All The Little Sheep

“If the whole heard jumps off the cliff, will you? Don’t be a sheep.”

My stepdad means the world to me, and he is one of my biggest heroes. In my eyes he is not just my step dad. He has done more for me in just the eight years I’ve known him than any other man ever could if I know them the rest of my life. In my eyes he is my one and only dad, but most people see him as the spawn of satin. He is very temperamental and easily angered and cannot stand stupid people. The only problem is he thinks everyone is stupid, but he would do anything for those he loves. The one good thing he has told me my whole life is to stray from the pack. Just because everyone wears the clothes from a certain store, doesn’t mean I have to or want to. I am my own person, and so are you. Whether you are from the USA or Europe or Asia, there is no one anywhere in the world just like you. Genetically, even identical twins are different. My point is there is no one in the world just like you. It can be a good thing, or it can be a bad thing, but either way, you are you and no one can change that. Don’t follow all the other people. Instead, do your own thing. It turns out so much better.

Mega Mom

“When you come to a fork in the road, make your own path” ~My Mother



Angela Morris is my number one hero. She is stronger than any man on the face of this earth. She was a sailor in the navy, a truck driver, and now she works with veterans all day long. My mother is much younger than most of my friends' parents, but wise beyond her years. She has gone through more at her age than most go through in a lifetime, and she is the one that has helped get me through all my normal everyday issues and extra medical issues. At 17 she was diagnosed with breast cancer. After radiation, she was pronounced cancer free. At 26 it came back in other parts of her body. She went into therapy, but there were complications. At 29, it spread further and my mom was diagnosed with cancer a third time. They told her she had two choices: get her will ready, or let the state handle it. She was not happy with that answer though. She made a third choice. I always asked her what she did to get through all the madness. She told me that cancer didn’t make her path, she did. Every time you don’t like the options, make your own. Life doesn’t choose where you go. You are in charge of your life! Don't let anyone tell you any different.

What Doesn't Kill You...

"A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new." ~Albert Einstein

Success means to not fail, but that doesn’t mean you can never fail. Albert Einstein knew that well. He helped advance concepts on light energy, motion, and the nature of space and time. Einstein was the man, who could give a valid explanation to the question, 'why is the sky blue?' in 1910. No one knows what his IQ is, but they do know it was much higher than the average person’s. Einstein was rewarded for his many contributions to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect. He was a great man that everyone thought was absolutely crazy, but he was a genius. One of his many genius quotes tells you that you can’t have success without mistakes. When I was younger, my mother told me that it doesn’t matter how many times you fail. Always pick yourself back up and try again. I remember her telling me that Ben Franklin tried one hundred times to make the light bulb and only succeeded on try one-oh-one. Now that I am older, I know that he didn’t even invent the light bulb, Edison did. Either way, my mother’s concept remains the same. You cannot succeed without learning from your mistakes, and once you make a mistake, try again. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, so pick yourself back up and find the real answer.

Be A Fruit-Loop

"Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth." ~John F. Kennedy

 

Conformity is the behavior or thought that is socially acceptable or expected. President John F. Kennedy knew this. He was the 35^th President of the United States and the man that led our country to the moon and worked towards true equal rights and as a Harvard graduate he was quite intelligent. What he means by this quote is that life isn’t always about fitting in. He literally means that conformity is the only thing stopping success. If everyone fits in, then no one stands out and no one’s voice is heard. If you want an idea to come to life, you have to make it stand out. No one is going to listen to an idea they’ve heard a thousand times. Instead of standing in a crowd, stand out. Instead of sitting in the background, be center stage. Be the fruit-loop in a world full of cheerios. When you stand out, not only do people notice you, but you can do things your own way. You don’t have to follow rules or expectations. You can advance much further. Albert Einstein didn’t care about looking weird or not and he helped create the atom bomb, for better or worse. If we stop worrying about fitting in, we can worry more about moving forward and working towards a better future for the next generation. Who knows, an outcast can create the next means of renewable energy.

YOLO

"In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years." ~Abraham Lincoln

You only live once. I hate the quote but it has some truth in it. Abraham Lincoln was the 16^th president of the United States of America. He is a great American war hero that millions of children look up to, and for a good reason.  He ended the civil war and united the confederate and union and created the emancipation proclamation. His quote basically says that it’s not how long you live that counts, but what you do while you’re alive. You can live a life one hundred years long, but steal and lie and cheat. That life is not worth half the life of an honest, giving man who only lives twenty. The phrase “you only live once” half catches this concept. Many people interpret it as they can do whatever stupid things they want. A better way to look it is almost the same view President Lincoln had. You only live one life, so don’t waste it. Get out into the world and do something worth doing. Make your life truly valuable in ways other than money or greed. Help whoever you can help. Live your life to its fullest, but don’t live it for yourself. Live your life to help others. That is how you live a life that matters. That is how you live life to its fullest.

Just Keep Swimming

“Let the dead bury the dead Mr. Finch. Let the dead bury the dead.”

After Boo Radley kills Ewell, the sheriff realizes that it was boo who killed him. He didn’t want to put Boo in the eyes of the public though, because he hadn’t been out of the house in so long, he wouldn’t know how to handle it. The Sheriff decides that he really does need to just let the dead bury the dead, so that is what he tells Atticus. I think what he means is just let what happens happen. You don’t have to try to fix things that are unfixable. Some things, you just have to leave as they are. That, I think is what Harper Lee is trying to tell us. The only example I can think of right now is when you get broken up with by your boyfriend or girlfriend; everyone dwells on that and acts like it’s the end of the world, and everyone has done it. I can tell you from experience though, it’s better to just let go. When you let go and move on, you can get on with your day to day life. You can go forward and just keep swimming.

Just Let Go...

‘“But is it okay to hate Hitler?’ ‘It is not,’ he said. ‘It’s not okay to hate anybody.”’

Scout is only eight years old, but she is very intelligent. The first time she hears about what Hitler does, is when a boy in her class brings in an article about him for a current events project. As soon as she hears what the man has done, she is immediately appalled and thinks he is a terrible person. That day she goes home and asks Atticus about him and asks if it is okay to hate him, and he of course says no. Atticus knows it is not okay to ever hate anyone. In the world today, hate is a huge problem. Although most times it is extremely over used, hate is very real and all over the place. Does it have to be though? I, like most people, have experienced true hatred. It literally eats you alive. It’s like you have this huge ball of hatred in the pit of your stomach. If you let that hate go, you can forgive. You don’t have to forget, but it is better not to hate. I don’t mean to sound like Gandhi or Buddha, but if our generation works together, we can work towards love instead of hate, or at least tolerance. We can work towards peace instead of war. Trust me and let go of the hate. Maybe your whole attitude will change.

Two Faced

“That proves something- that a gang of wild animals can be stopped, simply because they’re still human.”

This quote is from the conversation between Scout and her father, Atticus. Earlier in the story, Scout unknowingly stops her father from most likely getting killed. Scout steps in and starts talking to one man in the group she knows. She mentions his son and just keeps talking until he replies. She doesn’t notice until afterwards that she just stopped that man and his friends from brutally destroying Atticus. She simply didn’t want to be ignored. She turned a group of wild men, angry for blood, into calm human beings. It’s possible in real life too. I propose there are two sides to every person: the good side and the evil side. Sometimes, people are drawn to the evil side. It may take a lot to get it to go away, but hopefully, we don’t need an eight-year-old girl to pull our good side out. I think people can do it on their own. I think when people turn into wild animals, they can stop themselves. Next time you get in a fight, or want to kill someone, or just get angry at anything, don’t throw or hit something. Remember your inner Scout and calm yourself down, before you get out of control.

Home Page

“Don’t ask why; ask why not!”

I guess I did this kind of backwards, but hi. My name is Rachel Howlett and I am reading To Kill a Mockingbird in my tenth grade English class. This is kind of supposed to be my home page blog but I didn’t really realize that until now. For our final project, we are creating a “Words of Wisdom” blog full of awesome quotes and stuff like that. I am not exactly a writer, so my blogs will most likely sound very amateur. I am a very odd and off the wall person, but I am the froot-loop in a world full of cheerios and proud of it. This brings me to the quote that I live my life by. My English teacher is teaching us to ask why, but I don't agree. I believe you should ask why not. If you look at a project, you should think why should I make this awesome? You should ask why shouldn’t I make this amazing. If you’re as hardheaded as me, you can have a million reasons for doing something and it mean nothing. If you come up blank when you ask why not, that is when you know you should.

Open Invitation

“He told me havin’ a gun around’s an invitation to somebody to shoot you."

In this part of the book, Jem is talking to his sister, Scout, saying that Atticus could never have a gun on him because, even though he knows he could get into trouble, Jem’s father would never carry a gun. This quote in a nut shell means if you pull a gun out, expect to get shot. If you don’t want to get shot, don’t pull out a gun. In real life though, this applies to much more. This quote kind of makes me think of the golden rule actually. I think don’t dish it out if you can’t take it. I think this is most important lessons that Atticus tries to teach his children in the book, and one of the lessons the town of Maycomb needs to learn. I guess we can’t really say much because our town is not much better. I went to the Christmas parade this weekend, and it was horrible. Some guy spilled beer all over another guy and yelled at him for spilling a beer! Then there was this little girl that was maybe three trying to catch beads and this mini-skirt, tight-shirt wearing, rude woman (maybe 21) stood in front of her and caught all the beads. Atticus taught his kids to be considerate and treat people how they want to be treated. I don’t see why our generation can’t make the whole world be like that. Come on guys, we’re better than this.

Fight With Your Head

"Try fighting with your head for a change… it’s a good one, even if it does resist learning"

In this section of To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout is asking her dad, Atticus, why he would defend a black man when he knows he will lose the case. He explains that every lawyer has one case that hits them hard and this was his. Scout and her brother, Jem, start getting made fun of at school because of their dad's actions, and get into some trouble. Atticus tells his child to fight with her head instead. When you think about it, the author, Harper Lee, is telling us that you don't always have to be strong to win a fight. My sister does it all the time; she starts using big words or irrefutable logic to prove her point. The strategy works. Imagine if instead of war, countries had real, logical, unbiased trials to settle the arguments. Instead of millions of people, soldiers and civilians, dying just so two men have a disagreement, no one would have to. Earth would be a pleasant, polite place to live, but I am not stupid. I know that can never happen. On the other hand, in our day-to-day lives, we can. Next time you’re in the middle of a fight with someone, try fighting with your brain instead. Not only does it reduce violence, but it sends your enemies into a fury when you confuse them to no end.