My Connection With Nature

I enjoy being out in nature. I've connected to nature many times. Perhaps the most significant time was when I want scuba diving in Turks and Caicos. It was an amazing experience. I was 40 feet under the water swimming over a beautiful, colorful, coral reef. There were hundreds of different vibrant fish all around me. For a minute i just layed still floating in the crystal clear ocean and just took it all in. I felt connected to god, and in a different world at this time. Everything was so beautiful, and I definitely considered this a natrual high. Scuba diving is a lot of fun and I highly suggest it to everyone.

5 points from the reading

1. Railroads and canals had a major effect on the lives of people.

2. Plank roads proved to be useless

3. After a while canals proved to be profitless.

4. Utopias were created because people wanted to be a perfect community.

5. There now is only one utopian church, but it is a very proud group of people.

10 things that bring joy to my heart :]

1. The Giants winning

2. The Jets losing

3. Wrestling

4. Madden

5. Beach

6. Snowboarding

7. Italian food

8. Bro chilling

9. Big Sex Brandon Jacobs

10. winning things

what makes a novel a classic

sometimes i think really old people decide classic novels. They pick the most boring book they can find and decide it's a classic. They do this because they are jelous of highschool student's youth and  full head of hair. Their goal is to make us all pull our hair out from reading these BORING books.

Alright now that I'm done ranting on about how I hate most "classic" books we have to read, a novel needs to have been very popular at one time to be a classic. It also needs to depict something that people can relate to. It needs to make people think, whether it's with its descriptive adjectives, interesting plot, or the way its written (like iambic pentameter). Although they make me want to hurt myself on numerous occasions, I can't deny that classic novels definitely expand my vocabulary and make me an overall smarter person. 

comments to others on wuthering heights survey

to rachel:

 mikedcts said...

pretty dull post not gunna lie. I also have to disagree with the little input you had in this post. Although I usually dislike reading classic novels, it is definitely important to read them. It definitely expands your knowledge knowing classic novels.

to jennifer:

 mikedcts said...

i agree with this. Im actually surprised that a woman actually admitted that money is something that a girl will look for in a man. You made it clear that there are things more important than money, and money is only a little part in it. I think money is more a part of it than you are admitting, but i am still impressed that you didn't have too much self pride to admit that. 

PS did you take those characteristics u describe from robbie? haha jw. i hope you guys have many more crying romantic dates!!!!

to joris:

 mikedcts said...

Jor Jor i somewhat agree with you. I mean I know there are a lot of people who were born into rich familes and are snobby, but i's say there is just as much if not more people who are wealthy and not snobby. I know there are a good amount of people like this but I feel like I see more wealthy people that are good people, than wealthy people who are stingy. I think you may believe there is more greedy rich people because of the media doesn't really show the down to earth rich people.

Wuthering heights anticipation guide thing

A lot of topics in this worksheet really stood out to me. One of these topics was the one that says children are responsible for their parents mistakes. What?????? How is that even remotely close to being true? I think if anyone said that this statement is true they must have some partial retardation. How would a child have an impact on an adults mistakes? Maybe you can say that they have a slight impact, like if they distract the parent from making the right decision or something, but to say they are responsible for adult mistakes is outrageous

I agree that when it comes to marriage money has some impact on the man a woman chooses. I bet every single woman in the world will disagree with this and be like "money doesn't matter at all it's all about love." All of you that say that I'll bet you any money if your highschool love became a bum and was a janitor or something, you wouldn't think even for a second about being with him. Even if it's subconscious, a woman will always want a wealthier man. It's just the nature of humans, we're greedy. 

comments to others

to rachel:

 mikedcts said...

hahahahaha. funny stuff. I love clark and do not make fun of him or ull hav some problems! but anyway I guess that is a pretty good link. I was so befuddled by Malcolm's antics of asking his wife to marry him. It was by far the exact opposite of the "hollywood" way, and I guess Clark's antics werent either??

to eric:

 mikedcts said...

I agree with Josh and Benjamen. You are completely correct when you say that athletes and celebrites have a responsiblity to be role models for kids. But, something you said that I thought was important was that they're only human. Everyone makes mistakes, and I think we have way too high of expectations for these leaders in society. It sucks for the fans of Arod and for Malcolm with Elijah, but the truth is they are only humans. No matter how good of a person you are, you are never perfect. I think Malcolm maybe overreacted a little. Just because Elijah made one mistake, doesn't mean he is a different person than the one who brought Malcolm into the Islam religion.

to mike pansolini:

mikedcts said...

this was very well written Michael. I also think about that poem a lot in my own life, so I enjoyed how you related it to malcolm x. I like your beautiful metaphors/similies. for example "there light from the sun illuminated his destiny." good work pal. keep up the excellent blogging mikey!

to connor:

 mikedcts said...

connor this post is just plain ignant. If you were a black in this time you cannot tell me that you would not hate whites. I know I would despise whites just as much as Malcolm does. Also, even if you disagree with his ideas, you do have to have respect for what he's done, and how many people he's helped. Think of all the people he's taken off the street, and made a huge difference in their lives. Think of all the people he's inspired through his speeches. Think of all the white people who he made realize how bad they were actually acting, and how angry they made the blacks. I know none of this would pertain to you, but you do have to see all the good he's done for others. Keep up the interesting blogs buddy!!!!!!

to joris(don't grade if only grading 4):

 mikedcts said...

this is way too long for me to read all of it but I agree with all of your thoughts! They are amazing Jor Jor. Plus, this probably took you about 10 million hours. I can't wait to see what link you add and to read about it! Keep blogging your ass off. -Michael Robert DeCotiis the 3rd.

Elijah Muhammad (numba 5)

I don't get why Elijah talks about Malcolm behind is back. I was a little confused about this. Usually when someone talks about someone badly it's because that person is doing something that offends them. I didn't see anything that Malcolm did that Elijah would dislike. All Malcolm does is praise and worship Elijah. He makes sure that Elijah always gets complete credit for Malcolm's speeches. All Malcolm does is talk up Elijah and talk about what a good leader he is. Actually, when I think about it, it must be jelousy. Elijah must feel threatened by Malcolm's popularity. This is probably going to sound stupid, but this really reminds me of the movie Mean Girls. I know you're going to laugh, but think about it. Elijah is Regina George and Malcolm is Cady, or Lindsey Lohan. Regina is the "leader" of the popular girls, just like Elijah is the leader of NOI. Cady starts off as the new girl, a nothing. Malcolm is a poor criminal, a nothing as well. Regina makes Cady popular, just like Elijah does to Malcolm. At the end of the movie, Regina starts getting jelous of Cady and they fight over things like boys and prom queen. Elijah obviously starts to get jelous over Malcolm as well, and begins to talk behind his back. If you saw this great movie, you definately can see where I am coming from. If not here is a link to the plot summary:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0377092/plotsummary

Malcolm and Civil rights (numba 4)

I think Malcolm's view on civil rights and integration is a lot more dignified than the civil rights activists. the activists call for integration, but Malcolm sees it as why would we want to be integrated with people that hate us? He doesn't see racism as a fixable problem. It also made me think when he said that he respects the southerners for being honest about not wanting integration, more than the northerners who pretend to want it. Although history somewhat proves malcolm wrong because racism has drastically decreased, I think if I was a black in this time I would have the same mentality as Malcolm. Why would you want to "fit in" with a group of people who hate you? It reminds me of an elementry school situation. Everyone always wants to be in the "popular group", or in this case the whites' society. If the popular kids hated me though and didn't want me in their group, I would make my own friends. I wouldn't go out of my way to be friends with them. This is like what malcolm is doing. He is telling the blacks you don't need to be in the "popular" society, we can do fine on our own. 

http://www.mpimages.net/mp/compressed/promotional/confessions-popular_girls.jpg

This is a picture of "popular" girls. They represent the whites to me. Would you want to be friends with girls that gave you a look like that??? I don't think so. 

Harlem (numba 3)

Harlem was a lot of fun, and a good experience. I didn't really realize how much history Harlem had. I liked seeing the little african american children at the Schomburg Center. It was cool to see how much more than me they knew. My favorite part of the trip was eating at Sylvia's. We had "soul food", which consists of corn bread, ribs, fried chicken, and so on. It was really good. It was also really funny when me and Joe G heard a guy yell "get outta here you ****suckers." I understand where the guy was coming from though. We were the rich white kids coming to observe how they lived. I don't know about anyone else, but I was thinking to myself how lucky I was not to be them. If i was in their situation I would probably be mad as well. My favorite part of the trip besides the food was probably the Apollo Theater. It was hilarious Mike H sang on the stage. I also liked learning about all of the famous people who were on the posters. I heard a lot of their songs before, but I had no idea who most of them were. The tour guy, Neal Shoemaker, was also the man. I had a lot of fun in Harlem.

here is a link of people all gathered around observing something.

http://www.chittlehampton.devon.sch.uk/homedir/images/Observinghabitats.JPG

Imagine being the subject to these observations. The people looking at you obviously think they're better than you, and I know I wouldn't want some random people that I didn't know being interested in how much my life sucks. I was not offended at all when that man called us all ****suckers because it was completely justified. I actually feel bad that we made a lot of people feel bad about themselves. 

Malcolm and Sophia (numba 2)

Malcolm and Sophia's relationship is very odd. They don't love each other, but they both still need to see each other? It doesn't make sense to me how Sophia needs to keep coming back after Malcolm abuses her, if she doesn't love him. I get that it is exciting for her, but is it really worth being abused and possibly getting caught? I guess that it is for her, but it doesn't really make sense to me. Also Malcolm could get killed by being seen in public with her? First of all, that is wrong. But second, why would he take the risk of being killed just for a white woman? The risks they take for each other, without even being in love, seem unrealistic to me. 

A movie that taught me a lot about interracial couples, and also really interested me at the same time, was Lakeview Terrace. In the movie an interracial couple, consisting of a white man and black woman, moves into a house next to a black man. They seem very much in love and act like an everyday ordinary couple. I know this is 100 percent wrong, but I think I used to subconsiously look down on interracial couples. Even though this was just a movie, it made me have more respect for these types of couples. Anyway the black man in the movie is out to get this couple. Throughout the movie he uses various antics to get them out. You don't know why he hates them so much until the end of the movie. You find out that the man's wife died in a car accident while being out with a white man she was having an affair with. This bother's the man so much that he tries to kill this couple, and gets killed himself instead. This is one demonstration of how much problems interracial couples go through. I guess it's worth it though if you really love the person that much. 

here's a link for the plot summary of the movie:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0947802/synopsis

NOI (numba 1)

The teachings that Malcolm gets from Reginald and others about Islam is funny to me. All whites are devils???? How stupid can people be to actually believe an evil scientist changed people's skin to black. I do not understand how any person could ever actually believe this. Maybe they just hate whites so much that they want to believe this, but deep down there is no way that anyone actually believe in this theory.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/yakub

This link describes the story yakub more in detail. It cracks me up how many people believed in this theory

The story of Yakub reminds me of a funny time in my childhood. Blacks obviously made this up to make themselves feel better than everyone else. My friend Joris did something like this. When we were in kindergarten he told me that he had pokemon in his room; actual, living Pokemon. I one hundred percent believed him because I wanted to believe him. I wanted to meet real pokemon, I mean who wouldn't??? This is obviously on a much smaller scale, but Joris and I are both the blacks in this situation. Joris made this story up to make him feel and seem cool to me. I was like the blacks that believed in the outrageous story of Yakub. I believed the story because I wanted to believe it, it gave me hope that there were real Pokemon. Similarly, blacks wanted to think that they were the dominant people, and that is the only reason I could come up with for why they would believe the story of Yakub. 

here is a link to a picture of some of my favorite pokemon (I know totally irrelevant but I'm putting it up anyway haha)

http://g.virbcdn.com/cdnImages/crop_200x200/Image-1910-2175-pokemon.gif

(squirttle was my favorite and among the pokemon that joris told me were in his room)

in class video

The video was pretty interesting. I thought it was going to be a boring lecturing video, but it wasn't too bad. I found it hard to believe how cartoon's that racist actually existed. At first I thought they were just recently made up to show how people used to feel, but they were actually on TV and that kind of freaked me out. It's horrible how people made the black's look and act in the movies/shows. Every single feature was exaggerated in the caricatures. The song was what I thought was most messed up. It actually disgusted me. I knew America used to be racist, but I didn't realize how bad it was before this video.

Laura

I think Malcolm is a complete idiot for leaving Laura for Sophia. Laura was clearly the one he loved and was meant to be with. He also ruins her life after he leaves her. I'm aware that he feels guilty for this, but I still can't believe how dumb he could be. He had the perfect girl and ruined everything. I hope I will never do anything as stupid as that in my life. It really annoys me how dumb Malcolm was. 

Malcolm and Reginald

I think Malcolm is really looking for acceptance from his brother Reginald. Reginald is his younger brother and Malcolm really wants to make him proud. He wants Reginald to look up to him. I can relate to this to my life, because I have a younger brother. He looks up to me, and when I hear him brag about me or anything like that, I like it. I would never tell him this, but it's a good feeling having someone look up to you. I sometimes base my decisions on what kind of example I would give to my brother. When Malcolm tries to box to impress Reginald, it kind of reminds me of something I would do for my brother Nick. We are very similar.