A Few Years of Horror, A Lifetime of Memories

Hi guys. I'm doing my final blog on a topic that is something I know a lot about. I've provided a glossary on the topic, just so you can keep track of what I'm speaking about. It's talked about so much and is on the television in my house so much, that I know as much as my Dad (which is incredible). This topic is about the Holocaust, and the horror and destruction it caused to so many lives. The one in charge of it all, was the brilliant, yet twisted, Adolf Hitler .

After setting off World War II, Hitler had invaded Poland in September 1939 and set off a series of events that forever altered the Jewish community of Lodz, Poland, one of the largest in Europe. On January 30th, 1939, Hitler gave a speech before the Nazi Reichstag (Parliament) on the sixth anniversary of his coming to power. In it, he made notice of that date, publically threatened Jews in his speech. Translated, what he said is here. But before that, Hitler had become the Chancellor of Germany, making laws to burn books, remove Jewish people of their insurance, lives, and essentials, and send homeless, alcoholics, beggars, and unemployed people to Concentration camps.

Concentration Camps (such as Mauthausen on the left) were, in my opinion, one of the worst things that any human can possibly do to another. Strip people of their dignity, rights, freedoms, personal items, and decide when they should die, then kill them like animals in a slaughterhouse. It's just not right.

To be more specific as to what happened, people were either sent to extermination (death) camps or work camps. You had to be in the correct age range, health range, and strength range in order to be in the work camps. If you failed any of the tests they gave you there, you were sent to a death camp such as Auschwitz or Mauthausen and killed. When they came up with the "Final Solution", it helped the Nazis greatly with "impure removal", but it was a horrible nightmare for the millions imprisoned. Isn't it sad when most of them went from this to this to this? It makes me want to cry. Here's a map of the Camps.

I thought that these were rather good links to accounts and personal stories of survivors, and people who weren't arrested until after they wrote them. The first link here goes to a website with personal stories of the crematorias and the gas chambers. This link here takes you to a webpage with abundant information on the "Final Solution". Another website takes you to the informational and easy-to-use page of Anne Frank's tale. Remember to click on Launch the Exhibition to get it to start. Tons more stories were found in the basement of a museum, and that information is here. However, for a simple link to the main stream of video, this is the one you want to click.

Overall, the total damage caused by Hitler, the Nazi party, the concentration camps, and the "Final Solution" was over 6 million lives of Women, Men, and Children. For a full page of the aftermath, simply click on this link.

I hope that this had made some impact on you, because having to do all of the research and listen to the stories has definately on me.

Wake me up before it gets bad.

S
L
E
E
P




My Chemical Romance wrote a song called Sleep.





The lyrics of the chorus are:





Sleep


Just sleep


The hardest part is letting go of


Your dreams


It is hard to dream, yet it is hard to let go. Especially for those with nightmares, but worse, for those with recurring nightmares.

Have you got a recurring nightmare? Want it to go away? Too bad. It’ll keep coming back. The more you forget about it, the worse off you are in life. You see, I have this recurring nightmare about all of my fears, but it tells me something. It tells me what I need to improve on in life. It tells me what I’m afraid of. It tells me my values. You see, you are actually lucky to be having such nightmares. I researched dream meanings and stuff and it is actually quite something to think about. What if our dreams really are trying to tell us something that we are too blind to see? In my dream, my husband is murdered in a burning house. This basically told me that I have some anger somewhere in my love life that I need to work on. I was dumbfounded. I am having some interesting relationship problems with a person I like, and another guy who doesn’t even know I like him. The guy that doesn’t know I like him shows up in the dream as the fireman to kill me in the end. There is so much that goes on in between them that you don’t even want to know half of it. Recurring dreams are like puzzles, except for the person trying to solve it. The dream itself, is trying to solve itself and make sense of itself.

As DreamMoods© said it:

Recurring dreams are quite common and are often triggered by a certain life situation or a problems that keeps coming back again and again. These dreams may recur daily, once a week, or once a month, but whatever the frequency, there is little variation in the dream content itself. It usually points to a personal weakness, fear, or your inability to cope with something in your life - past or present.

I find this to be quite true. Every dream means something, you just have to be interested in it. I don’t know about you, but I would definitely like to know what each of my dreams mean due to my life. And most of it, I find to be true. I have problems displayed in my dream and it is very common to experience that.

“Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination when awake?" Leonardo da Vinci

Evanescence's Amy Lee sings a song called Bring Me To Life.

The chorus is as follows:

(Wake me up)

Wake me up inside.

(I can'y wake up)

Wake me up inside.

(Save me)

Call my name and save me from the dark.

(Wake me up)

Bid my blood to run.

(I can't wake up)

Before I come undone.

(Save me)

Save me from the nothing I've become.

Recurring dreams are great. Recurring nightmares are better. Things can make sense if you would take a few minutes of your own to be still and not think about everythign else, but only the dream. Put yourself in a nice surrounding. Breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth. Close your eyes. Repeat until you figure your dream out and have fun.

Maybe you'll find things about yourself that you didn't even know.

maybe...

SLEEP TIGHT!

Courage is: Having a kick-butt sword

"One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest." -Maya Angelou

I guess one of the oldest questions is: What is courage? Mrs. James even blogged about it once. You can read that here if you'd like. In our classroom readings, courage had come up many times. In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet had to have courage to drink the friar's potion. Both young lovers had to have courage to even get married and Mercutio had courage to fight Tybalt, even though he knew that Tybalt was the better swordsman.

In this blog, I'm going to connect courage with a very controversial story. The story of King Arthur. Now, no one knows for sure whether the legendary British King is just that, a legend. There's even a school of thought that claims him to be a Celtic god of some sort. For a complete archive of information on the subject, you can click here. The website that this link goes to is very detailed in it's information, providing an objective view that allows you to decide for yourself what you think.

Whether or not King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table were actual characters or merely legends, they portray all the goodness and light there is to humanity. Constantly, they are faced with dangers, temptations, or death and come out in every story as the courageous and victorious knights. From Galahad, who must remain pure and is the only one who can retrieve the Holy Grail; to Gawain, who outsmarted the Green Knight; to Lancelot who was second only to Arthur in courage, but was defeated by his love for Guinivere; to Arthur himself who is holy and righteous in his every action. The characters aren't totally believable, but they could possibly be real and have had their personalities exaggerated with time.

Personally, I think it would be a lot easier to be courageous if I had the skill and weapons of Lancelot. That's his picture at the top of this post, depicted in the 2004 Antoine Fuqua film King Arthur. I haven't seen the movie, but I'm going to soon. But that's beside the point. (Sorry, I always seem to come back to movies somehow ^-^)

I don't think anyone will ever be able to prove that this legend is fact or fiction, but they are amazing stories. Countless people have changed and expounded on the original legends. If you haven't read the original stories, I suggest it. And no, Monty Python's version of the story of the Holy Grail story does not count. It is a really great movie though. If you like British humor, that is...

LIving with Drugs

<--LeAlan and his best friend Lloyd Newman.

So as you know, on Friday we could listen to the radio diaries from people around the world that were given tape players for a certain amount of time to record their everyday lives. The radio story that caught my eye th most, or should I say ear, was Ghetto Life 101. The main boy who was telling his story, LeAlan Jones, was thirteen at the time. When I was listening to him talk, I was really impressed at how well he spoke, and smart he was in general. Later on during the recording, he and his mom talked about the drugs around where they lived. I imagine there were very many drugs in their neighborhood, living in the Ghetto and what not. When I was listening to this, it reminded me of a book I read a couple of months ago, Beauty Queen.

I'm sure you all remember me blogging about the book. It was about the girl who was addicted to Heroin and shot it up about every other minute. I'm sure where LeAlan lived there was Heroin, and about one thousand other drugs. In the radio story when he was talking about drugs, and how there were alot in his community, I was thinking about how addicted Sam was in the book. She was so addicted that she gave her life to the drug. I'm strongly against substance abuse as it is, but when I read this book, it made me even more angry about the subject. I feel sorry that LeAlan Jones had to live in environments where it was common for people to use drugs, and to sometimes result in dieing from use. I'm really glad that in most areas of Springfield it's pretty safe, and drugs aren't everywhere you look. If I was LeAlan, I personally wouldn't feel safe one bit. I would be scared to even walk out of my front door, and to go to school, and just any place in general. In Beauty Queen, Sam also lives in an environment where drugs are easy access, SO she takes advantage of this, and starts dealing and using substances to her own advantage. Sam and LeAlan obviously had their own likes and differences. Sam used, and LeAlan didn't, but both of them lived in the same surroundings as each other.

In conclusion, comparing these two subjects really opened my eyes. When I was reading Sam's story, I started to realize all of the dangers of using drugs, and how addicting one little bag of "smack" can spin your world completely around. When I was listening to LeAlan's story I realized that living in those conditions, is almost just as bad as using. LeAlan still had to be around people that used at a very young age. His mom was mentally insane, so he didn't have the best example at home, Sam's mom was a drunk, and she rarely ever even talked to Sam. Just looking at both of these stories, you probably don't realize how alike they are, but that's the main point of my post. I'm thankful for where I live, and for the decisions that I make so that I don't have to go through what Sam and LeAlan did.

I hope everyone as a GREAT summer, and I'll see you next year hopefully!!

Easter Island

I have been reading this book called Collapse. It is by Jared Diamond. Here is a link to a lengthy description about the book http://www.compassionatespirit.com/Collapse.htm. It is about how and why civilizations "Collapse". It probably sounds boring which is what I said to my brother when he told me to read it. But it is actually pretty interesting. It talks about why Easter Island, Norse settlements in Greenland, and the Mayan civilization collapsed.

I'm not anywhere near finishing the book but I have already read a lot about Easter Island in the book. I also found a website that tells a lot about Easter Island. The website is separated into three websites so here are all three hyperlinks: http://www.pacificislandtravel.com/easter_island/about_destin/culture1.asp, http://www.pacificislandtravel.com/easter_island/about_destin/culture2.asp, http://www.pacificislandtravel.com/easter_island/about_destin/history.asp.

There has been a lot of controversy over Easter Island. When the civilization living on Easter Island (the Rapa Nui) was first discovered, people were mystified by how they had managed to survive because there weren't any trees on the island. It is widely debated how the Rapa Nui managed to create the thousands of stone statues (Moai) that are spread throughout the island. It is also debated how the Rapa Nui came to live on the island. The website pretty much answers all of those questions.

When the Rapa Nui first inhabited the island it was covered in a "lush" forest. The Rapa Nui started cutting down the trees like crazy to build houses, boats, and the trees were most importantly used to move the Moai. They moved the Moai from where they carved them (the volcano craters) to where they planned to put them by rolling the statues over logs. This destroyed a ton of trees and eventually every tree was destroyed. Since the trees were no longer there to hold down the top soil it blew away and was replaced by sand. Scientists believe that this is a really good simulation of what will happen to the rest of the world if the rest of the world continues to destroy forests.

The picture below is of the Moai that the Rapa Nui constructed.

The picture below is of a volcanic crater found on Easter Island. The Rapa Nui did most of their rituals on the edge of the crater and they carved the Moai out of the side of it.

That is pretty much it. Visit the links if you want to learn more about Easter Island. Also download google earth and put Easter Island in the search bar.

Teen Death Causes; Final Blog Post

We hear kids talking about killing themselves all the time. Sometimes they might not even realize what they are doing to themselves. Homicide, suicide (along with depression), or accidental substance abuse causes many deaths all around America. They may not always do it, but some do. The leading causes are tring to get away from an extremely hard situation, to get relief from bad thoughts or sadness, a death of a close friend or family member or just thinking that there is no way out, felling of anger, being guilty, victimized, depressed, rejection, feeling ashamed, unwanted of uninvolved. Usually, the thought of death is just a moment idea. Not something that they truly wanted to carry out with.
Everyone has moments were they are hurt, unwanted and rejected. What makes other people want to end their own life because of these things, while others just brush it off? I think the answer is depression. Some people have it, others don't.
:Depression:
This makes people see the harder more drastic and bad part of their lives. Kind of like seeing the glass half empty instead of half full. Because of depression, people usually think that a happy ending is never possible and everything will always turn out bad, or not as they had planned it to be. Depressiopn distorts thinking, and puts a filter on people's minds stopping them from being practicle. This is why the decide death is the only permanent answer to just a temporary problem.
:Substance Abuse:
These kids are more at risk of death then suicide attempted kids because of their "dangerous" behavior. These drugs can not only cause poor judgement, but also cause depression as well. Most suicide attempts actually occur during that person being under the influence. Here, you can read all about drugs. These all have dangerous effects on the brain that cause depression and a few trips to the hospital and rehab center.
:Homocide:
Homicide is the killing of one person by another. The national rate of homicide is 5.6. Just in Missouri, it is 6.9 followed by other states such as Louisiana with a 9.9 rate in just one year. Missouri is eleventh on the chart for having the highest murder rates. Reason for homicides are, arguments, robberies, felonies, narcotics and other unstated reasons.

We all have a choice with only one chance to live. I would suggest for us all to make the right choice and keep that once chance we have. We can all prevent ourselves from suicide and substance abuse. And it is always wise to get help when dealing with problems like depression. Although we can do nothing about homicide, we can always try to make a good path for ourselves in the end. Don't be stupid in life, after all we only have one chance before it can all be taken away from us. :(

What's Your Perspective?

What is your perspective of Rich and Poor? I didn't really know what to say when my mom asked me that, I didn't think that there was a difference. I thought that the difference between rich and poor was just money and that rich people had nicer stuff and that there lives were generally better because they have more money. I was wrong. This is an E-mail that my mom showed me and I feel that it is perfect to use for my best blog.

One day, the father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the express purpose of showing him how poor people live.
They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family.
On their return from their trip, the father asked his son, "How was the trip?"
"It was great, Dad."
"Did you see how poor people live?" the father asked.
"Oh yeah," said the son.
"So, tell me, what did you learn from the trip?" asked the father.
The son answered:
"I saw that we have one dog and they had four.
We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end.
We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night.
Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon.
We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight.
We have servants who serve us, but they serve others.
We buy our food, but they grow theirs.
We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them."
The boy's father was speechless.
Then his son added, "Thanks Dad for showing me how poor we are."

Now what is your perspective, did it change? Mine sure did, I had never thought of it that way. I almost felt bad because I have always taken things for granted. I thought about all the stuff I have and don't need, but don't know what I would do without it.

I was listening to a radio diary about a teenager named Juan and he lived on the Rio Grande river in a very bad neighborhood. The neighborhood was considered poor and he was an having hard time living. He was always hungry and went to the refrigerator and there was no food in the fridge and he had to fight to live. I didn't matter if he was poor he was determined and he got his high school diploma unlike a lot of poor children in rough neighborhoods.

So that's my question," What is your perspective of rich and poor?"