Quote 1:  "I had worked the soil, which is its flesh, and harvested the listen to its voice in the thunder and feel is threatening in lighting." pg. 29 1rst paragraph

Response: I really like the metaphor in this quote.  I just noticed this from a long time ago.  In my life I always try to see things as a metaphor.  It always helps me understand things.  In this quote it was talking about when the main character was training to be a warrior and she was taught that the earth was in resemblance to a dragon.  and how the soil was the skin, the trees were its hair, its voice was thunder and so on.  It is always hard to understand how the world works so comparing animals to how the earth is is a useful strategy to widen you mind about this huge concept.

Connection:  For me I always use metaphors to help me understand things for example: When a friend gets mad at me I think of it as a caterpillar.  When they are friendly and nice they are a caterpillar but when they are in the cacoon its just a stage that they are mad at me. Than they turn into a butterfly and we are better friends than we were before because we endured so much together.

Quote 2:  "If it tastes good, its bad for you,  if it tastes good its bad for you."

Pg. 92 4rth

Respnse:  This kind of shows how the mother is crazy because they are talking about brains of a monkey and how its bad so its good for you.  I don't understand why the mother is so crazy in this book.  She is a complete ghost hunter and she acts like a witch.

Connection:  my mini connection to this is is that I don't eat vegetables and I think that they are disgusting though they are good for people.

Woman warrior post #3

Quote: "I do not give in," she said.  "There is no pain you can inflict that I cannot endure.  You're wrong if you think Im afraid of you.  Your no mystery to me. I've heard you sitting ghosts before, Yes, people have lived to tell about you , You kill babies you cowards. 

 Said my the mother in the middle of pg. 70.

I cannot tell weather the main character is dreaming or not but basically her mom has gotten really full of herself.  She has made herself one of the smartest kids in her medical school class.  She is now kind of known as the town star.  It sounds like the Mom has gotten crazy also.  I don't understand what is going on with the ghosts.  They say that the ghost is eating babies.  I think that anybody who believes in something that eats babies then they are crazy but thats just me.

Question:  If your mom moved to a new country got a good job, and became slightly crazy.  what would you do?

Quote:  professional women have the right to use their maiden name.

I think that the book said that because the the Chinese culture the women is not as honorable as the man.  I think the reason for the maiden name is because whenever a women is a professional at something they should get some privileges and maybe her maiden name is honorable in the chinese culture.

Question:  Is your middle name honorable?

would you use it when you are a professional at something?

Quote #1: "they think we are carrying these sticks for our own fire." Pg 51 paragraph

Significance:  This shows, like Ben said, how people who immigrate to America don't always have an easy life .   The Aunt said this because they were trying to get money from people and the main character wasn't yelling that it was for sale so the people just thought that they were walking with their own wood.  This was very sad because they had to walk back and forth selling wood as their children would beg.

Connection: I cannot really connect with their situation.  I have never really felt the feeling that they were.  I do feel sorry for them though.  It makes me sad that people had to go through situations like that.

If you were put in that sort of situation how would you feel and what would you do?

Quote #2: I looked at their ink drawing of poor people snagging their neighbors flotage with long flood hooks and pushing the girl babies on down the river.

Significance: In the chinese culture the girl is not as important as the boys because the boys, in the asian culture, have a reputation for being smart and for being warriors which is honorable.  This was significant because i would have been very offended if I was a girl and my parents were drawing about me being sent down a river. 

If you saw a picture like that how would you react?

Part 1: From Haven to Home
The purpose of the museum was to learn about Jewish culture and their move to America. I learned a lot of things about a variety of immigrating Jews. They mostly came from Russia, Romania and Austria-Hungary. I also learned a lot about how they were involved in politics. For example Martin Luther King who understood the struggle of the Jews (important because our president believes in MLK’s thoughts). I learned that the Jews were not allowed to be public with their religion. They sent many letters to high political people like Judges and presidents to let Jews build synagogues and pray.
The U.S was so nice to the Jews that all kinds of other races and religions came to America for freedom and liberty. Since the world was so intolerant of so many people the U.S. was the perfect place for people to express themselves.
I already knew a lot of things that she was talking about because I have studied a lot of Jewish history but we reviewed the different types of Judaism. There is the ultra orthodox movement, which is very strict, and it follows all rules. Than there is orthodox and they are just a tad less religious than ultra orthodox but still very religious. Than there is the reformed movement which where you don’t have to go by all of the rules if you don’t want to. Basically it is an eased up form of Judaism. There are some other forms of Judaism but reformed, ultra and regular orthodox Jews are the main ones.
Something that was weird was that the tour lady didn’t really talk about World War II. All it said was that many Jews and other people boycotted Nazi Germany
Though many Jews held onto their culture some of them wanted to inherit American culture so that they fit in. A form of Jews holding onto religion and culture was that they established a Yiddish community, which is basically slang.
We also learned about Kosher. Kosher is a very important thing in orthodox Jews life. Kosher meat is worth more money because the slaughterers go to school for around seven years to train t o be able to kill an animal without hurting it. Also they need to cut from the second rib of a cow, bull, ox etc. All seafood is against Kosher. Jews also cannot have any blood.
We also learned that Jewish people have a big focus on education and thing that the only way of getting through life is with education. Even to this day a lot of Jews are pushed to do well in school.
Some famous people who are Jewish are Barbra Streisand, Sandy Koufax and Jerry Seinfeld. Also, ironically, Jews are the ones who make most Christmas songs.
We also learned that not all of the Jews were good. There was a Jew who was a very bad man but he founded Las Vegas. Jews also created the Red Cross of America, the sports museum in Balboa park and the courthouse of San Diego was named after the first Jewish judge.
I thought this was a very cool museum and experience. Especially because I am Jewish and i like learning about my origin and history. I plan to take my family to the museum at a later date

Partt 2:
Quote:"America has anything we need; at least one person lives here from from every nation. People immigrant to America because they know it is a land of freedom and a better life. I see America as a land of opportunities."

Response: I chose this quote because before this quote I took America for granted. The quote showed me that I need to be lucky because a lot of people think that America is a great place. It also showed me what people from a different place think about America.

Picture: "India Independence Day"
Description:The photos is taken in a crowded, Indian populated city. There is a focus on a young Indian boy wearing a cultural head ware. The background was blurry and showed a mother and father.

Response: This was cool because unlike some other cultures who wanted to become more American and let go of their culture, these Indians were keeping a grip on their culture.

Essay: My essay was about a man who mostly talked about his courage in coming to America. I never really thought about how it would seem for an immigrant to be moving to a whole different country with a different culture and way of living. He talked about how everything would be different but he would figure out a way to get through it.

Women warrior P #1

Quote 1: 

pg. 9 last paragraph.

"Our mother said we were lucky we didn't have to have our feet bound when we were seven.  Sisters used too sit on their beds and cry together, she said as their mothers or their slaves removed the bandages for a few minutes each night and let the blood gush back into their veins."

This was a good example of different cultures.  The main character (name is not given yet) is an asian girl.  The asian culture is very focused on beauty.  The mother would trim the eyebrows using a line of needles that she would rip out.  This takes place early on in the book and establishes the type of culture that these people are living in.  

I do not have a connection to this kind of treatment.  In my opinion its slightly abuse.  I think its weird that they would hurt themselves just to look a certain way.   I have always thought that binding someone's foot was the worst possible thing but the mother was talking about it like it wasn't scary.

Have you ever been pressured to do something "weird" because of your culture? if yes, what was it? if no, how would you react about that sort of thing?

Quote 2:

pg. 1 paragraph 1

"You must not tell anyone," my mother said,"what I am about to tell you.  In China your father had a sister who killed herself.  She jumped into the family well.  We say that your father has all brothers because it is as if she had never been born."

Another big part of asian culture is to not be a disgrace to the family.  If a child is a "disgrace" to the family than basically shunned upon the community.  For example, Mulan because she was not a boy and went to war she disgraced the family and that is what the father said to Mulan.

I can relate to this because sometimes when one of my siblings or I do something wrong my Dad says we are embarrassing or disgracing to our family.  This is mostly used, in my opinion, because disgrace is a very powerful word.

Why do you think they started the book off like that.

Immigrants

What is your definition of an immigrant?

My definition of an immigrant is a person who comes from another country.

What is your connection to an immigrant?

There are many possible ways that I am connected to immigrants.  My Jewish Ancestors could have come from Europe.  My ancestors were pilgrims on the May Flower.

Do you have friends or relatives who are immigrants?

My nanny is a Mexican immigrant.  She has been taking care of me since i was three months old.  She goes back and forth from Tijuana each weak.

Why do you think immigrants come to the United States?

There are a lot of immigrants coming from Mexico to the United States because the pay, safety and government are better here.

Where do you see the affects on San Diego because of immigration?

The affect on San Diego is that Spanish is now a important language to learn in schools and there are things like Mexican restaurants and the architecture of Balboa Park.  Oh and also the name "San Diego."

Final Book Review

Into the wild
By: Jon Krakauer
Reviewed by: Max Gruenberg

This book is about 20 years old Chris McCandeless who goes out into the wild and with little food and plans to survive off the wilderness. The story takes place in Alaska 1996.Young Chris brings rice, a gun, and a few other materials. This book is about friendship and trust.
In the story Chris McCandeless hitchhikes around The United States and meats friends but before that he burns his belongings, leaves his car in the middle of nowhere and donates all his money for college to a hunger facility. Than he starts to live off the people and the land. The bad thing about Chris is that once he would befriend these kind people who would take him in and give him food, he would just leave. He couldn't trust anybody even though many people trusted him. He communicated little with his family and wanted to start his own life. Chris also didn't tell anyone his real name he just went by Alex Super tramp. While he was on his journey it lead him to Alaska. Chris liked to read semi realistic fiction novel's about being out in the wilderness. This provoked Chris to try to survive off the land. Chris didn't understand that the stories weren't real so he decided he was going to survive off the land in Alaska. To find out what happens to him in Alaska I'm not going to tell you, you're going to have to find out yourself by reading the book.
The writer of this book is Jon Krakauer a mountaineer and writer. He usually writes about the outdoors and mountain climbing. He is an American writer from Massachusetts. He was born in April 12 1954 and lives currently in Seattle Washington with his wife.
In my opinion the book was written nicely. It has a moderately high vocabulary level and it is very easy to visualize the book in your head while reading. The book is told from a standby characters point of view meaning they used quotes and interview to tell the story of Chris McCandeless. It seemed like he quoted everyone he was interviewing correctly and in order. I thought the book had a great plot and that it lead the reader into reading more. This is actually a real story that has not only been documented in a book, but also in a movie.
I think that the range of people reading this book should be 13+. I think it is sometimes hard to follow the time period of the book because they switch around a lot. Also it's sometimes hard to tell if there is switch in interviews.
I think this is a great book that should be read by eighth graders and up. This book has strong morals and an interesting, leading story line. Into the wild by Jon Krakauer. Reviewed by Max Gruenberg

This book is about 20 years old Chris McCandeless who goes out into the wild and with little food and plans to survive off the wilderness. The story takes place in Alaska 1996.Young Chris brings rice, a gun, and a few other materials. This book is about friendship and trust.
In the story Chris McCandeless hitchhikes around The United States and meats friends but before that he burns his belongings, leaves his car in the middle of nowhere and donates all his money for college to a hunger facility. Than he starts to live off the people and the land. The bad thing about Chris is that once he would befriend these kind people who would take him in and give him food, he would just leave. He couldn't trust anybody even though many people trusted him. He communicated little with his family and wanted to start his own life. Chris also didn't tell anyone his real name he just went by Alex Super tramp. While he was on his journey it lead him to Alaska. Chris liked to read semi realistic fiction novel's about being out in the wilderness. This provoked Chris to try to survive off the land. Chris didn't understand that the stories weren't real so he decided he was going to survive off the land in Alaska. To find out what happens to him in Alaska I'm not going to tell you, you're going to have to find out yourself by reading the book.
The writer of this book is Jon Krakauer a mountaineer and writer. He usually writes about the outdoors and mountain climbing. He is an American writer from Massachusetts. He was born in April 12 1954 and lives currently in Seattle Washington with his wife.
In my opinion the book was written nicely. It has a moderately high vocabulary level and it is very easy to visualize the book in your head while reading. The book is told from a standby characters point of view meaning they used quotes and interview to tell the story of Chris McCandeless. It seemed like he quoted everyone he was interviewing correctly and in order. I thought the book had a great plot and that it lead the reader into reading more. This is actually a real story that has not only been documented in a book, but also in a movie.
I think that the range of people reading this book should be 13+. I think it is sometimes hard to follow the time period of the book because they switch around a lot. Also it's sometimes hard to tell if there is switch in interviews.
I think this is a great book that should be read by eighth graders and up. This book has strong morals and an interesting, leading story line.