A Good Socratic Seminar

          Socratic Seminar is a good idea in principle, but isn't very effective when put into motion in our class. Kind of like communism. So here's some ideas that could help make it a better experience. 

2 Groups isn't the Best

        Having two large groups (one spectator group, one discussion group) in a room of 40-something kids is part of the problem, especially with a technique meant for smaller groups. In a discussion with 20 people, it's hard to gather your thoughts and actually share your idea before the subject changes entirely. And unless you are very loud and rude enough to interrupt others repeatedly, getting any point across for people to actually hear, recognize and respond to is nearly impossible. Personally, I think we should be separated into four groups instead (two spectator groups, two discussion groups, two different conversations entirely). Unfortunately, Ms. Ballabio has all ready shot down this idea due to the fact that she can't supervise two discussions at once. I understand that, but what if we actually lead the conversations ourselves without total supervision? As much as I want to stay a child, we are in 8th grade and mostly know how to handle ourselves. This would be beneficial to Ms. Ballabio so she doesn't have to juggle two conversations at once, while providing better and easier discussions for us, and beneficial to the class since the conversation would be more casual. By that I mean able to express ideas without a teacher figuratively and literally breathing down your neck, putting pressure on the student with grades for how many times you participate or look at your notes. Especially since we're all striving for A's and would almost do anything to get a good grade.

Separating Loud and Quiet

        Mixing those two groups is an utter mistake, for obvious reasons. As someone who is pretty quiet, I can confirm that we can have good ideas too, but often get drowned out by others that tend to be louder. So separating the group lets, and actually forces, quieter people to share their own ideas and conduct their own discussion. The only problem I can forsee is with the louder people. When you put 10 loud people used to responding a lot in a group with each other, bad things can happen.

        Another problem concerning loud and quiet is the "diarrhea-of-the-mouth" types of people, which luckily is rare in our class. These types of people will say anything, whether it actually makes logical sense or not, to get a good grade for participation, such as saying The Raven by Poe relates to the Egyptian son god because "raven" has "Ra" in it. Luckily, in our most recent Seminar, there is no grading sheets for participation, so that has yet to occur again. 

*all the stuff about interruptions are assuming that the topic is something interesting and a lot of people have something to say*

Giver Theories

This is what happens when you are bored.  

Theory 1: Laborers are drones

There are only 50 births per year, right? And in the Ceremony of Twelve, Jonas and his classmates seem to get pretty specific, important jobs like Fishery Attendant or Assistant Recreation Director. So where do all the common workers come in? There is a huge gap here. The only thing the story mentions is that Birthmothers are put to work when their three births are over. I believe the former Birthmothers are not enough to fulfill the demands of the community. Let's say there are around 44 former Birthmothers in the community at one time (ages 16-70, which I would assume is the age you would be considered "Old"). That isn't nearly enough to serve their society. That's why I think the same scientists that engineered Sameness also engineered human-like robots to perform simple labor like Path-Working or Gardening. It makes sense since actual humans are required to perform all the important thinking tasks, and since the community wants to keep the population low, human thoughts and instincts cannot be wasted on mindless tasks. If you have the technology to create a world where everything is the same, why not create drones to help you out?

Uniforms

        In general, most schools perform better with uniforms rather than regular clothing. Schools that have their students all wear the exact same clothes have experienced less bullying and fighting, since the clothes people wear are a big source of teasing and bullying if they're different or weirder than that of the bullies. Uniforms also make students feel more welcome or part of something bigger (like how army uniforms make you feel like not an idividual, but a part of a greater cause to further the protection of the American people). But I don't really see the need for them in Portola. I'd like to think that our school is better off than a school in, say, East Los Angeles. We live in a somewhat rich area where a good amount of students are middle class. We're not in the middle of "the hood" where there's gangs on every street, and the majority of our major behaviorial issues are due to smaller things, like disrespect for yourself, your teachers and other students. There's not necessarily any big bullying problems or gang fights that happen here (I know this as a TA for the dean, where I get to hear a lot of problems and kids getting in trouble. There's very few occurances of bullying or big fights). So having uniforms wouldn't really do anything to reduce bullying, since there would be nothing to reduce in the first place. And our school is pretty united enough where we don't all have to have a special type of clothing to feel like one unit. Admittedly, it would cut down on dress code problems, but that's irrelevant. 

Arguments

Sometimes an argument simply can't be avoided. But when it's possible, I try to avoid them as much as I can for one simple reason: Doofus argumentation. Doofus argumentation is when a participant in the argument is losing severely, so they keep pressing their point anyways to annoy the other participant. And when the winning participant provides several good examples that totally blow away the Doofus's argument, the Doofus still continues to argue their point. Eventually, the winning participant gives up because they are either bored or simply wish their own suffering to end. Then, the Doofus goes on to brag to all their nonexistent friends about how he won and how the winning participant is so darn stupid. Commonly found on the internet, this type of argument is designed to annoy the heck out of all parties involved. Bragging usually occurs on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, or other social media websites. So please, before you jump in on that argument about politics, religion, or your favorite TV show/book, consider the endless suffering you will have to go through. And ask yourself: Is it worth it? The answer is obvious.

Stupid Internet Trends

            In general, internet trends are bad and the people who do them should feel bad. Sure, some of them do good to people and our society as a whole, like the ALS IceBucket challange. Before that challenge that disease had never been heard of, and it got people to raise money for a good cause even if it was to prevent a bucket of ice cold water being dumped on you. But just like always, I will be focusing on the bad because I'm just that kind of person.
            The genre (if you can even call it that) of "internet trends" consist of two main parts:

1.  The Challenges: These are pretty bad. Again, some of them do some actual good, but then there's stuff like the Gallon of Milk challenge, where you have to drink an entire gallon of milk in one sitting until you throw up. Another is the Cinnamon Challenge, where you have to eat a spoonful of cinnamon without any other toppings or flavors, and most likely gag or, again, throw up. Then you show it to all your Facebook friends and "challenge" them, and the cycle of stupidity continues. What makes it entertaining to see someone gag or throw up after eating/drinking something you know is bad for you, and then doing it yourself? Most likely it's peer pressure, and the challenges are probably started by some insane freak that would like nothing more than to see people suffering on social media, then recommending it to their friends. Nice. 
2. The phrases/sayings/acronyms: Bro, fam, no chill, savage, omg, ermahgerd, fml, and so, so much more. Whenever any of these or more are said it makes me want to cry. Is this what the human race has come to? Calling each other "fam" and whenever someone rudely insults another person we call them "savage" and "no chill" and reward them? Using cutesy acronyms rather than just spelling out an entire word or phrase? It disgusts me. Our language is made so that it doesn't have to be changed; so that we all have a common way of communication rather than trying to decyfer an acronym that people invent just so they don't have to say a couple extra syllables? To be honest, on the internet it sounds okay, simply because I get people would rather shorten their messages than having to type out a whole message. But in real life, it sounds awful. Use our language like it's supposed to be used and we don't have a problem. 

Bruh lmao this post was savage 🔥🔥🔥no chill fam ermahgerd so totally tubular my brewd 🔥🔥🔥 

👌👀👌👀👌👀👌👀👌👀 good s**t good s**t👌 thats ✔ some good👌👌s**t right👌👌there👌👌👌 right✔there ✔✔if i do ƽaү so my self 💯 i say so 💯 thats what im talking about right there right there (chorus: ʳᶦᵍʰᵗ ᵗʰᵉʳᵉ) mMMMMᎷМ💯 👌👌 👌НO0ОଠOOOOOОଠଠOoooᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒ👌 👌👌 👌 💯 👌 👀 👀 👀 👌👌Good s**t

Politics and All That Stuff- Part 1

          I have some very set opinions about politics, so before I go on a roast fest if you get easily butthurt about that stuff or are a fan of annoying hapless bloggers who do this because we get graded on it weekly, please click away right now.

          Today we will be focused on Presidential Candidate Donald Trump, which is a far more grand and signifigant title than he deserves. And there's a couple issues I have with him that I will be discussing in the following paragraphs.

1. Racism: This guy sure knows how to make people mad. First of all, he calls all Mexican illegal immigrants rapists and murderers. While there may be some rapists and murderers among the population of Mexican illegals, it's not even close to a majority. I get that there are a lot more Mexican illegals than any other race, but he targetted specifically Mexicans out of all the others, therefore making him a racist. He also said he was going to kick out not only all of the millions of illegal immigrants, but their children too, which is unconstitutional seeing as the children of illegals are protected by the 14th amendment. And what's all this "Great Wall of America" stuff, anyways? Building a wall stretching 1,933 miles could take billions of dollars. And where's he going to get that type of money? His own wallet? I doubt it. More likely our taxes will be raised to cover the cost, therefore making a large part of his campaign about lowering taxes irrelevant and hypocritical. And what makes him think a giant wall will keep out illegal immigrants anyways? Even if he was to build a giant wall, immigrants could just sail around via the Pacific Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico. 
2. "I'm the real deal": WEEEOOOOEEEEOOOEEEEOOO! Hear that? That's the sound of someone who has no political skills! Trump claims he isn't a politician, since the word politician in America gives off a bad light. But his "realness" gives way to disrespect to his fellow candidates via Twitter. Now imagine this guy was president. Would you like him to be walking around the United Nations headquarters, insulting all the leaders of the world? If his insults got really bad, it could end up with longtime allies now being enemies, the United Nations being disbanded, maybe even a repeat of the Cold War with Russia (Vladimir Putin is agressive enough without Donald Trump insulting him in front of his entire country). His slogan is "Make America great again", but I think he would make America far, far worse.

       Overall, I frankly don't understand why this guy is even running for prez. But yet he has the vote of the majority of Americans. They believe he'll uphold their freedoms, and he will: for the 1% of the population he actually cares about, the rich. Especially since he is part of that percentage. These people treat the presidential campaign like a game of war, and Trump's winning. The reason why is because Trump tells the Americans what they want to hear. Sadly, a great number of Americans are still intolerant of people who aren't white, Christian, blue eyes/blonde hair, straight and male. Trump preaches to their unlawful desires for our country, and they listen. And this is the guy who is going to be inevitably elected for president. 

Censorship makes zero sense

          Why would we as a society come up with a few words we deemed as "bad" and then forbid anyone to say them? And what makes a "bad" word unacceptable? Is it because most of them are harsh or rude? If so, why is it somewhat acceptable to say "I hate you, you suck" rather than "**** you"? It makes zero sense. First, if bad words were unacceptable, then why would it be created in the first place? Deeming something unacceptable just encourages rebellious, edgy teens to use them as much as possible. There sure are a lot of those.
          And then there's the other part of censorship, censoring human body parts. Again, these certain body parts are deemed unacceptable for the public to see. Which again makes zero sense. What distinguishes these body parts from the others? Is it because they all play a role in the reproductive system? If so, why don't televisions censor your biceps because they have a role in your muscular system?
          The purpose of this wasn't to ask for change. I'm fine living by the weird ways and laws society has invented for itself. In fact, that's why I find history so interesting: you get to see how these weird ways developed into what they are now. But sometimes it's just good to step back and wonder why things are the way they are. It makes you look smarter, too.

Sources: Warning: This video may be pushing the envelope a little bit

Ahmed's Clock

     Racism or not, Ahmed Mohammed did not deserve all the media attention he got. So before I ramble on, a bit of backstory is required. A 14 year old boy, Ahmed Mohammed, brought a strange looking clock to school in Texas, which was believed to be a bomb and the police were called. This was in the days surrounding 9/11, so paranoia about terrorist attacks was increased too. Anyways, the boy was arrested, but then the clock was actually found just to be a clock that he had built. He was released from jail and now media is making a huge deal out of it. Racist or not, Mohammed's teacher was simply doing her job when she called the cops after her student brought this suspicious clock into her classroom. Her job is to protect her students, and so she did. Regardless of race, if ANY human being brought a suspicious device into my classroom (if I was a teacher), I would call the cops immediately. But now the teacher is being accused of racism, and the kid is getting all this attention. Here's a list of all the things he got due to this event:   .

• Scholarship to NASA Space Camp
• Offer to visit Facebook/ Mark Zuckerburg
• A t-shirt worn up in space
• Tours of MIT and Harvard
• Offer to visit General Electronics Headquarters
• An internship from Twitter
• Possible internship from Reddit
• Offer to visit Autodesk
• Free circuit kit
• Scholarship to New European College (business school)
• Tweet from R&B artist asking if Ahmed wanted to join the music business, then he'd help him.
• And so much more attention, trending hashtags on Twitter, news interviews and stories about his "bravery", and so much more

           All of this for a fourteen year old kid. He now basically can go to whatever top achieving college he wants. will get a guaranteed internship and career at his pick of electronics companies, and even gets offers from musicians and business schools if he doesn't want to go into electronics. He never again needs to worry about college, getting a job, or any of these things. And all these things come from a questionably racist act and a homemade clock. Now does this seem fair to you? Even someone who excels in school and is at the top of their class can get about half of these things if they're very lucky. People work their whole life to achieve something like this and Ahmed just gets it handed to him on a silver platter. All this attention may have generated from racism (if it even was that and not just common sense to call the cops over a questionable object) but other racist acts happen every day and gain not even close to this kind of attention. And I'm not denying that he may or may not be a victim, I'm not denying that there may be some questionably racist acts involved here, but this kind of attention is really unneccesary. I almost feel bad for this kid for being suddenly thrust into the spotlight,recieve all this stuff and suddenly being super popular at school and online. But I suppose that's just how the media works, and the average American eats this stuff up and chews it for a couple of weeks before suddenly forgetting about it.                                                                                   ~~~ Ahmed Mohammed~~~

Something Different- Bob the Magnificent

This isn't something you'll normally see on my blog, but I wrote this in class and felt like putting it here. And this is a randomness blog so technically I can put whatever topics I want.

          His name was Bob the Magnificent, and he was the best shark-taming tangerine-eating supervillain the glaxy has ever experienced. His sidekick and wife, Loretta the Great, accompanied him on his missions of pure evil. And they had one goal: conquering all of our civilized world and turning every little bit of it into tangerine orchards to feed their supervillaininess. We go now to Bob and Loretta, at home eating tangerines before their next big mission. 

         "Loretta, said Bob," where are all our holy tangerines of evil and other good things?'"

         "I told you," said she," They're next to our mega-powerful supersuits that you left in our high-tech flying car."

         "Now I have to walk out of our super-expensive ultra mansion (bought using evil stolen money of course) all the way down to our sixteen car garage just to get some tangerines! Gosh darn it you dalcop driggle-draggle!"

         So Bob and went and got the tangerines (all 65,376 of them) and they feasted all day long until they had enough calcium, Vitamin D and other nutritious minerals to last the average person several lifetimes. But Bob and Loretta were not average people. This was barely enough to last them 25 hours and 36 minutes (estimated). Then they began to wait until midnight to begin their evil deeds.

         "Gah," exclaimed Bob,"I can't wait until midnight! That's way past my bed time!"

         "Fine, we'll go at 9;00," replied Loretta,"That's enough time to complete our actions of pure evil and still be home before bed time."

         "But that's when all my favorite TV shows are on!"

         "Oh, quit your whining, you fat fustilarian fopdoodle. We're going at 9 whether you like it or not."

         After a considerable amount of waiting, it was finally almost 9;00. Bob and Loretta dressed up in their mega-powerful supersuits and hopped into their high-tech flying car to go complete their stuff. 

         "Gee wilikers," said Bob, could we have possibly picked better suit colors? I mean, for a mega-powerful supersuit, these things sure are ugly."

        Bob's suit was a metallic light blue with a skull in the middle (see, even from the description it sounds terrible). Loretta's was magenta with two bones criss-crossing the center of the suit. 

        They finally arrived at the site of their evil plans.

        "All right," said Loretta, "You know the plan, correct?"

        "No," said Bob,"Why, what is it?"

        "I explained it to you a mere 3 minutes ago! Curse you and your undiagnosed mild case of Alzheimer's disease, you old obese lubberwort!" 

        "Cripes. Stop your complaining, you gnashgab! Just explain the plan."

        "All right, all right. You are going to release these sharks that you tamed into the water pipes of this conveniently placed nuclear power plant. Then, when the sharks are thoroughly mutated by the radiation, you command them to drink all the water in the world and store it in our moon-sized water tanks of epicness and cool things. We hold all the water hostage unless the United Nations gives us at least two large countries to overrun with tangerine orchards, or else we let everyone die off and have the world to ourselves!"

         "But what are YOU going to do while I'm mutating these sharks?"

         "Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just the way I like it."

         "Oh, I somewhat dislike you, you doggone loiter-sack!"

          Bob set about his evil deeds while Loretta did nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just the way she liked it. 

          After an hour or two, Loretta began to wonder where Bob had gone. It couldn't possibly take THAT long to mutate a couple thousand sharks and send them off to do the evil bidding. She found Bob crouching near a manhole near the nuclear power plant. Loretta screamed at him,"What are you doing and why isn't our evil deed completed yet?"

         "I don't know. The sharks are acting strangely. It's quite odd."

          Suddenly, the manhole exploded and a massive shark flew out of it. The shark was about the size of a small two-seater airplane, and for some reason had wings. Bob and Loretta were sent flying back into their high-tech flying car and were instantly knocked unconcious, while the shark flew away with its newfound wings. The thousands of other sharks followed their leader, soaring out into the night sky.
          Hours later, Bob awoke atop their high-tech flying car. He immediately noticed Loretta was still unconcious and immdediately went to her. She didn't appear to be breathing!! Is Loretta dead?!? What happened to the sharks? How will Bob continue with their evil plans now that they've failed? FIND OUT NEXT TIME whenever the heck I decide to post another one of these (if ever).

I'm going to be doing one of these about once a month in the middle of the month (around the 15th). This one was late because I was just beginning to blog. But would you guys like to see a continuation of this story, or a whole new story altogether? Leave an answer in the comments or in the poll I will be posting to the right -------------------->       

 (if the answer is a new story, please leave suggestions for a story genre/theme!)

Old English Insults used in this story  Old English Exclamations used in this story   

Childhood

              It saddens me so to see many people my age walk into Starbucks like a middle aged person about to get ther daily caffiene drink before heading back to their boring desk job. This shows how eager kids are to grow up, act mature and become an adult. But as one of my favorite comic strips said, "Childhood is short and maturity is forever." In reality, kids should be hanging on to whatever scrap of childhood they have left; they don't realize how good they have it. They have free room and board. free meals every day, and all sorts of technological gadgets. And I know many students might not have all these privileges, but at least they don't have to worry about paying taxes and college fees. So a rush to grow up may not always be the best of choices. And while acting mature doesn't change your biological age, it sure changes your views on anything and everything. I believe that we as students and "young adults" should savor our immaturity, our innocence, and our ignorance of the world's problems, and just be children for once. I hate the phrase "young adult", because it encourages that eagerness to grow up and be mature. You are a child until you reach the age of eighteen and/or are self-dependent. in college or not.

               As we head into high school next year, we do need to shed our immaturity (at least on the outside ) and act like "teenagers"(another fake word, it just means older child). But that doesn't mean you have to change what's on the inside either. You can still be a child in a "teenager's" body. And that's what many people don't get. So I guess in conclusion, what I'm trying to say here is that it's okay to be a child. And if you're made fun of or bullied for acting childish in a society that encourages maturity, just know that those making fun of you are the people that  drank Starbucks at the age of 11 and now caffiene has stunted their growth (that's a proven fact by the way)

Homophobia Rant- Equality Rants Part 1

     To be honest with you, I'm not completely sure why people are prejudiced at all, much less at gay people in particular. I have no personal prejudice against them, and I think they should just be treated the same as everyone else. And there's no need to treat gays like they are something special or better than normal, either. But yet you still see and hear people making fun of gays, even using "gay" as an insult to annoy their friends. This is all fine and dandy if it's on the schoolyard (sometimes kids don't even know what they're saying) but you can see grown human beings making fun of gay people, even business owners refusing to give them service, treating them like they're some sort of monster. A prime example of this is the county clerk in Kentucky that refused to marry two gay man, despite that being against the law, because "it violated her religion" and it "violated the sanctity of marriage". She's one to talk about sanctity of marriage, considering she has been divorced three times. Violating her religion is a somewhat legitimate excuse, but only because it is instead deflecting the blame on to some religion's intolerance of gay people. Which is unexceptable, considering this intolerance is coming out of a book that is thousands of years old. It is time for CHANGE, and the change starts here, with being able to simply tolerate, if not accept, gay rights and gay marriage. Tolerance leads to acceptance, and acceptance leads to not even realizing there was once discrimination against any race, religion, sexual preference, gender, or anything else.