Reflection

When i walked into class that first day I looked around and saw no one I knew personally expect, Andrew, but i it's not like we where best friends or anything and i thought my seventh period was going to suck, but then you proved me wrong though i didn't love walking to a friendless class room everyday, when i was there in my seat you made it all forth wile for me. I'm not going to lie to you though and say your class gave me startling revelations and me change the way i think, because that's just not true, but i did make me think about things I mean, like I'm not going to list them off, but some things you said really made me think and change my stance slightly on some grounds, and change if good and i thank you for that. AS student I feel like not only because of your class, but the whole year I have come to expect, I'm not as smart as I once thought i was, that with the fact that i'm super lazy when i want to be aren't a good combo, i have to get up and try though i think I'll just lean on my intelligence, I learned to read the dawn book, to study for quizzes and tests even though i don;t want to. As far as school goes no offense, but i don't real feel anymore prepared for school than i was going in, but for life i still remember some of your tips and tricks, i'm not spend a semester out of the country, if not then I'll go down town and get lost for a while and say I did.

In the very bottom of my heart i hated the synthesis essay with a white hot passion, with every fiber of my being, and your lesson didn't make me hate it any less i still hate it I always have and always will, though it was my most difficult to write i feel semi confident about, if I'm at a dinner party in twenty years and my colleague challenges me to a synthesis essay contest for the hand of  a fair maiden, I mean I'm fairly certain i can draw back on my knowledge form your class and win. But I  loved the argumentative, although my I feel i got little to into most of them, i loved them as I said in the serve, I dawn near lost my mind when I learned, when you said it's our thoughts, I literally have everything to say about everything if you bring up a topic I have and opinion.

I have to say my favorite novel was The Great Gatsby, because i saw the movie and already read the book and I loved it okay, and I have to say I hated In Cold Blood, and Devil In The White City, my lord it was like reading a brick wall i just could do it. Mr.Thomas your one of those teacher i'll never forget you know, but that's most of my English teachers, and when I write my New York times best selling young adult novel I'll find you and you'll read it I promise you that and If I never show up on your door step with a book in my hand, then just assume the book is written i'm just to lazy to bring it to, or it got lost in the mail or something, but sir( i feel weird if a said bro or dude), you where awesome your class was awesome i wished for less group work but it's like whatever right. Thanks for a wonderful year, sir, I hope you enjoyed be as much as i enjoyed you( i doubt it, but a kid can dream right).  

P.S. i'm glad to know after this year i'm an official black warrior      

The Things I Carried

The things i carry consist of 133 grams Samsung galaxy s3, my sweet baby, in my right pocket, my 0.5 oz keys to my castle in my left pocket, my 20 oz wallet in my back pocket( more or less depending on how real the struggle is that day). And of course my ID carver emblazon my image, that hangs around my neck and burns against my bare flesh when i tuck it under my shirt.

Every morning awake up and throw upon my back my goals in life that weigh heavy on my mind and back. Unlike a lot of kids nowadays, i have no goal of being rich and or famous i have no need for that- my ultimate goal was is to find a women i can call my wife and have some kids and watch them grow up in a nice house that i'll be able to buy after college of course( to be a software engineer), i just want to live a nice relaxing life. Dreams wise i want to be writer on the side, all i want is to a least get published once i want to share my stories my image my ideas with other people, i want to inspire people like my favorite authors inspired me, to be recognized as a great writer, i mean i already know, but i would like others to know as well( but i don't want to be famous though, but if that happens to be well...). 

Upon my back, that is but a straw away from breaking( get it?), is my number, of relationships that make me who i am. First and foremost is my mother ( i bet everyone says there mom), she's so dawn strong when i was i kid i though nothing could hurt her she was strength personified she wonder women and my views haven't changed in the slightest, she so powerful in mind and body( seriously, i wouldn't fight my mom she'd probably kill me), she is the beacon of shimmering light that keeps me steady in a sea of certainty and doubt, thought i occasionally do feel the urge to punch her in the face. Second is my sister, she just like my mom a strong women that would do anything for me, i'd do anything for her, just like brother and sister should we do fight but at the end of the day i'm so glad to have her in my life, i would won't anyone else. My brother my, my twin my other half, we're so much alike the things i see him do that i don't agree with i know i probably have the same faults and i work on them, my brother is my best friend, the closest person to me in my life, even i f have no one by my side i know i have him, no matter what, he's one of the few "men" i'd actually die for( that's great honor considering i believe i man has to able to protect himself, not to say women can't but your man, and the whole i don't plan on dying period). My father that haven't seen in four year, even though he abandoned us a few days after my birth day, when i turned twelve, i don't hate him i don't resent him, he the guy that made me me partially who i am, his unreachable expectations his swift painfully unbiased discipline, he the man that made me a kid the shoots for the moon and curses himself for landing on a cloud, he's my dad. Last but certainly not least my relationship with God, yup my faith his what keeps my going everyday the unyielding want to live everyday to please God in heaven after all it's least i can do, for someone that does believe i feel like just being alive just being able to back in the glory of life is the greatest gift ever given, and i thank him every day for every breath i take every step i take.

My personality i think is the  biggest load i carry, it is very complicated. I may not be as quite as i let on class, i feel like in class i'm like a totally different person. Why? I couldn't tell you, because honesty i don't why, i can't help myself. But my legit personalty is a little bit of a clown, i like to see people life at my hands though i'm not willing to do anything i'll go a far way to make someone laugh especially if they look down, but i'm for the most part just a lay back dude. Adjective id use to describe myself happy, i like to look on the bright side things ( i friend of mines house go broken into, door broken down, clearly that's an opportunity to remodel), a little selfish, it's all about number one, and i guess reserved, i can't really express myself unless my close friends are around, but i'm trying to be past that i'm driven. But that;s just a short list.

Memories are those things that don't way a ton, but still manage to hunch you aver as your humping them(get it? Of course you do), you know. The memories that stays weighing me down are those of things I've lost more than the good ones. Memories of my brother, my dad and me driving around town on a Saturday afternoon, just because, my dad pointing out buildings he doesn't know the name of he'd look at him and i'd love him. I carry on my worn down back, memories of my former second best friend, the fun we had the games we played the times we had all gone. The other day i was listening to smash mouth's "All star" that just took me back made me melt into myself( if you know what i mean), i remembered everything from my childhood, and i almost cried(  almost i'm a real man), for all the bad there is so much good. My memories are the lightest things upon my back, but hey are the most important, they take the most space but they my most cherished things, things i would never leave home without.                         

In between

Togolese Flag

As a first generation american myself, although I do consider myself more of an american more than anything else, I always claim African all day long versus and "american black". I know a lot of African kids that claim black versus what the really are, and your probably thinking what's the difference well there is a major difference that i really don't feel like explaining. I think me claiming African is major way a give honor to my heritage. Also with eh food I eat

fufu and such, and of course with the language i speak, ewe, though i can't speak it all that well, but i understand every word of it, my mom won't let me forget that but. I proper balance of two cultures, i think would be a 5 foot 9 and a half inch black kid around my skin tone, i think, after all i pretty sure I've found a good balance, i'm american enough that no one seems to question where i hail from, but if any ever asked i'm more than happy to tell them my origin and a minimum of three fun facts about it, i feel i genuine pride of a country and culture. I love being foreign, its like exotic, i'm not like everybody i stand out, and who really likes just blending into the
back ground any way.        
     

The Fall Of The House Of Usher

"The Fall Of The House Of Usher", by Edger Allen Poe is apparently the outline of most haunted house stories follow. If I had to produce a horror story based on the "The Fall Of The House Of Usher", i would copy the aspects of the number a creepy house, a weird family, unnecessarily long suspense, little explanation, and of course miraculous survival of the main character.

Creepy house exhibit A

In the beginning of the short story, the main character describes the feeling that the looking upon the house of Usher gave him as "[an] insufferable gloom that pervaded my spirit", the most important part of any horror/ haunted house story of move of whatever is the creepy house. The dirty hell hole of home that on first glance, just like the main character of the house of Usher the reader/listener should scared immediately, with should look at the house know that somethings wrong here. Despite the time of day the house should always look dark like there shadow covering it 24/7, noises should always be echoing all around whether your inside or outside the house.The second things every haunted house needs is a creepy family to occupy the dark foreboding house. The house of Usher is a perfect example of a creepy family, inhabited by a brother and sister slash lovers, that come from a family of family of brothers and sisters slash lovers. The brother having some sort of disease that ages him and makes him crazy enough to bury wife slash lover alive. The creepy family is an absolute must. ext of would use the unnaturally long suspense lots of horrors are known for and "The Fall Of the House Of Usher" does perfectly forcing the reader to what is probably equivalent to a life time,  before anything remotely interesting in the slightest. You have to keep the reader/ watcher guessing and bored giving hints of something exciting, but then dismiss the thought with six more paragraphs of absolutely nothing. Fourth I would use the tool of of little to no explanation of nothing whatsoever. I any ever questions your distentions just simply say "art", or "answer with another question like "What do you thing?." This a strong point in the house of usher, it leaves you with so many question. Was is sister really dead? Was she a zombie? Was she a ghost?
Who are the Ushers? Why did their family tree have no branches? How didn't the main character no the girl wasn't dead? Why did the house collapse? How did the main character make it just in time to survive? That last question brings me to my last point, the unexplained miraculous survival of the main character, that would never happen inside of reality. Really? He ran out just when the house fell apart?              

     

The Occult In the U.S.

     

      The occult is super present in the united states nowadays, with all the vampires and demons that are over sued in books, television and movies. The question of why its so prevalent can simply be answered in my opinion is because its awesome, things would be the same with out, we've just gotten use to it, it just natural part of are everyday lives now we don't even notice it. I pretty sure it all stems from the years back when people needed an explanation for all things the go bump in the night by blaming everything on the devil. If something bad happened it had the be Satan, I spilled my water, it was Satan, I tripped it Satan, My cheated on me, it must be Satan. Things that they couldn't explain had to be evil or magical. Then eventually somebody got the bright idea that the occult could make a great story either to scare kids into being good with things like Krampus, evil Santa, or just as a great story that evolved into the less creepy fairy tales we hear as kids. Us as Americans are obsessed with the occult not only because it makes for great entertainment, but because we grow up with it so it doesn't bother us, plus as far as we're concerned it just a show, just a for entertainment, but for other people for outside the U.S., these demons and monsters are all to real. Like my mom for example, we're from Togo a small country in west Africa between Ghana and Benin, my mom hates seeing anything demonic on TV, if she sees it shes gone, because to her the crap is possible, she tells me about people making deals with the demons to shape shift into giant dogs, get rich, call lighting down form the sky and so on. The occult to most Americans if just Hollywood magic, along with growing up with magic sprinkled over everything we read and watch, the occult mean jack, since it doesn't bother anyone it can permeate through our media. In America were absorbed in the occult not only cause it ranges awesome, but because at the end of the day it isn't real to us. Personally i don't much care for the occult, partly because i pretty sure its really to a certain extent, and i'm actually allergic the fear to i try to stay away from the occult and things associated with it, but that's just me.

                   

                                                         Anti-Heroes in Media

Ichabod Crane's anti-hero character in Washington Irving's "The legend of Sleepy Hollow" spawned a overwhelming amount of such characters in US media, in books, movies, and television shows. Spreading past just American media, but other countries, namely japan that cranks out out anti-heroes in animes like there hotcakes, characters like Sasuke Uchia, from Masashi Kishimoto's popular series "Naruto".

Sasuke Uchia

Sasuke is the deuteragonist, being only second to the main character Naruto. Sasuke is a cold, ruthless, cynical, arrogant kid, that is willing to do whatever it
to further is own agenda( like Ichabod Crane) of becoming strong enough to kill his brother that murdered his entire family. Going as far as murdering other, within the show Sasuke has killed a grand total of 1005 people, one of whom was he brother that he finally got around to killing.



In the first season of the show when he meets his team mates the two other protagonist he show a cold indifference toward them feeling that he was superior to them in all ways, Even as the how progresses and little hints of a possible friendship that arise are quickly squashed by Sasuke.

Sasuke ruthlessly cutting down his partner that was taken hostage by Danzo, because she was standing in the way of him and the dude he wanted to kill, to Sasuke friends are just another obstacle on his way to the top, before and after he killed his brother.







Sasuke Uchia like Ichabod Crane is shining example of a anti-hero in Medea, though he is a self-centered, hardhearted douche-bag, that doesn't give a rat's furry rear-end about anybody but himself. But despite it all he is a tragic hero, that's actions are driving by the death of his entire family (clan), that's my personal favorite character from the show.