Progress Report on A Child Called "It"

My book is really interesting and sad at the same time. At the beginning the little boy has like a perfect life. His father a firefighter worked for many hours at times he did 24-hour shifts and his mother was a stay at home mom and he had two other brothers. They would always take family trips and vacations and they would have a great time. David’s mother would always have the house clean and would always cook good food. After a while David’s mother started to change she stopped cleaning the house stopped cooking and only got ready and tried to look good while her husband was around it only lasted for a while because after she stopped caring and then did not get ready at all. David’s mother started to blame him for any little thing even if he had nothing to do with it and also if he would be playing with his brothers he would be the only one to get in trouble and would be punished. Then David was the only one who got physically and mentally abused by his mother he was like an outcast of the family because his other brothers would not get the same treatment from their mother. His mother started to give less and less privileges to David he was punished for things he never did and he would also get in trouble when his mother would tell him to look for an item he would ask what item but she would get mad and David just kept searching for the unknown item hoping to find it. Also his mother had dramatic changes like wanting to harm David in many ways at one time David’s mother told him to  get on top of the stove which was turned on and had the burning flame. His arm was burn but he was lucky because he did not have to get on top of the stove. His mother would also beat him a lot and at school they would record his bruises it was like an everyday thing that the school nurse would check him and every time he would have an excuse to tell the nurse but the nurse also kept records of David’s excuses he would give and those excuses were mad up by David’s mother. David wants to be fed but since his mother deprives him of food and so he tries to find many ways of how to get some food into his system he has already stole food from his classmates lunch boxes and got caught so then he went to steal food from another class’s lunchboxes but also got caught. So he planned he would go to the grocery store near his school and steal some food it worked but he hid the box of crackers in the trash can of the boys bathroom and the custodian emptied out the trash before he was able to eat any. At home he would also try to get scraps of food from the trash can but his mother found out o she started pouring ammonia into the trashcan and then he was not even able to feed himself by getting the food that was thrown away.   

Senior Project Progress #2

For my senior project I have already finished my mentor interview questions. I have interviewed my mentor had her fill out the mentor contract and turned all that in on time to my government teacher. During the time I met with my mentor I scheduled with her at the time she thought was convenient for me to go and volunteer there. I have not finished scheduling my hours with her because she needs to see what hours are convenient for her and what hours are convenient for me I had told her I can do more of my hours on short days which are on Wednesdays and also on Friday’s.

                I am also considering on going to child start and seeing if I am also able to volunteer there and get more hours done because I have a feeling I will only be able to do just my 20 hours with my mentor at the pre-school. I also want to see the different atmospheres that there is between a pre-school and a child start program and I would  be going there and checking up with a lady from there because I had gone before and they had said that I would be able to go and volunteer there. So I am going to go again and double check with them after I have token my tuberculosis test.  I have my appointment for my tuberculosis test on Monday and then I will have to go two days later to have the tuberculosis test read and I also have an appointment scheduled for the reading of the tuberculosis test.

I have started thinking of what I am going to include in my senior project paper because I know it has to be five to six pages long and what I am going to talk about in m y essay is how babies and toddlers develop their language skills.  I also hope to include why it is so important for babies and toddlers to develop their language skills early in life and I am also planning on including how babies and toddlers without being able to speak are able to communicate with their elders and are able to get their point across. I have gone to the Napa county library and put books on hold because they were not available at the time but I was able to get my hands on 2 books on the language development skills of babies and I am hoping they will b helpful. I was also talking to the librarian there and she found my topic very interesting and she offered to help me with what I needed and I was very grateful. I am hoping I am able to get my books before thanksgiving break so I can start to read them and hopefully start typing my essay.

Letter to Riffkin

Dear Rifkin,

The article in the Los Angeles times “A Change of Heart About Animals” that you published on September 1, 2003. I have read and I agree with you that our fellow creatures are more like us than we ever imagined. I believe this because I love animals and I think that every animal has feelings because they have a brain which is linked to their emotions. Also everyone that has a brain and a heart fell some kind of emotions weather it may be that they feel happy, sad, mad or any other emotion. Yes in nature most animals do not have feelings towards their fellow animals and yes I understand that because they have to survive by killing them and also by feeding off of them. Then again we are in civilization and we should feel more empathy towards them seeming that we have taken them out of their natural habitat and placed them in exhibits, zoos and other places like that where they can and should provide them food and not let them feed off of other animals that have died. Also our fellow creatures do not lack self-individualism like how you said in your article that at the Washington national zoo an orangutan was given a mirror and the orangutan explored it body parts and that helps them see how unique they are compared to other orangutans.  Also as how you mentioned in your article that many believe that animals do not know how to mourn or that we believe that they cannot comprehend that concept. Well as you also mentioned that elephants do know how to mourn because at times they will often stand next to their other relatives for days and occasionally touching the remains of their loved ones.

Many people do not appreciate their animals and treat them badly but others treat their animals with a lot of respect and always care for them.  There should be a few changes in how people should treat their animals because others are able to have animals but there is always the fact that people have them but don’t take care for them. Also many people seem to label the animals for what just one animal did and not all animals are the same for example pit bulls as killers and dangerous dogs in the eyes of some people. It all depends on how an animal was raised and was trained by their owner if the owner taught the animal to be dangerous well that is how the animal will be but if it is brought up with love and care the animal will be sweet and loving and will not harm anyone just for their own entertainment. So there should be more laws placed on animal owners. If not their animal should be taken away because they are being treated poorly and are in possible danger and they could also be placing other people in danger.