I am currently reading a book called 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson.  It is a very interesting book, and catches you at the beginning because of the personalities of the people that this girl knows.  From where I am, it is a book about finding yourself, and is a bit coming-of-age.  READ THIS BOOK!

Image From:

http://www.thebookgap.com/covers/9780061825248_9780061825248.jpg

I haven’t blogged in a long time, so I am coming back out into Web 2.0 and saying Happy Holidays to the world!  I hope that everyone is enjoying their breaks.  It is a time of parties and joy, and this year hasn’t been as much of a “sit-around-all-day-break.”  I hope that you enjoy the holiday season!

~laurenc604

Image from: http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:hQ3bdG3K7tbcZM:http://ainsworth1985.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/happy-holidays.jpg

Today is International Human Rights Day.  It is important for everyone to have rights because it helps keep us together, and running smoothly as a world of differences.  Take time today and stop to think what kind of a world we would have if we didn’t have simple human rights.

Mankind was my business.  The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business.

-Marley

Marley says this to Scrooge in the first stave of A Christmas Carol (by Charles Dickens).  By this, he means that even though he was a good man of business, that he didn’t do anything that wasn’t business.  Marley is saying that everything was his business, because he didn’t do anything else.  Marley and Scrooge lived in a dark home, working every day.  They both were miserable, dark souls that staggered to and from the office everyday.  It was their job to take away from people and the power to give was nowhere in their hearts.

For the past couple of weeks, I have been falling behind in my Google Reader activities.  When I checked about a week ago, I had 60 new posts, and none of them were my Language Arts class’ new blogs.  After reading 5 of those 60 posts, I added all the blogs from one of the two HA Language Arts classes.  This took me up to a grand total of 119 unread posts.  Have you ever fallen behind in your Google Reader activities?  If so, how bad was it?  This is complete proof that it’s hard to keep track of all the blogs that you read, but with Google Reader you can get all of them read in about an hour.

~laurenc604

Image From: http://www.techshout.com/images/google-reader-logo.jpg

My Language Arts class just got blogs. I have had my blog, since I was in the pilot laptop program, but when the laptop program went school-wide, no one but the pilot program kids had them.  This is an exciting event because now I get to share Web 2.0 with my classmates.  Look out Web 2.0, here we come!

~laurenc604

Spoiler Alert!

My Language Arts class just finished reading The Giver, by Lois Lowry, about two weeks ago.  We read and discussed the themes in the novel.  Jonas lives in a community where they transferred to “Sameness.”  Sameness removed color, feelings, differences, and choices from the lives of people living in The Community.  Feelings and memories have been removed from The Community because of the truth and pain that they possess.  Some of the memories are joyful, like the memories of sailboat rides, sledding, and Christmas.  Others are painful or traumatizing, such as hunger, injury, or war.  I feel that making the choice to remove these memories was like making the choice to take the meaning out of life.  People of The Community are missing out on some of the beauty of life.  What is life if we can’t make our own decisions and act for ourselves?  What is life without pain?  What is life if we can’t experience true love, or the pain of learning a lesson the hard way?

~laurenc604