Jay and Nick

Jay Gatsby....an enormously wealthy man, and then you have Nick Carraway, who doesn't have even close to the amount of money as the people around him. So it's understandable when we doubt the friendship that the two begin to have and is soon becoming so close.

The main reason why a reader would doubt this friendship is because they come from such different backgrounds, Nick is new to the town, whereas Jay has been there some time and has established himself in the cultural society. Another reason why we need to doubt this friendship is because we suspect at this point that Jay is just using Nick to get to Daisy, his cousin, in which Jay is madly in love with. So Jay could see being friends with Nick as a chance to get closer to Daisy, rather than having a legitimate friendship with him.

Now don't go thinking that this using of the friendship is all one sided, it's very easy to think that Nick could be using Jay to get more popular among the upper class of the west egg. Being good friends with the guy who throws the most parties in the upper class can't hurt when your trying to make friends.

So don't buy into this friendship yet guys!!!

A classmate that I'm thankful for.

I'm going to go with the popular vote here and say I'm thankful for Alaina Stacey!! I wouldn’t like this class as much as I do without her. Not only is she an amazing classmate, but she's a good friend of mine outside of school. Not to mention my future wife, according to Mr. McCarthy. Who knows! I'd be lucky to have her as my wife. I don't think I've ever met someone who cares about everyone else before herself like Alaina does. I always come to her with a problem and she knows exactly what I should do, even if I don’t believer her at first, in the end, she’s always right. She has an AMAZING singing voice, which she is incredibly modest about.

I can’t imagine my life without Alaina, she lives a block away from my house and goes to my church, so I get to see a lot of Ms. Stacey, but that’s a good thing. I can never have to much Alaina in my life. :) Everyone who knows Alaina knows how special she is, and i think I’m one of those people. So Alaina, don't change a thing I love you exactly the way you are.

I am a Plow

Wow. I am a plow....not exactly something that’s all that easy to write about. Lets start of at the top, plows...well that’s a farm tool, used to get the dirt ready for seeds of next years crops. So i guess you could say that we're like plows in that what we do today is paving the way for our kids (were the plows and our kids are the seeds.) So that they can grow up and be successful, and so that they can learn from the experiences we are gaining now, just like our parents did for us.

Looking at it that way, I don’t see being a plow as such a bad thing, I don’t know about everyone else but when I grow up I plan on having lots of children (many with Alaina... :)) but all joking aside I want my kids to have the best chance they can in this world and if that means me having to learn something’s for myself so that my kids wont make the same mistakes, then I believe that’s what I need to do. Just like how our parents taught us from the experiences they had.

I am a plow, and I'm okay with that, because I'm paving the way for my kids, which are going to be the most important thing in my life, so they need someone looking out for them before they're even here, and I'm going to be that someone, by being a plow.

changes in the class room.

I wouldn’t change anything about this class. It is definitely my favorite class of the day. I enjoy the environment, the people, (and even the teacher!) If I was forced to change something about our class, I would change the facts that were reading The House Of Seven Gables. I don’t mind reading, but I don’t like this book. I understand that its part of the class, and it has to be done, but I'm asking why is it a part of the class pre planned schedule? Wouldn’t it be easier for everyone in the situation to read a book that everyone enjoys instead of dragging through one that no one likes?

Other changes I would make not directed to our school is the funding of other schools, I’ve seen other CPS schools and they're falling apart, and we're not doing anything about it. Most of our school given supplies is falling apart because of age. So the fix (although it may not be an easy one, is to have better funded schools).

Again, I really enjoy everything about this class and wouldn’t change anything about it. Thanks to you all of my classmates and especially Mr. McCarthy for making this a great class to be in.

Modern day slavery

I think there is definitely is modern day slavery, in numerous different forms around the world. Almost all are frowned upon because the very idea of anyone being held against their will to do anything at all is unacceptable.

One form of slavery is in major world-wide corporations like Nike, among many others. These corporations use child labor in third world countries because there’s no one to monitor the children and no one to enforce child labor laws. The corporations try to downplay the fact that they use sweatshops because it makes them look bad. But if you ask why they use sweatshops to a Nike executive they'll probably say because it stimulates the economy there because by giving the kids a job, they can bring that money home to their parents to help support their whole family. But this isn’t all true because at the sweatshops the workers get paid so little that it barely helps their family at all because there’s no minimum wage.

Another form of modern day slavery is the sex slave trade. This can be found all over the world, but one place where is extremely popular is Russia, because their government doesn’t crack down on human trafficking as other countries, it has only become bigger as time goes by. This starts usually at a young age for girls and by the end of it, most of the women are addicted to drugs and have huge issues, such as self confidence and they can't trust any men anymore.

Any type of modern day slavery should be stopped because it brings nothing but harm to the people who are the "slaves". These are human beings and should be treated as such.

The moment I knew I was an American.

I never really had any one moment where I said to myself wow, I’m an American. But when you look at who I am, I’m a very American boy. I play football. I can be very close-minded. I love fat food, fast cars, and pretty girls, as the saying goes. I don’t think that kids my age usually have any one moment where they knew they were an American. I’m proud to be American, but not necessarily proud of how Americans are portrayed around the world. I don’t really have an opinion on the war, but I support the troops serving for our country. I wouldn’t even mind being in the military one day. I've had a pretty fully American experience in my life time though. I've been to 49 states and we have plans to go to the last one (Hawaii) next Christmas. I think that going to every state is very American because what’s more American than seeing every part of your country?? So I would say I am very American in general, but I don’t have any specific time when I recognized I was especially American. I was raised American and I will definitely stay this way the rest of my life. So to the rest of my fellow Americans, I bid you ado.

Us vs. Them...Us and Them.

I think that what pushes people to be to do the wrong thing is all the pressure of the world around us. From the ads we see every day that tell us that we aren't good enough.  To our friends telling us to try things and do thats that we may not be comftorable with doing.

Another reason people start to do the wrong thing is that they are put in a postition where they could be in trouble and it might be the only option. Pretty much eveyone who commits a crime, (which is doing something bad.) They are pushed into committing that crime out of neccessity, or atleast they had a motive.

Peer pressure is huge in our society today and can be seen everyday from small childern, all the way to up fully grown adults. There are so many examples of peer pressure to nasme them all. But what pushes people into doing something bad, is most often because the persons friends told them to do it. I think we give in to peer pressure so much in our society because we are grown up being taught that we should trust our friends and part of being a good friend is listening to their advice. Which eventually leads to having our friends put peer pressure on us, and we are programmed to listen to them.

So, overall I think the reason people are pushed to doing something bad is from the ads we see around us, because of the position we are put in, and peer pressure. We should all stay away from these bad situations!!! :)

John Proctor good or bad?!?!

In my opinion, John Proctor is a good guy, but its just that some of the puritans may think he is bad because he is a bit ahead of his time for the time of this story. He’s sick of Parris preaching week in and week out about eternal damnation. Now the puritans may think that this is what their pastors need to be talking about, but John Proctor is reacting more like someone would if they were being preached to like this in today’s time. A lot of people today wouldn't stay in a church if the pastor preaches like Parris does. Mostly because it’s all negative, it gets to be very discouraging over time.

So its not that John Proctors is bad, although he may be construed as bad because he’s going against the main basis of being a puritan by not always being god fearing. People today know that god isn’t just angry all the time waiting for us to slip up, John Proctor knows this too and he doesn’t want to sit in church week after week and listen to Parris screaming about how he’s going to hell.

As for Johns personal life, some of the things he has done have been of questionable morals but nothing so bad as to say that he’s evil.

So overall John Proctor is not evil, he’s just made some mistakes in his life. But who hasn't right?!?!?!?

Sinners in the hands of an angry god.

This reading was a bit...scary the first time you read it. With all the talk of gods wrath and how were all sinners destined for hell. I think this would be very discouraging for anyone reading it because it seems like there no chance for anyone during their lifetime. That no matter what you do your going to fail at being perfect in the eyes of god. So if I had heard this when John Edwards first spoke it. My first reaction would be terror. Then I would feel angry knowing there was no hope in my life at being pure in god's eyes.

Secondly, this makes god seem to be always a vengeful god. Smiting everyone all the time for any sin. Which most people who believe in god, don't believe that he is always angry. The bible portrays god to be a loving giver of life, who is the starter and ender of all time and being as we know it. But John Edwards seems to think that god in just chilling up in heaven, waiting for us to sin so that he can destroy our lives.

So overall, I feel like John Edwards may have a point about how were all sinners but all he is doing is scaring people by preaching this, and if I were alive when this was first being preached I wouldn't like it at all.

There goes the neighborhood

One example of there goes the neighborhood in a good way is about my old neighborhood, right around Southport. When i was growing up, all the stores weren't upper class boutiques they were all mostly just regular shops with a few restaurants around the neighborhood. Let me paint a picture for you...it used to be a real estate office, an insurance office, a pizza restaurant, and an old toy store. not very up and coming is it? But then about 10 years ago it really started to change. All the stores became corporate upper class stores. Opposed to mostly family owned passed through generations stores. This was the beginning of many changes for the Southport area. When I lived there, there was very few children around my house. Contrary to today when theres hundreds of family's with kids living around Southport.

When I moved away the area started becoming the excellent neighborhood that it is know as today. I continued going to grade school right by Southport, at Hawthorne..(A lot of people reading this probably just said oh no..not another kid from Hawthorne.) but it really wasn't that bad. Something I really remember from that school though is after the school day was over. a big group of people would walk over to Southport either to just relax or to grab something to eat because there was so many choices around there and places to eat.

Today if you go to the Southport area, you'll find tons of stores, restaurants, numerous schools, not to mention the thousands of family's that live in that area. In the past 10 years the Southport area has gone through many changes in every aspect. So there goes the neighborhood, for the better. :)

Introduction

I'm Casey Ford. I am 15 years old, most of my life is run by football. I have one sister who has recently left for college at Iowa university. School isn't something I like to spend my time on. Even though my mom would like it to be. I'm influenced mostly by my dad who played football when he was in high school and college. Like most kids my age I cant be away from my phone for more than 5 minutes. I enjoy going out with my friends as often as I can. I'm definitely more of a farm boy than a city boy. Regardless of the fact that I've lived in Chicago my whole life. If I had to summarize myself I would say that I'm just a kid in a big city trying to go to college to play football, and just looking to have a fun time in high school.