everyone of their customers.