walking tall

I'm watching the movie Walking Tall starring the Rock right now. I just saw the scene where he walks into a casino with a 2x4 and starts beating people down. He takes down over 5 grown men with weapons. The Rock is a beast.

playoffs

The NBA playoffs will be starting pretty soon. The Pistons are the number one team in the Eastern Conference and will have home court advantage all through the Eastern Conference playoffs. The top three teams in the Western Conference are Dallas, Phoenix, and San Antonio. If the Pistons make it to the NBA Finals they will most likely be playing one of these three teams. The playoffs are very exciting and I cannot wait until they start.

last week of school

This is the start of my last week of my first year of college. Luckily all my final exams will be finished before finals week. Now I am going to finish school a week earlier than most students. I'm very excited to be finishing my first year. Hopefully I can finish this year with pretty decent grades. My first semester I had a 3.0 but I do not think I will have that high of a GPA for this semester.
The summer is going to last all the way until September. I am going to have over four months worth of summer vacation. This is going to be the best summer of my life. I cannot wait until this last week of school is over. The best feeling is finishing the last day of school for the summer.

castaway

Right now I am watching the movie Castaway starring Tom Hanks. The movie is about a man who worked for a shipping company. He was on a plane for work when it crashed over the ocean. He ends up stranded on an island all by himself. The movie is pretty sweet. If I were to end up stranded on an island, I would hope that some hot chick would be stranded with me. It would suck to be on an island all by yourself. I'm sure a person would get depressed living all by themself on an island.

tigers and pistons

The Detroit Tigers and the Detroit Pistons both had games today. The Pistons were playing the Cleveland Cavailiers. Their star player is Lebron James. The game came all the way down to the last couple minutes and the Pistons pulled through and won. Right now the Pistons are the first place team from the Eastern Conference. The Tigers also had a game today. They played the Kansas City Royals. I started watching the game in the 9th inning. The Tigers were down 2-0 at this point. The Tigers got two men on base and Pudge Rodriguez cranked a home run to go up 3-2. The game ended with that score and the Tigers are now 3-2 on the season. Today was a good day for Detroit sports.

second blog for final paper

My thesis statement for the last paper is as follows. Since Trenton could not pass a bond recently, their schools have been affected greatly. Basically I want to talk about how the city of Trenton was affected due to a bond failing to pass. I'm still working on my thesis and might not use the one given in this paragraph. Here is a list of a few websites I will be using to do my research.

-http://0-proquest.umi.com.wizard.umd.umich.edu/pqdweb?did=1207258231&Fmt=3&clientId=8511&RQT=309&VName=PQD
-http://0-proquest.umi.com.wizard.umd.umich.edu/pqdweb?did=1061208641&Fmt=3&clientId=8511&RQT=309&VName=PQD
-http://0-proquest.umi.com.wizard.umd.umich.edu/pqdweb?did=1042299491&Fmt=3&clientId=8511&RQT=309&VName=PQD

3 more weeks of school

There are only 3 weeks left of my first year of college. This year went by pretty fast. Now there are only 3 more weeks left until I get over 3 months off. This will be my longest summer vacation since in highschool I didn't finish the school year until the middle of June. I plan on working right when I get out of school. I want to make a lot of money this summer so I can enjoy it the best way possible.

first blog for final paper

I will be doing my final paper on the closing of Owen Elementary School. I chose to do my photo essay on this topic as well. The closing of Owen was a recent event and it greatly affected my community. It was closed due to a failed attempt to pass a bond for Trenton schools. Students were forced to switch to one of the other elementary schools. This caused more students to be attending each school. Here is a website telling more about the closing of the school.

-http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-16837697_ITM

The bond, which was failed to pass, also affected the high school in Trenton. The bond was for 2 new elementary schools and technology upgrades. Because the bond did not pass, Trenton schools did not get an upgrade in technology. The schools are forced to use out of date technology which affects education greatly.

photo essay

The closing down of Owen Elementary School in Trenton has greatly affected those who previously went to that school. Owen Elementary was decided to be closed and torn down due to an inability to pass a bond. The residents of Trenton voted "no" on a proposed bond to increase money for Trenton schools. Because of this, Trenton was forced to close one of four elementary schools to save money. Since the school was closed, Trenton decided to start tearing it down. Students who went to Owen will now go to an elementary school down the road. This may be a reasonable distance for some students. This will also result in a greater amount of students attending the closest elementary school, Anderson Elementary.




The empty sign of Owen Elementary School.

Bulldozers tearing apart Owen Elementary.










Playground and bulldozer.



The playgrounds at Owen will not be torn down.

Neighborhood across the street from Owen.

Sign located along Owen Elementary property.

The wreckage with homes in the background.

Sunday afternoons

Sunday afternoons are pretty sweet because I usually spend them either sleeping or watching something sweet on tv. There are usually good basketball games to watch on Sunday afternoons. During the fall and winter months football is on every Sunday afternoon. I enjoy watching football games all through the afternoon on Sundays. When it gets warmer out, I usually play basketball outside. Sunday afternoons are sweet baby.

soccer

Right now I am watching a soccer game between the United States and Ecuador. The match is a friendly match which means it is a game for practice and fun. Friendly matches are still very competitive though. The United States has been dominating the game but the score is tied at 1 to 1. There is less than 30 minutes left in the game. I love watching soccer games. The best games to watch are the World Cup games. They are the most exciting for sure. Too bad the World Cup only comes around every 4 years.

photo essay rough draft

First of all, my pictures are all over the place. I do not know how this happened but I will fix it later. So give me a break.

The tearing down of Owen Elementary School in Trenton is almost completed. Owen Elementary was decided to be closed and torn down due to an inability to pass a bond. The residents of Trenton voted "no" on a proposed bond to increase money for Trenton schools. Because of this, Trenton was forced to close one of four elementary schools to save money. Since the school was closed, Trenton decided to start tearing it down. Students who went to Owen will now go to an elementary school down the road. This may be a reasonable distance for some students. What the property will be used for is unknown at this time. My guess is that the property will be used to build more homes.

sportscenter

SportsCenter is an amazing show. They bring together all the best highlights of all different sports. They focus on the main sports such as football, basketball, baseball, and hockey. They add a little golf, tennis, soccer, and nascar as well. Everyday brings a new episode of SportsCenter so you can catch up on all the news in sports. My favorite part of SportsCenter is when they show the Top Ten Plays. They are always fun and exciting to watch.

march madness

The NCAA tournament brackets came out tonight. All 65 teams have been selected and placed in the tournament. There are four sections of the bracket. The four cities for these sections are St. Louis, East Rutherford, San Jose, and San Antonio. Michigan State's basketball team was given a 9th seed ranking. They will be playing the 8th seed in their section which is Marquette. I hope Michigan State does well in the tournament. Either way though, I will be enjoying the NCAA tournament for sure. March Madness is amazing.

in class freep post

The local issues getting the most coverage are Stephen Grant and the killing of his wife, Comerica pulling out of Detroit, a serial killer convicted of killing a prostitute, and other stories. What stands out to my in the coverage of the Stephen Grant murder is that he may have used his child's sled to scatter parts of his wife's body which he mutilated. This guy is insane and will spend the rest of his life in jail. I remember watching him on tv before they knew he killed his wife and he was weeping. He wasn't just crying; he was weeping. He was just putting on a show since he actually was the one that killed his wife. The only news going on in the city of Trenton is something that happened a while back. A 17 year old student in Trenton pulled a woman out of her car which was sitting on the train tracks and a train was coming. The lady had hit a pole and then backed up and was stuck on the tracks. He recieved a 2007 American Red Cross Heroes Award.
A story I might want to look into for my photo presentation and last paper needs to be interesting and full of information. A story such as Comerica getting out of Detroit might be a story which I could use. I'm not sure if I really want to use that story though. I want to find something that is more interesting to me. Comerica heading out is a big deal but does not catch my interest completely. An event located in the news a lot during this month is March Madness. If I could do my last two papers on March Madness, that would be very sweet. I love playing and watching basketball. March Madness is very exciting. The tournament is the greatest event in college basketball. Only 65 teams make the tournament. Almost every game is full of excitement. I am going to try to find a way to use March Madness in my final papers. I hope this is possible. Sadly, I have just found out that I am not going to be able to use March Madness. I need to find an issue involving the news to write about. I will continue to look for stories I could possibly use.

news in class

I went to the free press website and two things stuck out to me the most. On the Detroit section of the news the first story listed was entitled "Ex-student arrested for gun at Redford High". This news shows that this neighborhood is not the greatest. A story that stuck out to me the most was entitled "Slower drivers stay right? Ohio gets it". This story is about how in Ohio the left lane is only for faster drivers. They are bringing the law down on the slow drivers. Michigan should also do this because some drivers need to start driving faster or get out of my way. If you are gonna drive slow get yourself in the right lane.

studying

I have a hard time making myself study. I had the whole spring break to study for a test and I only studied about 5 minutes. I couldn't make myself study because my test isn't even on the first day that I go back. The test is on Tuesday and when I know I have an extra day to study, then I won't study the day before. I always end up waiting until the last day to worry about studying. This is a very bad habit but it is a habit that I will most likely never break.

spring break

My spring break went by way too fast. It is already Sunday and my break is almost over. I basically spent my whole break sleeping and hanging out with friends. The break was sweet because I had no responsibilities. I slept in almost every day and would stay out late every night. Spring break is awesome but now it is over. I cannot wait until school is out for the summer.

spring and summer

I want the weather to start getting warmer and for winter to end. When winter ends I plan on playing basketball as much as possible. Last summer I would wake up and play basketball for anywhere from 2 to 5 hours straight. When it gets warmer I also plan on playing soccer. In the summer I would play soccer on every Monday. I'm also planning on working a lot in the summer. I want to go on vacation to Florida or take a road trip so I need to start saving up money. I will most likely be taking a couple trips to Canada as well. It needs to get warm right now.

job

I need to find a job for myself but don't want to. I want to work but I also want to concentrate completely on school because if I don't, I will most likely fail out. I want money to buy many things and have good times. I want to buy a system for my truck and a new video game system. My friend has the XBox 360 and it is amazing. He just rented Hitman for it. In the game you go through levels by figuring out how to kill certain people without everyone else around knowing it was you. The game is sweet. I want to buy an XBox 360 but don't want to get a job. I think I'm just going to wait until school is out before I start working again.

restaurant

I went to Detroit last night to eat at a restaurant in order to review it. The restaurant I chose was Mexican Village. The food was great. I ordered Trio Enchiladas which comes with a beef and cheese enchilada, a chicken and cheese enchilada, and an all cheese enchilada. The service was great. The waitress was on top of everything the whole night. The atmosphere in the restaurant was calm and relaxing. There was music playing softly in the background. The prices of the meals were inexpensive. The restaurant was very clean. I'm not getting into details here because I'm going to use many details when I write my review. Overall, the restaurant experience in Detroit was great.

goals for final paper

1. Use more detail to describe the two stories in my paper more effectively.
2. Revise the repetitive parts to my paper.
3. Talk more about the people interviewed and describe what was going on while we were all shoveling snow.

homework

Another weekend has gone by and I have failed to work on any homework. It is way too hard to force myself to do homework on the weekend. The weekend is always too much fun so I don't even really think about my homework at all until Sunday night. By Sunday night I really don't care because there is usually something sweet to watch on tv. I'm going to end up watching the NBA All Star game and enjoy my night. Tonight is going to be sweet. Tomorrow is going to suck.

my dog

My dog Oreo is always around when there is food. He is sitting right next to me right now because I am eating pretzels. He always makes me feel bad since he just sits there. I always end up giving him some of my food. I just threw a couple pretzels at his face. Oreo is a Shetland Sheep dog. He is black, gray, and white in color. He weighs about 35 pounds. He is out of control about 35% of the time. Otherwise he is just sleeping or begging for food like a bum.

songs for city

here is a list of 8 songs that reflect my attitude toward my community
1. gorillaz - feel good
2. sublime - what i got
3. eminem - everything is shady
4. 2pac - changes
5. snoop dogg - another day
6. saves the day - cars and calories
7. jimmy eat world - the middle
8. korn - word up

art history

Art history is a horrible class. If anyone is thinking of taking this class, don't. For the tests you have to memorize 30 different pieces of art, who created the art, the year they created it, and enough information to write essays about it. The tests are all essay and are absolutely ridiculous. I wish I never would have chose to take this class. It sucks.

the flu

This weekend was the worst weekend of my life. I had the flu worse than I have ever had it before in my life. While still feeling sick, I had to force myself to study for my two tests that I have on Monday. I never enjoy studying in the first place so studying with the flu is ten times worse than that. I can't wait until Monday is over so I don't have to worry about any more tests.

continued from last class

The snow is only fun for a short amount of time. Before long I get sick of the cold weather. I wish it would start to get warmer so I could enjoy being outside again. When it is warm, my favorite thing to do is play sports. I enjoy playing basketball in my driveway and at my friend's house. We get some crazy three on three games going sometimes. Soccer is another sport I enjoy. This past summerr, a large group of people in my neighborhood started a small soccer league. Although there were only three teams, it was still an amazing experience. The competition between my team and one of the other teams was always great. These teams had more soccer players than the other team. The games were always fun and exciting since there was so much competition. I'm looking forward to the summer so we can start our small league again. Hopefully we can get more people to play so we can add another team or two.

soccer and studying

I have a soccer game tomorrow night and I also have to study for my philosophy test. Hopefully I can manage my time and get both done. One thing I know is that I'm not going to miss my soccer game. The studying is going to have to get done right after school. This is going to be rough for me to do since I don't ever feel like working on homework or studying right after I just went to school. I'm hoping for a burst of motivation tomorrow so I can get my studying done. Otherwise, I will be letting my parents down by getting bad grades in college.

this weekend

On Thursday I was so glad to get out of school that I had no intention of starting on my homework at any time during the day. I went and hung out with my friends all day and night. On Friday I thought maybe I would get some homework done. It didn't happen. I ended up hanging out with my friends all day and night again. I woke up on Saturday morning and thought about starting on my homework. I thought about it and decided that the best thing to do at that time was to go hang out with my friends. Here I am on Sunday afternoon stuck trying to finish my homework. This happens to me almost every weekend and it sucks.

The D

Detroit is attempting to create a brand new identity with their new "D" symbol. The new D is sleek looking. The new D also has writing underneath it. The writing says Cars, Culture, Gaming, Music, and Sports. This new D and slogan are supposed to increase the amount of visitors coming to Detroit.
I like how the new D looks, but I also liked the old english D. The new D is supposed to look hip and trendy. I think what Detroit is trying to do is good. More people coming to Detroit will mean more money circulating in its economy. This will be great for the city of Detroit.

interview

My first interview for my paper was from my friend Rob. I asked him a variety of questions about Elizabeth Park. He gave me some good information which I will use in my paper. I made sure I asked questions which went along well with the points I plan on making in my paper. I'm sure that I will be able to add the quotations in from the interview and make them flow well with the paper.

progress on research and paper

From the research I have been doing on my paper, I have learned more information about Elizabeth Park than I had known before. I learned about how the park was made and how the city of Trenton was first established. I found a great amount of information on the park. This information will help me with the length of my paper. I sometimes have problems with length in my papers. I will most likely not have this problem on this paper. Along with the history information, I found information on many events which take place in the park. The research part of my paper is going well.

Jiving with Java

This article talks about coffeehouses. The first thing the article starts with is about a coffeehouse located in our nation's capital. The article talks about how coffeehouses are places for people to do different things. Some people go to coffeehouses to socialize and meet new people. Others go to coffeehouses to relax and read. Others go there to use the internet and work on homework.
The only coffeehouse I have ever been to was one that my highschool set up to keep kids out of trouble. People would gather there to drink coffee and hang out and listen to music. I did not really enjoy the coffeehouse. It was pretty boring and I only went because a bunch of my friends were going there. Other than that, I have never gone to a coffeehouse. I have little interest in going to coffeehouses. Maybe that will change with time, but as for now I don't plan on going to a coffeehouse anytime soon.

painting on walls in Detroit

Here are some pictures of paintings on the walls of buildings in Detroit. The paintings are very interesting to look at. One painting shows Muhammed Ali, once heavyweight champion, with his arms spread out in victory. Paintings on walls are a good thing. I would rather see a painting on a wall instead of seeing a normal brick wall when walking by. I'm sure most people would agree with me on that.

response to homeplace

I read Matt's blog on the homeplace article. I agree with him in that Bell Hooks had much intensity in her writing which made it so interesting. He mentions that she used life experiences in her article. I like how the Hooks used her life experiences to help prove her point. The stories she told helped keep me interested in reading the article.

Homeplace

In the Homeplace article, Bell Hooks talks about when she moved into a white neighborhood at a young age. She remembers the whites lookind at her in hate as she would walk down the street. She loved reaching her home where she did not have to deal with racism and oppression. She referred to homeplace as a site represented as a woman's domain. The homeplace is somewhere where you can spend time with the family and not deal with any issues outside the home. She goes on to say that her mother worked as a caretaker in a white home. Her mother would come home after the day was over and just take care of her children. She did her work and left it there. She did not complain about working for a white family all day.

First paper

For our first paper we are supposed to write about a certain part of our city or neighborhood. I'm thinking about writing my paper on Elizabeth Park in Trenton. The park is a large part of our city and we have special events hosted there in the summer. The park is well known around my area and has much that I could be able to write about. I'm not sure who I would interview as of right now on this topic. Hopefully I will be able to find a good person to interview and find good websites to use for my idea.

Niki's Window Part 2

In the last class we had, we had a discussion on Niki's Window. We talked about how Detroit covered up old buildings and shipped out the homeless people when we hosted the Superbowl. A student in class mentioned that people clean up their homes when they are having visitors over. My thoughts on that are that Detroit should have cleaned up the city for the long term and not just covered it up for a week. When people clean up their homes for visitors, they don't just shove everything in the closet or cover up dirt on the floor with a rug. They actually clean up their homes.

Niki's Window

In this essay Herron is arguing that Detroit's past is forgotten or seen through by the people living in it. Detroit is known as one of the most humiliating cities. Herron is trying to give a reason why. The reason is that people are looking past what happened in the history of the city. Niki's restaurant restores some of the history of the past. The author explains how the restaurant does this through the sign and through parts of the restaurant that haven't been changed through history. Herron also makes the point that the history of Detroit is hard to know because it has basically been covered up.

When he uses the word "pastness" in the reading, it means that the histroy is basically not remembered but just that it is represented as older times.
When he uses the word "nostalgia", he means reflection of history.
When he uses the word "humiliation", he means that Detroit is not known as the best city or even a decent city.