Character Change

               Middle School: How I Survived Bullies, Broccoli, and Snake Hill by James Patterson is about   a boy named Rafe Katchadorian who tries to survive his 8 week sleep away camp. It's not just summer camp. It's summer school camp. Character change helps show their feelings change towards other characters.
               In the book Rafe says, "It was true that I couldn't wait to get away from Georgia, even if we would just be on two sides of the same camp but now that Mom and Grandma were about to take off, some teeny, tiny part of me was glad that Georgia would be around. I don't know why. I just was." All of a sudden Rafe's feelings about Georgia change because he knows that even though he doesnt have his mom, he has Georgia by his side. 
              Character change made me think deeper about how people change in real life. Sometimes characters can change based on how they react towards other people after a long period of time.    

Brooklyn Bulldogs vs. Huskies

It was 3:35 pm when I leaped into my car. My mom asked me how my day was and gave me her phone. I took the phone and looked at the screen. It was an email from the Brooklyn Bulldogs Travel Baseball Organization. They wanted me to come and join their team . I would have to make the decision of leaving the SFX Huskies, a team I had been on since I was 8 years old.
          I couldn’t believe the Bulldogs wanted me. A few years ago, my dad told me that other teams are going to start looking at my skills and watching me play and are going to want me on their teams. The time had finally come.
         After I read the email, I looked at my mom indecisively. 
       “What should I do?” asked her. 
       “I can’t make that decision. It’s your life.” She responded. 
         Later on, when told my dad that I was thinking about joining the Bulldog his eyes were wide open and his jaw dropped to his knees. He couldn’t believe what he had just heard.  After about 20 minutes of thinking he  told me that I had to make my own decision.  
          The next day, as I was walking to school, I saw all of my friends wearing Brooklyn Bulldogs hoodies. I felt like I was the only Husky, in a park full of Bulldogs. I felt like I had to be a Bulldog like everyone else. Would the Bulldogs help me get into a good high school?
          As I thought about my decision. I started to remember all the great times I had with my current team, the SFX huskies. The players, the coaches and the even the parents. The Huskies were my family.
        It was now between the Huskies and the Bulldogs.. In the e-mail, it said that the coaches from the Bulldogs had connections with Poly Prep, Xaverian, Midwood, Berkley Carroll all have great high schools baseball teams that would like to play for. I don’t know if staying with the Huskies will help me get into these great high schools.
       I’ve made the decision to go the Brooklyn Bulldogs. Even though the Huskies are my family, I have to pick the team that will help me get into a good high school. When I made this decision, I knew I wan’t a kid anymore.

Watching You

                      "Watching You" by Patricia Smith is about how much the government surveillance should Americans accept to keep the nation safe from any terrorists attacks. I think that the government should surveillance but not too much. Americans should be able to have some type of privacy. It call prevent many terrorists attacks.
                       In the article, it says, "The internet surveillance program, called Prism, started the following year; it involves eavesdropping on e-mails and online chats of foreigners overseas." This is way too much surveillance. Americans should be able to socialize and chat with one another without having to think about the government spying on them. 
                      In the article, it also says, "Information gathered under Prism has helped foil about 50 terrorist plots, according to NSA director Keith Alexander. In 2008, an intercepted e-mail led authorities to arrest an Al Qaeda operative in the U.S who was plotting backpack bombings on the New York City subway." Even though government surveillance is overpowering, it still saved thousands of lives.
                     The article also says, 'Within hours of the Boston bombings... authorities began sifting through a mountain of video footage... By the end of the week, the suspects had been identified and captured before they could harm anyone else." This means that surveillance is helping catch terrorists before they cause more problems.   
                     This made me think deeper about humanity because shows how protective the government is. It also shows that us Americans need more privacy!