John Green

“You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world...but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices.”

“The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive.”

"Thomas Edison's last words were 'It's very beautiful over there'. I don't know where there is, but I believe it's somewhere, and I hope it's beautiful."

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Cheating

I think that nowadays people should know if you're going to cheat, you're going to get caught

Article 7; dave barry on college

I thought this article was pretty funny. I thought it didn't make sense however though, whenever he said "things you don't need to know in life end with istry, ology, iscs." doesn't make any sense because without those majors we would have no doctors, nurses, or really anybody in the scientific field. Which means we would be stable in society and not be making any improvements in technology. (tried uploading picture and would not upload)

Friday, November 15, 2013

Paper proposal on fairy tales..

My proposal is on how or if fairytales or disney movies effect childrens perspective on reality.

Monday, November 11, 2013

Article summary 3, grammar errors

I found this article pretty amusing, not only because I didn't even know what Yogada was talking about whenever he was talking about whenever he said it was alright to "split infinitives"....and to be completely honest I still have no idea what an infinitive is. I thought this article was very commical, because basically Yogada is saying "Well here are some rules of English, but no worries you don't have to follow them sometimes." Most of these rules are kind of common sense, and I feel like he's just making fun of the english speaking population for not knowing this. (tried to post a picture but it would not let me, i let ms beaver know)

Thursday, October 31, 2013

Article 2; education in finland

In Finland the education seems to be improving tremendously. It is now starting to outweigh the US education system (was number one in the world) No school in Finland is allowed to charge tuiton fees, which of course drives more people to want to attend. In my favorite quote through the whole article Sahlberg says "there are no private schools in finland" which i thought was incredibly interesting considering every school in america costs money, if they aren't private. And EVERY college requires an application process to get into.

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Article 1

As I read through this article I found myself wondering why the human population, or any population for that matter get distracted so easily. I learned in this article that humans weren't meant to read... so why do we? If scientist have tested and made hypotheses on if humans can read or not and the answer is no, why not just emerse ourselves in language and visual arts?
It takes more brain power to read on the computer, so of course youre going to get lazy and not want to fully read something every once in a while. But I feel that the brain doesn't like e-books if the brain was not meant to read in the first place.

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

reading response 3; Henrietta Lacks

This week i started reading "the Immortal life of Henrietta Lacks." it's about the woman Henriette Lacks, or HeLa. Who's cells were used and still are used throughout the world for medical and scientific discoveries everywhere. I haven't gotten very far, but what I have discovered is that HeLa was just your average African American southern woman. She grew up in Roanoke, Virginia, married her cousin Day and raised all of her children in the same town. She discovered a knot on the inside of her womb one day and whenever she went in for a routine doctors appointment, her life would never be the same again.

Monday, October 7, 2013

Reading response Looking for Alaska (Spolier Alert)

This week I finished Looking for alaska by John Green, the first half of the book was more of a happy more uplifting half. But it the "before" part ended with Alaska and pudge kissing and Alaska leaving in a drunken haze of confusion and anger but nobody stopping her, only helping her off campus whenever she wanted to leave. Pudge and Colonel fell back asleep and woke up only to realize their bestfriend had been killed in a terrible accident the night before. Basically the rest of the book is them coping with the loss of Alaska, and how much of an impact somebody can make on someones lives without you even realizing it. Before you know it someone you love can be gone, and pudge realizes that by the end of the book, and personally, I think he finds his great perhaps.

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Face to face Sayema Hameed

Sayema was born and raised in America, her religious choice to be a Muslim and cultural background that supported her and her family were no longer feeling safe after the September 11th attacks. Sayema said that she felt scared to even leave the house by herself because she felt as if she would be harmed or somebody would be rude to her out in public. People would tell her that the whole Arab nation needed to be wiped out, but what is it going to do? She pleads that people need to realize where the source of misery from the suicide bombers are coming from, within an individual and not a whole country. She says that she wishes that bombings did not happen and that she feels bad for what happened on September 11th, but she doesn't understand why she is still blamed for what happened twelve years ago whenever she personally was not in charge of it all. It is most definitely not fair how people still continue to judge Muslim culture for the actions taken place on September 11th, as Sayema said, "Suicide bombers are individuals, not a whole country." So why do people continue to judge the people from the country and countries surrounding?

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

What inspires me

What inspires me is my family, my mom, my dad, my sister, my grandmother, my boyfriend, his family, and my dog Wookie. My dad inspires me by how hard of a worker he is he was with the Greene county sherrifs department for almost thirty years before he retired, but he didn't want to retire it was forced because he is in such bad health. That's what I call dedication, I also feel like I have inherited wantintg to help people. Because I feel like I want to help people whenever I am oldder. My sister inspires me because she is such a beautiful person, she has gone through a lot and I can't even imagine what goes on inside her head I am just greatful to have her in my life as my bestfriend. My mother is one of the most strong minded strong minded women I know, that must be where I get it from. My boyfriend and I have been through a lot of the same things in our lives, both of our sisters were hospitalized for the same mental illness and our thoughts are very similar on evyerhing, I think that is why he inspires me because we are so similar. My dog wookie inspires me just because I love him so much and can't imagine life without him!

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Reading Response 2: Looking for Alaska

I've been reading the book looking for alaska and it's about a boy who is obsessed with famous "last words" which i find very interesting. He decides to go to Culver Creek boarding school to look for a "great perhaps" because he isn't finding it at his public highschool. His father went to CC and so thinks it will be fun, his father warns him not to get into drugs and alcohol and to stay on top of things at CC. But right away he meets his roommate "the colonel" who gives the boy the nickname "pudge" because of how thin he is. Pudge then meets colonels friend Alaska and falls in love at first sight, but heres the catch; she's madly in love with her long time boyfriend. so pudge ignores his feelings, as the school year goes on he starts smoking and drinking a lot. Until the night whenever Alaska and him get drunk and she kisses him, but tells him it's to be continued.

Begining and ending sentence.

My begining sentence was "The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there" and it's from the book the go-between by LP Hartley and my ending sentence was "He heard the ring of steel against steel as a far door clanged shut" they werent too hard to tie together because I felt that they were sort of related to crime in some sort of way and so that's how i tied them together.

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Readers resonse

My book is titled "Cut" it is about a young girl suffering from many mental illnesses that cause her to think of her life as a waste. As she cuts herself to find any relief from people, she is sent to a home for the mentally ill. She feels like even an outcast there because most of the other girls there are suffering from anorexia or bulimia and not something as simple as depression. At first she is hesitant to go forward with treatment feeling as if she is being pressured and it won't accomplish anything; but throughout the chapters she is taught to love herself and to recover without any more fits of self harm. But without the help of her friends in the mental illness hospital then she could never  have recovered so easily. Now this book reminds me a lot of my younger sister lindsey; last september my sister attempted suicide and was put in lakeland for almost a month in hopes that she would recover and not think any bad thoughts about her life anymore. While my sister was in there she learned to love herself and not to think about things so negativly and I feel like thats what happened with the main character in my book.

Monday, August 26, 2013

25 Things about me

1. My name is Taylor  Marie Penland
2. I'm Welsh, Native American and German.
3. I have a dog named wookie
4. I have a fish tank full of fish
5. My dad was a police officer.
6. My mom is a dental assistant.
7. I have been with my boyfriend for two years.
8. I love reading as long as its a book that I want to read.
9. But it's really difficult for me to find books that I enjoy
10. My parents are divorced.
11. My bestfriend is my sister,
12. I'm a competitive swimmer.
13. I like doing makeup a lot.
14. I can't decide if I want to nurse or get into law enforcement as a career.
15. My room is pink
16. My favorite color is teal/turquoise
17. I love art.
18. I've been to eight different countries
19. I am really bad at math
20. But I like chemistry.
21. I have lots of animals.
22. I have a gold BMW
23. I am a junior
24. My favorite book will always be Harry Potter
25. My favorite teacher was my 4th/5th grade teacher Mr. Post.