December Reading Challenge- Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban

        It's Harry's third year at Hogwarts and so far nothing unusual is really happening, except Harry is seeing another criminal named Sirius Black on the loose in the muggle news. There is a place called Hogmeade, a place near Hogwarts where you can go and buy many treats, and pranks, but you need a guardian signature, and Harry not having anyone who knows about the wizardry world has to explain it to Uncle Vernon, and he makes a deal with Harry, one of Uncle Vernon's relatives were coming over and Harry was supposed to not do any magic or weird. So after 9 days of sucking in bad comments about Harry, on the 10th and last day, he got so mad that he made his aunt turn into a balloon, and Harry ran away he got onto the knight bus, a bus that comes to a witch or a wizard when they are having tough times, The bus took them to Diagon Alley, the place where Harry bought all his school books an needed materials, he stayed in a small motel, and the day before the train would take him to Hogwarts, he met his two best friends Ron, and Hermione. But when Harry was about to go to sleep that night he heard Ron's mom and dad talking about Harry, so the guy Sirius Black, who even the muggles knew about, was supposedly after Harry because he supposedly gave Voldemort, the greatest Dark Wizard in the world, where Harry's parents were and rumors had it that Sirius wanted to kill Harry.
           Now Harry goes on to the Hogwarts express seeing all these Sirius Black posters, and Ron's dad tells Harry to not go looking for him.On the Hogwarts express, A ghostly thing that guards the gates of azkaban, the jail Sirius Black broke out from now started going all around the world looking for Black, but one demntor comes and tries to attack Harry, as Harry faints, A Professor on the train somehow
get's rid of the dementor. As Harry proceeds through the year he hears more and more information about Sirius and how he is supposedly so evil. Throughout the year, Harry has more experiences with dementors.
Also Harry would always see this black dog with green eyes everywhere.
            Then one day Ron's mouse goes into the forbidden forest, when Ron goes to follow it, the mysterious dog drags him into a tree, and Harry and Hermione found out it was Sirius Black and that Sirius was innocent.

            In the movie it skipped many of the parts where the dementors attacked and it skipped one of the parts where Malfoy and his gang disguised as dementors but Harry fought them off with his patronus, and in the movie, it didn't really explain what was happening with Buckbeak, Hagrid's weird animal.

December reading challenge- Harry Potter and the sorcerers stone (I sear I've never read it before,)

          One of the books that I read out of books that were made into movies is Harry Potter and the sorcerer's stone. This book is about a boy named Harry who is a special child, When Harry was a little baby, the most darkest wizard of the Wizard world, Voldemort, or what everyone calls, " You know who" killed both his Parents, and attempted to kill Harry, but when Voldemort attempted to kill Harry with his dark curse, Harry didn't die, all that happened was he received a long scar the shape of a lightning bolt, as soon as Voldemort failed to kill Harry, he fleed and people say he lost all his power.
          Harry than was delivered to his muggle- (Another word for people who don't know magic) aunt, uncle and cousin. They treated Harry very badly, would never take him outside falsely accuse him of things his evil cousin did, and made him live in a tiny cupboard.
          But Harry never knew he was a wizard until he was 10, when many letters started coming to his cousin's house which his uncle didn't let him read, until the person who gave Harry to his Aunt and Uncle on their doorstep, named Hagrid came and took him to a wizardry school called Hogwarts.
           In Hogwarts Harry made two great friends named Hermione and Ron, Hermione was a very smart girl and Ron was a boy who would always be on Harry's side. And made an enemy named Malfoy. In Hogwarts, Hary had become famous because of the incident with Voldemort.
           One day Harry and Malfoy got into a fight and were supposed to meet up to fight, but when Harry got there, Malfoy wasn't there, and when harry was retreating to his sleeping dorm, he saw the building guard walking around,m when he quickly went to hide, he didn't realize a three headed dog was in the room, when he retreated to his sleeping area, he realized that the dog was on top of a trap door. Later Harry found out that under the trap door was a sorcerer's stone, a stone that gave you and infinite life. And Harry found out that his evil professor Snape, was after it, so Harry went to save the stone through many obstacles, an when he went to the final place, he saw that it was Professor Lupin, the supposedly miserable Defense against the dark arts teacher. The sorcerer's stone was nowhere to be found except in a mirror that showed things you want in your future and Harry saw the stone in his pocket. And Harry fainted because of a curse by Lupin, and Dumbledore, the headmaster and probably the best wizard in the modern era came and saved Harry.
            I think that Harry is a very courageous person because he went, risking hi entire life to save probably the entire wizardry world. I think that it proves that Harry actually cares about the people around him. 

First Draft of Authors note

The reason I chose peer pressure as my social issue is because of how much it can hurt people. As my 13 year old life progressed I have seen many great people who really changed as the social environment changed. What I think of peer pressure is that it really can change someone's life, many times a very smart person can see all the "cool kids" doing this and that, and they wanted to be as "cool" as that person, but when they follow them they end up ruining their life.
Also I think that peer pressure also affects your personality, you could be a funny smart and nice boy and you turn into a bad bully. There are many people who are bad but have a good inside, but Peer Pressure can even change your inside.
Everyone should be proud of themselves no matter how smart or dumb, skinny or fat, you should appreciate yourself for however your different.

Draft Picture book

Ronalds

 

Mahir Syed

810

Draft

12/4/10

        Ronald is a Buffalo who loves the way he is, he always minds his own business, doesn’t follow what the cool guys do

        But Ronald was always lonely, he would sit by the farm gate and just watch all the cows do what they did. But then one day……

        Ronald saw a girl cow that was pretty good looking, but he saw all of the cool buffalo talking to her and Ronald wanted to talk to her.

        So Ronald thought that if he wasn’t as cool as the popular Buffalo, the pretty cow wouldn’t talk to him.

        So Ronald thought that he had to do whatever the cool kids do in order to be cool.

        So Ronald saw that all the cool buffalo would brush their hair every morning, so Ronald brushed his hair everyday.

        The next morning Ronald woke up and quickly brushed his hair from head to feet. But then he saw all the cool buffalo with grass necklaces on their necks, so Ronald got the best pieces of grass and tied them into a nice round necklace and put it on.

       

        The next day Ronald saw the cool kids teasing the little sheep, so Ronald went to a sheep and told him about how tiny and puny he was.

        The next day Ronald saw the cool kids running away from something, so Ronald ran next to one of the cows, but he didn’t realize the human were trying to get the buffalo to eat 100 pounds of vegetables, so Ronald ran to the forest next to the farm and lived happily ever after.

       

In my social awareness research 2 assignment I will talk about people not giving enough hope to themselves. In this world, many people become depressed and/or commit suicide. But these are all for the dame reason, people don't give themselves enough hope. I always see kids my age become saddened that they can't do better than someone else, someone is smarter than them, someone is more athletic. But I don't think that's the right state of mind someone should stay at. Everyone should be happy for what they have everyone has advantages and disadvantages, if you give your self hope even if you failed at what your doing a gazillion times, if you keep trying you will get there someday, and if you think of life as a boring place where there is no fun and everyone's better than you, you won't succeed.

       In my social awareness research 2 assignment I will talk about people not giving enough hope to themselves. In this world, many people become depressed and/or commit suicide. But these are all for the dame reason, people don't give themselves enough hope. I always see kids my age become saddened that they can't do better than someone else, someone is smarter than them, someone is more athletic. But I don't think that's the right state of mind someone should stay at. Everyone should be happy for what they have everyone has advantages and disadvantages, if you give your self hope even if you failed at what your doing a gazillion times, if you keep trying you will get there someday, and if you think of life as a boring place where there is no fun and everyone's better than you, you won't succeed.
http://health.nytimes.com/ref/health/healthguide/esn-depression-ess.html In this article form new york times, it talks about how to treat depression, but I think it is wrong, I think how to fight depression is to fund all the happy in your life, and all that you can get

Research social awareness

One topic that I have been researching is Parents being very harsh on their kids for report cards. In my school they have handed out report cards and that made me think, I wondered If punishing your kids is the right way to get your grades up. On a new york times article, a women asked people for their advice of how to handle a bad report card. 
http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/16/how-should-parents-handle-a-bad-report-card/?scp=3&sq=Parents&st=cse
One of the answers that I especially liked was one that said that your parents should be more involved in your school life. I think that this is completely true because most parents that don't keep track of their child at school and when they see the report card, than they get angry. But it is the parents fault for not helping the child with homework  and things they misunderstood. If a parent doesn't put pressure on the child, and helps them, the child will do better. One response I didn't like was one that said you should put pressure on your kids. But when people pressure their kids, they have tension on them.
I think that a parent should help the kids with school, and see what the child can improve on

social awarness #2

      One social awareness problem that I've been thinking of is peer pressure. Many people don't think that peer pressure is a big problem. But simple influence can turn someone into a very bad person. I think that people are getting influenced whenever they see other people being bullied because supposedly the people who are bullying are "cool" but that is actually just mean punching someone in the face isn't funny. And people who see that get influenced and they start it, and that's how gangs get bigger and bigger
      I think that there is a way to solve this, firstly for all people to just live on their own personal influence, do what they think they should, do not what other people do. They should do what is good not bad. Also another way to solve this is by telling other people to stop and to not get involved in anything.

Social Issues

I have been thinking about our current issues in our schools, first I thought of Bullying, but then I thought that I should make it a little more specific, and I remembered that a couple days ago many people wore purple to honor those who committed suicide because they were called gay. Many times at school, someone would go up to you and say you're gay, and someone else is gay. but those people don't know the real meaning of gay.
         What I hate about that is that people call other people gay when they actually aren't. But the actual gay people who get made fun of feel the most pain. The people that are called gay and aren't don't get as sad as the people who do because they know they aren't, but the people who actually are, because they know that they are and hate it when people say it to them because it makes them stand out. Just because someone is gay or something else doesn't mean that they are different because everyone actually has something that makes them different.
          In conclusion I think that nobody should call someone gay because if you are, it hurts your feelings, enough to jump off a bridge, and if you aren't gay and you get called gay, there are other people who are made fun of because they are gay.

Ela final appreciation (sorry for the late upload

            "I'm very pleased to meet you" said Milo, not sure whether or not he was pleased at all. " I think I'm lost. Can you help me please?" " 'Don't say think'" said one sitting on his shoe, for the one on the shoulders has fallen asleep " It's against the law" And he yawned and fell off to sleep, too.

            The book I read as my childhood favorite was The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth is about a boy named Milo who goes on a journey when he goes into a magical tollbooth which sends him to a big entirely different world, each different place he goes to, there is a whole weird thing for example, the quote I used from the book was from a place where you weren't allowed to think, in my eyes this is the weirdest place in the book, it was a tough decision because there were many weird places like a place where letters grew on trees, and sounds were listed in alphabetic order, every place they went there was one big difference between normal life, and life in that world.
             Milo is a person who's life is a bore, he never finds something to do, and he's always changing his mind, when he wants something and gets it, he wants something else. And when he finds the tollbooth in his room and goes into it, he goes into a journey in which at a point he forgot all about having to go home. Some of Milo's characteristics, he's brave because he didn't feel scared to find his own way out of the world he got stuck in. Also I think that Milo is very honest because in many times he would admit that he doesn’t know or doesn’t get it. I also have many times when I’m anxious to get home and I ignore school if there’s someone who came or something special is happening, and just like Milo, I also am anxious to get home to have fun.
            What I appreciate about this book is how Milo deals with the fact that he got transported into a new weird world. I appreciate how he doesn’t cry like a baby and tries what ever he can to get out, he knows that he will have to find his way out, he knows that  he won't magically get out of the world. I also appreciate how Milo respected all the people he met, he didn’t say “Oh you are weird you don’t think” he would simply just ask if that’s possible. And another reason I appreciate The Phantom Tollbooth is because of how honest Milo is, he’s not the type who would say, I was the one who accidentally flushed your toothbrush down the toilet, but he wouldn’t keep little secrets to himself, he would say that he didn’t even know where he was or that he was being careless. And lastly I appreciate how weird this book is, I love how each place there’s a new theme and they are very fun.
            I think that this is a great book, I love how The Author makes this fantasy different from other fantasies, is that there’s no villain or a important quest with semi villains in the way, it’s just a fun book to enjoy to read I had a great experience with it, first off, I never read it so I was just reading with not many thoughts in my head, but as I got deeper in the book, I started thinking, what’s the next world going to be about. Milo

Reflection on poem, " Mother to son"

What I like about this poem is that it is basically one statement, " Son, my life isn't going so well, don't ruin your life, and I'm still alive" and it is expanded to a long poem. First she talks about how her life isn't well by saying " it's got splinters in it" and "Boards torn up" she says that her life isn't well in a variety of ways. Then she goes on about how her son shouldn't ruin his life, and then about how she's still alive and she's glad that she was alive. My favorite line from this poem was Life for me ain't no crystal stair. This line means that my life isn't moving so well, My Life just means my life, crystal means really well and stair means moving up, my life isn't going up really well.
Overall I didn't really like this poem because I didn't find much meaning to it or fun to it.

Ela draft of Appreciation

 
"I'm very pleased to meet you" said Milo, not sure whether or not he was pleased at all. " I think I'm lost. Can you help me please?" " 'Don't say think'" said one sitting on his shoe, for the one on the shoulders has fallen asleep " It's against the law" And he yawned and fell off to sleep, too.
            The book I read as my childhood favorite was The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth is about a boy named Milo who goes on a journey when he goes into a magical tollbooth which sends him to a big entirely different world, each different place he goes to, there is  a whole weird thing for example, the quote I used from the book was from a place where you weren't allowed to think, in my eyes this is the weirdest place in the book, it was a tough decision because there were many weird places like a place where letters grew on trees, and sounds were listed in alphabetic order. Every place they went there was one big difference between normal life, and life in that world.
              Milo is a person who's life is a bore, he never finds something to do, and he's always changing his mind, when he wants something and gets it, he wants something else. And when he finds the tollbooth in his room and goes into it, he goes into a journey in which at a point he forgot all about having to go home. Some of Milo's characteristics, he's brave because he didn't feel scared to find his own way out of the world he got stuck in. Also I think that Milo is very honest because in many times he would admit that he doesn’t know or doesn’t get it.
            What I appreciate about this book is how Milo deals with the fact that he got transported into a new weird world. I appreciate how he doesn’t cry like a baby and tries what ever he can to get out, he knows that he will have to find his way out. I also appreciate how Milo respected all the people he met, he didn’t say “Oh you are weird you don’t think” he would simply just ask if that’s possible. And another reason I appreciate The Phantom Tollbooth is because of how honest Milo is, he’s not the type who would say, I was the one who accidentally flushed your toothbrush down the toilet, but he wouldn’t keep little secrets to himself, he would say that he didn’t even know where he was or that he was being careless.
            I think that this is a great book, I love how The Author makes this fantasy different from other fantasies, is that there’s no villain or a important quest with semi villains in the way, it’s just a fun book to enjoy to read I had a great experience with it, first off, I never read it so I was just reading with not many thoughts in my head, but as I got deeper in the book, I started thinking, what’s the next world going to be about.
            So what are you waiting for?  Go on Milo’s magical adventure, experience the weirdness of each different place Milo goes to. All you need to do is get a car, a mysterious tollbooth that comes into your room out of nowhere, and a watchdog that has a big clock on it.      

Researching to expand our researh on The Phantom Tollbooth

 One of the things that happened to me while I read The Phantom Tollbooth was, Can that actually happen?
In this book a boy named Milo goes on a journey in a mystical tollbooth and he finds himself in a place called the doldrums, and The people of the doldrums couldn't think, and didn't think. What I thought at that point was what? are they some zombies, because the only way you can't think forever is if you are not alive. But at a realistic point of view you would think they were zombie's, oh wait, there's no such thing as zombie's , that's one of the things that I love about Phantom Tollbooth, they make it seem like things you can't do you can do.
What I researched was If you can actually can not think for your entire life. But I was just wondering if there was any disease or mental disorder. I found out that you can never not think unless your lying on the floor not breathing without your heart breathing. And If it was realistic to not think, than how could you buy your foods, how can you walk and keep your body working, how can you talk you'll just blurt out random crap. I also suggest the phantom tollbooth to you because of all the

Mahir Syed Expanding a note

                    The Phantom's Tollbooth is about a boy named Milo who's life is always a bore and he finds a tollbooth in his room, when he goes in it, he transports in to a world he never heard of, in the world there are many weird things like a place where you buy and eat words and a place your not allowed to think.
                    One of my notes were very simple, I wrote, This world is weird, and it is very weird. A couple reasons I think it is weird is because, in the first world that Milo went to, which was called the Doldrums, In the doldrums, you weren't allowed to think, and I think that that is impossible, as you speak your always thinking, when you sleep, you dream, don't you. The people of the Doldrums run on this schedule:AT 8 o'clock, they wake up and, from 8-9 they daydream, from 9- 9 30, they take an early mid morning nap, from 9 30 to 10 39, they doddle and dally, from 10 30 to to 11 30, they take their late early morning nap, from 11 30 to 12 00 they bide and eat lunch, from 1-2, they they linger and loiter, from 2- 2 30, they their early afternoon nap, from 2 30 to 3 30, they they put off tomorrow what what they could have from 3 30 to 4, they take their early late afternoon nap from 4-5, they loaf and lounge till dinner, from 6-7 they dillydally from 7-8they take an early evening nap, and an hour before before they go to bed, they waste time.what you could have noticed is that there life is really dull, and they sleep a lot, but another thing I noticed is that, how do you get food when you don't even go shopping for food and still can't think of how you don't think.

Charlottes web by Mahir Syed class 810

My entry is based on this quote from the first page of the book, " One of the pigs is a runt, it's very small and weak, and it will never amount to anything." This quote came when Fern saw his dad carrying an axe, when she asked, he told her about the small pig that won't amount to anything. But then Fern started to get angry that he was killing a pig just because it was small, and I completely agree with her. I think that just because an animal is small right when it is born, when a baby is born, they always change and the farmers were judging a newborn by the first day it was born. But now, Fern raised Wilbur, she named the pig that, and then when Wilbur had to be raised  in a farm after Fern's parents couldn't supply the needed amount of food. And Wilbur was so healthy that he was compared to a pig two three years older than him. I think that you can't judge anything by a first impression. Don't judge a book by it's cover. The farmer even once said that Wilbur was a nice big pig, and wants it to grow larger, so he can eat it.