Field Trip/Vocabulary Post

       So, this post is all about FIELD TRIPS......and I have to use vocabulary words in it, so I don't have to do the assignment. :-) I don't have that kind of time...I'm really busy...(sort of).
       Yeah. K. Lets do this. As I am listening to Fall Out Boy playlist (Starting with Immortals from Big Hero 6). sOOOO.......
     One hour-ish to go before my class goes to the Holocaust Museum. We've been studying the Holocaust in class for the past month or so, and now we are actually going to the museum, and are going to get firsthand(-or-secondhand, considering only a few survivors are left in Skokie) experience of what happened back then. The pictures below are true pictures from the Holocaust.One I know is definitely from Auschwitz.  I feel so sad just thinking about what happened during Hitler's reign.

     (My teacher impressed on us the importance of not stealing pictures off of the internet. So, these pictures are credited to their rightful owners who posted them on google, that I am borrowing. Thank you.)
     My mother is Jewish, and my father is Catholic, and so I am in the perfect medium and celebrate everything from both religions. This-the trip- will most likely be really hard for me, because this is a huge part of my heritage. I will probably break down crying, and my classmates will say something like 'It's not that sad. What's wrong with you?'
     The Holocaust was one of the saddest times in the history, and you should be sad too, so shame on you!
     Their morale must have been so low that many of them must have committed suicide. It just seems so sad, that much death, and-I say this with scorn- only 23 Nazis went on trial at Nuremberg, and only-like- 3 of them were actually condemned, and they committed suicide in the jail before they could be brought to justice through the death penalty. It must be a vice with all of the Nazis. They all-or almost all- died or committed suicide. *sniff* At least they decided for themselves what they wanted to do with their lives- kill themselves or mass murder a bunch of Jews.

  OOOKKKK...enough of that horrid talk. Time for more fun stuff. I'll split it into the next post to make it easy. =)

This is me

Sunday March 13, 2016

     Summer is in the air. Around January, I get so excited that school is almost over and summer is almost here. I get a sort of summer fever that just won't go away. Ever. Until summer's almost over and I can't wait to go back to school. It's a cycle with me. AnyWAY, I love sunshine. It just seems to agree with me. The windows in my room face south, so it gets a lot of sunshine for most of the day. It's weird, definitely in the winter, when  the sun comes in and warms up my room, but the window itself is so cold.Yeah. I just wrote a paragraph about sun.  Uh-huh. Yeah.

      About that. Nature is one of the most beautiful things. If you just take time to consider how lucky you really are to be alive and on this planet at this time. It's a miracle. Truly. Now, another miracle is the New Frontier. Space. I've already checked the job requirements to be an astronaut for NASA... and if I follow my set field expertise (Computer Science), I can become an astronaut. How cool is that??? OMG, I can't wait. Just like Sally Ride, I can (myb) go up into space. But, it makes it better if you had 1,000+ hours of pilot-in-command in a jet aircraft (hello, Airforce)....or random college that I found at last year's College Fair that is a flight school. :-) I know everything has to die eventually. As for me, I want to die in space rather than on Earth. There's just something about space that I just absolutely love.  Here:

     In the two pictures that look similar above, a new star is being born. Stars are born from the gas and dust from another exploded star is space. A small part of each of us is from a star....it just makes me smile to think about that.  Some part of me being a little bit special in the whole scheme of the universe. Just look how gorgeous it is. Imagine how it would feel to look at Earth from the ISS(International Space Station) or even from Pluto. It takes 14 years to get to Pluto with the resources we have now. 14 years there and 14 years back. 28 years gone from a life if one decides to go there. Did you know that NASA found a few more dwarf planets on the other side of Pluto?  

Eris, Haumea, Makemake, and Ceres. Check out the chart below for more information (source from SPACE.com).

    

  Anyway, I can't stop thinking about space. Especially now so that I finally saw Jupiter Ascending on Friday. OMG-I can't stop thinking about that, and inter-space travel and life on other planets. It's incredible. The basis of the movie is that Jupiter Jones is 'destined for greatness', but lives a rough life. She is the (mild spoiler) genetic reincarnation of, basically, the Queen of the Universe. And, right 'now', her 3 children are using their inheritance to fight a war for the best possible planets for Harvest. OMGGGG- Channing Tatum (Caine, in the movie)...... I just found out he is in a movie I love and a really annoying 'everything is awesome' movie. HE'S JOAQUIN FROM BOOK OF LIFE AND SUPERMAN FROM THE LEGO MOVIE!!!! HOW DID I NOT KNOW THAT??????? K, sry, cooling

             d  

                o

                  w

                     n.

     I'm ok. I'm ok. Point is, Jupiter Ascending is a good movie. And it got me thinking of space, and now I can't stop. If I can make my mark on the world in any way, I would make it by making hyper-speed from nuclear waste. *shrug* Anything is possible if you put you mind to it. Here it is, on paper, that I say that I will dedicate my life to this- the study, research, and exploration of space. Even if NASA won't accept me, I have a telescope. and I will research on my own. This is really important to me, and I will not let this go, even if, in the future, I have to stargaze from the rooftop of my bookstore in Paris, France, I will do it. Oui,oui!

     Yeah, I want to move to Paris and own a bookstore, so I'm going to take French next year, instead of Spanish, and my teacher is really upset because I have 100% in her class. Sorry..... I'll still keep up with it, but learning French is more important to me. If I can't go up into space, I'd rather own a bookstore in Paris. That's just me....that's just who I am. A girl who loves books, words, space, crazy hairstyles, love stories, nature, sports, superheroes(as well as antiheroes and villains...*cough, cough* Deadpool and Loki), gaming devices, and of course, Harry Potter and Star Wars. =) And I wouldn't change myself for the entire world( or any, if you count the millions in the universe, because it's a pretty big SPACE...get it? I also have very bad humor, if you haven't noticed :-P)

     And if anyone has a problem with it, that's their problem- not mine! 'Cause I'm perfect just the way I am!

Erika's Quote from Daniel's Story by Carol Matas

                 "We must live, and when this is all over, we must work to make the world a better place.  And if we die, we will die knowing that it was not our fault, that we did our best, and we can go to our deaths in dignity… I want you both to live…And to remember...You must choose love.  Always choose love.”  

(from Daniel’s Story by Carol Matas, page 70)

So, it's coming time for the end of the year (12 weeks from last Tuesday, the 1st), and we are doing our Holocaust unit in English/ Lit and Social Studies. In SS, we are learning about Hitler and the world leaders during WWII, like Mussolini, Hirohito, etc. In English/ Lit, we are reading Daniel's Story. It's a book that was written in accordance with the US Holocaust Museum in DC. Everything in that book happened to someone. I finished it, and the ending is the best part. Everything else is just so saaaaddddd. I was crying when I read it, and I don't do that very often. The last time I cried while reading a book was in the Outsiders and in Rowan Academy: The Fiend and the Forge. In the Outsiders, they killed off an important character, and in The Fiend and the Forge, they killed off my favorite character (mild spoiler...Nick the lymrill). AND HE WASN'T EVEN THE MAIN CHARACTER!!!!! HE WAS HIS CHARGE!!! That made me so mad, and I was bawling when I read that. Truly, it was so sad. But, sorry, again, I digress. More than once. OK, back to the Holocaust.
     I actually know a Holocaust survivor (he lives next to my aunt and uncle). He is really nice, and is full of wisdom and insight and ways to make other lives better. My great-aunt who lives in California (maybe I'll move there too, after college. I love the sun, but I would miss the snow) has a friend who survived because of Schindler's list. He made an autobiography the Boy on the Wooden Box. She ( my aunt) sent me the book, and I started reading it, but I lost it....I'll let you know when I find it again and keep reading it.
     But, this quote means a lot to me. For all of those refugees and survivors, it must have been so hard for them to survive. It links back in to why we are alive.We are alive because we each have a specific purpose to fulfill. We all have a choice about everything in our lives- even being alive. Do you know how many people commit suicide every single day? Or how many people kill others just for the sake of it or because they got in a fight with them? Too many.Life is a miracle, and we should love and cherish it, because we all are alive for a reason.We are here to make the world better, at least that's what I'm striving for. My science teacher says that the main purpose of life is to survive and reproduce, to pass on our genetic traits. But I don't really agree with her. I believe that our purpose is to love. The world, each other, ourselves. Love and kindness can't spread unless it comes from us first- we need to love ourselves to be able to love others. The world would be a better place if we all just had a little love and a little kindness. Just one small act can change someone's life, and then they, too, will spread a little kindness, and so on and so forth, until, everyone can say that they experienced an act of kindness.
     During the Holocaust, Hitler was nothing but a coward. All he did was hide behind his Nazi regime and thought that he could rule the world. He set about killing people on a whim. He cared little (benefit of the doubt....probably not even at all) for the well-being of his countrymen, or the Jews that he killed in those horrible concentration camps. He even committed suicide before the end of the war and ordered a 'friend' to burn his body and his wife-Eva Braun's- so that they couldn't be used for propaganda. What a coward. He didn't want to face prosecution so he took his own life after killing his wife. There are so many people out in our world like that, and I pity them. If anyone showed them a little kindness, perhaps there wouldn't be so much crime and loss.
     I know, now, why Erika wanted Daniel and Rosa to live for love. Because love overcomes boundaries, it crosses borders, it heals the wounded, and frees the soul. Although I am not very religious, this, I think, is my favorite quote:


                                   
     And that is true. For me, for you, and for the entire world. Love is stronger than anything on earth. I guess that I'm a bit of a romantic, but aren't there enough stories out there that tell us so?

   "Don't pity the dead, Harry, pity the living. And above all, those who live without love"

        ~Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter Series, written by J.K. Rowling
Love makes the world go around, and I guess that's what I've been trying to say this entire time. I just used many words to get there, but the simplest words to say are the words that are inside all of us. We say them to our family, close friends, the people that we feel we want to spend the rest of our lives with. Three simple words that hold a whole lot of meaning, and can be transferred into every language there is:
Te amo  -Spanish

Jeg elsker dig   -Danish
Ich liebe dich  -German
Ti amo    -Italian
Je t'aime   -French
أحبك  - Arabic
من تو را دوست دارم   -Persian
당신을 사랑합니다 - Korean
ik hou van je  -Dutch
jag älskar dig -Swedish
நான் உன்னை காதலிக்குறேன் - Tamil
seni seviyorum -Turkish
我爱你 -Chinese
I love you -English

     I leave you with a bit of parting advice: Don't forget to tell your parents, your siblings,your grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, step-siblings, anyone in your family that you love them. It will mean the world to them, and to you, and you might not get that chance to let them know how you feel, because life happens, and some people that you love the most can leave, and you might never get to tell them even though you really want to. So take this chance, and tell them how you feel, because it makes the world better. Starting with you.
     Love, friendship, mistakes (really anything that proves that we have a heart and care) are what make us human. And we should be proud of that. That's what makes us unique as a species. We're all different, and we should love ourselves for it- not discriminate against it.

~Rey Black