Monday, December 24, 2012

Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie



 In Jordan Sonnenblick's book, Drums, Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie, the protagonist, Steven Alper, goes through a lot of challenges in his middle school life. He was having a normal middle school life until one day, they found out his brother, Jeffery had Leukemia. This changed Steven’s life, emerging a new journey for Steven to face. This will show how Steven matures after making personal sacrifices that were needed to help his brother.

Steven shaved his head. It was the first day that Jeffery had gone back to his kindergarten ever since he was cleared to go. Jeffery was very exciting to go. Later that day when Steven got home, he saw his brother crying. It seemed when he went into his classroom he said hi to one student, but the students answer was, “He’s bald!” that had sent Steven into a crying fit, so he had to be picked up early and sent home. Steven felt really bad about Jeffery, him being the only bald kid. So he made a decision and over night, there were now two bald kids in town. In the morning Steven had showed the whole family, they all smiled, but Jeffery ran up to Steven and gave him a huge hug. This made Steven feel like he did the right thing.
He had kicked Renne, the hottest girl in school, out of his house. Renne had come to tutor Steven in math. It was the middle of winter and, Renne had a cold. Since Jeffrey had cancer and his immune system was low, and sickness could easily spread to him, causing a very bad reaction, sending him back to the hospital. Steven knew that so he tried his best to keep her out the house. Renne at the end became frustrated that Steven kicked her out, being the girl that any boy would dream of having at their house! But at the end, she left. This was an incident that saved Jeffery from another ride to the hospital.
Steven left his concert to go to the hospital with Jeffery.  Steven was at his concert that he had practiced almost ALL his life for. He was the lead drummer and right after his dad’s speech, he saw Jeffery throwing up in the garbage. He felt Jeffery’s head and it was hot as hell. He knew Jeffery had to go to the hospital right away, and that Jeffery needed him to come, but his concert was about to start right then. But Steven knew he had to leave to the hospital. So his whole family had gone in an ambulance rushing to the hospital. This was brave of Steven to do.
When you have a relative, more importantly in your family, it is hard to deal with. Jeffery for one, had leukemia, creating Steven and his whole family to make sacrifices on their own. Steven loves his brother and family and risked many important things to him, just save his family. 

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Memoir


 Memoir
                                                                                                                    By Emmanuel Cano-Garraway
                                                                                                                                                   Class: 705
Wow. I smell damp air, water rushing and gushing. I feel a little wet, that can only mean one thing… waterfall. Costa Rica was getting better and better. I climb off my white horse. I jump to the hard dirt, creating dirt to gather and tickle my nose. The horse patted his hooves, and a guy took him away. I liked the horse, I even took the time to name him, Stan.
SPLASH! Love that sound, that’s the sound the waterfall was making. Oh by the way… IT WAS HUMUNGUS! Maybe twenty feet tall!?  But the weird thing was I saw splashes in random areas of the waterfall. Then a man walked in front of me, he was dripping with water. I know what’s going on, perfectly now. People were jumping off the waterfall, and I want in.
“Mom can I go jump off the waterfall too?”
“Only if you say it, in Spanish.”
“Really?”
“Fine just go”
 I take off my pants, revealing my trunks. I run up slipping a little bit. I get to the top. My feet are over some type of moss. It feels slimy and icky. SPLASH. I look in the direction where the noise came from. No one is there… just me and the end of the waterfall. Dang it, I’m up next. I look down at the water… it’s pretty far down. Well, can’t chicken out now so I close my eyes, start to run. Wait, what am I doing! I open my eyes and,  I’m about to go into the water. NO! I try and stop myself but I’m already off the edge, instead I send myself twirling and flipping in the air. I close my eyes out of fear. I feel myself zooming down, fast and hard and then… Splash! I made the sound! I also scratched my back against the rock witch hurt like hell! I open my eyes, I’m under water. It kind of, blurry as it usually is when I have my eyes open under water, so this isn’t much different than the other times.. I feel my body moving… oh no! I struggle until I hit my hand on a rock, and clench it. I pull it until my body comes out of the water getting beat by oxygen. I clear my eyes from water. I climb out and walk to my mother. Coughing up water from my mouth, which most likely millions of fish swam in… yuck!
“How as it?”
“One word to describe it… AWESOME!”

Sunday, December 2, 2012

The Blood Beast

I can't hold many more secrets from Bill-E anymore. He is starting to catch on, and fast. I know I should tell him the truth about us being brothers, but I don't think it is just time yet.

I think he should just keep thinking that Dervish, my uncle, is his dad still. I mean he is just a kid... and my brother. I am torn to pieces because of this problem, but I need to make a choice right now, or else something bad might happen...