Poem for Paul

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

Sugar is sweet

And so are you.

After all this time

I still love you

The same way I did

Before all we've been through.

You still give me butterflies,

Although it may not show,

And I hope this love we get to share

Is something we won't outgrow.

I think it's time to take a step,

So please keep me around.

My heart believes the time is right

To open that shared account.

So with an equal amount of money

Let's make our way to the bank

To bring our lives together

And pledge to never, ever lose faith.

Random Writing

It's almost as if I lost myself, been surrounded by a world filled with hate. And I’m slipping out of reach as you come back and remind me why I'm still here.

Random Writing.. result of boredom

Moments come and go

in the blink of an eye.

Like speeding down the street,

lights flash in every direction,

memories race across your mind,

but not one of them stays for long.

We keep going.

We keep breathing, 

and we keep learning.

Creating new memories

which will later become tucked away,

hidden in the back of our mind

until we remember that one moment again.

Why

From day one

you’re guaranteed to die.

We’re all put on this earth

to endure a brief life

and leave.

But somehow 

we’re still in a rush to escape.

So why?

Twelfth Grade - Twitterature

Benjamin Braddock

@BenBraddock 

Los Angeles, California

BenBraddock Benjamin Braddock

plane just landed… now what?

BenBraddock Benjamin Braddock

this graduation party blows. I just wanna be alone.

BenBraddock Benjamin Braddock

WTF?! Is Mrs Robinson trying to seduce me?!

BenBraddock Benjamin Braddock

got it in with my parents friend. is that weird?

BenBraddock Benjamin Braddock

this is getting awkward. is there more to life than just sex?

BenBraddock Benjamin Braddock

who’s this girl Elaine? And why does everyone want me to take her out on a date?

BenBraddock Benjamin Braddock

I guess not everybody wanted me to go out with her, but after tonight I think I kinda like her.

BenBraddock Benjamin Braddock

Is Mrs Robinson beginning to get jealous of her own daughter?

BenBraddock Benjamin Braddock

I’m getting kinda bored of staring at this fish tank. I think I want to get Elaine back…

BenBraddock Benjamin Braddock

Going to Berkley to find the girl I love… BBL

BenBraddock Benjamin Braddock

Apparently I’m a rapist now. What crazy things a mother will say to people simply to hide their affairs.

BenBraddock Benjamin Braddock

Road trip to Santa Barbara to crash a wedding!

BenBraddock Benjamin Braddock

Success! I officially have the girl I love! (:

BenBraddock Benjamin Braddock

… now what?

Twelfth Grade - Contemporary Literature Final

"Be who you want to be. And pick that person wisely." The smallest decisions that you will be making within the next four years will shape you into completely different people than who I stand in front of today. And the little choices are everything. Every choice you make brings you down a new path, teaches you a lesson, and than leads you to another decision waiting to be made.

From day one people are going to want to see what you’re about. They’ll question you to find out what you believe in and basically just learn about the person that you are.  And if they don’t agree with you, they most likely will not like you. But don’t let that bring you down. It’s going to make you think you’re not good enough, and that you have to change just to fit in, but don’t do it. Stay true to yourself. Just because the popular girls don’t eat with you at lunch doesn't mean you’re a nobody. Eventually you will find people who will be your friends for a life time. They won’t leave your side and you will create the best memories with them. We all have to grow up so much throughout high school so be prepared for change, and do not be scared.

Growing up, everyone hears the words "peer pressure" and we’re told to avoid anyone who does it, and never to do it to anyone. And that can be easily done. The only problem is no one is going to tell you how to decipher the good from the bad. It can be confusing, stuck in a situation and being forced to chose yes or no right on the spot. And if the wrong choice is made, it easily becomes chaotic. There are wonderful things that you are going to experience in high school, no doubt about it, but there are just as many harmful and scary moments waiting to happen. People are going to face you with drugs, or a cigarette, and tell you to “just try it” because what can one time do, right? Wrong. All it takes is one time to become addicted and want more.

Being in high school allows you meet friends that are never going to leave your side. But as the years go on, some of the people you thought would be there forever change. They make poor choices and start hanging around that group of kids that none of the teachers like, and that’s when you have to decide to stick around, or meet new people. Finding true friends within the next few years may be difficult, because no one knows who they are. Everyone is trying to find themselves and discover the things that they like to do. The true friends will be the people who don’t judge you for who you become, and stick by your side until the very end. They may as well be a part of your family.

At home your parents are going to start giving you more freedom. Whatever you do, don’t abuse it. Your parents trust you enough to make good decisions, so they’re going to start giving you more space. They’ll let you stay out later, and once you start driving you’ll have a curfew to get the car home. But once you mess it up you’re going to lose that trust, and once that happens you lose your freedom. There are going to be days that you “hate” your parents for not letting you go here, or do this, but don’t let your anger get the best of you. Family is all you’re going to have one day, and if you mess up enough to get kicked out of your house and never talk to your parents again, you’ll have no one. I’ve seen it happen to multiple people, family and friends, throughout my high school career. If you’re parents aren’t letting you do something, they most likely have good reasoning behind it. The only way they’re going to say no is for your own safety.

Although you’re faced with thousands of difficult decisions in high school, you will create some of the best memories within the short four years you’re there. You’ll meet people that you love, and people that you hate, but either way you create memories that will never be forgotten. Treasure every moment and take thousands of pictures because the years fly by. It feels like just yesterday when I first stepped foot into school as a freshman, and now it’s over and time to walk graduation to receive the diploma everyone worked so hard to get.

Twelfth Grade - Rooftops

Rooftops

The song that I chose that I feel represents the youth culture today is Rooftops by Lostprophets. Majority of adolescents today spend their time trying to make the best of the moment that they are currently in. They live in the present and don’t worry about the past or the future. Most young teenagers just worry about having fun in the moment. Throughout the song it asks questions like “When our time is up, when our lives are done, will we say we've had our fun?”

Although living in the present could be a poor decision to make, most people do it. When teenagers go out to drink and have fun with their friends they aren’t necessarily worrying about the future and where they’ll be in twenty years. In the moments prior to partying, or experimenting with drugs, most teenagers won’t be asking themselves what could go wrong. They’ll simply just do it, because all of their friends are and it seems okay.

I think that is one of the major problems there are today. Parents and the adult figures in a child’s life aren’t stressing the importance of how dangerous consuming alcohol or simply “trying” a drug could be. They only start pushing the message across in high school, but by that time it’s too late. We’ve formed our own opinions on things like alcohol and we’re not mature enough to change it. We still think nothing could go wrong and that we could never possibly regret any of the decisions we’re in the process of making. Teenagers typically won’t realize that decisions made today could change their life forever.

The chorus of the song says, “Standing on the rooftops, everybody scream your heart out.” That line is repeated multiple times. I think it shows how teenagers live for the freedom of growing up. In today’s society, most young adults take advantage of every moment they can just to live and be free. They’ll do things that make them feel daring and like they are living on the edge. Every chance we get to grow up and move further away from our parents, we take it. We live for the feeling of being happy and learning to be our own person.

Twelfth Grade - Research Paper on Racial Discrimination

Racial Discrimination

Why is it our first instinct to judge a person from the moment we meet them? Racism and stereotyping have been reoccurring issues throughout the world for thousands of years. This theory can be seen in multiple works that we have studied this year such as Crash and The Color of Water by James McBride. Each one shows, in it’s own way, how racism can affect any single persons life and they can both be compared to things that happen every day in America.

The Color of Water is a novel written by a black man, James McBride, for his white mother. James was raised with eleven siblings in a house constantly filled with chaos. And his mother being a white, Jewish woman married to a black man made it much more difficult. All throughout the novel there are multiple issues that come about because of their race and ethnicity. McBride’s mother, Ruth, was constantly being criticized for marrying two black men and having twelve black children. They had very little money at the time and Ruth’s goal for her children was simply to be successful. She sent them all to school and made sure they kept their grades up. Each one of her twelve children even continued to go on to college. At one point, when James was in grade school, he remembered all the other parents at the bus stop being “different” than his mother, and that’s when he started to realize the looks his mother would get. Every time they went out together he would see more and more people stare at her. He became embarrassed and never wanted to go to the stores with her. It upset him to see that his mother was not accepted in society, and because of this he started to rebel. He ran off and started doing drugs and not coming home. His mothers protection always kept him safe from the harm of the racist people in society, but she could not stop it forever. He eventually had to learn on his own that a black person did not have it as simple as a white person (McBride).

Unlike The Color of Water, Crash is a movie about multiple peoples lives and how racism effects each one of them in a different way. One of the main characters, John Ryan, seems to have a difficult time with people of different ethnicities, but by the end of the movie that changes. At the start of the film, Ryan pulls over Mr. Thayer, a black man, and his wife and has such hatred towards them. He does not treat them like human beings and he’s constantly talking down to them throughout the few minutes he’s with them. Just before he lets them off with a warning, he molests Mrs. Thayer as her husband stands there watching. He does not give them a ticket, but later in the film he’s confronted with a problem. A woman was in an accident and John Ryan was there to save her from the car wreck. That woman was Mrs. Thayer. She screams and yells at him to leave her there and not to touch him. This incident opened Ryan’s eyes to racism and how it is wrong. Mrs. Thayer was a person, just as anybody else, and she did not deserve what he did to her (Crash). Unfortunately, this kind of situation happens often and not only in movies.

Today, multiple issues come about involving race. Police officers are sometimes accused of being a racist and are told that the individual they pulled over did not deserve the ticket they were given. One Los Angeles Police Department officer was accused of being racist his first traffic stop as a rookie. In 1998, he had pulled over an individual for reckless driving and speeding, but as he started to walk up to the truck the man accused him of pulling him over simply because he was black. More recently, the LAPD was accused of “not adequately guarding against racial profiling by it’s officers.” The Department of Justice had said that one of the officers was saying to his supervisor that he "couldn't do [his] job without racially profiling" ("Not Race Alone"). Racial profiling, which means an individual is targeted based on their race or ethnicity, is illegal and has been an issue within police departments in many states. The LAPD has made many changes to make sure racism is not an aspect when it comes to arresting or ticketing a criminal. Hopefully one day racism won’t be an issue with police officers anymore.

There will always be issues with racism in some way because there will always be immigrants. Having constant immigrants flowing into the United States will leave the citizens disappointed that new groups of people have arrived. The Obama administration has considered suing Arizona due to their “harsh new immigration enforcement measure” ("An Immigration Standoff"). Until now, illegal immigration had been considered a federal matter but with this new law it would be a crime in Arizona. No two people will ever completely agree about immigrants and what should be done with them. A poll stated that 60% of Americans agreed with this new law in Arizona simply because they don’t think the immigrants should be here. This law would give, and sometimes require, officers to check the immigration status of the people the pull over for different reasons. Why would anybody want to be asked if they had proof that they were a citizen? Immigration is either a good or a bad thing, and there is no middle. Therefore, it is almost impossible to compromise.

Racism is an ongoing issue and majority of Americans discriminate against someone at some point. However, people can always change their ways. One’s eyes can always be opened to see that being racist is no longer accepted in America. Years have passed and our country has grown to realize certain things should result in punishment. Although officer John Ryan in Crash was not chastised for his wrongdoing, he learned on his own that he should change. Race and ethnicity should not matter when it comes to judging a person at first glance.