The Weed

The main character of this story is Argoori. What makes her worth writing about is that she seems really nice and what makes her unique is that she seems to have many beliefs. The conflict of this story is that at first Argoori thought that learning how to read and write was a sin for women.She also said that she couldn't take any sweet from men because it brings weed. Then she told a story to her husband of what had happened to her friend. After that, she told her husband to teach her how to read and write. Her husband asked her why if she used to think that was a sin. He then asked her if she had drank any tea or milk and she said no that she had only drank milk. Then her husband found out that Ram Tara had fetched her that milk. The story ends with Argoori saying to curse her because she had gotten sweets from a man. A word that I didn't know was prerogative. I found out that it means a right or privileged exclusive to a particular individual or class.

7 Tips to Fight Deadly Feeling of Boredom

The structure that this article has to organize the order of information is chronological order. I think that it's chronological order because it describes step by step each tip. The tone of this article seems positive and helpful, because it's talking about how to make a boring situation become less boring. The article talks about 7 tips. These tips are basically saying if you keep doing things the get you bored, then you might get interested in it, if you keep on doing it. Thinking things in different ways and  bringing a book can also make you feel less bored.  These tips are for those people that are bored and don't want to be bored. The 7 tips are:

• Put the word “meditation” after the activity that’s boring you. 
• If something is boring for two minutes, do it for four minutes. If it’s still boring, do it for eight minutes, then sixteen, and so on. Eventually you discover that it’s not boring at all. 
• Take the perspective of a journalist or scientist. Really study what’s around you. What are people wearing, what do the interiors of buildings look like, what noises do you hear?
• Have a mental escape route planned. Think about something delightful or uplifting 
• Look for a way to feel grateful. It’s a lot better to be bored while waiting in a doctor’s office than to be in an agony of suspense about your test results.
•  Consider: “Am I the boring one?
• Always bring a book

This article was actually interesting to me because many times I feel bored and don't want to be bored. These tips might actually work. I never thought thinking stuff in a different way could make me feel less bored, until I read this article. This could be helpful to other people because many people in there everyday life get in situations is which they get either bored or impatient. These tips can help them get their minds off of negative things and think of other positive things, while waiting and not get bored. 

Say what? Better hearing takes practice

I think the structure that organizes this article is spatial order. First it give the description then examples and last illustrations. The tone of the article seems that the author agrees with what she is writing about. The article is explaining that scientist think that part of the problem of hearing loss has to do with our brains. Age related hearing loss can come from disappearance of sensory cells in the inner ear. As people grow older their brains slow down. One side affect is that they can't process fast-moving parts of speech. Most likely they can't process consonants in the beginning of words such as "b," "p," "g," and "d." In the article it says that "As we get older our brains slow down, a natural part of aging call neural slowing." "Having conversation in a nosy restaurant can be difficult, and for elderly people often impossible." "But with a little practice, the brain can learn to hear above the din, a new study suggest. This means that elderly people that can't hear well can go to classes and learn how to hear better. I think this was a good article because I didn't know you could hear better by going to classes. 

http://www.diigo.com/bookmark/http%3A%2F%2Fnews.sciencemag.org%2Fsciencenow%2F2013%2F02%2Fsay-what-better-hearing-takes-pr.html?tab=people&uname=sraspanglish

Televison make lonely people feel less lonely

The organization structure of this article is from the most important information to the least important information. The tone of this passage sounds like the author was very interested in what she was talking about. The author seemed like she agreed with the information about that television makes lonely people less lonely. She put more information about the positive side and just two sentences about the negative side. The article is about that scientists think that watching television makes lonely people feel less lonely. Psychologist have the idea of “social surrogacy” to explain that television can take up the same role as friends and family. In a study, psychologist found out that lonely people are more likely to watch their favorite tv show when they’re lonely, and they feel less lonely during the show. Scientists think that lonely people are most likely to enjoy positive tv shows. If you go online and read comments of tv shows, that people comment “worst show ever” negative comments like that,  are probably satisfied with their life. Lonely people might have better connection with tv show characters or tv shows then people that already have a lot of people in their life.

I think that the article was very interesting. I never thought that television can make people less lonely. But I honestly don’t think television can have the same role as family. It can probably have the same role as friends I guess. Reading this article might make lonely people consider watching tv when they’re lonely.

https://www.diigo.com/bookmark/http%3A%2F%2Fio9.com%2F5943237%2Ftelevision-really-does-make-you-less-lonely-say-scientists?tab=people&uname=sraspanglish

Public speaking

Are you the type of person that hates talking in front of people? Then you would probably hate being in a public speaking class. Just by hearing the words “public speaking” you’re probably not so excited about it. But have you ever thought about the future? Thoughts as in If you want to go to college or what job you would like?

People should take a public speaking class. Public speaking is a useful class, believe it or not. Sometime people think during class that why they are learning this if they probably won’t need to know this in life. But in a lot of jobs it requires public speaking. If you’re selling something you want to have good public speaking skills.  You need to be able to talk to the people in a way that well capture their attention. Where do you learn good public speaking skills? In a public speaking class, being in a public speaking class is good practice.

You have a lot of activities that you need to stand and talk in front of the class. People get so nervous about this. But the people you talk in front of are your classmates and they have to do the same activities and stand in front of the class. If you take this class you can get used to talking in front of people. Sometime in your life you’re going to have to talk in front of people; and you don’t want to sound all nervous. You want to sound confident and look like you know what you’re talking about. Public speaking isn’t that bad. I mean for the people that hate talking in front of people might think so. But when you go in front of the class more than once, you start getting used to it. That’s the point. Because when you get used to it you start not being so shy and nervous.  People should really take this class, especially the shy people. The activities you do in public speaking depends on the teacher, I guess.

Like I said, public speaking is a very useful class. Always remember that sometime in life you’ll have to speak in front of a group of people. So if you can pick your classes, and public speaking is a choice; make a goal to stop being so shy when you’re talking in front of people. And take the public speaking class.

Public Speaking

Have you ever had a project that you had to demonstrate something your good at? Well in my public speaking class we had a demonstration project; and with that project we had to do an outline. This consists on an introduction, thesis statement, significance overview, the body and the conclusion. When we present our demonstration, we had to basically say the information that was on our outline. We had to explain step by step how to do what we were presenting. We had to act like we knew what we were talking about. Many people did easy demonstrations. Some people did Power Points and others demonstrated how to do something threw video because they either cooked or did something that they couldn’t do in class.


What I did for my demonstration project is how to text. I did that because I couldn’t think of anything else and I thought it would be very easy. Since I text every day, I basically know everything you have to know in order to text.  All I did was look up a cool fact from the internet about texting, make up steps of how to text, then writes them down in construction paper, and write information on a notecard about texting. I really didn’t need a notecard but I put information on there in case I forgot what I was going to say, or had trouble remembering something. I wrote the steps on the construction paper so I could get a piece of tape and tape  it to the board so everyone could see it. That helped me because it reminded me what each step was without looking at the notecard. I guess my  presentation went okay.

We Read

In class, I read an article named Google rejects White House request to pull Mohammad film clip. It said that Google rejected a request by the White House to reconsider its decision to keep a movie clip. On Tuesday, the U.S. Ambassador to Libya and three other Americans were killed in a siege on the embassy in Benghazi. They were killed because the movie clip showed Prophet Mohammad as a fraud and philanderer. White house officials had asked Google to reconsider whether the video had violated YouTube's Terms of Service. Google said that the video was within its guidelines.

I honestly think that the video should be taking down. I know that there’s freedom of speech and that probably the guy that did the movie clip probably thought that way. But people that believe in Mohammad didn't like it.

 On the YouTube terms and policy it says that "We encourage free speech and defend everyone's right to express unpopular points of view. But we don't permit hate speech (speech which attacks or demeans a group based on race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, and sexual orientation/gender identity). This is what I think is hate speech because it makes fun of Mohammad, and some people believe in him, and they took that offensive. Because of that movie clip, the U.S. Ambassador and three other Americans were killed. Well I think that video should be taken down because it offends people who believe in Mohammad.

Random Post!

I turned 15 on July 26. In my whole family, when a girl turns 15 their parents make her a big party called a "quinceñera. My sister had a quinceñera when she turned 15. Now my sister is married. She got married on April 28 2012. My family had wasted a lot of money on her wedding. My birthday was like about 2-3 months later. My mom asked if I wanted a quinceñera but I said no. I never was the type of person that likes a lot of attention. I didn't want my mom to waste a lot of money on decorations, the place it would be at, food and so much more. People mostly didn't bring good gift and wasting all that money, I didn't see the point.

When my parents asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I wanted money. Because I have everything I wanted. I took Drivers Ed before school ended. When I went to get my eyes checked, they said I needed new glasses. But I wanted contacts. I told my mom that I wouldn't ask her for nothing on my birthday if she bought me them for a year. They were really expensive because they were special contacts. They're thicker than ordinary ones, because my eyesight wasn't so good. So she bought me them.

 But when it was my birthday, she knew I wanted money. So she took me shopping and my sister's husband gave me a lot of money. I bought many things. I had fun with my family because we went to eat at a restaurant and I went shopping with them. I spent the whole day with my family. I was so happy because I got more things on my birthday then I would've got if I would've had my 15th party.

A Book I Read- Always Running

The main character Luis, is still talking about his family's past. He says that his older sister Seni was his father’s daughter from one of his earlier relationships. Seni's mom died giving birth to her. Luis's father was handsome and athletic as a young man. Luis's grandpa was a general in the Mexican army, once disowned him when dad fell for a women and neglected his studies in medical school to be with the women who would become Seni's mother. 

Its talks about how his brother would treat him bad. At school they placed his brother in classes with retarded children because he didn’t speak much English. They even held him back a year in the second grade. Then his brother took his rage out on Luis. Luis’s mom would force Luis into playing with his brother. One day they were both playing on the rooftop of their house. His brother told them to come here because he wanted to show him something. When Luis got close, his brother pushed him of the roof and Luis struck the ground with a loud thump and lost his breathe, laying deathly still in suffocating agony, until he slowly gained it back. Another time Luis’s brother made him the Indian to his cowboy, tossed a rope around Luis’s neck and pulled him around the yard. He stopped barely before it choked the life out of Luis. Luis had rope burns for weeks.

I think that it sad how Luis’s own brother treats him like that. I don’t see why Luis’s brother takes out his rage out on Luis about being held back a grade. It’s not Luis’s fault that his brother didn’t know much English. The way his brother treats him is not safe or right in my opinion. When his brother pushed Luis off the roof, Luis could’ve got hurt really bad. 

We read

Today, at school we saw a video in memory of 9/11. To me, it was really sad seeing the video. In the video, people talked about how they reacted when it happened. I guess those were some of the people that survived 9/11. A lady in the video said that when she heard the noise. She thought that it was an earthquake. So she got under the table. But someone was telling everyone to go so she got up and tried to get out of the building. In the video, it showed a man that was taking pictures as people ran for their lives, and the two buildings that were on fire. Many people died. Firefighters died helping people. Nobody would've ever thought this would happen because it was an ordinary day like any other.

We also read an article is class about 9/11. It talked about a memorial they did where 9/11 happened. The way that the articles explain that the Memorial looks like sounds nice and interesting. Because it says that:

 "Names are engraved — cut all the way through, actually, and backlit at night — on bronze panels along the parapets that form the perimeter of both voids. In all there are 2,983, including everyone (other than the terrorists) who died at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and in the crash of United Airlines Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pa.,” So the people's names that died that day, their names are engraved on the memorial. At school, they made us write a poem based on an article about the memorial of 9/11. 
This is my poem:

  "After the soaring" memorial to the people who died on 9/11.

Ten years later, the newly completed memorial,

Two massive square voids sited within the footprints of the towers, it digs down — almost as if the collapse of the towers had pounded out a space to deposit feelings about that whole wretched day. On all four sides of each void, waterfalls descend into a broad reflecting pool, irresistibly drawing your eyes, and your thoughts, ever downward

But all the while that those deep, dark voids express a sense of loss and grief — and reach into your feelings about the grave — the falling water exerts its ancient power to console. 

 Names are engraved — cut all the way through, actually, and backlit at night — on bronze panels along the parapets that form the perimeter of both voids. In all there are 2,983, including everyone (other than the terrorists) who died at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and in the crash of United Airlines Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pa.,"

Civics Class

So far my civics and economics class has been alright. It’s not too hard. History is not my favorite subject, but I'm doing good grades right now. My favorite subject is science but I'm really good at language arts. 

Today, the civics teacher wasn't here because she was sick. Since last week she hasn't been feeling so good. She said she saw things blurry. That’s kind of weird to her because she's used to seeing everything clearly because she has really good eyesight. She was taking medicine but I guess things got worse because she's not here today. But I really don't know. But I hope she gets better. I think she’s going to be out for a few days, not sure.  Right now we have a substitute. Her name is Ms. Elliot. To me, she's really nice. In the beginning of school, she was Mr. Paul’s substitute for public speaking. 

The civic teacher left us a lot of work, I guess to keep us busy. But it wasn’t hard. We had to do a T chart and in the both sides write about the federalist and the anti-federalists.  Then you had to do a Venn diagram and compare and contrast the New Jersey plan and the Virginia plan. We also had to do vocabulary words and with the vocabulary words we had to come up with questions about it. A student in the class said we should’ve had this already done since Friday, because the teacher had left it for homework. But everyone either didn’t remember or didn’t know. So the substitute let us do it in class. So I got to get everything done.

A Book I'm Reading- Always Running

Today I read the other half of chapter one that I didn't get to read last time. Most of what I read today talked about the main character, which is Luis; and his family’s past.

 It talks about Luis's grandmother Ana, and how her first husband was a railroad worker during the Mexican Revolution; and her husband lost his life when a tunnel exploded during a raid. Later, his grandmother Ana married his grandfather named Monico Jimenez. When Luis's parents married, his mother was 27 and his dad was almost 40. His mother had never known any other man. His father already had 4 or 5 children from 3 or 4 other women. They left Mexico and so they moved to L.A, at the behest of his older sister. She was a half-sister, who was already married with 2 children of her own. His sister’s name is Seni, a named his father invented. Rumor has it, that it was an inversion of the name Ines, an old girlfriend of his. Seni was his father's daughter from one of his earlier relationship; her mother died giving birth to her.

So far, I think the book it alright. It's kind of boring in the beginning. But when you keep on reading it gets more interesting. What makes this book seem so interesting to me is that this book is not made up. It's based on the author’s life. The things in the book actually happened to him. When I read a book and it’s based on real life but didn't happen in real life, I think it’s a good book. But when it based on real life and you know that everything that happened in the book actually happened to that person it makes it so interesting and it make you think about the book more.

Something I Read In Class

 This week, I read an article that's called Why Procrastinating is good for you? In the article, it says that there are two types of procrastinators. The two types of procrastinators are called active procrastinator and passive procrastinator. Active procrastination means you realize that you are putting off mowing the lawn or cleaning your closet, but you are doing something that is more valuable instead. Passive procrastination is just sitting around on your sofa not doing anything.

 The author of the book Wait says that he always procrastinates in every possible way and he always have. In the book Wait say that when faced with a decision, we should find out how long we have to make it, and then wait until the last possible moment to do so.

                                                         http://media.smithsonianmag.com/images/frank-partnoy-procrastination-631.jpg 

Before I read this article I thought procrastination was not a good thing. Because I thought that it was good to do things ahead of time so you won’t have to be worried about it. But I have always procrastinated anyways. I always do things the last minute. When I know I have a lot of time to do things, I always tell myself that I’ll do it later. But the way that the article explains that procrastination isn’t bad it made me change my minds about thinking it was bad.

 But since there are two types of procrastinators, it’s good to be an active procrastinator.  That way you might be putting off something but doing something more important. Some good advice to manage delay is just take a breath, take more pauses. Stare off into the distance. Ask yourself question like what the maximum amount I have to do this.  Think before you do things. 

Random Post!!

Well for my random post, I’m going to talk about Brandon. I am writing about him because, I really don't know what else to talk about. So there's this guy in my class named Brandon Hargrave. He sits next to me in my 2nd period class. He’s very tall, well taller than me. He has blonde hair and light blue eyes. He calls himself "swagg daddy and he says he's the "boss." He always brings Bojangles for lunch. He says it’s not his favorite type of food but it’s the closest thing to his house. When he opens his book bag its smells like food; sometimes I think it’s him who smells like that but he says it’s his book bag.

I think I met him last year, I don’t remember. He was in almost all my classes last year. Now this year, He’s still in almost all my classes.

I enjoy talking to him when I’m bored, because he always has something to talk about. He’s one of my best guy friends. He’s usually always saying lyrics of songs and hearing music on the bus.  He can be weird at times. He says random things all the time.  But I guess you can say he’s a good friend. He makes me laugh, well sometimes; because he can be lame. When we’re in the bus and he starts listening to music, he does weird faces. But they look funny. The faces he does look kind of slow.

As you can see in the picture he does those types of faces.  So he’s a very special friend. Oh trust me, he’s unique. 

The Things We Do In Public Speaking!

In public speaking class, the teacher made each student memorize a famous speech. But we didn't have to memorize it all, we just had memorize at least 2 minutes of it. We also had to turn in a typed copy of the analysis and purpose of the speech. It had to be atleast 1/2 of a page. We had to present it infront of the class. We didn't have to present the analysis but we did have to present some of the purpose, we didn't have to read the whole thing.

When we were saying the speech he timed us. My famous speech was called 1976 Democratic National Convention Keynote Address by Barbara Charline Jordan. I thought that this was interesting because I found out that Barbara Jordan was the first African American to be elected to the U.S house of representatives. She was also the first female African American women to deliver the keynote address. I thought that was cool.

                              http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/515M0YYXF1L._SL500_AA300_.jpg

 I had some trouble memorizing the speech because every time I was going to try, I would end up getting entertained by something. I also kept on procrastinating because when the teacher gave us time to do it, I would do other things. The day before it was due I did the purpose and analysis. But I didn't get to memorize it because I was too sleepy. Because by the time I was done it was very late. So I wasn't ready to present it. So I took a late day. But that gave me time to memorize it well. Then when it was the day of my speech, I was so nervous. I was scared that my mind would go blank and that I would forget everything I had memorized. But when I did present, it wasn't bad, I remembered the speech.

A Book I Read.

I'm still reading the book "Always Running" by Luis J. Rodriguez.

 

In the beginning of the story, it talks about the author which is the main character in the story is in the car with his two parents and his siblings. They were on the way to the Union train station in downtown L.A. They had all their few belongings stuffed into the truck and underneath their feet. His mom used to always argue with his father because his mom never wanted to leave Mexico. His dad didn’t curse or raise his voice; he just stated things the way things were.

“I’ll never go back to Mexico,” he said. “I’d rather starve here. You want to stay with me; it has to be in Los Angeles. Otherwise go.”

For months they had been pushed from one house to another; Just him, his mom and his brother and sisters. His mom and dad had split up prior to this. They stayed at the homes of women their mom called comadres, with a bunch of children of their own.

The author left Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, for Los Angeles when he was two years old.  His father was an educated man. In those day’s educated man had to be careful about thing like questioning authority.  His dad was principal. Being a principal is a powerful position in a place like Ciudad Juarez. His dad had received an offering for a six-month study program for foreign teachers in Bloomington, Indiana. He liked it so much, he renewed it three times. By the time his dad came back, his enemies had mapped out a means to remove him, since being a principal is a big position. He faced criminal charges including alleged stealing of food funds. For moths his father fought the charges.  After a trial his dad was found innocent. But he no longer had his position of principal. I thought that was messed up.

Civics Class

In Civics class, I'm learning about the New England, Middle Colonies, Southern Colonies, the Declaration of Independance, Stamp Act, Quartering Act , Townsend act, and the Tea Act and much more. I think it's kind of interesting knowing about what happened in the past. But only some things interest me about history not all. Sometimes the teacher put videos on about the topic we're learning about, and it's so boring. I learn better if the videos are interesting, when it catches my attention.

 

                                                         http://trochwiki.wikispaces.com/file/view/colonies.png

 Since we're learning about colonies the teacher assigned each student a colony. We have to write the name of the colony the teacher assigned in a big piece of construction paper. But I think we have to write the name going down not across.We have to come up with a sentence that is about our colony but that starts with the colony's letter. We have to do it really neat and creative. The colony the teacher assigned to me is New Jersey. It is one of the Middle Colonies. I think its really easy because I found a good website that gave a lot of information. But I had a little bit of trouble finding sentences that start with the letter Y and E. But other than that it was easy. Now all I have to do is write it on a piece of construction paper and make it neat and creative and I'm done. We also had to do a map and identify the New England, Middle, and Southern Colonies.

 I think this years history class is more interesting. Last year i had world history 2nd semester, I felt like it was so boring. My grades were kind of bad when i had World History because i had a lot of missing work. But this year I have no missing work, I do everything in time so I could get good grades.

What We Read in Class !

Today in class we read an article. The article was kind of hard. It was hard to understand, because it had many big words that I have never seen. I didn’t know what some words meant. But some I used context clues; I read what was around the word to figure out what it meant. Now I know what the hard words in the article mean.

 The article was about scientists that discovered new cave spider species with claws.  Each leg of this spider ends in a curve. The name of the spider is Trogloraptor. The spiders name is Latin for “cave robber." Citizen scientists and archeologists have uncovered these spiders in the caves of southwestern Oregon and old-growth redwood forests. The article says that the cave dweller has a unique lineage. The closest know relatives to the Trogloraptor come from the Oonipidae, or goblin family of spiders.

                                           http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/wiredscience/2012/08/Trogloraptor_main.jpg

The researchers believe that the Trogloraptor family separated into its own evolutionary branch some 130 million years ago.  Trogloraptor’s claws are barbed on their underside and may be designed to clamp shut on passing prey. A researcher at the California Academy of Sciences says that the spiders are not likely to be venomous to humans. In fact, they’re quite shy. Working with specimens, he observed that their behavior is distinctly unaggressive and their main interest is escaping the light as soon as possible.

The researcher says that these species are different from those found in the caves. He says that given the age of this family and the formal distribution of redwoods in North America, it’s possible that other Trogloraptor species could inhabit caves across the country. 

I found my information at: http://www.scientificamerican.com/gallery_directory.cfm?photo_id=1AC9C7D1-F12B-0179-DF7FE9529D8EF93D

Random!

I only have one pet. He's a dog. When my family first got him, my sister and I couldn't decide what to name him. So my dad named him Champion. He is mixed. He’s half German Sheppard and half Chow Chow.

 When we first got Champion, my parents were at New York. They had already agreed to let us have a dog. But they were planning on buying us a dog after they came back from New York. But we couldn't wait, so my older brother Joel brought us a dog, and then called my parents to let them know. When we first got him, he was so little! He looked like a little fur ball. We can easily pick him up and carry him.

 We were worried about him at first, because he was so little and lazy. Most dogs run around. But He didn't like to run or play around. All he did was sit around or lay down with his head on the floor. We would take him outside and put him on the ground, the only time he ran was to the shade. He only ate and sat around. As he started growing, he started running and playing around more. Then we stopped worrying because he started acting like any other dog. Now that he’s all grown he’s so big, you wouldn’t think he was as small as he was when he was a puppy. Now we’ve been having him for a long time. He’s about 6 years old now. When my sister and me tell him to come here in English he sometimes comes. But when my mom tells him to come in Spanish he always comes. When we say his name in Spanish he doesn’t come but when we say it in English he does. I guess that’s kind of weird.

Something I Read in Class

In class, I read the first chapter of a book called Always Running by Luis J. Rodriguez. I haven't read the whole book so I'm going to summarize what it says in the back of the book, so you can kind of know what it's about.

"By age twelve, Luis Rodriguez was a veteran of East L.A. gang warfare. Lured by a seemingly invincible gang culture, he witnessed countless shootings, beatings, and arrests, then watched with increasing fear as drugs, murder, suicide, and senseless acts of streets crime claimed friends and family members. Before long Rodriguez saw a way out of the barrio through education and the power of words, and successfully broke free of years of violence and desperation."

                                             http://www.amoeba.com/dynamic-images/blog/Gomez/alwaysrunning.jpg

When I first got the book i checked the back to see what it was about. I discovered that this story is based on real life. That all these things that happened in this story really happened to the author. The way this book describes things that happen when your in a gang, seem so scary. Some people these days think being in a gang is something "cool" and something you should be proud of. But the way this story describes being in a gang it doesn't sound "cool", It sounds scary and dangerous. Something interesting that I read in the back of the book is:

"Achieving success as an award-winning Chicano poet, he was sure the streets would haunt him no more,--- until his young son joined a gang. Rodriguez fought for his child by telling his own story in Always Running. A vivid auto biography that explore the motivations of gang life and cautions against the death and destruction that inevitably claim its participants."

I was surprised that the author had been in a gang in the past and now his son had joined one. I bet since the author has already been in a gang, and knows the bad things that happen, he doesn't want his son going threw all that. Rodriguez fought for his son by telling his story. In chapter one it said that the author had one brother and two sisters. His brother was named Jose Rene and his two sisters were named Ana Virginia and Gloria Estela. His mom and dad had split up. So far the story has been so interesting! Today during class that's all I got to read up to because there wasn't much time.