This is my citizenship homework. I worked in my church nursery. I work there every week and play with the younger kids. We give them snack and do an activity with them. 

This is gracie's fourth quarter benchmark.

   There is a controversy over if race has to deal with why people are faster than others. For instance in a lot of people who win the worlds fastest runner or relays are usually black. Does this mean that black people somehow are faster then everyone else? NO, here's why. A man by the name of William Saletan wrote an article on a test thats being marketed in the U.S. The test was made to see if you can tell whether a child is meant to play sports and if so maybe even what kind. The test looks at a specific gene ATCN3. Some people were arguing that it didnt have to do with the gene but the race of the athlete instead.

Art to me is the creation of something that when first looked might just be a glimpse. What i mean is art is turning something you might look at to something you see. Basically everything you see is art. It might not always be art in the eye of someone else, but it might be to you. Turning how i feel and my thoughts into art is my expression of showing what i see in my life. Not only is the process part of that but it's also the final product. Starting a piece isn't always easy but when it's finished and you can look at it and be like, wow i can see, feel and know what that piece means, means you created a masterpiece. 

My painting of the statue of liberty.

1. It’s a translation of what I am feeling. There’s most likely astory within the piece of art. I feel understood when a piece is done well.

2.finished.

Understood.

Relieved.

Meaning.

Sufficient.

Stressfree.

This interview is with Marcellous. He is one of my friends who is a first time voter. 

We talked about how he felt about the election and about his opinions on certain issues.

This is an interview with Kari, she is a student at PENN. This year she got to vote for the first time.

I interviewed her on her experience and we talked about different issues with the election. 

There are several things that make a good podcast. If you have good flowing conversation that has good questions that keep not only the interviewer interested but also the person being interviewed. The topic should also be interesting so that the conversation can just keep going on. If music is put in the podacast it shouldn't blur the other voices out. Also it be better if the music didn't have words in it because it could distract the people who are listening. If you decide to put music on there it should kind of blend in with the mood.  

    So far our group has split up the scence and we have looked for things that have to do with manipulation. We all did that for our scenes. Luckily our group had is pretty well together and got all our scenes done by today.

    Today we had to decide quickly what were are going to do for the presentation. We unanimously decided on a podcast. Working in a team gives you and advantage to help eachother out and spread the work out so that each person doesn't have to much.

Right now in the unit of studyin Othello we are in groups for a project. The group i have is really good. I have Autumn, Moriah, and Vince. Together we are working well and have divided up the work evenly and without any fuss. Each person has about 4 scenes to look up and find themes and quotes about manipulation. From donig this i have read the book over and saw it more in a prespective of people manipulating everyone around them to make them fit in their better interest. Looking at the book from another view gives you a broader prespective on how it was written and what Shakespear might be trying to get across.

Rght now we are reading Othello in english. We are specifically talking about Iago turning on his so called best friend and doing this all through the jelousy of Othello's beautiful wife Desdemona. What I have learned so far is how to look at things and try and figure out what is going on and what might happen. Yesterday we made a map of the characters, events, and what happened. Our class has also been having deep conversations about everything and about what we think and what are predictions to what may happen further on in the book may be.

   Finding articles on domestic violence hasn't been as hard. Finding the specific articles that I have been looking for such as articles on women who have been abused in Honduras has been a little more difficult. The articles that I've been looking at now have been more about who is abusing women specifically and what certain people have been doing about it.

   I am slightly behind on posts becuase of technical difficulties. I plan on getting back on track with them when I get my computer back.

   We started the action plan. At least we started the outlining. I was able to fill out alot. I have a change agent lined up to talk to. The person I have is from A.S.J. They said they  are willing to talk to me about what the orginization does, and what their aim is, and several other details. Overall the project is going O.K. I just need to catch up on blogs and make a good action plan and follow through with it.

    Lately it’s been a little harder finding information on domestic abuse. I haven’t come to a spot where I find nothing obviously, but I have come to a place where I am kind of stuck. I haven’t been able to find exactly what I have been looking for. I was looking for more on abuse to young women and there weren’t as many articles that appealed to me.
    It took me a while to get things together for my elevator pitch. I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do. At first I wanted to do a power point. Then I decided a keynote. Following that I figured out that I didn’t know as much as I thought I did to make a nice slide show. My friend then mentioned a nice poster. I wasn’t able to get facts and pictures together as quickly as I had hoped. It probably would have been easier if I started earlier and planned ahead of time. I finally decided to write an essay.
    I am a slightly behind on posts and thing. However I am slowly catching up. Hopefully this week I will find some good articles and be able to

Domestic violence is a worldwide problem. It isn't just known in the U.S. or in Latin American countries. One country that has suffered terribly from it is Pakistan. In the past year of 2007 there was a reported 7,870 cases of violence against women. In 2006 the numbers were shorter. There was a reported 7,564 cases. In the article that states these facts it also shows a closer look into the statistics of what kind of abuse the women received. “out of the 7,870 cases, 1,306 were of murder, 104 of murder after rape, 487 of rape, 272 of gang rape, 1,745 of physical abuse, 810 of Karo Kari, 199 of burn cases, 1,321 of kidnap for ransom, 182 of human trafficking and 1,041 cases of suicide were reported. Moreover, 193 women were subjected to torture by the police and 210 cases were of the Hudood Ordinance.”  It’s clear that domestic violence should be viewed at more then just a simple problem. It’s a horrible huge problem that more people should be looking at. These numbers could be down dramatically if someone took the time to care and help protect women from violence such as this.

     Every time I read an article about domestic violence something hits me. Hearing each story about how a woman was abused and why she was gets me every time. It’s like I want to help her or any woman, but they are out of reach. The most I can do is make sure my friends don’t get involved with the wrong people and know whom their real friends are.
    Finding research on domestic violence hasn’t been hard. One of the specific things I was looking for was domestic violence in Honduras. I remembered that last summer on a family trip to Honduras we went to an organization that helps prevent domestic violence and helps women who have been involved in it. The organization that we saw was Association For A More Just Society (ASJ). I was able to come in contact with someone from the organization for my change agent. He said he would be able to talk to me about what ASJ does and that he would be able to share some stories and more information about the whole set up.

     Many victims of domestic violence tend to keep quiet about what happened to them. Either they are scared of the person who is harming them, or they just don’t know what kind of help to get or where to get it. One type of person who is surprisingly close to people and some people actually go to for help or advice is their hair cutter. Here is a quote from the national program, “salon professionals are among the most trusted people a woman knows. They know all about each other's lives, families, children, jobs and more. But sometimes more is needed. When a woman is in an abusive relationship, she needs help but may not know where to turn.”
    Nicole Wiley is an instructor at Poway Academy. This school is one of the few cosmetology schools that are teaching their students to help victims involved in domestic violence find the right help they need. The program is called "Cut It Out." Women can go and talk with them and they will help them find the resources they need to get the help or care that they need provided for them.

Domestic violence appears in several situations. One big situation that is horribly true and occurs too much is within a marriage. Some husbands tend to think that they own their wife and that they have power over their wife. The way they control this power is by abuse.
The war has cause a lot of issues everywhere. One of those many issues is domestic violence . With many people being off in the war or involved with something related to that all they see and observe is violence. Then when they go home the only way they know how to solve a problem is violence. Some people end up taking their anger out with abuse to people close to them. This isn’t always the case though. One example of this problem involves a Sergeant.
    Sgt. William Edwards were having some problems within their marriage. It was shortly after he got back from Iraq and was staying at an army base in Texas. He beat his wife Sgt. Erin Edwards mercilessly. Lucky for Mrs. Edwards she knew how to work the system so she could protect herself from the violence committed against her. She sent her kids away to be with her mom and arranged for a transfer to a base in New York. She pressed charges against him too.
    Despite all the efforts of protecting her and making sure her husband was secured and away from where he could harm her he was able to escape and drove to her house in Texas. He then proceeded to wait until she came out and after a short tough struggle he shot her straight in the head. He then turned the gun to himself.
    This is a horrible sad truth. Many wives and children have to suffer from things such as these. One way you can help people out with issues such as these is support them and make sure they know you are there and try and get them help.

Researching women abuse has been a very interesting topic. Some things that surprised me was why women are abused and why they don't help themselve's to try and get out of it. It's sad how much women are abused and what they have to deal with. One thing that has been hard to find specifically is finding information on women being abused in Honduras. I wanted to look at that so I could compare the abuse to women in the US compared to a different country. As the project goes on I want to look at abuse to women all over the US and in several other countries around the world. To reach deadlines I plan to do posts at the begining of the week and the end of the week. I think so far the project is going O.K. There are some difficulties but in the end it all comes out fine. It's interesting because you can look deep into something that interests you but you don't hear much about.

Abuse to women is a very common thing. It has almost become a way of living for some men. Abusing women they are close to in some way or not close to at all somehow gives them a comfort of having control and pwoer over something. You could maybe describe it as them being the controller of their own plow. Their are some instances where women are abused and they feel trapped and as though they can't leave and escape from it. Here is a quote from Cece Hodgson-McCauley's article on abuse to women. She says "In abusive families some women put up with abuse because they are afraid to walk out on account of the children." As the article goes on she states that women should not have to leave their enviornment because of a single man hurting her. Instead he should have to leave. She states that hopefully more people will take a stand and stand up for what she is fighting for, and for the rights of each individual woman in the world.