On the first day of Christmas Alvin gave to me a headache that lasted all week

On the second day of Christmas Alvin gave to me two pairs of undies

On the third day of Christmas Alvin gave to me three ginormous loogies

On the fourth day of Christmas Reggie gave to me four broken zebra legs

On the fifth day of Christmas Sensei gave to me five sweet bananas

On the sixth day of Christmas my dad gave to me six used syringes

On the seventh day of Christmas Steven gave to me seven swans a-frying

On the eigth day of Christmas Andrew gave to me eight keys to the Omega Lock

On the nineth day of Christmas Xiang Hua gave to me nine answers to the test

On the tenth day of Christmas Brian gave to me ten gimongous bear hugs

On the eleventh day of Christmas You Rong gave to me eleven pops in my ear drum

On the twelfth day of Christmas ryan gave to me twelve annoying drum slams

“Jean Valjean’s Conscience”

In Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, the hero, Jean Valjean, is an ex-convict, living illegally under an assumed name and wanted for a robbery he committed many years ago. [Actually, no — he is only wanted for breaking parole.] Although he will be returned to the galleys — probably [in fact, actually] for life — if he is caught, he is a good man who does not deserve to be punished. He has established himself in a town, becoming mayor and a public benefactor. One day, Jean learns that another man, a vagabond, has been arrested for a minor crime and identified as Jean Valjean. Jean is first tempted to remain quiet, reasoning to himself that since he had nothing to do with the false identification of this hapless vagabond, he has no obligation to save him. Perhaps this man’s false identification, Jean reflects, is “an act of Providence meant to save me.” Upon reflection, however, Jean judges such reasoning “monstrous and hypocritical.” He now feels certain that it is his duty to reveal his identity, regardless of the disastrous personal consequences. His resolve is disturbed, however, as he reflects on the irreparable harm his return to the galleys will mean to so many people who depend upon him for their livelihood — especially troubling in the case of a helpless woman and her small child to whom he feels a special obligation. He now reproaches himself for being too selfish, for thinking only of his own conscience and not of others. The right thing to do, he now claims to himself, is to remain quiet, to continue making money and using it to help others. The vagabond, he comforts himself, is not a worthy person, anyway. Still unconvinced and tormented by the need to decide, Jean goes to the trial and confesses.

1. Did he do the right thing?  Why?  Why not? He did do the right thing. Even though he needed to help other people,he can’t sit back and watch someone go to jail who has done nothing wrong.
2. What do you think? I think that the judge should let him go with a short sentence for good behavior and because he learned his lesson and is helping people. It was the right thing to do turn himself in.

Sam knew something was weird the second he got to class on Tuesday morning. He saw kids whispering and pointing at him. Some were looking at him funny. He sat down next to his best friend and picked up the graded report the teacher, Mr. Crosby, had graded over the weekend. Sam looked at the ” A-“ and forgot about the rest of the class for a minute. He had worked hard at that report and was thrilled it had paid off. He looked up and saw a bunch of kids staring at him. While the teacher cleaned up the white board, Sam whispered to Dylan, “ What’s going on?” Dylan, looked down and said quietly, “Conner told everyone you copied your report from the internet.” “ But, that’s a lie!” Sam said. “I never cheat and everyone knows it.” He was hurt and angry. He couldn’t focus the rest of the morning in class.

At recess he went up to Conner and asked him if he had really told everyone he had cheated. “ It’s no big deal,” Conner scoffed. “ I only told a few people. Lighten up. It was just a joke.” Sam turned and walked away. He wanted to yell at Conner, or hit him, or something. He just wanted to make Conner feel as bad as Conner had made him feel.

For the next two days, Sam avoided Conner but Sam and Dylan made up as many lies as they could think of about Conner to get back at him. They told kids that he was jealous of anyone who did well in school because he almost failed fourth grade last year. They told the girl Conner liked that he still wet his bed sometimes. But it wasn’t helping. Sam was still just as mad at Conner. In fact, all he thought about now was Conner and what he had done.

On Friday, Mr. Crosby had all three boys stay to talk with him during recess. He told them they had until the end of recess to work out whatever it was that was going on between them. If they had not all forgiven each other by the end of recess, they had to go to the principal’s office. Then Mr. Crosby left the classroom.

The three boys stared angrily at each other waiting for someone to say something. Sam didn’t know what to say. All he knew was that he was tired of being mad and hurt. What could he do to make it stop? And what did Mr. Crosby mean by all forgive each other?

Guide questions:

1. Do you think all three boys need to apologize? Why or why not? I really don’t understand why adults always say that the kids in an argument have to apologize to each other even if they don’t mean it. As long as they understand what they did was wrong and forgave each other, then its fine.
2. Who do you think is the most guilty of doing wrong. Why? I think that doing something that you know is wrong is just… WRONG. There is no real bad part eccept for the guilt.
3. Do you think it will improve their friendship if Sam forgives Conner? I don’t think they will become friends because they both hurt each other. Conner should apologize to Sam for saying that he cheated, Sam should apologize to Conner for the other things he did, and Conner should forgive Sam because Sam only fought back. But Sam should still apologize to Conner because what he did was just as bad and very immature, if not, worse.
4. Have you ever been in a position like this? What happened? Would you make the same choices if you were in the position again? I was in Sam’s position. People have made up stupid rumors about me that were totally not true and it got me super omega totally angry at that person/people. I never retaliated like Same did because that would be just as bad. I made the right choice by not doing anything to that person because it was her/his choice and he/she will have to live with themselves. Anyone who does make up rumors about other people really has some SELF ESTEEM ISSUES and is trying to make himself/herself feel better. It’s just too immature and totally wrong. In fact, I had a friend who I thought I could trust, but he suddenly started becoming a jerk. He told everyone that he couldn’t trust me anymore, but I never did anything to him. He also said that I told everyone secrets about him, but I don’t even know what he was talking about!! I didn’t do anything to him, but he started telling people that I liked someone who he knows I DO NOT like. He also told everyone that I was very untrustworthy, but it’s quite the opposite. A couple months before, I had told him my msn password and he told me his. Just recently, he changed his password and went onto my msn account and deleted the contact of the person who he told everyone that I liked and one other related person. I’m pretty sure that he said a couple other things that I don’t know yet. After all that, he lied and said he didn’t do anything to me. I never did do anything, and after what he did to me, I didn’t do anything to fight back even though there are countless things about him I could tell everyone.
5. Is there someone in your life right now that you might need to forgive for something? No, but there is someone in my life now who made up many rumors about me that were TOTALLY not true even though I did nothing at all to those people. I will not forgive them because they are just jerks who need more attention. They have never said anything to me about it and have never apologized. I would forgive them if they said they were sorry and truely meantit, but I highly doubt that.
6. What does it feel like to forgive someone? Why do you think that is? I always feel good and happy when I forgive someone because I know it makes them feel better about what they did. But if the person doesn’t apologize for anything, then they don’t deserve to be forgiven and I don’t feel happy for them.

To anyone who makes up rumors:

You guys SERIOUSLY have issues and please, if you aren’t good enough for your own expectations, don’t take it out on other people, especially if they have done NOTHING wrong to you. Also, I know that ALL of you do that just to hurt someone so that you can feel better about your pathetic selves or so that other people will like you more than the person you made rumors about.

You people who do that are just mega screwed up. Get a life.

• How to make a website
• How to make animations
• How to fix certain computer problems

1. How do you like our LINUX computers so far?   They are ok, but they get kind of sow when a bunch of people are using them at the same time.

I tried The GIMP but it is really weird and it wouldn’t let me do what I wanted to do. Today, I will rest for a long time after school because, believe it or not, we have no math homework!! I also have to change the layout for my blog because it doesn’t show my links. After this I will comment people because I haven’t done that in a while.

I am so glad that this week we have a four day weekend!!! But my dad will have to go in on parent-teacher conference day, so I will probably watch DVD’s on my dads computer for a couple of hours. I might finally persuade my dad into taking us to the restaurant Issin at the westen, because the food there is so good. We haven’t been there in a long time because my dad sais it’s too expensive to go to on a regular basis. I hope I will do a lot of fun things this weekend.

I didn’t know we were going to have a substitute today, so I was taking a rest on the bench and I thought that I would have a lot of time because Mr. Maiquez is always late. I didn’t expect it when our teacher came much earlier than usual. I was upset that I wasn’t able to have a rest.