Precalculus/ Trigonometry CRR

This year has been extremely difficult, but I have no choice but to suck it up and deal with it. In my precalculus class we are currently practicing to take the Algebra II/ Trigonometry regents. The questions that appear on the practice exams we take are so difficult and tedious as many steps have to be taken in order to arrive at the correct answer. Over time the questions seems easier and I am more confident about answering the questions, especially the short answer. Ms. Rios told us that in order to have a greater chance of passing the exam we have to have at least 20 multiple choice questions correct. To me this seems very intimidating especially because there are only about 25-27 multiple choice questions, but on practice exams I answer at least 18 or 19 questions correctly. At the end of the day my goal is to get an 85 or better on this regents exam and start to learn the basic fundamentals of calculus.

A Star is Born

If anybody told me that I would be dancing in public I would have never believe it. For years I spent a lot of my time in my room practicing how to dance like Michael Jackson, Usher, and James Brown. While I was growing up I did not have a lot of confidence because of how I looked while I was going through puberty; I had bad acne and a very deep voice. The kids at school would make fun of me and call me names, but I thrive to be a better dancer. However, as I became older I started to gain my confidence and I even started to dance in public.

The DJ starts playing my life-changing song in the cafeteria and every student turned around eagerly, waiting for me to make a fool out of myself. I jumped out of my seat presenting the impression that I was going to dance as if to be funny, and I quickly sat back down. I turned to my friend of five years and all I remember him saying was, “So you're not about to dance though, you told me you were.” Of course, I had forgot about this promise, but I always keep my word; so I took a deep breath, went out to the middle of the cafeteria, and started doing what I do best. At the end of my performance, I threw my hat into the crowd, and it felt like I was throwing away years of criticism and jokes away for good. Really for good because I never got that hat back. After lunch, I had an indescribable power because everyone was still cheering and talking about my performance for weeks. One of my classmates told me that I was a hit on Instagram because everyone admired the ten second clip of my magic, calling me “Young Mike” or “Teree J.” After all those years, I finally felt like I found my abandoned Teree.

Free Choice "Senior Year"

Senior year has been one of the most stressful experiences I ever had thus far. Financial issues, classes, and time management have all been very difficult for me to balance. Now that I am a senior I have more responsibilities and it seems that I have no support from anyone. It feels like every one expects so much from me, but they do not realize that I am only one person. People keep saying "Have you thought about these things," but do they understand that this is my last year to do everything I wanted to do from so long ago. Now that the school year has progressed I feel that I am doing better than before, but now I just have to keep it up.

AP Biology

ID November 19

AP Biology is the hardest class that I have ever taken. At first when I signed up to take this course I thought I was somewhat prepared because I knew something about life because of Living Environment and Mentoring in Medicine, but I was completely wrong. In addition to the basic information that you already know you have to learn additional minor details. For example, in Living Environment you only had to know what photosynthesis was but in AP Biology you have to know the Calvin Cycle, transfer of electrons, and photosystems. Despite the class being difficult I will still try to do my best.

Dance

SSR November 5

A video that I was watching that made me come to realization  about the future of our generation is "Hot Boy" by Bobby Shmurda. This music video is one of my favorites, and the song has a dance that anyone can do. However, back in the day artists would create dance moves that almost seemed impossible to perform.

Everybody knows the moonwalk or the 5g's because when you tried to do it you might fall down and make a fool of yourself. You would try so hard to create that illusion of the move and still did not perfect it. If you try to do a current dance like the Shmoney dance or the Gangnam Style, you do not even have to think twice before you do it. This makes me believe that we do not take dancing seriously anymore and the amount of thought artists used to create these dances do not exist in most of our artists today.
         

My Passion

Many people will most likely say that I am passionate about Michael Jackson and I am, but right now I have a passion for Barnard College as well. For me Barnard College is the school of my dreams because it is an all female college with division I basketball and the majors that I intend to study. The best part about Barnard is that it is in the city. The benefit of that is that anytime I want go home I can just take the train. To me being in a female dominated society is very powerful and a major step from high school. I feel that if I go to Barnard I will meet people who are serious about what they need to get done who are willing to commit to that. Also being able to be on a basketball team with females who really admire the sport and not just use it as an excuse to have something good to say about themselves is very exciting. After I graduate from Thurgood Marshall Academy I hope to be wearing that Barnard college sweater on 116th street.

It's not fair

I feel that the definition of plagiarism is too complex and the laws are too specific and allow no room for people to reiterate the ideas of others. Yesterday in class we discussed "What is plagiarism?" and "What laws are put into place to protect people's ideas?" There were many loop holes that later made me angry because I felt that if an artist puts his work out there for others to read then he must want them to share it with others. I know sometimes people steal others work for their own egocentric purposes, however, if they want to share their favorite lyrics from a song they should have the right to do so because it helps the artist sell more albums and have more people download his music. I feel that these laws are implemented to protect people's publishing rights, but there are times when individuals accidentally sign away there copy rights; now tell me why are there no plagiarism laws for that.

An example of how even plagiarism laws could not even protect artists is The Beatles. Last year I read the book, Michael Jackson: The Madness, The Music, The Whole Story, where I learned that Michael Jackson bought the copyrights of  nearly all the Beatles' songs. When John Lennon and Paul McCartney signed their first contract they gave away all their copyrights without even knowing it. After years went by, in 1985 Michael Jackson was able to  buy the copyrights to an entire catalog of The Beatles songs for $47 million. It was funny because Michael Jackson even warned Paul McCartney that he was going to own all of his songs. Now I am most definitely not mad at Michael because what he did was completely legit, but I also feel sorry for Paul McCartney because he does not own the rights to songs that he put all of his hard work into. This story made me feel that we focus too much on people stealing peoples work instead of focusing on how an author can keep his work.