Dear Founding Fathers...

If I could go back and tell the founding fathers something, what would it be? Would you say great job! I wouldn't change a bit, or would you scold them for not thinking ahead. Did you really expect to make it there with no problems? If you could go back in time, to when the colony’s were still being established, what would you tell them?

One thing I would ask our founding fathers would be to ask them if they expected to survive with no doctors, barely enough food, and little knowledge on how to find your own food? Almost half of the colonists died from natural causes such as sickness or too little food. When people got sick, there were no medicines and very few doctors to treat them so they just died. How did you plan on surviving is my question.

While not being prepared was a big problem, I think slavery is a bigger problem. Wasn’t the whole point of the “new country” to have been freedom? If so, then why did you wait 100 years before you abolished slavery? Many slaves died from harsh treatment from their “owners”. I don’t know what freedom means to them, but to me it means not having someone own you. I feel like that was not the smartest idea to keep slavery.

While some things were really bad, there many things that you did mostly right. Like creating voting rights. This way when you created laws, everyone got to share their opinion. This way the United States of America created their government. I think you did an astounding job of it and it is still more or less the same.  One thing you could have changed was having women’s rights but I wouldn’t put yourself down on that one because it was shortly resolved.

All in all I think you did a pretty great job of founding our country and I realize that everything isn’t going to be perfect and you coped way better than anyone else would have done while under all that stress. I look up to you for doing what you did because I know that I wouldn’t be able to start even a business with all  of the courage or insightfulness that you had and may you rest in peace. 

Cause and Effect Life of Pi

Authors Note: This piece is about the cause and effect relationship in The Life of Pi. I wrote this to demonstrate my understanding of cause and effect. 


The Life of Pi was all about a boy traveling from India to a new life in Canada. When tragedy strikes, Pi finds himself stuck in a life boat with a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan, and a tiger. When the life boat finally hits civilization, Pi is hanging on to life by a thread. This book is all about Pi's adventures, out at sea.

The climax of this book would probably be when the ship sank which created the point of with no return. This reminded me of the Titanic, when people woke up and the crew told them the ship was sinking. The reason Pi was on the boat in the first place was because of a political change in India, that made Pi's family decide to move to Canada. When Ravi reports to his family that there was something wrong with the engines, they think nothing of it, yet it could have saved their lives.

The Effect of the Boat sinking was Pi trying to survive in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger. Pi has to fish for food and use different devices that slowly turn seawater into drinking water, and yet he has to give most of it to Richard Parker (the tiger) if he doesn't want to be eaten alive. Along the way Pi meets a blind man, and comes across an island with a man eating tree

In the end Pi reaches the coast of Mexico after 227 days of being stranded alone with a Bengal tiger. Pi tells his amazing story, to scientist who are trying to figure out how the ship sank, and they don't believe him. I can just imagine how that would feel. Barely hanging on to life, and nobody believes you about your past. Our castaway made it to Mexico alive, without his family behind him.

Main conflict/ resolution analyzation

Authors note: This piece is about the main conflict and resolution in The Hunger Games. I wrote this to demonstrate my understanding of conflict and resolution.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is a great book. Every year the Capitol holds the annual Hunger games, where one boy and one girl from each district must fight to the death. A total of 24 people, as a punishment to the districts. When Katniss Everdeen's little sister Prim gets picked, she imeadiatly volunteers to take her place. So the Hunger Games begin.

This book is a person vs. society type of conflict. Katniss has to survive the Hunger games, in which the game masters seem to be singling her out. She feels she has to play by the rules so she can get home to Prim. Katniss thinks that win or lose, they are still going to hold the annual Hunger games. Her mind is set on this until the rules change saying that a boy and a girl may win together as long as they originated from the same district. Katniss teams up with Peeta and together they finish off the last of the tributes. Another announcement is made that the previous rule change is undone, only one tribute can remain. They can't stand going home with out each other, so they decided to die at the same time. The game makers change the rules again, and they both survive.

Afro Curlers

Homemade stuff comes in handy a lot but sometimes they’re the wrong way to go. You would think having an afro is awesome and all, but only on Halloween. Having an afro causes problems like getting brushes stuck in your hair or not being able to do anything with it. Don’t believe me? Well maybe this will change your mind.

It was 9 o’clock at night on July 3rd, and Maddie (my cousin) and I had nothing to do. Maddie had just stepped out of the shower and flopped on her bed in her pajama’s.

“I have an idea! Let’s put in hair curlers!” Maddie exclaimed standing up quite suddenly. I could tell by her face that she thought she was a genius.

“That would be a great idea…” I started to say, at this her smile spread even wider. “If you had any curlers.” I reasoned.

The smile left her face. I watched as she scrunched up her nose and bit her lip, her general thinking face. Again her features lit up. “How about homemade curlers!” Maddie practically shouted.

“You know how to make hair curlers?” I asked flabbergasted. My mom was a hair dresser and I didn’t even know how to do that!

“No, no!” she scolded, “But my little friend does!” Maddie pulled her IPod Touch out of her pocket. She struck the YouTube icon and flopped on the bed next to me.

After we watched the video, we assembled all the supplies: Strips of an old t-shirt, and tissue paper.  For the old t-shirt, we used her old gym shirt. Looking back I can say that, that was an awful idea. The very shirt that Madison Huesboe had sweat in all year for gym, was going into our hair.

To get tissue paper we had to climb down to the basement, and find some. We grabbed some red tissue paper and some white.

Back in Maddie’s bedroom, we cut strips of each article. We took the tissue paper and rolled it around the t-shirt strips. I then took them and applied them to our hair, tying the “curlers” at the end.

“Now we just have to sleep in them.” Maddie informed me as I finished tying the last of the curlers. Anxious to see how it would work, We went to bed right away.

The next morning

I woke up to numerous curlers on the floor, and several in the bed.

“Maddie! Wake up!” yelled in to her ear, “Its morning. Let’s see how our curls turned out!”

glanced toward the shafts of sunlight coming out of the window her eyes opened wide. She bounced off her bed and over to her mirror. We both started pulling out our curlers.

5 minutes later…

We starred at the mirror in disbelief. Our hair was terrible. The pieces that had fallen were hanging down straight, and the pieces in the curlers, were sticking straight up. We looked like clowns on a bad hair day.

“What are we going to do?” Maddie asked after a couple minutes of silence, “It’s the fourth of July, we’re going to be seeing everyone, and our hair are in afro’s!” She was freaking out. To Maddie, appearances were everything. If a hair was out of place, it took her ten minutes to fix it to her likings. This was her worst nightmare.

“Maddie, calm down.” I said trying to soothe her, “We can just…” I racked my brain for something, “Just straighten our hair!” I gave myself a mental pat on the back.

As the words sank in, Maddie’s whole body began to loosen up. First her shoulders slumped, then her eyes drooped. “That’s a good idea. We’ll just do that.” She grabbed her straightener out of the closet and plugged it in. It took us a while to do it, but we got it done.

At the breakfast table, my Uncle asked, “How did your curls turn out?” Maddie’s eyes immediately narrowed, and I let out a chuckle.

“They didn’t really work.”I told him. It was hard to conceal our smirks.