A Desired Place in the United States

A place in the United States that I would like to visit is the Grand Canyon and the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. I would like to experience the Grand Canyon because of its fantastic views of wildlife and man-made architecture in the West. The Grand Canyon National Park would have all of the amenities to keep me interested and it would be cool to adventure the area. I cold hike in the Grand Canyon and experience all of the man-made nature around me. It would also be neat to walk on the sky walk that hovers over the Grand Canyon. This would provide and outstanding view of the whole canyon and the Colorado River. The views of the canyon would make for great pictures that I could take to commemorate my time there. There are even bus tours I could go on to see the whole canyon inside and out. With so many things to do, the Grand Canyon would be an excellent place that I would want to go to.

To get to the Grand Canyon, I would take a plane that flies from BWI in Baltimore probably to the airport in Las Vegas, since it is the closest big city near the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon offers shuttle service from the different lodges there so it would be easy to get around there. The weather is very warm in the summer months with high temperatures getting into the 90s. It gets colder though at night with lows in the 40s. So I would want to pack shorts and t-shirts but also a couple of jackets for the nighttime hours when it gets cold. I could also take some hiking gear because hiking is very popular in the Grand Canyon. I would also need money because i would have to par for food and water and a room at a lodge. My expectations for the Grand Canyon is that it would be very hot out but there are so many things to do there that I would always be having fun. I also expect to take fantastic pictures of the canyon and experience the man-made art of the West. I expect to have fun and enjoy a different region of the United States other than the Mid- Atlantic. I know that the Grand Canyon will be a blast.

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Jon Krakauer Biography

Jon Krakauer was born in Massachusetts in the year 1954. Shortly after his birth, he and his family moved to Oregon where Jon would spend his childhood years. Krakauer loves the outdoors and has a love for nature. All of the books Krakauer has written had to do with the wilderness and nature that impacts the main character. Jon had a passion for writing about nature since the outdoors is his favorite interest. Jon also loved to climb the mountains of the Northwest. His love for climbing was influenced by a man named Willi Unsoeld, who was also a climber himself. Jon's first real climb was up a volcano in the Cascade Range, where he was accompanied by his father and his childhood hero, Willi Unsoeld. Early in Jon's adult years, he spent time climbing challenging rises and ascents but also trying jobs like housing and fishing. But after writing a magazine article in 1974 about his climb in Alaska, Jon started to write for his career. First, Jon started writing magazine articles, but then he made the move to books. In the 1990s. Jon wrote books such as Into the Wild and a magazine article for the Outside magazine called Iceland, which contained pictures of his exploration in Iceland. Krakauer also wrote the book Into Thin Air, which was a personal account of a Mount Everest disaster. Into the Wild won an award for Mountain Literature in 1996 and his Iceland magazine article was nominated for a National Magazine award in 1994. Jon Krakauer has become a well-known author, especially for his stories about nature and the wilderness.

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Introduction to Into the Wild

 Our class is moving into our new novel called Into the Wild by John Krakauer. This book is about a boy named Chris McCandless who in the beginning of the book, he hitchhiked to Alaska and had to live there in the wilderness with limited materials and a lack of food and water. He lived there for over one hundred days during the summer but he ended up dying with his body being found in September. McCadless ended up living from shooting game and traveling long distances for berries to eat. Chris even tried to leave one day, but his route was blocked by a melted river, so he could not pass. Chris also wrote a journal that explained his feelings and what he was doing in Alaska. The source to Chris's death was from him eating the seeds of this mysterious plant that contained toxic and poison, which caused deathly symptoms like starvation. Chris eventually died, but he survived about three months in the Alaskan wilderness, which is quit impressive. So overall, this book is very interesting and it will hook you to keep reading on. So join our class on this epic adventure into the Alaskan wilderness!

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My Dream Paragraph

A couple of years back, I had a dream that I remembered. It started when my family and I decided we would go on vacation to the beach. So when we were all packed up and ready to leave, my family left without me! I tried to call my parents’ cell phones but they never came picked up or came back for me. So I went to my friend’s house to ask him if he could drive me there. In my dream though, he was my age. So he said yes and I got in his car and we were on our way. Since my friend did not know how to drive, he kept swerving in the road. Then, we got lost and were going in the wrong direction. Somehow we were now on a bridge. My friend then accidently drove off the bridge and we were heading for our doom into the river below. That is when I woke up right before we landed in the river. That dream I had was very strange, especially when my friend was driving, but that is how a lot of my dreams are. 

Microsoft Clip Art online

New Semester Blog

Welcome readers to Semester 2 and also Quarter 3. Our class is still finishing up A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare  but we have almost finished it up. We will soon be reading the book Into the Wild after we have finished MND. MND has been great so far, but I am looking forward to reading a new book in class. I have learned that John Carroll is a great school for a student's education and that I have been getting used to the way things run at John Carroll every day. I have changed from September to now because I have gotten used to being in the environment here at this high school. My first semester at John Carroll was good and now I am looking forward to ending the year on a strong note with good grades and good effort in classes.

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Character Sketch Essay

Adam Beard

Mrs. Zurkowski

English 9/Yellows

9 January 2011

A Hero Through Friendship

            Many people like to read about the good deeds a character performs, which seem to make that person a very moral and caring character. This character also wants to make sure the person he helped is feeling better and will get his life back on track. When you could care less about someone, but you want to make sure they are okay, that is what makes up a true friend. True friends are the best kinds of friends you can have in life. In the book Night Hoops, by Carl Deuker, Nick Abbott has all of the skills to become an excellent basketball player and he has many friends who care about him as a person. But what he does to another boy is the true meaning of being a friend.

            Nick Abbott is in the 10th grade at Bothell High School and he is a point guard for the school’s varsity basketball team. He has a brother named Scott and a mother and a father. He wasn’t exactly the smartest when it came to school, but he made up for it with his impressive basketball skills. Nick’s dad said “You could be good, Nick. You could be very, very good” (Deuker 15). Nick’s best skill on the court would be driving in to the hoop and either getting a basket or drawing a foul. He was only one of two sophomores on the varsity basketball team. Nick made himself practice very hard to be the starting point guard because he was currently behind two sophomores for the starting role. He could especially get better since he has a new basketball court and hoop installed in his backyard by his dad. Trent, another kid on the basketball team said to Nick, “You did more than okay. You ate their lunch” (149). Nick had all of the skills to become a franchise basketball player at Bothell High School for the future.

            The first event that Nick is faced with is when his dad installed a brand new basketball court with a hoop into their backyard. Nick’s dad took out the grass of almost the whole backyard and had people over to work on installing a brand new court and putting in a new hoop with the court. In the process, Nick’s dad also took out his mom’s rose garden that she had been really working hard on to grow roses, which made Nick’s mom very upset. Nick’s dad said the hoop would help nick practice basketball whenever he wanted to. Nick’s dad commented on the court by saying “In a few days, you are going to be the proud owner of the best basketball court in Bothell” (28). Nick was amazed by the court and he practiced on it on a regular basis, almost every day. Nick had a court all to himself and he could get better at basketball in the process. Nick knew his basketball skills would improve because of this new hoop and court. But a couple of days later, Nick’s dad and Mom got into a huge argument about how the installation of the court was a bad idea since it took out the rose garden and how Nick’s dad was being too strict with Scott playing basketball. So after a period of yelling and screaming, Nick’s dad said “You want it; you got it. I’m gone. I’m out of here” (29). This changed Nick’s life around since there was now no one to help him with his basketball or to be with when bad things came about. Now Nick would have to practice basketball all by himself. Nick was very upset and depressed that his dad would not be there for him on a regular basis, only if something very important came up. Nick knew that it would be tough without his dad around. With these two events, Nick was going have a whole lot of time to practice basketball, but by himself. While Nick was practicing basketball and catching up with his dad on the phone, there was also trouble at the Dawson across the street. One of the players on the team lived there, Trent Dawson. Trent’s brother Zack had shot one of Nick’s friends, Michael Ushakov. Trent wasn’t feeling good about living with his maniac brother. So Nick came in. Nick went to Trent’s house every day to ask him he wanted to play basketball with him. Deep down, Nick knew that this would cheer up Trent and make him feel less stressed out. One night, Nick even let Trent sleep over at his house for safety. Nick said, “Come back here when you are done, Trent, and I’ll make you something to eat, and you can sleep here tonight” (136). Over time, Nick and Trent became better friends, and they eventually led the Bothell High varsity basketball team to a league championship with their impressive teamwork from practicing basketball together.

While Nick was practicing basketball with Trent, he was also reaching out to help him in any way from his troubled family because deep down, Nick cared about Trent. Nick wanted to see Trent happy and back to normal. While Nick was progressing extremely well in basketball, he was also reaching out to a boy that many people would not even think of helping. Nick was helping Trent by helping him learn some new basketball skills and he always offered Trent a place to sleep by letting him sleep in his house if he had to go somewhere. Nick was also improving in basketball because he was put on the first team in front of two other seniors for the second half of the season. Nick’s was doing all of the right things to lead his team to many wins in the future. His coach and his teammates also liked his work on the court. The players in the locker room said, “Great game, Nick! Way to step up and be aggressive” (186). Nick was even getting these comments from the seniors. Nick was making good decisions on the court and off of it, too, that transformed him into a completely better person overall.

Nick Abbott progresses into a hero for readers throughout the book with an improvement in personality and character. He develops throughout the book into the quintessence of a moral character that does things in ways that benefit others. Nick also progresses in basketball where he makes the right choices during the games and he gets others involved by passing them the ball so they could do something. In Carl Deuker’s Night Hoops, Nick realizes the qualities that make him a hero for others, especially Trent Dawson, and he becomes a moral leader for his friends and an emotional leader for the players on his basketball team.

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