Badland

Badland. This was written by Vika S. from New Jersey. She talks about how when she was little she believed in imaginary things, she believed that “if I concentrated hard enough I would be able to fly” she also says she believed that her closet could lead to the imaginary world of Narnia. She had these imaginary quests whit her best friend that had the same name as her. They used everything as something useful like a box for jewelry.  Then she says that the place was named Goodland but now it is badland since it was taken over by vampires. I think that she tells this story pretty good. She first starts up that when she was little she had imagination and explains how and what she did with imagination. She also describes how she saw the thing when she was little. For example she described the picket fence that separated her and her best friend veronica; she said that the fence was white, peeling, and crooked, she didn’t just say that it was a white fence that separated both of them. Also she says how she feels now. She says that she is older now and misses how she was before but says she still has imagination (“even though they are too mature to play badland again”).

The Vietnam war

The Vietnam War started in the first of November in 1955 and finished 19 years later and about 180 days later in the 30^th of April in 1975. It started as an anti-colonial disagreement with France, which led to a temporarily division between an anti-communist south and a communist north which were called the Viet Cong. This disagreement of union is the won that started the war between the two different types of government in one nation. The United States went into this war by helping trying to help the South Vietnamese since the United States was and is anti-communist.  When the war started United States had sent about 2000 military advisors to help out South Vietnam. Later on in the war United States had sent about 16,000 military personnel to Vietnam, which didn’t really help Vietnam so much because in 1975 South Vietnam surrendered which led to a unification of both governments again. “The Vietnam war cost the united states 58,000 lives and about 150,000 casualties”. The war in my opinion was useless it led to nothing and was just really a waste of time and American lives, nobody really won and almost everybody died.

www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/modules/vietnam/index.cfm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_casualties

Nick

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. I think that this quote somehow affects me and has really been stuck in my mind but I don’t know if I follow it. He told me, “Whenever you feel like criticizing any one, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had." He didn’t say any more, I always kept wondering why he didn’t tell anything else or if this applied if people had more advantages then me; but we’ve always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that. In consequence, I’m inclined to reserve all judgments against people that have had less advantages then me, and I try to reserve judgment to people that have had more advantages them me in life, like more wealthier people than me and people that think that their higher than me just because of my economic state. The people that are the ones that are judging you for your economic state, or how you dress, where you live, and how your house looks house looks like. The people that judge you by comparing their life to my life and finding out that they have had more things than us, this are the people in the world that have had more advantages then me, they are the small percent. Still like I said I try to reserve judgment but it is them who make me want to judge them for what they do. 

The American Dream

The American dream now is different than how it was before in the time of Gatsby yet it still has some similarities, before the American dream was to have a good economic sense, to have a family, and to succeed in life. In the article I found it says that “there are two American dreams, but one of those is far nobler than the other”. He said that one American dream was just “graduate high school and college, get a high-paying job and a house in the best neighborhood, marry, have children and have all my friends looking at me wishing they were me”. She said that the other dream was not self centered like this one, the other one focused on “individual achievement, it looked to future generations and had the aim of furthering them.” So one dream is to make you succeed, but the other one is making yourself succeed and also thinking of the generations after you. The speaker in the article also says that what’s wrong with the first one is that it’s to self centered and that’s it was kind of different before because before the parents were looking to toward further generations because they wanted an American dream so they could help their families later on.

Link to the website: http://www.natchezdemocrat.com/2012/01/17/american-dream-may-be-missing-point-teen-speaker-says/

Holden's Red Hunting Hat

I think Holden’s red hat means more than just a red hunting hat. For him I don’t think it’s just worth a “buck”. I also don’t think it is used for hunting, so that the dear can’t spot you I think it means something else. I think the red hunting hat symbolizes Holden himself or what he wants to do, his motive. What the red hunting hat symbolizes is Holden hunting for phonies like Ackley and Stradlatter. He is trying to find people that look like something great but are not what they look like. For example one of Holden’s phonies is Stradlatter. He says that Stradlatter looks great on the outside, but he is really a “secret slob” who has these bad manners. Like Holden says that he always uses the same razor and never cleans it. I think this is kind of ironic because I think Holden is a phony himself. So I think the red hunting hat does mean that he is searching for the phonies in the world, and the color blinds them and the phonies do not know that Holden is the hunter, but i do not know what he wants to do to phonies if he ever "captures" them.