Jordan

Sports fan, student, computer nerd.

Dear Philly,

Although sometimes my friends hate you, you have never been bad to me. There are many different reasons to love you and the things that are offered. I got to say my favorite people are the sports fans of the different Philly teams. I feel like many people say the fans are the worst, I say they are the best because they pressure the teams of our city to do the right things and give them a piece of there mind. Communication between the team and the fans is important, additionally they are always working to get into the head of the players letting them know if they are doing good or bad. Some other things about the city are all the different areas you have, I live in chestnut hill go to school in Center City and my school plays baseball in south Philly. I get to experience all the different people that you contain, the stories that I can tell when I am old will be great. Also you are in the right place you are close to the beach the mountain's and can do just about anything with in a 2 hour drive, including amusement parks. You have some weird traditions that I do not take place in, but having the window open for when I am older is great. Your dear friend septa is not appreciated by many, but I cannot complain, I have many stories to tell and don't have to go to school when the train breaks down, I meet many different types of people on the train ride to school, but tend not to talk to strangers. I love to ride the Broad Street Line when going to games it makes the game that much better, and people will be chanting for their team before the game starts, and after all the drunks get on the train and many good stories to tell.

There is no room for debate, at least according to the way in which this bill was passed. The patriot act was introduced for one over arching reason, terrorism. Even though it seems like terrorism has gone away and no need for the law and therefore should be abolished, right? No, wrong! It is more vital than ever to have this law in place, to show we are a strong country but also a smart one. If something happened once its bound to happen again if nothing is changed, If they got rid of this law it would be like wiping the slate clean allowing terrorism which could bring us mere moments away from a catastrophe like 9/11.  Why would one need to abolish this law and start a new? So people don’t get scanned at airports? There are two reasons people would decide against this law, one being convenience purposes because people rather be lazy then be safe or people don’t feel safe with their information/privacy in the governments hands. This law, the U.S.A.  P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act allows the government access to information they could use to help them capture terrorist. On a personal level I wouldn’t mind my privacy being “violated” if it is to help catch terrorist. Listening in on my phone calls, tracking web traffic? All they would find is I’m a nerd, laugh, and then move on. What are you teenagers hiding, your conversations with your special someone? The government doesn’t care.

Now I feel like a stronger rebuttal to this topic is the government has too much power, and I could see this being a problem in countries that are not the US. The Patriot Act simply asks if they could use information that they need access to help capture terrorist.

Imagine it like this… We go to a school in the School District of Philadelphia, in the SDP they filter websites and don’t allow access to certain websites, that they decide are beneficial or not. There have been times where you needed to find information or watch a video to complete a task and it was blocked. Well imagine the government trying to capture terrorists and they had a filter like this, figuratively. Imagine if they had these exact same filters. It holds back the process and delays the capture of terrorists, sometimes delaying them too much… 

Changed the media file to a PDF for convince purposes.

I posted a dropbox link in the comment

My group completed and had a prosperous final product, before we started we all listed our weaknesses and our strengths and we all split up into different categories for the project. My specific part was the initial planning, of what was going to happen, I was the person who brain-stormed and then would present what I thought was a good idea to the group. For this project I could be considered the person who worked on the Design aspect on the rubric that was given to us.

            The challenges that I believe my group faced was that we had little time to work on the project with all the other projects we had in other classes. We did communicate well and we planned out what our video was going to be, I made the storyboard, Terrance edited it, and then Becca and Terrance made a short video of what we had done on the storyboard. We also tried to implement different ideas around the video, for example we wanted to have a Facebook group related to the video so that people could spread the word and help track how many followers we have. We also had this idea where we would have all the same video and links to them in different places and all the links were all different and we would be able to track how people neglected or watched, how in some places there is more focus than others, a lot like law enforcement. This was one of our challenges was to implement our ideas while working on multiple things such as Math and NHD projects.

            Our biggest success was the background research and working together on the Google document, and sharing links and ideas on how we could make our video better and share statistics. Our biggest success was our video because we worked it out who was doing what and we met our self-induced deadlines, but what would have made our project an A were the little things such as the ideas mentioned before. In all honesty I don’t know what our final product that was implemented into society looked like because I went away on vacation, so what I could have done better was communicate with them on the final day of the project.

            Once when I was on a school trip we went to the beach and on the boardwalk, some of the guys thought if they stole something that they would look cool in the eyes of the women and be the spotlight of the trip, which they were. No, they did not get caught but when everyone looks back on that day we all think how much more stupid could one get? Now that we are in high school the idea of cursing to be cool and doing bad things to be cool are still around but people have learned that it is not cool to do bad things, except for the few who fall into the trap and have become a follower.

            If a young adult were to look at everything they did through the eyes of an adult they would probably do about 50% of the stuff they did differently and think it through. A lot of the things I do I think of what the consequences would be if you do them and what you get out of not doing the things.  I am a free person and can make decisions that could definitely ruin my future for good, but if you look through the eyes of an adult would it be something that they would do?

            What makes an adult cool? I’m not exactly sure what makes an adult cool because I am not one yet but I know that I have many adult like ways of approaching stuff compared to my colleagues. I believe want makes an adult cool it their sense of humor their wits/wisdom and their person interests such as what’s hip or something like following a sports team. Men do take risks as adults such as going to the bar and getting wasted and maybe having sex with someone but it’s nothing they would do to look cool it just what they do. Don’t make your self do things you don’t want to look cool.

Muy, extraño

Yo era muy extraño

No un poco, pero era que mucho.

Yo gustaba pokémon y yu-gi-oh,

No un poco, pero gustaba que mucho.

Yo no gustaba barbies y niñas,

No un poco, pero no gustaba mucho.

Mi familia es muy impotante

Mi amigo’s de escuela son muy importante tambíen.

Yo no era normal…

En el futuro sere la astronaught

Yo queriá volar a la luna.

Yo soy atlético y inteligentes,

Te gusta béisbol.

Te gusta béisbol mucho.

No un poco, pero gustaba que mucho.

Mi amigos es muy important para mí.

Mi día voy a la escuela y más tarde a mi casa.

En cinco años yo soy atlético y intelligente

Trabjo con apple store o en el militares,

Yo sere es soldado y programmador

No me gustaba Yankees, Microsoft y videojuegos

En diez años yo soy atlético y loco

Yo sere un professonales de beísbol o

Trabajo con blizzard o

Maestro de computadoras.

Yo cambiare el mundo por recycling y

Ayudar a los sordos.

I made a poem that represents me as a person and what im going to be when I grow up! I think what I could have done differently is that it doesn't really sound like a poem when translated into english. I think what I did well was I met All the requirements.

Jordan McLaughlin

Silver Stream           

I’m fifteen now, I recall when I was twelve when my friend and I were playing basketball. I’m from chestnut hill a place that is looked at by others as a place for the rich. My friend grew up in Elkins Park, a suburban but tough neighborhood, now he lives in Mount Airy with his dad. He is Mexican-American adopted in Texas, and I am White. We were both raised with the same goal in mind. Respecting people and to not insult others, and be mannerly. His dad is very good at basketball coaching and teaches others how to play the game for real, not street ball, proper basketball. When my friend was in 8^th grade and I was in 7^th we used to play basketball together. I never play basketball except with my friend.

“You got nutin,” My friend told me.

“Bring it, I will beat if it kills me,” I replied.

“You suck yo.”

“Can you not call me yo.”

“I only say yo to my brotha’s.”

“So I’m one of your brothaaa’s”

“Why do you speak like your black? I know that you’re not a thug,” I questioned my friend.

At the time I was smaller and I found myself saying things that weren’t necessarily true, I would often listen to stereotypes, and I wasn’t around a lot of black people in junior high because I went to a mostly white private school. He always used to use slang on the court, he wanted a to be black because he thought he was cool.  That’s when I realized that the way a person talks identifies them with a culture my friend obviously wanted to be identified as black although he was not. I decided to let my friend think what he wanted, since he had these phases that he went through.

Today he has gone to greater extents, not being a phase but a part of himself, when we talk he talks black English because he wants to sound tough, he wants to impress the girls at his school.

“I was talkin this girl at my school yo, and she was like I can’t go out wit you if you have a girl friend, and I was like naw its high school im not a pimp that’s just what we do these days you know what im saying,” my friend told me.

“Why would you say that to a girl?” I questioned his stupidity.

“Cause I like her dawg.”

“You can’t go out with another girl if you have a girlfriend.”

“Sikee naw, yeah you can.”

“Not where we are from.”

“Dey just backup’s dawg. You be drawlin”

“I’m not drawlin dude I just don’t want you to turn out bad is all. You’re my best friend I don’t want you to not get into college. The way you talk its like you are bringing yourself down. You know if you speak proper English you will get a job and get into a good college. When you interview at college are you gonna talk the way you are now?”

“Your crazy dawg, when I go to interview at college I won’t talk like dis you know.”

“So what are you trying to impress me?”

“No this is just we talk dees days.”

“Who’s we?”

“Me and my homies.”

“My homies and I.”

“What eve yo, get off my back.”

“Your right, you should be able to do what ever you want.”

The way a person speaks can alter the way a person is viewed by others. Many times people that use urban slang are often looked down upon. Although people speak different variations of the English language, English is English. People that speak Black English are defining their culture by using their voice as powerful tool that ultimately defines their person. According to James Baldwin, “What joins all languages, and all men, is the necessity to confront life, in order, not inconceivably, to outwit death: The price for this is the acceptance, and achievement of one’s temporal identity.”  The usage of language is a necessity and without it man can’t function. People that speak variations of English use it because it is a cultural standard, but also because it is the way to communicate with other people within their same community. People like my friend have used Black English, and urban slang in modern times, for ease of communicating with their peers. My friend has embraced the African-American culture and since he’s always around black people he has chosen to use Black English.