Johnny's a Mad Dog.. lol get it?

Johnny Mad Dog was creepy... I really liked it though. lol. It still blows me away when I think about those soldiers; some of them not even 15, as young as 7 or 8. At first, before, reading this book, I had absolutely no pity for the deaths of those young boys. I have had a change of heart. The novel was based on the life of one toy soldier, a sixteen year old boy who felt a conscious, but not really. They made him believe that with his gun, we was a man. His logic was corrupted; many of the things he did he tried to find a good reason for doing it, like rapping the reporter woman. He actually made himself believe she was enjoying it. Or shooting one of the reporter men because of some make believe story he created about him and ther reporter woman having sex. It was all just a big ball of creepyness. I was relieved to know he died at the end, but it still gave me a chill to know that he wasn't the only one. There were thousands more like him. High, violent, and unstable. The story itself might have been fiction, but there are thousands of cases of boy soldiers tourturing people in Africa. It was surely a smack of reality for me.

Bleeding of the Stone.. Yay

I thought that "Bleeding of the Stone" was an alright read. I thought the symbolism made the novel a bit confusing, but it put a powerful vibe in its context. I thought the characters were cool, everyone played a small part which converged into a certain wholeness. I liked how, in the beginning, they had quotes from different bibles in the world. I liked how it all came into this story. This wasn't my favorite book of the semester, but I'm still glad I read it.

My Project!!! YYYAAAYYY

I decided for my project to write out a curriculum high school students, AP students. This is the first time I have ever done any thing like this before, I had to do research a lot just to start up and decide what I was going to do. I thought it would be a good idea to do; I am an education major so I figured this would be a good exercise for me. So... Yea, If my curriculum sucks, I'll keep that in mind and take notes for the future.

I designed it for seniors, assuming the class consists of 26 students. In my syllabus I explained that because it was an advanced placement class, I will be expecting a whole lot of everything. The grades are spread out in points.. a total of 5oo. I thought it was pretty reasonable... But I could be wrong.

I didn't write out my quizzes or my test because I felt like it depended on the amount of information the class was retaining. I didn't want the class to be based only on the amount of work done, the the amount of information retained. Its all about Effort!!

I wanna talk about VooDoo.

This has nothing to do with the books we are supposed to be reading, but I decided to look up some things about Voodoo. I thought it was cool, aaaannnnddd Dr. Webb said it would be cool to do a little bloggy blog on it, so here I am.. Okay so,


The practicing of Voodoo is extremely old. Some say, voodoo has been around since Africa existed. It was sometimes written voudou, vodou or voudun. The words(s) itself means god creator or great spirit. People misuse the term voodoo and distort it to their diecretion with human sacrifices, vampires and devil worships. Allof that is cool to watch, but actually has nothing to do with the real practice of voodoo.
It is a life affirming practice that encourages its participants to better understand the natural processes of life and their own spiritual natures. When you look it up it is defined as an ancient religion from Africa that involves animalistic spirits and methods to communicate with them.

So, with all that. I think that voodoo is presently based on one big juicy lie. The idea of voodoo can be cool, but easily misinterpreted.

You know what I don't like??

I read up on the article given to us in class regarding oil in Africa... AAAAnnnnnndddd my conclusion is..... That............ I DON'T LIKE IT. I just don't. There is this one part toward the back of packet (Cause that article was like extra long), that made me really reflect: "Was it possible-just possible-that the African oel boom didn't have to be a story with an unhappy ending?"

This is why it made me reflect; Cause it not possible. Not at all... For some reason, Africa is the shit. See, let me explain.....

Before anyone set foot in the country, there was word that Africa was a place of opportunity and awesomeness. They already had hype men!! When the Europeans finally felt bold enough to make that long haul, they found that Africa was all that was expected and then some. They also found that there were people there... Not just any old persons, but black people. Beautiful people. The Europeans were so jealous of them they decided to trick them and invade their lands and make them slaves. See, it all revolves around jealousy!! They were upset because they had all the resources for survival, and all the community stability to live in peace. The Europeans new nothing of peace; there was already supply and demand, guns, and wars there. The Africans way of living was wrong because they never tried it. The correlated intelligence with things that didn't matter or exist in Africa.

So there... I said it....... Yes, the Europeans were some haters. Discovering oil was just another raw material they could take and make an excuse on why they just can't leave them the hell alone. Its wack.

Xala Hits the Spot

I thought Xala was cool. Short and sweet. Its a novel based on a man's penis; his road to excellence spirals into chaos all because of the power he lost in the bedroom. I think that is irony in rawest form. I think it all started (the irony, that is) with his wifes. He had like two already with a plethora of little hims. Just doing to much, In the eyes of his friends and business people, he was the man. He was so much the man that he had to split his time in half with his wives. One got him nights and the other got him days. So, this third wife, one of which he didn't really need or have much time for, he decided to marry because she was young, and firm... Whatever. Thats were it smacked him in the face. I don't even think he was really attracted to the third wife; she had to grow on him. She was just to show everyone that he could manage another... Which he did quite well. He would provide her with all the necessary things she wanted, ya know, for children and stuff, but what he couldn't do was HER. Which is where irony played his role... That was a curse; and because of the that curse he had to step down from his authoritative figure and dehumanize himself. He was a jerk. What goes around comes around. That was a message in this book.

Lumumba Goes Dddooowwwnnn

The documentary of Lumumba was quite an eye opener. It was a tale of loyalty and deceit; betrayal and death. In the beginning of the movie, he was discussing the future of the Congo with a few of its representatives, maybe presidents, I wasn't really sure, there was tension between Lumumba and the other leaders. They didn't want him sticking his nose where it didn't belong; Lumumba kept pushing; his motives were to free the Congo from the wicked Europeans and its African puppets; Leaders of Africa who would rather watch their people die off than making a stand and actually risking their lives other than others. Lumumba's closest friend, Totally forgot his name but was issued the head of the African Army, betrayed Lumumba at the end for the power and greed the Europeans were willing to offer if he played by their rules. The movie was tragic, but it made a lot of since.

This is how I feel; So, the Congo was taking under the reign of Leopold; Lumumba wanted independence; he wanted to be free of the brutality that came along with Leopold's regime, They agreed to their constant request, for a while, only to take it back and strike back ten fold. It was almost like a joke. Although they agreed to the independence, they weren't really going to give them what was requested, they were going to allow Lumumba his time of shine and encouragement then shut him down. Thats were all the confusion and corruption came in. Lumumba gained more power than imagined, which shook up the Europeans; Army's began rebelling, white people were held in captivity, All hell broke lose. That, was the reason why Lumumba died. The whites argued that blacks were too uncivilized to have complete independence, with the little they pretended to give them, to many things went wrong, too many soldiers repelled and too many whites were in the crossfire (which could have been maybe 100 or something, but whatever). They killed Lumumba because he was never going to quit. He argued that if they were to just be given a chance, an opportunity to fix what the Europeans destroyed, their freedom would be well in control. Lumumba was executed; not being able to get the opportunity to get back at the people who betrayed him and their country , but he left a hell of a mark.

His tactics remind me of Martin Luther King; never promoting violence, but assuring hope and freedom; Lumumba's dream. Like Martin's dream. Both never like to see the change, but definitely played a role in it.