Action Reflection

I think that even though our true no place for hate night had a few flaws, it all turned out great. What we were able to pull off was amazing. I think that we shouldn't have been serving snacks at dinner time though, because some people were really hungry and went through the line, like 5 times. I thought the raffle made it a lot more exciting and a good way to get peoples energy up. I agree with my teacher, today she said that we should have fed ourselves before the event. Everyone was very hungry and took breaks to come over to our table to get some food. We learned a few things through this experience, but if we did the night over, I’d honestly barely change anything.

It's Over

Our action is done! We just had our No Place for Hate Night about 30 minutes ago, and I can honestly say it went pretty well. A good amount of people came, so that made me feel very relieved and happy. All of our groups/stations did a great job and I was able to take a quick peek at each one. All of hard work paid off, all of the planning, memorizing, arranging, and (for me anyway) worrying was all worth it. Earlier our teacher brought up that the 4^th graders were planning field day, they were able to do that with every class in 4^th grade’s help. We made this whole event that was probably just as big (some people in my class even think bigger) with just our class of 23 people. How we all came together and united as a community helped us make this happen and if we had never done that, I guarantee that what we did tonight would not have happened. All in all, I’m proud of us.  

The Big Day Is TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am scared, excited, and relieved all at the same time. Setting up this event has been SUPER stressful, but I’m pretty sure it will be worth it. Through this experience I have wanted to die, thanks to not so great cooperation, being rejected by about a dozen different companies, and most of all being scared that no one will come  and that all of our hard work will be for absolutely nothing. As you can tell, and my teacher has pointed out earlier this year, I’m a worrier. I now know that we’ll have enough food, that at least 10 people are coming not including our class or family (this is not very reassuring) and that we’ve gotten through disagreements and disliking group members enough to where we can fulfill our jobs at the event tomorrow. I am still scared and worried, but not as much as I was before. I will be doing A LOT of praying tonight. Let’s hope our hard work pays off. 

Three Cheers for Central Market!

Wow! I still can't believe it! Central Market was kind and generous enough to donate $250!!!!! We went to the store after school and stocked up on all kinds of healthy food, including; cheese, meat (ham), crackers, fruit juice (fizzy), wheat bread-that tastes like white, a bunch of fruit, and a lot of veggies (peanut butter and ranch dip to add flavor). We spent a total of about $200, so we have $50 left. We’re going to ask Mrs. Gilboa what we should do with the extra money tomorrow. We did an awesome job, but made one huge mistake-even though we went to Hamish’s house before we went to the store to get his mom’s camera, we still forgot to take pictures…oops. We’ll make sure to take a BUNCH of pictures when we set up and during the event to make up for it though!

Donations

Well, being in the food/nutrition group is fun, but very stressful. Today we called at least a dozen different companies and let’s just say we got to practice rejection. We have one company (island grill) that is a definite; they’ll be providing about 70 mini smoothies for us, so at least that’s covered. Then we have to call HEB tomorrow and talk to Oscar, I’m praying that Oscar likes kids and enjoys donating! For Central Market we filled out a form and have faxed it over and we’re anxiously waiting for them to reply. The problem is, they usually only do donations 6 WEEKS ahead of time, we’re giving them about 6 DAYS. Sellers brothers is also a maybe, we have faxed over all of the information and are waiting to hear back from them. If none of these groceries stores donate to us I am going to cry!!! We have already put posters up and have given the pamphlets out, so if they don’t donate we will only have smoothies. Worse case scenario and they don’t agree
to donating I guess we will have to get $5 from each person in our class and buy what we can. I AM SCARED!

PS who knew planning a party/night could be so hard?! 

Who's Calling Who

Anthony-smoothie king

Hamish- jamba juice

Mustafa- krogers

Yaeeun- does not want to call

Madeline- whoever (no preferences)

"Sayings"

 My favorite for exhibition:
Life is like an onion: You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.

One that relates to most of the boys in my class:
Life throws you curve balls every now and then; the thing is you got to know when to swing to get far.

    * Always laugh when you can, it's the cheapest medicine.
    * If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything. (Mark twain)
    * A break up is like a broken mirror. It is better to leave it broken than hurt yourself to fix it.
    * You only live once, but if you work it right, once is enough.
    * If you love somebody, set him or her free. If they return, they were always yours. If they don't, they never were
    * Life is like a hot bath. It feels good while you’re in it, but the longer you stay in, the more wrinkled you get.
    * Where there is love there is life.
    * Love me not. Love me never. But when you love me love me forever!
    * Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people. (Eleanor Roosevelt)
    * Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. (Albert Einstein)
    * And in the end it's not the years in your life that count. It is the life in your years. (Abraham Lincoln)

 ALL FOR NOW, BUT I WILL BE ADDING MORE!

Phone Numbers and Procedure

Phone numbers:
HEB- (713) 662-0570
Randall’s- (713) 349-2150
Kroger’s- (713) 661-7175
Seller’s Brothers- (713) 666-4417
Jamba Juice- 713.529.3225
Smoothie King- (713) 661-1663

Procedure:
I) Say hello
II) Introduce my self (first name only)
III) Say where I’m calling from
IV) Tell him about our project
V) Ask him about donating food
VI) Say we will advertise for them
VII) Politely except what ever his response may be (if he says yes, go through next steps)
VIII) Thank him
IX) Give him the SCHOOL’S info
X) Thank him again
XI) Go and tell the office we are expecting calls from _________
XII) Smile!!!!!!!!!!!!

I Am In The Food Group!

For the activities night (it is yet to be named, we are suppose to vote tomorrow) I am in the food/nutrition group. For the night we are going to set up a table and have a bunch of healthy snacks, that way kids can try different things and find out what they do and don't like! Maybe some kids will eat apples for snack instead of chips now! I have to admit being in this group is a little stressful because we're still trying to come up with a perfect way to actually get food...it's very hard to get people to bring their own food because we'd have to decide if it was mandatory for them to bring something, or just a suggestion. There’s also a time problem, we would have to go to every classroom and explain everything to them and we really just don't have that kind of time! Right now we are thinking of calling grocery stores and smoothie place to ask if they would donate food, we are trying to be very optimistic. We think they will say yes if we offer to do advertising for them (ex. "Here’s a very healthy smoothie that tastes great even though it is mad of all natural fruits and if you like it make sure to visit the place that provided all of these smoothies for us, smoothie king!"). I will be looking up the phone numbers tonight so we can make the calls tomorrow. Wish us luck!!!!!!

check this out!

go to this web site and watch a video about a super cool way to clean up oil spills with human hair!!!!!!!:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwQOD_Ir2vQ

Research

Many people think that gangs are the main people responsible for graffiti, but they’re actually responsible for less than 10%.

There are four types of graffiti:
Tagging-hip hop (78%)
Satanic/hate (7%)
Gangs (7%)
Generic (5%)

The average age of people arrested for graffiti vandalizing is 17-18.

It costs America more than $8 billion per year clean up graffiti.

The main four motives for graffiti are; fame, people want their graffiti to end up in the papers or the news, or at least for a lot of people to see it. Rebellion, people want to get back at people or hurt them by damaging their property or writing something offensive. Self-expression, people express their selves through this type of art. Power, people feel that if they can show their art everywhere it give them power.

Some places in the us spend millions of dollars per year just trying to stop graffiti

Out of all of the vandalism in the world, 35% is graffiti.

Both men and women vandalize through graffiti, 15% are young females.

About 28% of the people who do graffiti are arrested.

Between 2001 and 20-08 72,169 vandalism incidents were reported and 9% of them were graffiti.

The majority of people view graffiti negatively.

Many people think that graffiti makes an area look trashy and not a nice place to live.

The word graffiti comes from the Greek word “graphein” which means to write.

Spray cans are what are most often used for writings graffiti; they have
different nozzles for different coverage.

Graffiti artists who are inexperienced are known as “toys”.

What I Think Our Action Should Be

My group’s topic is graffiti vandalism; so I think we really need to show that there’s more to graffiti than vandalizing public/private property. If you've ever really looked at or studied graffiti you can tell that it's actual art and in a way...beautiful. The way some people are able to express their feelings so well through graffiti is mesmerizing. I’m definitely FOR graffiti, but I don't think that people should do it on property. Graffiti is an art. Art needs to be done on a canvas or even just a piece of paper, but not a building. I think our action should be to show the difference between graffiti on a canvas and on a wall. Using your talents of art that way is hating yourself and abusing your skills. You have a gift that you can share with the world, but instead your doing it in an illegal way. I think we need to make sure people know to put their talent to good use.

Where Hate Starts and What Causes It

 I think hate simply starts with a difference of opinion. Everyone who discriminates discriminates because their opinion is that they don’t like black people, women aren’t as important as men, everyone should be a Christian, etc.  All of those things are because of someone’s opinion towards someone else. Some people hate because they want to be more popular, they think that the only way to do that is to make fun of someone and basically make their life miserable, but people should like you for who you are, not because you treat someone badly. Some people also hate because they want revenge.  If someone has bullied you in the past, you naturally want them to have to go through the same thing you did, the problem with this is, if you treat someone badly just because they treated you badly, even though they did it first, your just as bad as they are. If someone is envious of you, that might also cause hate.  They might want your life so badly that they hate you for having it, instead of them. A lot of people who are very stubborn hate, if you’re never willing to compromise or do something your even a little bit against, that’s being hateful. Hate is all around us; it’s just a fact of life that is close to impossible to change.