To Kill "To Kill A Mockingbird"

Some schools want to remove the book To Kill a Mockingbird from high school curriculum. This year in my 11^th grade English/literature class, we read the book To Kill a Mockingbird and I actually enjoyed it and learned a lot from reading it. The book teaches many lessons on various things.

 It shows how the main character, Scout Finch, changes and matures as she grows up. It teaches that true courage is beginning even when you know there is no way you can win, and it discuses why people used to treat (or still treat) other people as their inferior, especially if they are of another race, and that people are usually nice if you get to know them and aren’t prejudiced.

At the beginning of the novel, Scout Finch is a little girl who plays with her older brother, Jem, and is a tomboy. She wears overalls and runs around outside all the time. She is excited to start going to school like Jem does but soon learns that school isn’t as exciting as it sounds (don’t we all).

One thing that her father, Atticus, tries to teach her and that she really improves at throughout the novel is looking at things through other peoples shoes.

At first she only sees things from her point of view and wants everybody to go along with what she wants, but she eventually is able to see other points of view and as she does this, she understands people a lot more and gets along with them better.

Atticus also teaches his children that real courage is “when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.”

The main example of this is when Atticus is assigned to defend a black man who was accused of raping a white woman.

During this time period, people were still very prejudiced against black people and there were many unfair things that the whites did to the blacks just because of their race, But Atticus defended him anyway and even though Atticus proved that the man wasn’t guilty, he was still convicted.

He was “licked” before he began but he began anyway and did his best because that was what he believed to be right.

Living down the street from Scout Finch is a family called the Radley’s. They have some interesting stories about their past. There is a man named Arthur living there who, it is rumored among the children, only comes out at night and sneaks around the town. 

Scout and Jem are very curious and afraid of him, but they receive some small gifts from them and he even saves their lives from a drunken man who has a grudge against their father. They find out that he is actually a nice person and they learn the lesson that you shouldn’t judge people based on rumors, race or prejudice.  

The Future of Lying

This is the Article I read for this week. It isn't on the Washington Post, but the Washington post led me to it. so ya...

the future of lying

My Comment:

I think that lying is generally bad, but I don't really think it can be avoided by people today. The Survey that they did showed that everybody lies at least one time a day. I think that having computers be able to detect lies can be used for good like in a police interrogation or something like that, but it should definitely not be used every day. I mean, what do you say if you wife asks you if the dress makes her look fat (and it does), or what if you lie about something at work. When you lie someone will eventually find out and people will learn their lesson. When your wife sees pictures of herself or when your boss discovers that something that you said was not true, you will be in trouble and have to deal with the consequences. I don't think that we need computers to do that. Lies are naturally revealed. 

Washington Post comment.

This is the link of the page that I looked at.


F-35’s ability to evade budget cuts illustrates challenge of paring defense spending 

My comment:

I think that the F-35 is awesome and it will definitely keep Americas military the strongest in the world.

There are a lot of pluses about making this airplane. It has so many capabilities and will be able to replace most of the old military aircraft. It is so fast, stealthy, powerful and sophisticated that the enemy really doesn't stand much of a chance against it and not many F-35's, (if any) will be shot down. (Unless a giant green rage monster rips one apart like in the movie The Avengers ...)

The only down side I can see about making this airplane is the cost. The overall program is “almost four times more costly than any other weapons system under development.”

The question is: is it worth it?

I think it is worth it and that we should manufacture them to be able to defend our great nation. I think that we should definitely cut back on spending money on things that aren't as necessary for our country.

Self Portrait

Self portrait poem (lists)

1. Things I know to be true: The church is true, Mexican food is good, guns are fun, school is important, you need sleep, you need food, you need water, music is powerful, Michael Sorensen is crazy.

2. Things I cant live without: music, bass, technology, food, water, family, my mom, my friends, my air-conditioned house, my lungs.

3. Things I should have learned by now: procrastinating is bad, don’t eat pizza when its too hot, don’t pick zits, raise the leading tone in minor mode, don’t pop blisters, kill the guys with RPG’s first, How on earth is calculus relevant to my life, fast food is bad for you, I shouldn't have gotten jalapenos, I should have looked before I jumped.

4. My greatest fears: dying, becoming crippled, losing my limbs, tripping in the dark, getting hit in the face, stepping on a pin, failing on an important performance, breaking my fingers, getting in a car crash, having to talk one on one with a girl I have a crush on for a long time.

5. Things/People/Places that make me happy: Michael Sorensen, Andrew Sessions, my family, my room, tech crew, orchestra, good music, exercising, driving, skiing.

6. Places I want to visit before I die: Russia, The top of Mt. Timp, space, Tokyo, Paris, New York, Lake Powell, the sealing room in a LDS temple, my bed.

Self Portrait Poem  

Clark

Happy, Clever, Fast Learner, Ninja

Older Brother of Linnea, Natalie, and Karina 

loves Family, Friends, Mexican food

Who needs Music, Food, Sleep

Who gives best, laughter, comfort

Who fears pain, embarrassment, being held back

Who would like to see the answers to all life's questions, the view from Mt. Timp, big cities

Who lives in Pleasant Grove in Happy Valley Utah

Miner

Tips for Airsoft Sniping

Sniping is an art. You have to use stealth, marksmanship, and tactics. If you can balance these things well, you will be able to dominate airsoft match.

Stealth: also known as stalking. You "stalk" your target and get in a position to take them out. 

     When you do this, take your time. Be observant of your surroundings and always listen. If you hear something, decide the best thing to do. If what you hear is shooting, you should probably start running or you should jump behind cover. If you hear some shooting in the distance, you might be able sneak up and pick off some of the guys who are fighting.  

    

     In order to be able to hear the things around you, you will have to be able to move quietly yourself. The best way to do this is just to take your time. Avoid walking over dead leaves, noisy twigs and thick brush. 

     It takes time to get good at stalking. Just keep practicing! 

Marksmanship: Being able to accurately and efficiently take out your targets.

      This also takes practice  You should get a scope, and adjust it, to be able to hit your targets with hopefully only one shot. 

     You will also need to consider what kind of rifle you will use.

      If I am playing with one or two people, I like to use a bolt action sniper. They are really accurate, and don't make a lot of noise when you shoot them, so if you are able to see your enemy first you have a great chance of being able to sneak up on them and take them out with one shot. 

     Another great option is a gun like an M14. This is a semi-automatic sniper rifle so you can fire more shots more quickly, where with the bolt action, you have to pull the bolt back after every shot. M14's do make a little more noise, but I think it is ok since if you miss the first shot you can quickly fire again and take them out. I like this kind of gun in bigger games because if there are people everywhere, you can be stalking someone and someone else will all of a sudden start shooting you out of nowhere, and you will be able to return fire more effectively with a semi-automatic rifle than a bolt-action rifle. 

Tactics: Tactics are pretty much deciding what to do in any situation to accomplish your goal and hopefully not die.

     As a sniper try to stay out of the open. Other people have a lot more firepower than you, so avoid getting in major fight. Try to ambush, stalk, and pick off.

     Be patient! find places with both concealment, and cover. I like to find a place with solid cover at my back, and good concealment in my front, and a good field of view that I can see. This would be the perfect place, but you cant always find a place like this, so just do your best.

     When you find your place to hide, make sure you have one or two escape routes. You will want to be able to escape quickly if you get spotted and attacked by someone with a machine gun.

I hope these tips are helpful! 

How to find Diamonds on Minecraft!

Diamonds! You gotta love them. Shiny, Sparkly, beautiful pieces of pressurized and heated carbon. And guess what, they are in Minecraft, and you can find them and mine them and use them to make things!

Diamonds can be hard to find and are kind of rare. But when you find them, it is rewarding and you are able to craft really good things like armor, swords, pickaxes and other things.

The first step in finding diamonds is finding wood. you will use this wood to build tools and things to be able to find diamonds and then be able to mine the diamonds. 

Once you find wood, you hold the right mouse button to mine it and then it will break and you will be able to pick it up by walking over it. 

Now you will have wood, so you need to open your inventory by pressing "e" and move the wood into the "crafting area" to make wood planks. 

Now you need to start getting some tools to get to the diamonds. To do this you will need a crafting table which is the thing you use to make all of your tools, weapons, armor and everything else. To do this, open your inventory and  place one wood plank in each box of the crafting area, then click on the crafting table and drag it into your inventory. Once you have done this, right click to place your crafting table, and now it is ready to use!  

The next thing you need to do is make sticks. Right click on your crafting table and place two wood planks on top of each other. Move the sticks to your inventory and you can now use them to make your first tool. 

the most effective way to mine in the ground (where diamonds are) is with a pickaxe, which you can see how to make in the picture below. You need two sticks and three of what you want to make the pickaxe out of.  The first pickaxe you make will be made of wood. See the picture below.

Now that you have a pickaxe, you can start mining and getting to diamonds! The fastest way to get there is to go straight down. I would recommend making your mine shaft two blocks wide so that if you end up on top of a cave system or lava, you wont fall to your death because you will be able to see what is below you while standing on a block. If you do run into a cave system or lava, you can mine to the side and then keep trying to go down to where the diamonds are.



Once you get to cobblestone, (shown below) you can make a cobblestone pickaxe which will help you go faster and is a necessary step in finding diamonds.

Along your way down, you may find it gets kind of dark. That is what happens when you dig super far under ground. To solve this problem, you can make torches if you find coal.  Coal is pretty common so you shouldnt have too hard of a time finding some. You can see what it looks like in the picture below. once you mine it up, you just use some of your sticks with coal on top to make torches.



You place torches by right clicking, and they will automatically light up. You can pick them up by clicking and can move them if you want.








Continuing on the journey downward, you will need to find some iron ore. You can see what that looks like in the picture below. You will need to make an iron pickaxe to mine diamonds. If you use something besides that to mine diamonds, you wont be able to keep the diamonds.

To use the iron that you mine up, you have to make a furnace to change the iron from iron ore to iron ingot that you will use to make an iron pickaxe. To make a furnace, you use eight pieces of cobble stone. See the picture below to see how to make a furnace.

To use the Furnace, you place it then right click on it and place the iron ore in the top box and you can use some wood, or coal for the bottom box. Once you do that, it will start making iron ingot, and once you have three peices of iron ingot, you can use those to make your iron pickaxe. 

Once you get to the bottom of the Minecraft world, you will hit what is called bedrock. This means you are close to diamonds! You cant mine it so don't try, but you will need to mine around it to see what layer of bedrock you are on. there are four layers. once you find what layer you are on, you need to count up about ten layers and dig out a little room. (doesn't have to be exactly 10 layers)

 You can get back up your mine shaft by looking down and jumping up as you place cobblestone or something below you while you are in mid air.

 Once you have a little room, you can start actually looking for diamonds! You want to make tunnels every three blocks. You will most likely need to dig in the tunnel for a very long time. once you are content with the length of your tunnel, you can go back to your room and start a new tunnel.





I would recommend having some cobblestone handy in case you run into lava. If you see lava, you can quickly place cobblestone and that will stop it from killing you. After you stop the lava you can either go back to your room and start a new tunnel, or you can turn and go a different direction.




 DIAMONDS!!!!! Pictured below is what you have been searching for! Use your iron pickaxe to mine then up.

 Now you can use your diamonds to craft things like pickaxes that work amazingly well, armor that protects you from zombies and creepers, and very deadly swords!






And that my friends is how you find diamonds!

If you have any questions on how to make things on minecraft, here is a very helpful website that may be able to help you!

Minecraft Wiki

Other interesting blogs

Airsoft Blog 

http://airsoftreports.blogspot.com/#

This in an interesting blog I found. I like airsofting and this blogger makes airsoft videos and does reviews on guns and shows what certain upgrades will do to improve your guns performance. He also explains how to make the upgrades on your gun.

Their design is OK. Its a little boring, but easy to navigate.

Their writing is in huge paragraphs, so it would make it easier to read if they split it up a bit.

You can hear his style in his writing. it sounds like he is talking to you. Overall  his conventions are good. i did notice a few mistakes though.

Gun Blog

http://www.weapon-blog.com/

This is another blog I found. It has Gun advertisements, gun facts, and currently lots of material debating gun laws.

It is easy to read and navigate and does a good job of conveying the intended messages.

I like the videos. There are some talking about gun laws, and some of people shooting guns like pros.

The writer of this blog does not support more gun laws and wants the right to bear arms.

Home-School Blog

http://blog.latterdaylearning.org/ 

This is a blog is for advertising and selling American Heritage's distance education program, telling about academic events, and giving other resources and suggestions for home-schoolers.

It is very easy to read, understand and navigate. there are no advertisements to distract from the main purpose of the blog.

It has great content and would be very helpful for a home-schooled family.

It is effective in communicating its message and seems very sincere.

Plans for the Future

I feel blessed to have so many talents. I love listening to and playing music, I like doing math, I like playing sports, I like building things, and  being with friends. With these talents that I have I have many options for the future. I feel that I can do anything I want; I just have to decide which thing to do.

                This week I had the opportunity to visit and tour 3 colleges in my area: BYU, UVU, and U of U. I learned a lot about the individual colleges and also a lot about college in general.

                              

                Some things that I didn’t know about colleges are that they give you lots of cheap or free stuff! It’s not like high school where you live at home with your family and go to school for the day and then you’re on your own. In college you get better prices on food, living space, libraries, museums, and lots of other stuff. Our tour guides showed us places where you can rent movies for free and watch them in little theater rooms. They had big gyms where you can go work out for free. They have lots of activities where you can go have fun and meet new people (one of the main points of going to college! ;) ) all of the colleges seemed like great places to be. They have different feelings and atmospheres.

                It will be a hard choice to decide which talent I want to use to help others for the rest of my life. The two things I am considering going in to are architecture or music. Like I said I like math and building things. My dad is an architect, so I think I would like doing that. I also love playing,listening to and writing music.

This year I have been taking A.P. Music theory and have really enjoyed learning more about the music I listen to and play every day. Playing in the American Heritage Lyceum Philharmonic Orchestra which has been named best of state for 4 years in a row is one of my favorite things in the week and I think it would be fun to continue to make music every day and write some of my own music.

I have also tried out taking art this year. I like math and building things, but architects also have to be artistic to be successful. I have enjoyed art, but not as much as orchestra and music stuff. Probably because I am not as good at it yet… I like drawing three dimensional things rather than portraits, landscapes and stuff. I feel a little behind in my class, but I also feel like I’ve gotten a lot better at making art and have definitely learned to enjoy doing it more.

I just have to decide what I was born to do. Maybe I will be able to somehow do both! Whatever happens, I will just do my best and love it.

Using the Internet to Uplift

We can all use our individual talents and interests to be good examples and spread the gospel on the internet. We all have different interests. Some people might be interested in politics and can be a good influence on others involved with politics. Some may be interested in music and can share and “like” good music and avoid bad music and warn others to do the same. Whatever you are interested in, you can make a difference. As we do this, we can share the gospel through our examples and the light of Christ in us.

Check out some great uplifting videos at www.mormonchannel.org

Using the Internet for Good

The internet is an amazing thing. Elder M. Russell Ballard said: "The Internet allows everyone to be a publisher, to have his or her voice heard, and it is revolutionizing society. Before the Internet there were great barriers to printing. It took money, power, influence, and a great amount of time to publish. But today, because of the emergence of what some call “new media,” made possible by the Internet, many of those barriers have been removed. New media consists of tools on the Internet that make it possible for nearly anyone to publish or broadcast to either a large or a niche audience... The emergence of new media is facilitating a worldwide conversation on almost every subject, including religion, and nearly everyone can participate. This modern equivalent of the printing press is not reserved only for the elite." 

As he said, the Internet is not only reserved for the elite but it is for anyone who wants to use it. The internet is a powerful tool and i can be used for good or bad. Before the internet came around there were certain people who could publish things and that was their job. It took much longer to get information. Learning news or getting messages from long distances could take weeks or months. Now we all have the power to do it in seconds with the click of a button. Because we have this great blessing we have a great responsibility to use it well. We need to make sure that we only look at and post good and uplifting things. Not degrading or downright evil things that are on the internet. 

Elder M. Russell Ballard also said: "As you participate in this conversation and utilize the tools of new media, remember who you are—Latter-day Saints. Remember, as the proverb states, that “a soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger” (Proverbs 15:1). And remember that contention is of the devil (see 3 Nephi 11:29). There is no need to argue or contend with others regarding our beliefs. There is no need to become defensive or belligerent. Our position is solid; the Church is true."  

If we do these things we will help make the internet a better place as we stay true to our standards and  do what is right. We shouldn't argue with people, but we should say what we believe and turn the other cheek and be strong. There will be people on the internet that won’t do these things and use the internet to try to hurt others, but we can choose not to be those people. As M. Russell Ballard said, "There is no need to become defensive or belligerent. Our position is solid; the Church is true." 

M. Russell Ballard's talk: 

http://www.lds.org/ensign/2008/07/sharing-the-gospel-using-the-internet?lang=eng&query=sharing+gospel+using+internet 

My Perfect Day

My perfect day would start out with sleeping in! I would then eat a couple breakfast burritos with hot salsa in them. Then I would head off with all my gear to go airsofting with my 2 best friends Andrew Sessions and Michael Sorensen. We would own everybody else there and my safety glasses would never fog up. I would be basically invisible on the battle field and be able to pick anyone off without them knowing where they got shot from. After airsofting for a couple hours I would head home and shower and put all my airsofting stuff away. Then I would stop by Subway and get a Foot-long Meat Ball Marinara sandwich with pepperoni, pepper jack cheese, and jalapenos on my way to the school with Michael and Andrew to help set up everything for a concert that night  while listening to Michael's epic soundtrack music. We would have an infinite budget and we would be able to get anything we wanted. I would get several motorized intelligent lights and at least eight 36 degree Leko's. While we were at it we would just get a state of the art concert hall with a full sized stage. after we got all set up for that we would order 10 pizzas for the 6 of us working on the tech crew while watching a movie on a big screen with the big nice speakers in the concert hall while waiting for the concert. When the concert started, I would run lights for the first half of the concert and go on stage with an orchestra and play the grand finale of the concert. After the concert we wouldn't have to take anything down that we rented because it will all be ours. We will get payed for teching and playing and then  I will go home and fall asleep and have a good dream about flying.        

My Perfect day would include 3 of my favorite things: 

Airsofting

Tech Crew

Playing Music