Vocabulary Words from Fable Haven book five and Janitors book one

Vocab words from Janitors book one

Witches

        I think the definition of witches is evil people (sometimes good) that hold the mysterious power to turn people into toads and stir cauldrons.

       The real definition of witches is "a woman thought to have evil magic powers".

Appropriate

       I think appropriate means that something you say or do isn't bad for what your doing

       The definition I found read "suitable or proper in the circumstances".

Vocab from Fable Haven book five

Improvising

       I think improvising means to provide something by making it out of the materials you have.

      The real definition is to "create or perform without preparation".

Sense

     I think sense means to feel like something is happening or going to happen.

     It actually means "a feeling that something is the case".

Meddle

     I think it means to purposely get involved in something.
     It actually means "to interfere in".

Actually

     I think actually means that instead of something its somethings else.
     The real definition is "as the facts or truth of a situation; really".

Activities

    I think activities means the things you do as daily routines.
    The real definition is "the condition in which things are happening".

Brick

    I think brick means something made from a hard material that is shaped like a block.
    The real meaning is "a small rectangular block".

Artifact

    I think that artifact means an object that is valuable to someone.
    It really means "an object made by a human being.

Mind
     I think mind means the stuff you think about, its basically talking about the brain.
     It actually means "the element of a person that allows them to think and feel".

When the Volcano Cries

                                 

                                             When the Volcano Cries

               Thunder rumbles beneath the earth's dirt layer.  The surrounding land shudders violently.  For a brief few seconds the island lies hushed.  Suddenly that once peaceful mountain exhales a fiery breath into the air.  Tears plummet down the mountains face as it painfully washes away any zits or moles.  

               The river of tears falls off his face into a puddle.  As the puddle expands it begins to ooze across the land.  The searing tears sweep over trees and shrubs.  They race each other to see who's the fastest.  

               Back at the mountain it gives another angry breath, expelling more contestants for the race.  As the contestants race down the mountain's face, the smoke escapes the burning haze.

               The smoke grabs hold of his girlfriend --the ash.  She accepts his hand and darts up along with him.  Its then that they begin to dance.  

               By now the mountain's cried all it can, and it has no more tears to dismiss.  The last of his tears hurriedly flee down him to catch up to the rest.

               As they proceed, some accidentally descend in lakes, rivers, or streams.  The rest trudge on to prove that they can win.  When they finally start to catch up they begin to slow, because the cold starts eating them.  They pass by frozen comrades and still go on to win.  Competition feasts on their minds, and the cold beats on their backs.  Then they freeze like their friends, never to move again.

               Up in the sky the smoke fades, and the ash begins to fall.  For one last time they gaze at each other.  As she descends and he floats up they give one final kiss.  They try to stay together but she could not float.  So as they go separate ways they wave good bye, only to wait another thousand years to see each other again.

Flu Shot Causes Death: News from KSL

              In Sandy a woman claimed that her son passed away from a flu shot.  The nineteen year old boy was ready to submit his papers for a mission for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  He was also in full health.
              Chandler Blake Webb (the nineteen year old boy) got sick the day after he got the flu shot.  The article read that this was the first flu shot he ever had.
              In the hospital Chandler suffered from vomiting and shaking.  Then he fell into a comma.   About a month later he died.
              To find out the cause of his true death people ran tests on Chandler to see what he died of.  They found that he didn't die of decease.  The CDC says that they haven't seen the flu with this outcome before.  Experts wanted to do a brain autopsy on Chandler, but Miss Webb said no.
              I agree that Chandler died of the flu shot.  For some people flu shots don't work very well for them, and it makes them sick.  Another sign of evidence that Chandler died of a flu shot is the symptoms he had.  On the news it said that he was shaking, vomiting, and fell into a comma.  I looked up symptoms of the flu online, and it labeled those as symptoms of influenza (the flu).  Since shots are a weakened form of a virus it would make sense that he got the flu.  Maybe the virus in the shot wasn't actually weakened like the doctors thought.  If he was sensitive to the shot or the virus was too strong I don't know, but I think its the flu shot that killed him.

Responding to Racist Statements #2

1.  Racism only affects the person its used against

           I think that racism affects more that the person its used against.  When you use a racist comment against someone it makes other people feel bad.  

2.  Minorities are better off than they were fifty years ago

              I think that minorities are better off now than they were back then.  Back then (in the nineteen sixties) the minorities were forced to be slaves.  Now the minorities are free and they aren't slaves.

3.  Is being prejudice less than, more than or about the same in the US as it was fifty years ago

               I think that people aren't as prejudice as they were fifty years ago.  Back then they treated colored people horribly.  They even sprayed them with fire hoses.  Today, people are more respectful of each other.

4.  Do you think people in Utah get the same justice in court as people get in Florida

             I think that all states in the US have similar or the same justice in court because this is a free, governed country.  So if all the states in the US have the same justice then Florida must have the same justice as in Utah.

Read and Response to Courage Statments

1.  What does it mean to be courageous?

            To be courageous means to do something despite feeling scared.

2.  In general, who do you believe are the people that have the most courage?

          I think the most courageous people are the ones with the most self confidence, because they believe in themselves.  Believing is an important key to accomplish things.

3.  Who is the person your life you believe is the most courageous?  Why?

        I think the most courageous person in my life is my mom.  Even when she's feels nervous she pushes away her fears, and does what she set out to accomplish.  Sometimes its hard for her, but she presses forward anyways.

read and response: Topic-Prejudice

1)  Prejudice can be invisible

             I disagree, I don't think prejudice is invisible because people say rude things from judging others all the time, which hurts peoples feelings.  Also if your judgmentally of others in your mind, others can somehow sense that you think judgmentally of them.


2)  There is no prejudice in Asia or Africa (outside USA)

       There is prejudice all over the world, not just in the USA.  People are rude and call out offensive statements all the time.  It happens all over the world still.  Some people are still slaves in other countries. People tend to get judgmental easily.

3)  What is your definition of prejudice?  How does racism relate to prejudice?

        Prejudice is being judgmental of others.  The reason why racism is related to prejudice is because people are judgmental of other people with different colored skin.

4)  To Kill a Mockingbird has been banned in several states.  What is your opinion on banning books because of racial themes?

              I think that racial themed books shouldn't be banned.  The people need to learn to learn what occurred in the past, so that they don't make that same mistake of slaving (different colored skin) other people again.

Janitors book two by Tyler Whitesides

                I found this book to be better than the first.  Tyler Whitesides made the story more intense.  Although I don't think the writing was better he made up for it with the adventure in his book.  Things happened faster and you weren't kept waiting forever.  Also when he writes a paragraph that reviews what happened in the last story, he somehow writes it in a fun way.  Unlike the reviewing Brandon Mull did.
               Tyler has also put comic relief characters in his adventurous book.  Those characters are Daisy and Dez.  Things they mess up in saying or thinking makes you laugh.  An example is when Dez learns about the BEM, (Bureau of Educational Maintenance) and that Daisy and Spencer are leaving to go somewhere safe from the BEM.  He then says "Your not going to leave me here with the Big Evil Monkeys".
             I think that you have to be careful making unintelligent comic relief characters because sometimes people make them too stupid and then its not funny, its annoying.  Even though Tyler made his comic relief characters not very intelligent, he did a great job making then funny.  They add the icing on the cake to the story.
            To be protected Daisy, Spencer, and Dez go to a school called New Forest academy.  The school is supposed to be free of toxites.  The owner of it, Director Garcia seems nice and friendly through out the book.  He seems to care about the kids.  Then suddenly, he and every adult in the school (its a BEM school) take the intelligent kids and lock them in the tennis court.  They then have giant toxites feed on there brainwaves.  Spencer, Daisy, and Dez were captured by the janitor Slick, and Min (a kid who hasn't been exposed to toxites, but knew the three kids were kidnapped) helps them escape.  Then the four children go to rescue the other kids in the school.

Childhood Memories

                                                                    Sister Butler
     When I was a little girl my siblings and I often visited sister Butlers house (my relative).  We would ride on her lap while she pushed around in her wheel chair, and we would also play with Lincoln Logs.


                                                                   My Fifth Birthday
      Before moving to Eagle Mountain I had my last birthday there, my fifth birthday (in my grandmas house).  I remember having a barbie birthday, with barbie cake and party hats.  There were also edible balls covered with multicolored sprinkles.  I remember having Jared, Conner, McKenzie, and some other guests there.  Then that where my memory of my fifth birthday ends.


                                                                        McKenzie
               I remember that when I was little I would go play with one of my friends named McKenzie.  I think she lived in a couldisac and she had blond hair.  Sadly that's all I can recall.

Janitors book one by Tyler Whitesides

              I liked the creativity Tyler Whitesides (the author) used to establish his story.  In this story the janitors killed bad magical creatures (called toxites) to keep education from failing.  The toxites breath in the brain waves of kids and breath out waves of distraction, boredom, and drowsiness.  These toxic waves make the kids dumber.  The toxites only stay in elementary schools though, because the brain waves of most Jr high students and people older have foul brain waves to them.  Tyler claimed that there were three bronze hammers with matching nails that enabled a janitor to be a warlock.  The warlocks were the only people, besides the Aurains, who could use raw glop.  This glop made it so the warlocks could make magical weapons to fight the toxites with.  The only catch was that the things that were glopified had to be things that janitors use.  Evil people called the BEM, are installing their own janitors and letting toxites overrun schools.  Spencer and Daisy are working with Walter (the only good warlock) and the rebel underground (the good guys).  Together along with Marv, Walter assistant, they work against the BEM to save education.
               Honestly, I didn't really like the authors style of writing.  It was too easy to read, which made it less intense.  In Brandon Mulls book he used tons of large descriptive words that made the story intense, but Tyler Whitesides didn't do that.  The reason I read it was for the interesting story.  I've read the series before and I wanted to reread them.  The book I really want to read is the third one, because it is really creative and interesting.  Actually most of book one was rather dull.  It didn't really get interesting till the end.  It was kind of boring in a way.  The author didn't express the story well enough.

Read and respond to what you think about racism

               
 Question One:  All bad people are racist.

         You may think that only bad people are racist, but I think that's not quite accurate.  I'm sure many of the racist people aren't very good.  Other people, good people, might just be confused of deceived.  They may not recognize that their poor decision, and believe that they are doing the right thing.
         
Question Two:  Do you think racism is a touchy subject or not?      

          In my opinion racism is a touchy subject and it makes people kind of uncomfortable.  So if I were you I wouldn't talk about it openly.  also if your not careful you could hurt someones feelings.
               
Question Three:  Does racism exist today?

         Unfortunately racism still exists today.  Some individuals are racist and other places (outside the U.S.A) have tons of racist people.
                 
Question Four: Can you keep racism from affecting your children

          You will be unable to keep racism from affecting your children, because eventually they're going to hear about it.  Most likely they'll fell bad for the people that are disliked by racist people.

Fable Haven book five Author: Brandon Mull

                I liked that Seth has to get Vasilis, the sword of light and darkness, for his quest.  I thought how he confronted the Singing Sisters (to learn the location of the sword) was also creative.  I just wish it  had seemed more of a threat.  Again Brandon Mull was explaining how difficult it is to strike a bargain with the sisters, and the threat didn't seem as threatening as it should have been.  This is obviously something the other should work on.  I also thought that Brandon Mull needs to make the evil lurking in the cave behind the totem wall (in a cave) more threatening.  In the cave he only faces two obstacles, none of which I think a threatening enough.
                When Seth journeyed into the cave to face his final (second threat) threat I found it surprising that it was one of the undead.  Just like the undead that he first had to confront earlier in the cave.  As it continues on with the undead man conversing with Seth, its interesting to learn that the man is and once was a wizard.  In fact he was one of the wizards who sealed Zyncs (the demon prison).  The wizard also claims that he's the owner of Vasilis and that he was brought here to guard it.  Along with this interesting information you find out that he was a prideful wizard and was soon to die.  To try to stop the outcome of his death he turned himself into one of the undead to preserve his life.  Vasilis, like the unicorn horn, can only be given, even after death.  Well except after death your friends are free to take the sword but not your enemies.  Since the wizard was unwilling to part with the sword the other wizards (his friends) were forced to post him as a guardian over the sword.

What does it mean to be civilized?

               Though you may think that civilized means having lots of technology it doesn't.  To be civilized means that a group (or individual) can stage cultural, moral development, and being social.  In "The Most Dangerous Game", Zaroff thinks he's civilized because he has technology.  He isn't civilized because he hunts people which is not being social, and he's not showing moral development either.  So he isn't civilized.  To be civilized you must stage cultural, moral development, and being social.

Fable Haven book five: Reading response two

                   Momentarily I'm reading Fable Haven book five.  I've noticed that in the other books that Brandon Mull has told you what has previously happened in the other books.  This has really annoyed me, because I already know what happened in the other books and it takes time away from the story.  I'm just glad that in Fable Haven book five the author hasn't done that as much, and not as long either.  I think it makes the book more enjoyable.
                  I found the Sphinx's (bad guy)  background interesting.  When the Sphinx captured Seth he told him of his childhood.  He said as a child he was taken as a slave to work at the fifth secret preserve called Mirror Mirage.  This secret preserve is the one that no one was able to find.  The Sphinx said he acted like a good slave so his captors would get more comfortable around him, and eventually he could overthrow them.  He then did it with the help of a demon named Nagi Luna.  He said that she was perhaps the most powerful demon in the world.  So now he is trying to get the keys to open Zyncs, the great demon prison.  He believes that eventually someone will open it and then the world will be destroyed.  He thinks that if he is the one to open it then he can control the demons.  So really he has good intentions, but doesn't see the problem of the situation.
              I know from reading the book that the demons from the prison Zyncs escape because I've read the book before.  However I don't remember the end.  In book one they did say that the magic that locked up the demons in Zyncs was long forgotten.  No one knows how to stop demons that powerful anymore.  I predict that Kendra, her family, and her friends will some how find a way to stop the  demons from escaping as the prison slowly opens.  My other prediction for the ending is that maybe the demons will escape and then they will some how figure out how the wizards long ago imprisoned the demons.