User talk:Kostonred

Journal #1 wave reaction. i was kinda of surprised that this effect happened. i mean i knew teens were moldible, gullible and easy to persaude but this was weird. it wasnt because they joined a certain group so quickly its just that, the group they joined would never be anything me or my friends would join. its a school thing that your teacher told you to do and its not fun at all its all serios and just following orders. who would want to join that? i guess that since only a few were in the club noone wanted to be left out so they just joined and got sucked in. i dont think this would happen today. Kids are much more independent and rebelious so something that made them follow orders probably wouldnt sit to well. also the fact that this was based off a true story was astounding. and through the movie i noticed many similaritys to the nazis. this showed even we can be turned in to nazis. That means anyone can. Journal #2 Always, Never, Everyone, Nobody. Im not completely sure i understand this but this is what i think. I can interpret a lot from them, because a lot of things go through my head but the main thing is working together. As in, if everyone participates, things will always happen. If no one participates, it will never happen. . I know I give up easily when I’m trying to accomplish something alone, when I receive help it’s like anything is possible. I don’t only think it’s me, I feel like if everyone is working together we can achieve a lot. I don’t think one man or just a few can really accomplish anything. I know man can individually accomplish something great, but they have help along the way. Another interpretation would be that these are some words people use too much. I feel like society is revolved around putting people’s hopes and dreams down. As in, “you’ll never do this”, because that’s what I hear a lot. ‘Everyone’ is like a clique word, if everyone is doing it, then you will too. If no one is, why would you? Journal 3: What is your worst childhood memory? I have many bad memories all were emotionaly scarring and make me sad when i think back at them. If I were to have a worst childhood memory, it would be one of my childhood Christmas’s. I remember when I was about 8, and my parents were confused about whose turn it was to take me and my little sister for Christmas. I remember my dad and my mom fighting for hours on the phone, and late at night Christmas eve my dad driving all the way down to my house to take my sister and I. My mom locked all the doors. My dad grabbed me and told me to choose between my mom and him, I felt sad because I loved them both very much. My mom and dad made a huge scene around our neighborhood, and all I could remember was how embarrassed and scared I was. I didn’t want to be around either of them, and my brother was always acting out I knew that people thought we were crazy. I hated it. Eventually I told my dad I’d stay with my mom, and I don’t really remember what happened to my sister, I think she went with my dad. After that we weren’t allowed to see him for a long time because of something to do with court I think? When we could see him again I was always uncomfortable around him, but now that I’m older I realize he is family. I love my dad and he’s a great man, I see him every other weekend and he loves my sister and I very much. My mom and him don’t fight over us anymore, we’re old enough to make our own decisions on who we want to spend our time with. Which is good, I’m glad we have that choice it’s a lot different from when we were younger, and had to watch our parents fight over it constantly. Journal 4: If it became illegal… If it became illegal to go anywhere without my parents until I was 18, I would be pissed. I would feel like I wouldn’t have rights. I would also feel like I didn’t have freedom or personal space. I think this would cause a problem with every teenager in the world. If there was a country that didn’t enforce that law, I would run away to that country, and live life do whatever i want whenever i wanted. Everyone wants freedom, and a voice. I’ve just recently realized how little voice I have, because I’m a child. It’s bad enough that this is because I’m so young and live under rules of my parents, if they had to go everywhere with me, oh gosh, i just can’t even begin to imagine what I would do. This might be over-reacting, and it maybe wouldn’t even be a big deal, but I just feel like I would be miserable. Also, if it became illegal to laugh! I just thought of this one. I think laughing makes everyone happier, and loving. If I couldn’t laugh, or the world couldn’t laugh, we’d be filled with anger and hatred. Laughing is a huge part of life! It makes me feel so much better when I’m crying, yelling, sad, and even happy, it makes me happier! We’d have so many suicide attempts! I think not being so restricted makes people happier, it makes them feel like they have freedom and a voice. That’s what I want in life. Journal#5 The persecution in Europe could never have happened if the rest of the world had not stayed blind to it. Most countries, including this one, ignored the reports and accounts of these persecutions, out of short-sightedness. "What has this to do with us?" we said.Today, with the improved communications, it is not as easy to stay blind to what is going on, or to ignore the reports. But it is just as easy to think it has nothing to do with me, or us.We must not kid ourselves into thinking that what happens elsewhere in the world is not our business. we need to learn from this mistake this horrible tragedy and never repeat it. this was a big step backwards for civilization of man and we have just barely recovered.

Journal 6: Today I learned… Today I learned that one of my friends’ great, great, grandpa was a Nazi doctor in the holocaust. I think this is ironic because I just got done reading a very sad book about the holocaust called “The Devils Arithmetic”. It’s one of my favorite books now, and it made me look at the holocaust in a completely different point of view. Before I knew how bad the concentration camps were and how bad the Jews were treated, but I guess I never really understood it. After reading the book I became sympathetic. I heard it was made into a movie, which I am kind of curious to see how that turned out, but I’m afraid that maybe the movie ‘killed the book’. I think I’ll try it out anyways; I want to be more opened minded to things, and I heard it was a really good movie. I also found this ironic because we are learning about the holocaust in English and History, at the moment. We are reading Night, which is a book by a holocaust survivor. It seems like a good book. I think that learning about the holocaust changes me a little; it makes me respect and also hate human nature. Respect the Jews for how much they went through, and not looking for pity like some other races/religions that have been through a lot. It was makes me hate mankind for how evil and vicious we are. I feel hatred for people like Hitler, and I look up to the Jews because they don’t feel hatred for him. They say that if they hate him, they would be just as bad as him. I don’t see how they could do that, although I admire it. In the book the main character, Elie, had encountered Dr. Mengele. He is said to be the worst doctor in the holocaust for his torturous acts! My friends great great whatever makes me think of Dr. Mengele! Journal 7: What Matters To me my Family, friends, boyfriend, and everything I love matters. My family is so important to me because even though we’re extremely dysfunctional, they love me. I know they love me no matter what they say or do. My friends are also important to me because even though it’s hard to find real, good people in the world now-a-days, I know the people I do have are true. To me it seems like friends come and go, I’ve never been able to really trust one, but as NERDY as this sounds, I’ve made a lot of friends online. And they’re my best best friends. I can be myself with them, and they accept me. They won’t judge me because of what’s ‘cool or not’. And maybe in person they’re different, but to me through technology, they are my best of friends. One of the most important people to me is my boyfriend. Cameron means so much to me, with everything I go through with my family and I, he has always been there to glue me back together...even if he was the one shattering me to pieces. Some of the non-so-important things to me, that still matter are my pets! I love my cats (and dog). They are soo snuggly and cuute! When I get lonely or sad they are always there I LOVE THEM!!! My iPod is important too, because I can listen to music when I’m feeling things I can’t quite describe, I can let loose through music. Also my anime, I love anime. I’m in love with anime. Anime should be in the first paragraph, lol. It’s what keeps me going on a bad day!

journal #8 if i had only 10 minutes to gather my most prized possesions i would get my TV, PS3, dog, phone, money, machete and .35 caliber ruger single shot rifle with ammo. These items would be the most useful things if i didnt know where i was going and was just taken by ss officers like the jews were. i could sell my ps3 and tv use that on top of my money that i brought and survive for a while. i could by food for myself and other stuff i may need. but if i was captured by nazis i think i would just take the other non electrical stuff and try and go live in the woods by myself. becuase i have the knowledge that a lot of jews trying to escape into different countries were captured anyway so living in the woods hunting and caring for myself away from society i think would be my best bet. my dog could come live with me so i wouldnt be lonely i could use the machete as a tool and the irfle to hunt. but if i was sent to a concentration camp with no way to escape except for death i guess i wouldnt really need to bring anything. i dont have anything with sentimental value just stuff i like and think is cool. Journal #9 if i could change the past and fix any mistakes i made that would be awesome and id definately take the oppurtunity to do so. i have many regrets and have made many mistakes in the past. most are just not pushing myself to do something. also i regret dropping muay thai. i was very skilled in thai boxing every day in training my trainer told me i would become champion muay thai fighter of Arizona someday and would be making sitan gym proud. it was a lot of pressure. i was 13 at the time and my trainer put a lot of faith into my skills and bragged about me a lot. there is only an amaeteur division no teen/adult segregation so i would be going against some of the best adults in arizona who had more expierience, age and intelligence. i usually put the adults to shame in my gym except for the ones who fought for my gym. i went against them and felt powerless, i was so used to winning that i had gotten really cocky and went against our gym and arizonas welter weight champion. he didnt even try and he embarassed me. he didnt put any efforts into his attacks and just waited for my mistakes than countered i couldnt land a hit. knowing i'd be going against that i got scared of fighting in real fights. my trainer began prepping me for actual muay thai bouts, i had to come into the gym 6 days a week 2 hours a day sometimes 4. it was extremely hard and i was left exauhsted throughout the day. being the lazy person i am i couldnt take this much work just to get beaten down by guys as good as clifton. i quit muay thai and i regret it a lot. i couldve been state champion right now had i continued training. my trainer had done so much for me and had put so much hope into me becoming muay thai champion and because i was young i couldve competed in thailand had i been az champion and i would have the chance to be the first ever white champ (in thailand) and would have honored sitan gym. I couldve done so much with my fighting career but i screwed it up and thats what i regret most.

journal # 10 if one of my friends was racist? i guess he would have to be racist towards another religion/race since were the same race and friends and most racist people arnt friends with the race they dislike. i wouldnt really care. I would care if he wanted to kill that race or something like that but if he was like i hate black people id just be like join the club. jk. as long as he doesnt go hitler on that race and talk about how much he hates them all the time it would be cool. I pretend to be racist because racist jokes/stereotypes are extremely funny. so some people think im racist becuase of that plus a lot of people take racism out of proportion now a days. As long as there is jealousy, fear and hate there will be racism. noone can stop racism and everyones racist some way or another i think instead of getting mad at the racist people we just learn to deal with it(as long as its non violent racism). People take every little stereotype every little slur and assume the person hates the whole religion/race. ive learned to deal with racism and its not very difficult at all so everyone should be able to as well. ive been called a nazi. yea someone may make fun of all the stereotypes in the world about black people and mexicans but that doesnt compare to being called a mass murderer of millions. so what i think is if i can ignore the nazi comments other races can deal with little stereotypes that often time arent meant to offend. also my teacher once told me "stereotypes come from somewhere, people will look at a race/religion look at what they do a lot and make a joke about it, thats a stereotype, its not just some random thing, it comes from what the average person does in that race/religion."

Journal #11 i like tatoos and wouldnt mind getting one they can show something important to you in a cool unique way. alot of people say youll regret getting it thats why you only get one and get something thats important to you and will be with you forever. a lot of people think there dumb but i think tatoos are pretty sick. there like clothes though. they can be cool but if you pick the wrong one they look gay. i do not have a tatoo but i want one maybe my first born childs name on my back or something meaningful like that. yes if everyone had a tatoo id still want one if it was the exact same one in the exact same spot as everyone elses i wouldnt mind as long as it looked cool. it wouldnt be as cool though if everyone had the same one. also it wouldnt be cool at all if it was forced. at first i wanted maybe a tribal tat on my shoulder or something but then i decided if you get something like a tatoo it should be important and represent something that you love and care for and will always feel that way for. Journal #12 To this day, people hate each other and kill each other and it's always because of race, religion or nationality. How do we ensure that never again isn't an empty slogan or merely an aspiration, but also a call to action? I believe we start by doing what we are doing today, by bearing witness, by fighting the silence that is evil's greatest co-conspirator. We have the opportunity to make a habit of empathy, to recognize ourselves in each other, to commit ourselves to resisting injustice and intolerance and indifference in whatever forms they may take, whether confronting those who tell lies about history or doing everything we can to prevent and end atrocities like those that took place in Rwanda, those taking place in Darfur Journal #13 im not completely sure i understand this. if the opposite of love and hate are the same is he saying love and hate are the same? hes saying there not opposites and that they share the same opposite. so logically speaking hes saying love and hate are the same, which they are not the same they are opposites. love is something that you hold dear and care for very much, hate is something you do not like do not want around you and couldnt care less and possible would enjoy if it died. love and hate are 2 very different emotions that are often used together and interchange often. i guess you can say they are used the same to descriibe feelings towards another and that they breed each other. love often results in jealousy and anger which leads to hate. hatred leads to forgivness which leads to happiness which leads to love so i guess they can be the cause of eachother but they are definately opposites. im probably overthinking this and what i just said made absolutely no sense but oh well im almost done with this journal at least:). i disagree with this and honestly i dont like elie wiesel. a lot of what he says makes no sense and seems like crap he made up to sound deep and what he says doesnt match with what we learned in history so he may be making stuff up sometimes to make his stories more interesting. Also he's really milking his past situation with the holocauset, yes i do feel bad that anyone would have to endure torture like that but he lives off of the holocaust now. hes written 42 books, tell me thats not miling it. i can understand 1 or 2 or maybe even 10 but 42 hes just interested in money now. Also his quotes are stupid and dont make sense. Journal #14	i guess this means the some emotion even if bad is better than nothing. wow i really dislike all these holocaust quotes that dont really make sense or that are hard to write an entire paragraph about so you have to start writing random stuff like im dong right now to get more words on paper. im guessing that if you felt the burning of scars you would feel other emotions as well. because in order to feel the burning of scars you would have to had felt the original feeling that caused the burning and hes speaking of metephorical scars like bad memories so painful memories come from some kind of emotional destressful time that occured so basically what im getting at is that he originally felt emotion and since he feels the scars he still does. so burning along with normal emotion vs nothing, ill take the burning. Journal #15 My own personal memories are of all that happened when the Nazis occupied Poland during the war. I remember my Jewish friends and neighbours, some of whom perished, while others survived. I have come to Yad Vashem to pay homage to the millions of Jewish people who, stripped of everything, especially of human dignity, were murdered in the Holocaust. More than half a century has passed, but the memories remain.The world must heed the warning that comes to us from the victims of the Holocaust, and from the testimony of the survivors. Here at Yad Vashem the memory lives on, and burns itself onto our souls. It makes us cry out: "I hear the whispering of many - terror on every side - but I trust in you, O Lord: I say, 'You are my God. Journal#16 The Nazis took an ancient symbol-- it has been found carved in caves as old as 20,000 years ago - and distorted it just as they distorted the truth of everything they touched. The Nazi version of the swastika is the reverse of the original, ancient one. The original swastika, which is at the center of the Falun Gong emblem -has been associated with good fortune, well-being, the sun, and the light of spiritual truth for thousands of years. It frequently appears on statues of the Buddha. In fact the swastika in sanskrit means literally, well-being, positive being. The reverse swastika in sanskrit represents darkness, misfortune, and suffering.And that the principles of the original swastika, the principles of truth, compassion and tolerance at the heart of Falun Gong are bringing forth similar persecution and torture of those who do not agree with the current "party line" in China.

Journal # 17 In church we learn that everything happens for a reason. Also we learn that there is good behind every evil. Sometimes i have trouble beleiving that. i mean maybe this holocaust will teach us a lesson and prevent a worse holocaust in the future but why couldnt god just stop both? i cant really believe theres a reason behind torturing of helpless children, people, animals etc. It angers me when god makes my life miserable, i pray for him to help me but he never seems to here me. i cant see what reason is behind making me sad and making other people sad. i believe in god for many reasons that sound strange to most people. but i just sometimes dont understand why things happen and i certainly dont believe things like the holocaust happened for a reason and that there was good behind it. but supposedly this life doesnt matter and its just a test to get us to the afterlife. i think god, man and satan are all to blame cause they all can cause and prevent all these problems. Journal #18 No monument stands over Babi Yar.A steep cliff only, like the rudest headstone.I am afraid.Today, I am as oldAs the entire Jewish race itself.I see myself an ancient Israelite. I wander o'er the roads of ancient EgyptAnd here, upon the cross, I perish, tortured And even now, I bear the marks of nails.It seems to me that Dreyfus is myself. *1*The Philistines betrayed me - and now judge. I'm persecuted, spat on, slandered, andThe dainty dollies in their Brussels frills Squeal, as they stab umbrellas at my face.I see myself a boy in Belostok *2* Blood spills, and runs upon the floors, The chiefs of bar and pub rage unimpeded And reek of vodka and of onion, half and half.I'm thrown back by a boot, I have no strength left,In vain I beg the rabble of pogrom,To jeers of "Kill the Jews, and save our Russia!" My mother's being beaten by a clerk.O, Russia of my heart, I know that you Are international, by inner nature.But often those whose hands are steeped in filth Abused your purest name, in name of hatred.I know the kindness of my native land.How vile, that without the slightest quiver The antisemites have proclaimed themselves The "Union of the Russian People!"It seems to me that I am Anna Frank,Transparent, as the thinnest branch in April, And I'm in love, and have no need of phrases, But only that we gaze into each other's eyes.How little one can see, or even sense! Leaves are forbidden, so is sky,But much is still allowed - very gently In darkened rooms each other to embrace."They come!""No, fear not - those are sounds Of spring itself. She's coming soon. Quickly, your lips!""They break the door!""No, river ice is breaking..."Wild grasses rustle over Babi Yar,The trees look sternly, as if passing judgement. Here, silently, all screams, and, hat in hand, I feel my hair changing shade to gray

Journal #19 Wild grasses rustle over Babi Yar,The trees look sternly, as if passing judgement.Here, silently, all screams, and, hat in hand,I feel my hair changing shade to gray. And I myself, like one long soundless screamAbove the thousands of thousands interred,I'm every old man executed here,As I am every child murdered here. No fiber of my body will forget this.May "Internationale" thunder and ring *3*When, for all time, is buried and forgottenThe last of antisemites on this earth. <P>There is no Jewish blood that's blood of mine,<BR>But, hated with a passion that's corrosive<BR>Am I by antisemites like a Jew.<BR>And that is why I call myself a Russian!</P> Journal #20