Bigger Then Life

Did I ever tell you about the time I got my concussion...?

I'd always had a heart for soccer. I loved to play it and I love the challenge I got going up against bigger kids then me. My coach always told me to, "Play with NO fear!" So that's what I did. In order to stand out when playing a team sport like soccer you have to have something no one else has. But for me I was the opposite, I had no fear, and that's what made me good.

It was the second or fourth game in the spring season and we were playing the Plymouth Rain. We had won our last division so the last few games were pretty tough. But their was something about this team that made them look unstoppable. They had speed skill and plenty of size. They out matched our team in ever categorie. Ike the Trojans in 300 we were not scared, we took the field with confidence and straight faces.

As the game moved on the fouls got harder and game more intense. Sean ripped a shot but the goalie saved it with ease. The ball fell off the goalies foot and soared past midfield. With out thinking a sprung into the air. The next parts a little blurry I remember kneeling on the ground one hand on the ground the other clutching my head and blood dripping down my face. I must have looked like a drunk stumbling out of a bar. As soon as I hit the sideline my dinner came up and my coach knew what had happened.

30 minutes later I sat on doctors bench that was as soft as a cloud. I can’t remember his name but I wish I could, he was my savoir. Within ten minutes he had eased the pain from my head. But unfortunately my night wasn’t over. I had to get a cats. scan and wait for the results to come back. While waiting a had o good hour conversation wit a stranger I felt I knew my whole life. They had found a tumor in his torso and he was waiting for the results to see if it was cancerous. We covered every topic from school to religion and back again.

My results came back first so I was unable to find out what happen to him. I went home and could only think of the man I knew as sir and what will become of him. Its amazing how something like a concussion can change your life in such a way.

Behind the Beautie

Hiding your poverty in the sight of the Olympics is wrong.

Hiding the worse side of you city will not help the community in the long run. It is only a temporary fix. After the other nations go home and all the medals are passed out whats supposed to happen next? They pick up right where they left off. Vancover is one of the first nations not to hind that they have problems. Just like every major cities they have drugs and gangs but unjlike China they are using this oprotunity to help their city. They have already turned an abandoned building into 600 low income housing for the poor.

Hiding your faults will not get you anywhere. If a teacher invites the princilple down to her class room but then sends out all the bad kids while he is their it will look like she is a wonderful teaacher. If she keeps the kid the principle may not see her as an amazing teacher but atleast then he can give her advice on how to stregthen her teaching abilities. Vancover sacraficing their image in order the strengthen the city which is what i believe should always be put first. Vancourvers pitch to the Olympic pitch included four pages that in cluded the idea we will do wants best for the city, and that is exactly what they are doing.

What I've Learned

A major change in my writing this year involved building of a thesis statement. I have learned to write a better persuasive paper by building off my thesis and developing more ideas. In the first persuasive paper I wrote I didn’t have a strong thesis statement or a topic sentence. Through many revisions and hard work I have really developed when it come to the structure of a persuasive papers. Suh as my one from my letter I wrote to the U.N. from Paul’s prospective, “As one who is witnessing all the killings…, I plead you to please the Interhamwi. I am still not a pro but I have really in proved. I technique I learned to help the structure of my paper be stronger was to plan out what I was going to write before I put anything down. I would plan out my thesis my topic sentence and my support then bled it all together in my writing. Doing this lead to a more organized and thought out paper.

In my reading I have learned a lot. I have been able to dissect a piece of writing and figure out the true meaning. The first time we read The American Scholar by Emerson I was lost. I had no idea what he was addressing or how this related to Global Ed. It took three days to really brake down the article word for word and make sense of each sentence. By the end of the week I had developed the idea Emerson was talking about how people are changing to more of a me culture which is hurting our society. For this experience I’ve learned how to take on big and confusing pieces of writing and brake them down.

For me the Rwandan genocide debate was one of the most interesting and fun things we have done. I have learned when going into a debate you can’t just prepare your selves to attack others opinions but you must ready yourself to be attacked. We came up with a couple of questions we knew we were going to face. By answering these ahead of time we were able to look ready and focus on questioning our foes and back our allies. We were representing France, and we knew that the question of us getting involved with the war just to keep the French name alive would come up. Of course if did we were able to deflect the bullet and then help back our good friend, Juvenal Habyarimana.

Another section I have learned a lot in is how to find a good article or information on a topic. I have given up Google and graduated to Infotrack and Mel. These sites lead me right to a creditable source so I don’t have to spend my time looking at each site that is brought up. Learning how to find reiable sources has also helped me when it comes to finding information. Now I don’t have to go to Wikipedia to learn about South African history and worry about what is true and what is just made up.

I have learned so much about Rwanda I don’t know where is start. I loved learning about it cause I knew so little and it scared yet fascinated me that 800,000 people could be killed and I not know about it until 9th grade. I learned that the tension between Hutus and Tutsis started way before the killings. The spark that started the fire was the plane crash of Juvenal. The fact that the power had just been turned back over to the Hutus before Belgium left. Their were Hutu extremists that lead the attacks from a radio station. These are only some of the 100's of facts I learned while studying Rwanda.

A Stromberg Tradition

Christmas is a time of gathering with family and sharing memorable times. Every year my family attends the 11 o’clock Christmas Eve candle light service. It was December 24th 2001 and little did we know that this year’s Candle light service was going to be one of the most memorable nights ever.
For those of you who don’t know at the end of the candle light service you grab a candle, light it and stand by while you sing Silent Night, this is the story of the most exciting 3 verses of my life.

Verse 1- Silent Night, Holy Night, All is calm all is bright.

We grow quite as the candles begin to light and the first verse begins. We walk down the aisle collect our candle light it and file back into our pews. I was only 8 at the time and being super responsible it was my first year with my own candle, but the flam only lasted a few minutes and went out.

Verse 2-Silent Night, Holy Night, Sheppard Quake at the sight.

My mom takes priority and decides to light a itinerary and then transfer the flam to mine. She leans over and lights the itinerary from my dad’s candle. Unexpectedly the paper goes up in flames faster then she can react. Protecting herself she drops the fire ball on my sister’s fake fur coat.

Verse 3- Silent night, Holy night, Son of God, Love’s Pure Light
The coat immediately catches fire and my whole family reacts by stomping on the coat over and over again. At this point we forgot about being discrete and had caught the attention of the people around us. The fire finally went out and the lights came on. As we surveyed the damage we had mixed emotions, we were sad yet couldn’t help to chuckle. There was a pretty significant black spot on the rug and my sister’s coat looked like road kill touched will gas then lit on fire.

We never attended another candle light service at the same place. Actually we left that church about 2 months later. Now every Christmas Eve we have to retell the story of our own Christmas miracle.

Frances role in Rwandan Genocide

During the Rwandan debate in Mr. Fielder’s 6th hour class I had the chance of defending France. Few people know the details about the Rwandan genocide and at first some my think France was just an innocent by stander of situation. In the past week I have studied and learned how attached France was to Rwanda and also how big of role they played in the genocide.

Frances connection to Rwanda dates back to 1975 (way before the genocide even started) when France signed a military agreement with the president Juvenal Hayarimana. In just a few years President Hayarimana developed a personal bond with France. He made many trips to France to see Francois Mitterrand, a Socialist leader of France. Due to the military agreement France started to help teach and strengthen the Rwandan army. They claimed they were just their in order to support and stabilize Rwanda, others accuse them of using this engagement with Rwanda as a way of keeping there name and language a world power.

When President Hayarimana’s plane was shot down, by the way the plane was bought by France and given to Hayarimana as a gift, France took action. They immediately sent in private investigators to find out who shot down the plane. At this time though the killings had started and the Hutus were killing all Tutsis in their sight. Even some Rwanda soldier’s were blamed in the killing of innocent Tutsis. When France found out about the mass killings they stopped all support to the Rwandan Armed Forces.

Many would think they would switched sides and defended the innocent Tutsis, but that was not the case. They helped for only a couple weeks but after witnessing the death of 10 UN soldier and once they got all there men and French natives out they left. They thought that then 10 lives was worth the 800,000 Tutsis killed. This is only one nation intertwined in the Rwandan genocide there are many other nations and political parties that refused to help.

The worse part about the genocide is that it went unnoticed. America refused to even recognize is horrible occurrence and the UN didn’t call it a genocide because if they did they would have to encounter into the war. 800,000 innocent people died and it went unnoticed even to this day you can ask your parents or grand parents about it and they wont know what your talking about. In this past month searching and learning about the Rwandan genocide has really opened my eyes.


P.S.-If anyone would like to learn more about the genocide I would highly recommend the movie Hotel Rwanda.

"The American Scholar"

Emerson’s argument in “The American Scholar” about the American society still holds true today. One reason Emerson’s argument still holds true today is the idea that American’s are still taught to specialize in one section of research or one type of career. Just last week my counselor came into my class and talked about the 6 career pathways. He went on to talk about how we need to choose a pathway quickly so we could schedule the classes that fit into that pathway. From an early age we are told to pick a career and stay with it. This is the exact idea that Emerson argues in his book “The American Scholar.”

People play their roll in life like a football player plays his roll on the field. Yes this works but when a quarterback can only throw and the lineman can only block your teams going to be half way decent. If you want to be a great team you need to have Tim Tebow as your quarter back, in other words someone who is strong fast and can run well too. People need to break the habits of zeroing in on one topic or specialty. We need to open up and look out for others just as much as we look out for ourselves.

The Perfect Milkshake

Scoop it in
Using an ice cream scooper scoop the wanted amount of ice cream into pitcher. Remember that the pitcher is still in the motor or main base. If you want to make small milkshakes then you add 3 scoops of ice cream for every person that wants one. For a large milkshake scoop in 4 scoops of ice cream for every person that wants one.

Add some Flav’
Like the milk measure the amount of chocolate syrup before you put it in, measure in tablespoons. For a small milkshake add 2 tablespoons of chocolate for every person that wants one. For a large add around 3 1/2 tablespoons for every person that wants one.

Poor it in
Always measure the milk before pouring it in, a measuring cup would probably is the best. For a small milkshake pour in just 1/4 of a cup for everyone that wants one. For a large milkshake pour in 2/3 cups of milk for everyone that wants one.

Mix it All Together
Blending is tricky you have to do it perfect, because it’s different every time I can’t tell how long to blend. When blending always keep one hand on top of the blender and the other on the switch. Begin by just turning on the blender for just 2 or 3 seconds, once done tack off the top and push the ice cream done near the blades with a spoon. When doing this part of the step make sure the blender is off. Next put the top back on and blend for 5 to 6 seconds this time rock the blender back and forth. Turn the blender off, take of the top off again and take a spoonful of the milkshake and taste it if you like it you can move on. If it is too watery the milkshake is rowan. If it is to thick still keep blending in intervals of 2 to 3 seconds until you like the texture, then you can proceed.

Out it comes
Pouring seems simple but if you do it wrong you can spill the milkshake everywhere. Take the pitcher of the motor or main base; tilt the pitcher a little bit more the 45 degrees above a cup. Using a large spoon genially guide the milkshake out into the cup. Do not rush.

Fix it up
If you have any milkshake on the outside of the cup wipe if off using a dishtowel. You don’t have to do this step but I always do. Shake that whipped cream bottle before using turn at a 90 degree angle and push very top add as much as you like. Twirl it up so it looks an up-side-down cone. Drizzle a little chocolate syrup over the whipped cream and enjoy.

Clean it up
Cleaning may seem hard but it is easy. You put back the main base where you found it. Pour water into the pitcher a couple of times to get most of the extra milkshake out. Then take it apart, turn the pitcher upside down and start with black base. The pitcher, the black base, the blade and plastic washer, the large spoon, and the cup or cups you used can all go in the washer. Then all you have to do is wipe down the area you use with a wet rag.


More Chocolate
Adding chocolate chips doesn’t have to be precise like adding milk or chocolate syrup. I usually put in half a hand full for every small milk shake I am making and a handful for every large milkshake I am making.