Last Lit Circle Discussion With A Child Called "It"

    After reading the last paper clip of the story A Child Called “It” by Dave Pelzer. It still gave my group some curious thoughts about the book. We all agreed that the book didn’t have a finished ending and it made us want to read the next book The Lost Boy, which I already read. In the group discussion, I tried to spoil a little bit about what happened in the next book. It was weird how I read the second one first then the first one.

    After discussing with my group for the third time, I believe we had improved ourselves in expressing our own opinions. I was able to discuss more about the story. Our group members had create more and more ideas for us all to discuss about and it seemed like it flowed more smoothly. This book was a true story and our group was curious about why was his mom so mean to him by abusing him. This led to more and more questions and I was getting confused.

    Our group had mention lots of the scene in the story like the parts where it was told that David’s mother was giving birth to a new son. The story was told that David’s mother and his father had always had argument and it was quoted that his dad wanted to leave the family. We didn’t get how could they get more child although they always have family issues. Our group thought about why would his mom be so mad to David and not to his other brothers. In the beginning, I thought that his mother was only abusing him because he was the youngest however after the parts where it had said he gain two new younger brothers and his mother was loving to them. We turned more confused.

    I started a discussion on how better would David’s life would be if he didn’t have a mother because like his father’s job is a stable job as a firefighter and he could hire babysitters. I believe that anyone would be better than David’s mother. Saber agreed with me that it would be better, however we also placed in some disagreements into this discussions.

    I am proud of my group that we all finished our book and was able to have a good discussion!
:D

My future to college : Reponse to Alex's blogpost :)

    After reading Alex Noble’s post, I started to think more about my future and college career.

When I think of top colleges, Harvard and Yale come to mind. Coincidentally, they are the top colleges in the country. These are also the colleges that my extended family went to for some school and now they are successful doctors.  Harvard and Yale are special because they are both Ivy League schools. Ivy league schools are known for how hard they are to get into and the level of intelligence of people that go to them. When most people hear that someone graduated from an Ivy League school they instantly assume that they are of high intelligence.

    After reading this paragraph from Alex’s blog, I thought about the colleges that I would like to apply to. The first three colleges that came out of my mind was Harvard University, Stanford University, and UC Berkeley. The reason I think about these colleges was because my aunts and uncles were graduated from these schools. Also, for now the topic that I want to major on is business and Harvard and UC Berkeley are the top three best colleges for business. I would like to apply to Stanford because it is not so far nor too close to home and is one of the top colleges. I know that many teenagers would want to stay away from their family when going to college however I am those kind of teens that are in the middle. I want to be close to home but not too close because they would be annoying.

    I agree that people who are in Ivy League schools are usually viewed as intelligent people because they think that they are highly educated. Those people would view people on their intelligence from what school they go to would mostly be the people would ever interview them for their future jobs. As you can see, many jobs wouldn’t accept you unless you somehow accomplish something or went to a good college. In the past, one of my friend’s sister was graduated from UC Berkeley and she majored in business and when she came out to find a job, it was hard. Now she worked at the Walmart company and still couldn’t find enough money that could meet her expectations. Many job applications are based on what college you go to and the knowledge you put into the college. Work hard and you’ll be able to reach your future.

Response to Shannon's blog: My opinion towards Oakland

I agree with Shannon that Oakland is a fine place to live in.

 Living in the hood for my whole life, I would say Oakland is fine. A lot of people call it a "kill-zone" and say its dangerous. From the parts I've lived in and from my experience its not really dangerous unless you're unlucky and shot as an innocent bystander or you're into some stuff. Most people in Oakland aren't even into stuff. Oakland has actually been very safe for me and lots of other people. There are parts that are very nice like Montclair and the Oakland Hills are all safe as can be.

     I lived most of my life in Oakland and I don’t believe that Oakland is that dangerous. I don’t live in a neighborhood that could hear gunshots and killing, however I believe Oakland could be a safe place if you don’t leave your house at night.(Note* only referring to people who lives in a bad neighborhood in Oakland) I agree with Shannon that some parts of Oakland could be safe. The neighborhood that I live in is on top of the hills at Lake Merritt and we didn’t have any serious crime scenes there. Everyone in my neighborhood was just peaceful and the only crime scene that we had this year was that someone was robbed on the bottom of the hill.

    Seriously, Oakland residents aren’t really into killing however the only reason that people are doing violence is because they are poor and need money to live a life. Everywhere in this world have violence and is dangerous. Oakland had been referred to that it was ranked as the number 3 or 4 most dangerous city in the US or something, however they should realize that there are still rich people who live in Oakland like in the Oakland hills. When I think about Oakland, I think about the word diversity because our communities are always diverse which is something that I really like about Oakland. Whenever my parents ask me if we should move out of Oakland, I would always give them a NO!

   

A Child with An Abusive mother :(

I had my second discussion with my group about the book, A Child Called “It" by Dave Pelzer. The main character in the book was a boy named David who was abused by his mother. In our discussion, we talked about more abusing moments that David in the story had suffered.

There was a scene in the story where the boy had to throw up all his food.

“Globs of thick saliva slipped through my fingers, as I dropped it in my mouth.” (pg 66)

    As our group talk about this quote, we thought the mother was crazy because in the beginning of this scene his mother told him to throw up all his food from his stomach and eat it again. Christy, Justice, and I agreed that we thought this quote made us want to throw up because of the way they describe it.We thought about how could a mother do this to their own son because every single parent should know that food is really important to their children, so this scene was an abusing scene.

    Another quote from the story made my group thought about why would his mother hate him so much.

    “Once in the cabin, I was scolded for making too much noise. For my punishment, I was not allowed to go with my father and my brother to the super slide.” (pg 54)

    This quote made us feel sad for David because he was only one being punished by his mother although his brothers were making too much noise too. Our group placed a theory that David’s mother abused him was because there was probably this big event that happened that made David’s mother to hate him. In the book, after he was punished to not being able to play at the super slide, his mother tried to abuse him more. What his mother did was that his mother used his little baby brother Russel’s dirty diaper and tried to mush it all over his face. Isn’t that nasty? That’s even worse than the scene with him and his mother where his mother told him to throw up all his food. The diaper may contain poop or pee!

    As our second discussion ended, I started to question myself of what is going to happen on the third paper clip because all I know is that David is getting more abused from the first paper clip and second paper clip. I’m excited to know what happens next. :D

First Lit Discussion with A Child Called "It"

The book that my group and I discussed about was A Child Called “It”by Dave Pelzer. During my group discussion, we talked about how sad it is to hear about the character in the story being abused. The main character’s name was David and he had been abused by his mother. We discussed a particular quote from the story.


    “Gripping my arm, Mother held it in the orange-blue flame. My skin seemed to explode from the heat.” (pg 41)


    Our group found that Dave’s mother is the worst abusive mother ever. How can a mother hurt their child’s skin? Justice mentioned about how can his mother do that because like David have the mother’s blood and the mother gave birth to it. I wondered about Justice said for a long time. We all agree to each other that we were tearing when we heard the scene about him getting hurt in flame.
   
    One of the topics that we discussed about was what is wrong with the mother and what happened that made his mom to be what she is. We talked about how in the beginning his mom was a nice and warming mother, however at the last chapter of the first paper clip, Dave described how evil and scary his mother was. 


    “Mom was a woman who glowed with love for her children.” (pg 18)
    “Smack! My mother hits me in the face and i topple to the floor.” (pg 3)


    That is a big comparison between his mother then and now. The first quote was in the chapter where he remembers his past and how he felt warmth then. In the second quote, it shows what he was now. There was a big transition from his mother being nice into a rude and bad mom.  

    Lastly, we discussed about how a big liar is his mother because one of the scenes, his mother popped his shoulder and arm. Her mother told him to sleep in the top bunk and in the morning he woke up in the bottom bunk. His mother brought him to the doctor and lied to the doctor that he fell and roll down from the top bunk to the bottom bunk. What a big Liar!

Sleepy post. Response

There are many times where myself is sleepy in school so i can relate to David Su’s response post.

   

If it is still early before or a little after at ten o'clock or so, I would continue working on homework that isn't due yet like blog posts or projects. Typically, my max amount of time that I usually end at is at 12 midnight. If I past that time, then I would not get the minimum requirements of sleep of 7 hours. If I do past that time limit if doing homework, I would feel sleepy all morning long. I don't really pay attention in class and always find myself daydreaming, but I never sleep

           Usually when I have projects, I don’t do it until the last minute because that is just me. I always procrastinate with my work that I would end up finishing my homework at 12 midnight even though there were really less homework. The maximum amount of time that i usually would end with my homework is at 2:30 am in the morning. Those are the times where I have to finish a project last minute. When I do projects, I would take a really long time because I always try to earn at least an A on every project, so that takes up lots of my sleeping time..

I can relate to David about how he would feel sleepy in the morning and can’t pay attention in class because I do the same thing every morning.Usually I would drink coffee, however it doesn’t really help. Every time there is a lecture class I would just fall asleep or yawn alot and my eyes would just be half closed. Sometimes I would still feel sleepy even in the afternoon. From writing this response post, I learned that I should sleep more. Sleeping is really important and my parents always inform me to sleep at least 8 hours a day however i never listen well i try to but i just procrastinate too much.

My goal for sleeping is to stop procrastinating on my homework, so i would be able to sleep early. :D