Jared Loughner Case in Arizona

Just last weekend there was a fatal shooting in Tuscon, Arizona where a mentally ill man named Jared Loughner had killed six people and injured fourteen people at a shopping mall using his legally purchased glock. One of his victims was congresswoman named Gabrielle Giffords who had been shot in the head point blank by Loughner. Fortunately, the congresswoman is recovering after the major surgery and Jared Loughner is currently facing federal charges for the casualties. Many say that he did it because of rage while others thought that he had tried to assassinate the congresswoman on purpose. 

Many wonder whether Jared Loughner should be punished or not because of his mental illness. According to my beliefs, I think that he should be punished but not with money or just several years in prison. I believe that he should be confined to house arrest or maximum security prison until the time is right for him to come back out again. The only reason I think this is because he is mentally ill. Sometimes, mentally ill people cannot control themselves unless they take some certain drugs or receive treatment. He should be monitored and be isolated from the rest of the world to prevent any further injuries to anymore innocent people. 

I think that this incident might not have happened if only the gun wasn't sold to Loughner and part of the fault was the gun dealer. I wondered how he even managed to buy a gun legally. Because of this case, I think that gun laws should be more strict. It was as if the gun dealer plainly handed the gun to him in the exchange for money and a signature on papers to register the gun. I think that the dealer should have at least looked at his past criminal record and health record  to check if something was at least wrong with the person. I'll bet if the person that saw Loughner's medical record, he would have refused to sell the weapon to him. I guess that is what happens when you make a mistake. 

I hope that congresswoman is able to function properly after her recovery. 

Re: Group Projects by Andy Lau

Group projects are always great to do but if you don't have a productive group, there isn't any fun into doing it. It becomes rather one sided. I looked at Andy Lau's post and I have to agree with many of the opinions he blogged about. Here is what he said: 

"I understand that group projects are a good way for us to meet new people. If students are new to a school, group projects can be an anchor to long lasting friendships. They unite students of different backgrounds together. In addition, group projects can also be fun when you are in a group with people you get along with. Furthermore, working in groups with cooperative team members will help us get the work completed faster. It also allows different perspectives to be heard. In group work, students can each bring in their own talent and hide their weaknesses. 

However, working in groups is not always successful. Group projects can be very stressful, especially if you are assigned in a group in which the students are lazy, uncooperative, and always off task." - Andy Lau

I agree with many of the things that he says, but I don't really think that it is a good way to meet  new people since we tend to choose the people that we like to work with. If everything goes well, you would have a fun time and everyone would pretty much split the work evenly. Also, new ideas could come aboard to make a project more interesting.

But as everyone probably knows, not everything is perfect. There is always a few groups that contain lazy people and one or two people do all the work. The lazy ones plainly sit there enjoying their easy opportunity to a high grade. Those that enjoy the easy A would appear to be working when the real workers are trying their best staying up at night finishing up the "group's" work and wishing that they should have gotten a better group. So in the end, the ones that hardly do any work cheated their way into earning that grade.

Most persuasive response and the least persuasive

Throughout the week, students at ASTI read seven responses that answered the following question, "Will you have a better life if you graduate from an elite college or university?" We were to decide which was the most persuasive and the least persuasive out of the seven of them.


After reading the responses, I thought that the  was "Merit and Race" by Luis Fuentes Rohwer. His main point was that going to an elite college  is better than going to a "weak" school. He says that going to a elite school would place you in a spot where you have a higher graduation rate and a higher probability of going into graduate school. I know that more people tend to graduate elite colleges and universities more but I thought that the probability or graduation depends on your effort at college/ university. Luis also states that if a person goes to an elite college, they have lower divorce rates and a better health. That was extremely random. I do not even know how those two are even related to education. He didn't even put evidence to support his evidence. The most terrible thing that he said was that quality in a college or university does not matter. This ticked me off because quality is one of the most important things in colleges and universities. Would you go to an elite college that contains bad teachers and a dirty campus? I wouldn't.


 I believe that the least persuasive response was called "Graduate School Matters More" by David W. Breneman. His main point of his response is to communicate to others that the ranking of a college does not matter but the importance lies withing the students capabilities of attending elite schools. He says that all those that are college ready and created a goal for themselves may go to an elite college sooner and continue to move on to graduate school to achieve their goal. He notes that the students that are not ready to continue on to a elite college or university after high school graduation. He says that they would have a higher chance of being lost in the institution and the probability of graduating and/ or going to graduate school is much lower. He suggested that those who aren't ready should attend community colleges where it focuses on student development towards a college environment. Finally, he notes that elite colleges tend to have a high intuition so the family might not be able to afford it. David W. Breneman's response convinced me the most because it changed my mind about whether going to an elite school is important. The response made me think, "If I'm not even ready to attend an elite college or university yet, what is the point? It's going to be hard for me to stay alert if I'm not adjusted to a new environment. I should be patient and use more time to prepare myself." 

Into the wild by Jon Krakauer book Final Post

Finally, I have finished the book. Over the course of this reading this book, I thought that this book did not meet my standards but I continue to find that it was interesting. I was able to skip a lot of pages and still continue reading without skipping the main objective of the book written. I guess I can say that this book contains a lot of clutter. In the last section, I felt that Jon Krakauer had just continued talking about his journey rather than relating much about McCandless's death. He brags about how he managed to climb a mountain and journey the wilderness.

In the last section of the book, the author goes on his own trip to Fairbanks, Alaska to try and find out what caused Chris "Alex Supertramp" McCandless's death. I felt that Jon Krakauer could not have understood Chris's death at all unless Krakauer was in Alex's point of view. In order for the author to feel what Alex felt, he should have entered the Alaskan forest with little gear and little food. He should have also had a gun in order to hunt for food just like what McCandless did.  Then, would he fully understand? It would be close though.

In chapter 13, Chris's sister, Carine, said that if he had taken his handicapped dog, Buck with him, he would not have gone to Alaska since Buck was very close to Alex. I thought that this would be true since Alex would never hurt Buck. I think that if he had taken Buck to his adventures, he would have came back and gone to university to study. If Buck had died during any of his travels, I think that he would have been shocked enough to turn back and start a family and continue life. I think that he would have become very successful and resolved his issues with his parents just like what Carine did two years after Chris McCandless went missing. I also thought that Chris could have carried on with his father's work in NASA after him.

I am so glad that this is done.

To everyone: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Do God Bless Alameda!

Which is better? Alameda or Oakland. There are so many arguments in which people say that Alameda is way better than Oakland. They say that because of the media explaining the constant murders found in Oakland and the bare amount of murders in Alameda. I found a response post by Rokhsor Yusufi that I thought would explain my opinion. She says:

"I am shocked. If anything, Alameda is the coolest place to be and just because you do not like it here, does not make it dumb or stupid or anything like that. I am tired of people calling Alameda bad names. ... Just because people live in Oakland and it’s where all the “cool people” live, does not make everywhere else dumb ... (My dad works in Oakland and he has seen people get shot but he loves it there and he says he would not want to work anywhere in the world but in Oakland but you do not see him talking trash about Alameda.)"

Before I moved into Alameda, I lived in Downtown Oakland for about 10 years. In my mind, there isn't much of a difference between both cities but Alameda ends up to be better if you think about it. To me, Alameda is a much safer place to live and people are much more peaceful here. When I lived in Oakland, I got robbed and there were so many places in which people were hurt or raped. Oakland is much dirtier where I live and there are a lot of homeless people there. In Alameda, the streets are much cleaner and I don't see any homeless people around here. There are much more events in the city of Alameda compared to Oakland. 


There doesn't seem to be any difference on other areas. In both cities, the people are nice. In my school, there are many people that come from Oakland and I don't have a problem with them. They are actually pretty cool people to be with. Both educational environments are similar. There are those that drop out and those that continue to become successful. 

Into the wild by Jon Krakauer book 2nd response/ review

I continue to enjoy reading this book even though many of my group mates begin to lose interest. After reaching to the second paper clip, I thought that Chris (Alex Supertramp) McCandless lived an abnormal life but it seemed reasonable that happened to him. In the beginning of the section, Krakauer reported on a couple of other people that had also ended up similar to Alex; they arrive in Alaska to start a new life in the wild but ends in death.

I believed that Chris had lived an abnormal life because he didn't want to be successful in college but rather explore nature. He ran away from home. He enjoyed being by himself much more that hanging out with the friends that he makes. He donated all his money instead of using it on his trips. On the other hand, I also thought that it was reasonable because he had many family problems. The parents constantly yelled at each other so only his sister was close to him. If his sister wasn't there, then he would be by himself. He was also influenced by a writer named Jack London that expressed the fantasies of living in Alaska.

In our lit circle discussion, we also discussed about what would have happen if he had survived and was rescued by the Alaska state troopers. We said that he could have been traumatized by the course of events and would not go back into the wild again or at least Alaska. We believe that Chris McCandless would have settled down in Carthage and make a family. He would continue to work for Wayne Westernberg in the mills or become someone popular like his father, Walt. He might have become the veteran's adopted son and live with him for the rest of his life.

Throughout this book, our group thought that Alex actually wanted to come back and that his death was something unexpected to him even though he had entered with very little gear. He had promised many things to other people in his letters to them that he would survive and come back to meet them.

Sleep by Carly Cheung response post

Sleep, one of the most essential things to life. It is a way in which animals regain their energy from a long day. Even after a long day of school, we go home and do our homework. In ASTI, there are loads of homework to be done in a day. Many of us tend to work on it until midnight or later. On Carly's response post to Ruby's post, she discusses how she is working until late at night doing homework due on later days because she knows that she probably doesn't have time on other days.

"I am doing my post wayyy earlier than I am supposed to because I know I won't have time tomorrow or Friday. So, I found this post especially appealing because it is about sleep. Right now it is eleven something and I yearn to sleep early, at least once" - Carly Cheung

I can relate to her in so many ways. Typically on a school night, I would work until I finish the homework that is due the next day. If it is still early before or a little after at ten o'clock or so, I would continue working on homework that isn't due yet like blog posts or projects. Typically, my max amount of time that I usually end at is at 12 midnight. If I past that time, then I would not get the minimum requirements of sleep of 7 hours. If I do past that time limit if doing homework, I would feel sleepy all morning long. I don't really pay attention in class and always find myself daydreaming, but I never sleep. Until PE, I don't really feel excited. So what's the point of homework if it causes the lack of sleep. It would serve no purpose and instead become something negative. In a way, homework is steering students off to the wrong path in which it guides us that life has too many obstacles and too little time to get across them.

I did a post similar to this a while back, it consisted much more things that I said about sleep and homework.