Tracks and Ties

Tracks and Ties is really weird when you first read it, but the message is about a about a man who remembers what his friend used to be like until he found his name in a newspaper and read what he had done. The young people of their city were surrounded by crime and poverty growing up, which could be a main cause of this. His friend who he had messed around with when they were younger had beaten his wife and disrespected her and ended up paying the price for it. The wife had stabbed him repeatedly for what he had done to her. There is not a lot of speech in this essay the only part I could remember was when one of them was high and said the screem door was open. This shows the different classes in society to which they belong to. Physical description in this essay can be seen when the author describes the clothes his friend was wearing, how everyone’s hair looked, and how they needed to shave.

Somehow Form a Family

Somehow Form a Family, by Tony Earley, is a memoir that is written very carefully, as it is guided through the growing stages of life into adulthood. In this memoir, it shows us the pain and struggles that go through this part of people’s lives and how to deal with it in a very extraordinary way. He writes in a way so that the reader can relate to him very easily. He is just a normal guy who wants, Alice from the Brady Bunch, to talk to him as if he was one of the kids. He shows how television changed his life and his relationships with his family throughout the years. They used to be a good family, they would eat dinner every night together, go to church, and respected each other. When the television was introduced to this family it fell apart due to the non-communication and depression that is caused by television. Earley eventually links all of these shows he has watched to particular events and situations in his life and shows that the real life never ends the same as in the shows.

Spellbound

Neil

An 8th grader from San Clemente, California. He lives with his brother, sister, mom, and dad and was raised into an Indian culture from his parents. In Indian culture, education or academics is taken very serious and is always the first primary goal.  His sister Shivani placed 5th at the nationals and is looking to do the same or better. Neil is a very intelligent and is focused on winning the Spelling Bee. His entire family gives more support than most families would in his effort to work hard and win. His family also seems to be somewhat wealthy by introducing the French and German tutors that he has worked with for foreign words in the Spelling Bee.

 

Angela

She is from Perryton, Texas, and is raised on a cow farm.  The main reason she is in entering the Spelling Bee is to get a full-ride into college and get money for her family, but she also wants to be the “best speller. ” Her family is from Mexico and seem to be lower-class citizens in their Texas town. I also chose Angela because of how ironic it is that her parents are from Mexico and can not speak English well, but she is representing Texas in the American National Spelling Bee. Angela’s family does not seem to be wealthy and lives in a small community which could be a disadvantage. Tutoring for words is always useful when it all consists of memorization and deep thought.

 

The winner of the Spelling Bee will receive $10,000 and national recognition as a winner, which in turn leads to a full ride to a university of their choice.  I think that Neil will win because he seems to be very focused and his work ethic and resources seem higher than the others.

Link to Storyboard

http://rcygan.wordpress.com/2009/10/04/story-board/

Chapters 8 and 10

Chapter 8, Michael Pollan goes to Virginia to visit a farmer and it explains how the farm they are at is different from the past ones. This chapter introduces a different type of farmer, a grass farmer. The grass feeds the animals and the animal renews the grass. There are processes in which the animals take turns using the different pastures. Pollan then breaks down the grass and shows readers that it is not as simple as it appears. Chapter 10 goes deeper in to the topic of grass in the world today. Grass farming is a brand new type of farming. It started in the 80s, and he shares facts about cows and how there are different types of grass. In this chapter, the author goes deeper into the food chain. He tells us that the grass is just a link for the solar energy to reach us. He also compares how the cows are feed in a Polyface farm with Naylor’s farm. Joel considers himself a grass farmer rather than any other type of farmer because of the fact that he takes time and effort to do a good and well thorough job on his great fantastic farm.

Source about Economy and Food

This article describes how farmers will unlikely be struggling with their finances during the bad economy for several reasons. While people will put off buying houses and cars in a bad economy, they still need food. That means farmers may be better able to struggle through the financial outbreaks in the economy. People are going to cut back on goods they believe to be more dispensable or “fast food” while continuing to buy basic agricultural products containing corn, soybeans, wheat, butter or milk. There’s only one negative affect that the farmers may have to deal with, which is the cost of transporting goods to the markets or “supermarkets”. If gas prices skyrocket again this year, both consumers and producers will have even more buying and selling decisions to make.

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2009/feb/08/poor-economy-seen-unlikely-to-affect-many-us/

Source about Economy and Food

Agriculture is dependent on the economy more than you know. During the past 30 years, the agricultural shares in the market have increased significantly. International economic developments in agriculture have shifted exchange rates and even expanded financial markets in the U.S. Without international financial markets to provide the needed funds, the growth in world trade would have been greatly restricted. The demand for dollars is generally determined by the agricultural market status in the economy. Changes in these capital markets can exert a great deal of influence on trade. Money from currency markets and international banks are used to finance global trade, which basically means that if the assets increase so will internationla trade.  The increased share of farm production sold overseas emphasizes the importance of a stable trading environment for world agriculture.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3284/is_n4_v12/ai_8274311/

Source about Economy and Food

This study deals with the agricultural food market and how it directly relates to the economy in a variety of ways. These statistics say that the share of agriculture is rapidly declining in GDP from 2.2% to 1.4% and in food industry 2.5% to 1.7% between 1995 and 2002. Overall the market is stable, but has a reputation of declining in the recent years which raises concerns of whether it may support us in the future. Because this trend is set to continue a policy of encouraging the local food production and agricultural consumption will lead to adding value and fixing their economic growth. Agriculture is very valuable to the American stock market because it deals with massive amounts of trading. Everyone’s got to eat right? But these products are for not only eating but for energy, animals, and other various uses.

http://orgprints.org/6164/1/eko43.pdf

Class Writing Example

Once upon a time there was a cat that loved pizza. Cat loved pizza so much that the cat would rob Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut closed soon after that. He then moved onto Pizza Planet. The Pizza Planet smelled like freshly baked pizza and pizzas grew on trees. An alien named Cheesaurous lived in the Pizza Planet basement. Cheesaurous ate nothing but cheese pizza and Dr. Pepper. He got so fat that he exploded into pieces. But the pieces were edible!

How I finished it: Soon after he exploded his molecules rapidly came back together and he became a Cheesaurous again. He then found 2 other Cheesaurous’ to play with and they lived happy together eating pizza for another 900 years. Eventually they died and left their remains in the soil creating pizza plants all over Pizza Planet.

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This commerical is made by students and involves a real  alcoholic energy drink. It is supposed to be really crazy, but is very dangerous because of the side effects and combination of chemicals.  Could you ever think of drinking an alcoholic energy drink?!