Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Where I'm From

I'm from the kitchen,
from Barilla
and wooden spoons.

I'm from the oven,
black on the outside,
burning fire on the inside.

I'm from the basil plantations,
the garden where tomatoes grow
to pick the best ones
to make the sauce.

I'm from family dinners,
and Christmas presents,
from Maria and Miguel,
from the Aragon family.

I'm from screaming,
shrieking,
and the tobacco smelling bed-sheets.

From "don't touch that knife"
and "be organized".

I'm from a family
who was forced
to be Christian,
but lets me be what I want,
from seafood pasta and cream,
a forbidden combination.

From the talks in the car
about politics with mom,
the back pains,
and hard-workers.

I'm from that small tree
where each leaf
is a different color,
from that short branch
where my leaf stands there... alone.



Tuesday, March 15, 2011

CNN Student News

Hi, I'm Carl Azus and this is CNN Student News. I hope you enjoy this new fifteen minute, no commercial headline.

Nobody ever expected such catastrophic disaster to happen to the second most industrial country in Asia.

It happened in Sendai, Japan at 2:36 pm in March 10th, 2011. An 8.9 magnitude earthquake struck the city of Sendai leaving pieces of broken houses, and buildings around the city. Many Japanese people are left homeless by this earthquake and more than ten thousand men and women are reported missing. Family members are felling a pang of fear and preoccupation for the missing loved ones. But that was not the worst part.

A capacious amount of water--that used to be beautiful azure water-- flooded the Northern part of Japan. The tsunami never decelerated, but it flooded the streets with debris, cars, and boats as citizens tried to go on roof tops or find a high level point to be safe from the abhorring water.

This tsunami did not facilitate things for the Japanese rescuers. Every single second is crucial for them to find the missing victims of this atrocious disaster. There is no time to banter around, but the fastidious parts of broken houses and wood make it hard for them to find these people and get them medical help.

Barack Obama knew it was important for the U.S.A. had to help Japan. The Red Cross, SWAT team, and the Ronald Reagan ship (which is deploying food and water supplies to Japan) were sent there to proceed on the rescue for the missing people. The SWAT team used grapples to bring down a group to take the injured victims to a capacious hospital that will assist them as soon as possible.

More adept SWAT teams and soldiers around the world are starting to help Japan to find the trapped victims, but even is the victims are not audible, rescuers from around the world will do everything to find them and save their lives.

I’m Carl Azus and this is CNN Student News. Thank you for watching.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Book Review


Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen

Girl, Interrupted has the meaning of Susanna’s life being interrupted all of the sudden. She had to go to rehabilitation because of depression and suicidal thoughts, which turned her life around and she discovers things she has never imagined before. One day, Susanna went to Fricks, which was like an art museum, and she notices a painting where this girl was sitting in her music class and her teacher was trying to get her attention, but the girl didn’t want to be in that class.

When Susanna sees this painting, her life is protracted in her mind and she realizes that her life was also interrupted too, when she was seventeen.

The memoir is about Susanna Kaysen, who was sent to a hospital because of her depression and her thoughts of suicide and she tells about her days there.

The memoir is organized in a way that shows how she first got involved in the hospital, then her thoughts about it and why she went there. Then she writes about her experience in the hospital and the people she meets. After that, she writes her thoughts again about the hospital and describes how they have affected her life. Later, in the book, she talks about what she wants to be and decides how her life is going to go in the future and if she wants to get married or be alone. Sometimes, Susanna puts some records and voluntary applications papers that were given to her when she left the hospital.

The memoirist came to realize how she wanted to go on with her life with no one there for her. She was very independent because she felt like nobody understood her and she kept on realizing it when she grew into a woman. Also, she starts to realize how life gets difficult when you have a bigger issue. Her surroundings change as her days pass in the hospital. She meets and sees girls that are crazy, schizophrenic, depressed, etc… Almost all the things she realizes are about how you don’t have freedom, how things are better in a way, and how she wants her life to go.

Lines We Love:

“I needed to be alone, I felt. I wanted to be going on alone to my future.” Pg. 136

“Interrupted at her music: as my life had been, interrupted in the music of being seventeen.” Pg. 167