The bloom before winter

She wanted the love and the tenderness that a flower gets
She only gets the cold breath,
the ignorance of the truth
Entered a twister with no way out, the only way out was to be loved for who you are
Was blind for a long time, 
Denying the truth behind the lies told to your face
Thinking he was the sun, that made you shine in the shade
Believing he was the reason you stood tall and faced the crowd
Till you found the lies behind your smile, 
he restrained you from your life unlike his
Resuscitating your life, with the time lost
Managed to become the flower you wanted to become
Standing tall in the sun
No negativity bringing you down
She finally became the flower she is now

Pwa essay ! Education is our key to freedom (:

Kindred is about a women named Dana who is transported back in to the time of slavery. Dana has to survive to the racism around her, and having less rights than others. Dana is always transported back in to time when Rufus, Dana’s great great great grandfather gets hurt, or when Rufus is in trouble. Dana gets stuck in time where it’s nothing compared to what Dana is used to. Dana experiences oppression. Even though Dana is not from that time period, Dana is not able to read books, Dana does not have the freedom that she has in real life, Dana is treated like a slave. Even though education is the key to freedom, back in the day where Dana is transported they did not want slaves to learn to read & write because they did not want slaves to know their rights.

Education gives you the power of knowledge. It’s the reason to get a better start at life and to have a brighter future. “Tom Weylin didn’t want me reading on my own, but he had ordered me to read to his son. Once he told Rufus in my presence, you ought to be ashamed of yourself ! A nigger can read better than you !” This quote explains that education was not allowed for slaves to learn so that they would always be in that kind of oppressive system.

    In the book Kindred, Carrie asked Sarah, “ Do you want to learn? Afraid if you learn, she might get caught and then be whipped or sold ?” This quote explains that the way the oppressive system works, when you have the time to learn you are cruelly punished for an unknown reason. You are being punished for wanting a better future for yourself. This in so many ways, is unacceptable because they are basically threatening slaves, that they aren’t able to learn so they won’t be able to  know what their rights and they won’t rebel against their slave owners.
    Today we are facing the same situation. Now with the Board of Education doing budget cuts, there’s a less chance of kid’s going to college and getting an education.Getting a high school diploma and a college degree is getting harder and harder for people to get since there’s more cuts being cut from schools. which is actually hurting our future and desires. We want a better life for ourselves but the more budget cuts there are, we are loosing doctors, surgeons, teachers, etc. I think it’s important for us to learn and gain an education so we can know what is going around the world, and things that surround us.
    I guess what I’m trying to say is that we want the chance to be able to have an education. Education leads to a brighter future which means a better career for us and better teachers, doctors, etc. for our community. without an education we would never be able to discover new things, as the world keeps changing and keeps on developing. With slaves in the past not being able to have an education, it is our duty to let the people of the world have the gift of an education. Having people with knowledge can prepare our community to what comes ahead of us and what's awaiting us ahead. We can learn the mistakes of the past and not make them again in the future, what I'm saying is that we should stand up for education because that's what's going to help us in the end. Will you be able to transform this resistance against our future's ? Will you prevent the past to not relive in the future ?

Sex trafficking Power Point !

https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dfdnhptr_0dznr82dg&revision=_latest&start=0&theme=bubbles&cwj=true

College for all Reflection

College for all was the experience of a lifetime that i will never forget throughout my lifetime. i learned the ways that the college students learned in college, the way they lived. Our first stop was UC Santa Barbara we spent time getting a tour around the school & we stayed in centro where it's for latinos & you can learn bout others cultures.  Santa Barbara Was next to the Beach which was cool. i really loved UC Santa Barbara it was awesome because you can really be in touch with your roots in this school. Our next stop was Cal poly ! what i really loved about Cal Poly, was that it was small & it had good food ! :) aha but i really loved the site, because it was where the mountains were ! i loved the weather it was nice & hot. i really see myself being in these two schools. :) Our last stop was UC Santa Cruz ! I was really not a fan of Santa Cruz, but i really loved their food, & the library & their history. What i really didn't like was that it was a long trip from the bottom to the school. i also didn't like the way that it we were in the woods & that it got us lost because it was very confusing ! I really loved the trip & i will always remember this & also my 8th grade experience. the best part of this trip though was The boardwalk in Santa Cruz where it was AWESOME ! :)

THE MASK OF AN INNOCENT GIRL

We all wear the mask,

The mask that giggles,chuckles, and makes you smile

The mask 

that hides from this world form danger and the sadness of this world,

The cloak that pretends to be ok when actually i am suffering of pain and sorrow

The mask that smiles to hide what i feel to cover

College For All Essay

The last days of the shadows

    Have you ever been in a situation where you don’t feel your world is not complete? Like you are missing something to call home? Well welcome to my world where I live two separate lives, where I am far away from home. I was born and raised in the city Oakland where people call it “the city of murder” or “baby Iraq,” but I just simply call it, “Home.” I come from a big family where I feel I am small, where I just want to curl up and feel safe in my parents’ arms. Apparently I can’t which makes me sad! I have to be strong and ready to face the world where I am alone. My parents are divorced and being raised by my mother alone is not easy, but who said it was going to be easy? I never knew in a million years that I was going to be in this situation, where my parents hated each other with each glare. It was and will be the hardest thing to go through, because with every step that I want to get as far away from this, it will always be on my mind.

    When I was eight years old my parents always fought in a separate room where they thought we wouldn’t hear their bickering. Yet walls could talk, where everything was loud and clear. I would hide in my closet and close my eyes where tears would run down my face and remember the good times where everyone was happy. I would fall asleep crying, dreaming of my perfect world, far away from here. My parents then called it quits and got divorced. I was the youngest of three sisters; it was not easy for me to not have parents here with me. At school my friends would talk about their awesome weekend with their parents. I would just stay there and not say anything because I kept everything that I was feeling inside me where no one can see or hear the pain that I was going through except for myself. I was living in my own shadows where I thought that I was safe and not be harmed by anything. Everything was not the same anymore but no one understood me, so I couldn’t talk about it to any one. I felt alone for a very long time that I became a quiet kid in school and at home. If someone would ask me what was wrong I would say nothing would be wrong with me, but if you really knew I was lying and was not ok. People would say that in this type of situation kids would get into drugs or gangs since its Oakland. But I am glad to have proved them wrong because I am in this situation and I am drug and gang free because I have found a way to deal with this and I am proud of myself. My world has shaped my hopes and dreams to become a doctor or a mentor for kids who are having problems in a situation similar to mines that I have gone through and can help them out, to stay out of bad influences that surround them in their community that will harm them in the future.

    One word that describes my family is strong. I believe that my family is strong because I have three older sisters that always look out for me. When my parents had gotten divorced, my mother had worked at night since that’s the only time they accepted her to work. It urged her to work as soon as possible because she had no more help from my father. So my mother took the night shift, where she worked when my sisters and I would be asleep and then she would come in the morning when we would go to school. So I hardly even saw my mom, the only time I would see her is on the weekends when she would wake up late to catch up on her sleep. I knew that this was harming my mom and her health because that’s when she got depression. Even through this we were united together to make the best of it, we were just lucky to have a mother that wanted to keep moving forward. I also had felt lucky that I had three older sisters that could understand me and what we were going through; they took care of me and had kept me on the right track. My sisters took care of me like I was their child. I was losing everything in my little perfect world. My mother gave everything she had just to have food in our fridge, a roof over our heads, and made sure that the bills were paid. My mom always told us, “The way to ever repay me is to stay out of trouble and to stay in school to pursue your dreams!” with

Everything that was going on in our lives’ we helped my around the house to feel my mom supported when she came home. This whole situation made us face a tough view of life where nothing can be as easy as it looks, and made us united and strong. I believe this because my older sister is now an assistant nurse and has a child who makes me a proud auntie which she has pursued her dreams. My other sister is now in college. She attends UC Berkeley; she has proved to be a successful scholar and warrior. My third sister attends Life Academy where she wants to be a social worker who can relate to other situation similar to ours, and she is about to go to her desired college. I am proud that all my sisters are following the right path to success, and I believe that it is my time to pursue my hopes and dreams because of my inspirations all around me, which will always be my family that inspires me to keep going and never give up.

    The opportunities that have been available to me at school, is that I had the opportunity to go to Washington D.C. This was an opportunity that I just couldn’t pass. I finally thought things were turning great for me; I wasn’t this girl who was in her little world isolated away from the real world anymore. This was a huge opportunity that gave me the chance to experience responsibility and independence; it also gave me the chance to explore beyond my comfort zone. This trip to Washington D.C has made me want to explore the world even more, I believe it’s made me a stronger person and it made me realize that you don’t have to be miserable your whole life, you get to choose if you want to be have a happy person or not. I thank and always thank this opportunity that was given to me because it had taught me to grow and learn new things. This has also made me get away from all the violence from my community and experienced a new community outside of Oakland that took me out of my comfort zone. I learned that there are more things to be discovered out there, but we just have to go out there and find these things.

    The major issue in my life is not having the support of my father when my sisters and I needed him in our lives’. It hurts to have a father walk out on out of your life without ever saying a simple goodbye. It hurt my heart to hear through the walls where my mother and sisters were discussing that how I don’t need to know about this at this moment. But I couldn’t just pretend that my father was not there supporting me in school and having a gaping hole in my heart. I had to tell my mom and my sisters that I knew that my father was walking on out of our lives’. Even though my dad no longer lives with us, that day my dad left he has taken a part of me that will never make me feel complete even though how hard I try to recover that missing piece, it will never be found through the coffin it’s been buried in. Now that my sisters are all grown up they don’t seem to be affected by this home situation because they have all grown to be strong about having divorced parents. I believe that it is now my time to prove myself and to everyone that I am able to also be strong from our home situation and that it has also made my family more united than ever because we are the only ones that know exactly what happened and there’s no one who can change it, also we have become more united because we will be the only ones that will understand our emptiness and also we can help each other overcome this together as a family. I am so glad that I can count on my sisters over this type of situation and that I am not alone facing the world by myself.

    The result of having divorced parents is not easy, but I have learned and experienced that having divorced parents doesn’t bring you down because it actually has inspired me to do good in school and get good grades in order to get a good job and let my family know that I am stronger than ever. This has also made me become the girl I am today, it has inspired me to help others in the way my sisters helped me out one day that I needed help when I felt and didn’t know where to put my empty heart that was broken into a million pieces. I felt like a snowflake in an ocean, deep inside no one saw the real me other than myself.

    I chose to address this issue because I saw the way my issue has had a huge impact on my life. But I realized that I wasn’t just the only one with a broken heart, I was being selfish because my sisters were also going through the same pain as me. And now look at them; they are pursuing their dreams like they always said they will. That’s when I realized that they are more kids out there dealing with the same issue as I did when I was eight years old. The best solution was to learn from having divorced parents and also finding who you truly are deep inside. This situation has really made me go through different phases in my life that I would never realize that I would have ever gone through, now later in the future I can say that I was once there and I have made it out alive. The best solution for me is to go to college because I want to make my family proud and most certainly my mom I want to repay my mom for all the work she has done for me and my sisters. Going to college I’ll have more knowledge to succeed better in the future with my career. With all the new things I will learn in college I’ll have a great career that I will be able to pay my mom with the best vacation for all the hard work she has done for us even though my mom says it’s nothing. My mom says this because she just wants what’s best for us because we are her world. I appreciate how my mother never lost hope on my sisters and me and it’s time for me to start believing that. I now take the cemetery drive to the right path to college and starting a bright new future for me to complete my heart.

Expo Oppression Journal

Oppression paragraph

    May of the systems of alcohol and drugs are an oppression to teenagers and the people around them. This type of oppression like alcohol and drugs can affect someone to do things that are not healthy for their minds, bodies and the people around them because it puts certain of people in the harm of early death and the harm of the people around them that don’t know what to do. This system is also an oppression because the way that teenagers are forced to do alcohol or drugs just to fit in hurts non other than themselves and their loved ones because that makes their families think where did they go wrong on raising their child. Also alcohol and drugs oppress others is the way that liquor stores sell them, with the way that people are age 21 but they can sell the drugs or liquor to a minor. Kids that are under age can be oppress by alcohol and drugs because they are sold out on the streets that can make them do a bad decision on this that can change a person’s future by saying a simple no or yes.

Action paragraph

    Individuals can liberate themselves by looking for help or support at a local rehab center around. One step that people with an addiction to alcohol and drugs can do to take the chance to liberate themselves is to realize that they have an addiction to alcohol and drugs. Another important element of liberation is to take the chance to talk to a counselor that you can explain your problems to, and that the counselors get the chance to help you out with your addiction and look at where it all started ti help you out. Individuals can incorporate joy in their life by getting the help they need by caring about their health, by going to rehab center. To be alcohol and drug free person, we all must have the right to have a place to be able to talk out our minds and see others peoples experiences to what they are going through also.

                Liberation paragraph

    Without this type of oppression of Alcohol and drugs, people would feel happy and powerful over their ways that they are finally free. When free from this form of oppression people would be more themselves than what they really hide inside because they don’t want to hide their addiction or problem that they have because, someone that is addicted to drugs and alcohol they need someone to talk to about it. Individuals will experience happiness and a healthier, honest life, without this type of oppression because then they wouldn’t depend on the drugs or alcohol to let all their problems go away or their pain go away. Individuals will be able to go outside of their comfort zone because they won’t have drugs and alcohol to be there to console their pain. This would let people talk and fend for themselves. People could experience joy by things that they wouldn’t be able to go and do by themselves, such as finishing school or being able to talk to younger people about their experiences that can teach others to stay on the right path. show others that drugs and alcohol can become addicting and it can also ruin their life, by becoming addicted and depended on drugs and alcohol.