Grey Hearts

Grey Hearts

Bad News

“I got 200 comments on my blog this morning,” said Carly Porter as she stood next to me on the boardwalk at Waterfront Park. Carly enjoys writing blogs she had 4 blogs. And soon she’d have 5. After she said that, I got a call. This is how it went:
“Hello?” I asked as I answered my phone.
“Hi sweetie.”
“Hi mom.”
“I have some bad news,”  she said. I heard a sniffle on the other line.
“What is it?” I asked as I walked away from Carly. I knew this conversation was going to be personal.
“Your grandmother is extremely ill.”

I started crying and said, “Will she be okay?”

“I’m not sure.”

I hung up.

Carly ran over to me. She wanted to know what had happened but I ran. I ran as fast as I could. I didn’t know where I was going but I didn’t stop.  I began to get tired so I found a bus stop and sat down. I have always had a strong relationship with my grandmother and to hear there is something wrong with her makes me upset. And since she lives all the way in London and we live in California, we rarely ever get to visit her. Plus, those plane tickets are expensive. Upset and angry, I pull out my phone and call my mom. This is how the phone call went this time:
“Mom?” I asked
“Lulu?”
“Mom get on your computer and buy three plane tickets to London. We have to go visit Gran,” I said sniffling loudly.
“Lulu we can’t,”
“Why?”
“It’s complicated Lu. Now come home right now young lady!” She hung up and I took the bus home. When I got home, I found mom sitting in a chair with dad sitting across from her. “What’s go-” I started.

“Lulu, sit down,” Dad said. I sat down on the couch.

Mom said, “It’s too complicated to visit grandma because we can’t afford the plane tickets.”

I froze.

“Lulu?” she asked. I stood up.

“What do you mean, ‘We can’t afford the tickets?’”

Dad looked down at his shoes and said, “Over the past few months our money has gotten lower. We’re losing more money everyday and I’m sorry to say but we can’t spend more money on plane tickets.” I couldn’t see anything after he said that. My tears were blocking my vision.

“Don’t you care about her? I asked. “Don’t you wanna do something?”

Lulu, I lost my job!” Dad yelled.

“Then get a new one!” I yelled back.

“He’s trying to get a new one Lu,” Mom said. “It’s not that easy.” She gave me a look that told me, “Stop complaining and sit down.” It was very rare for mom to give me those looks. I hated when she did though. I stormed upstairs and into my room.

I called Carly and apologized for ditching her at the park. Then I told her why, “What should we do?” I asked.

“We have to earn more money for your family!” she said.

“We can do a lemonade stand,” I suggested. I heard a giggle on the other line. “What?” I asked.

“It’s just. We can’t earn millions of dollars selling lemon juice with sugar and water mixed with it!” She explained.

“What about something like a charity?” I asked.

She grunted.

“Whatever,” I said as I put my phone on speaker and got out my laptop. I searched up: “endangered species”.

“Elephants!” I said. “Some elephants are endangered! I would donate to that charity.”

Carly sighed.

“What?” I asked

“It’s just. This doesn’t feel right,” She said.

I asked, “What do you mean?”

“Let’s be honest Lu,” She said “This charity would just be for your family. Not the elephants.”

“But,” I froze “It would be real!”

Carly sighed again and said, “This is a bad idea.”

“Carly!” I said, “Are you serious? A minute ago you were totally on board with making a plan and now you’re just going to back out?”

“I don’t want to get in trouble Lulu,” Carly said as a door closed on the other line.

“Carly, my dad needs this, I need this, my whole family needs this!” I said

Carly sighed for the third time, “I know but if someone finds out-”
“It is real and we will donate money. We will split up the money if it’s even,” I interrupted.

There was a pause.

“Fine,” Carly said, “But you have to promise me we will donate money.”
“Yes, yes, yes!” I squealed, “I promise.

For the last time, Carly sighed.

“Great!” I said. “It’s settled then.”

“I guess I can write a blog about it,” Carly told me.

I smiled. This plan was perfect. Just perfect. I couldn’t wait to start.

A Name

“Bark, bark, bark,” barked Carly’s dog as I rang the doorbell. When Carly opened the door, we walked up to Carly’s “computer room,” which is also her bedroom. We call it her computer room because she has four laptops one for each of her blogs. She also has four separate desks for each laptop. I sat down on her bed as she grabbed a bag from the Apple store. “I got this for Christmas,” she explained as she pulled out a fresh new laptop. “I’ve been saving it for the perfect moment. The perfect blog.” After an hour of setting the laptop up, she created a new blog. “So,” she said. “What is the name of the charity?” I thought for a moment. “Grey Hearts.” I said. Carly shrugged. “Okay then.”  She typed a heading. Then she started writing even more. It took about 30 minutes until she finished. She handed me her laptop and I read over it. It talked about our charity. The elephants in danger. It talked about how to donate and why you should donate. I smiled. “Awesome!” I said. “We can work on it more tonight,” Carly told me. “One second,” I said as I grabbed my homework out of my backpack. “Ugh,” Carly groaned.

Carly is home schooled by her older brother who is professionally trained to be a teacher. Her only homework is to write. Her homework is to write! The thing she does best! Anyway, she can’t stand when I have homework because I always “use up my time to have fun” apparently.

After I finished homework we went downstairs to have dinner. Pasta and garlic bread. Yum. We then went upstairs to get in our pajamas and get into bed. “Goodnight Carls,” said Nim, Carly’s mom. “And goodnight Lu.” “Goodnight mom!” said Carly. As soon as Nim turned off the light Carly took out her laptop and we continued on the blog. Carly finished and I was fast asleep.

                                                                         Flyers

I ran down the stairs as I heard the printer. I grabbed one hundred flyers that Carly and I designed and I got my bag and left for school. On my way, I texted Carly. She was supposed to put another hundred flyers at Waterfront Park. The flyers had some information about Grey Hearts and the website to look up for Carly’s blog.
At school, I took the flyers out of my bag and slipped them in everyone’s lockers. At lunch time, I had finished handing out all of the hundred papers to everyone.

“Lulu!” I heard someone say. I turned around to see Missy Webber coming my way. Missy is that girl in school who everyone wants to be. Popular and cool.
Missy asked, “Lulu, what are these flyers about?” She held one up to my face.

“Grey Hearts is a new charity I have started to help save the elephants,” I explained as I grabbed my lunch tray.

“Is it about saving the elephants, or your family?” She asked as she got some macaroni and put it into her bowl.

My face turned red. I asked, “What do you mean?”  

“Don’t you normally wear nice sweaters. Like that really expensive kind?” She asked as she looked me up and down.

I crossed my arms to cover my outfit and and asked, “What does that have to do with anything?”

She shrugged and walked away.

“Missy? What does that mean?” I said again.

Missy turned around and walked towards me and said quietly, “I know your dad lost his job Lulu”

“How do you know that?” I asked, as my hands began to get sweaty.

Missy leaned forward and whispered into my ear, “My dad fired him.”

My face began to get hot and I felt like there was smoke coming out from my ears. I wanted to cry. I wanted to hurt her. I wanted to hurt her dad! I Sat there and watched her walk away with a small little grin on her face.

                                                                                An Idea Comes to Mind

After school, I called Carly and told her what happened. “She’s so mean,” Carly said. “You know when I was three I was playing in the playground and she pushed me down and gave me a bloody nose!” My jaw dropped.

Then I gasped. “What if we do a protest!” I suggested. Carly gasped on the other line. “That’s a horrible idea!” She said. Kind of angrily.

I asked, “What? Why?”

“This is going to draw more attention to ourselves! People may find out the charity isn’t real!” She told me.

I groaned, “Carly! Please! This protest is even more convincing that the charity is real!”

Carly sighed on the other line and said, “I’ll make more flyers, this time for the protest.” I heard typing.

I grabbed my computer and looked at some of my photo albums. One of the pictures was a picture of when Carly and I had first met. It was at Waterfront Park. We were 2 and I had offered her some milk. She was lactose intolerant. After that, for some reason, we became best friends! The picture reminded me of that park. And Carly and I had just been there the other day! So, I said, “Maybe we can do it at Waterfront!”

“Mmm hmm,” Carly mumbled.

After that, Carly hung up. Bing I picked up my laptop. Carly had sent me the flyer design. Perfect! I thought. I printed the flyers and read them one more time.

            Save the date  Grey Hearts is having a protest!

         Many elephants are endangered and it needs to stop                          

       Join us Saturday, 2:30 pm, at the Waterfront Park

Have questions? Email carlyporter1@gmail.com

  

I took a deep breath in and said to myself, “This is going to work. It has to.”

                                               

                                                 The Protest

The school bell rang and I took my new set of flyers and walked into homeroom. As soon as I walked in, everyone ran up to me and grabbed a flyer out of my hand and read it. Gary, a boy in my class, said, “We’ll do it. We’ll all do it!” I looked around at the classroom. Everyone was nodding their heads. I smiled. Then I saw Missy who smirked at me. I frowned. Maybe I should of listened to Carly.

Later that day, Carly and I spent the evening preparing for the protest. We hung up more flyers around the neighborhood. At Carly’s house we made a box that said, “Every Donation Counts.” People participating in, or watching, the protest, could to put money into the box for a donation. We also made signs. Mine said, Don’t Break Our Grey Hearts The next day, after school, we walked to the park. There had to be at least one hundred people there! It was crazy! We took our box and walked up to them. People, one by one, put five dollars in the box. People took out their signs. We stood in the middle of the park chanting things our signs said. Then, I heard people chanting, “Don’t break our grey hearts” I smiled from ear to ear. It was incredible! More people that were watching the protest joined and more people put money in the box. The protest went on for about 2 hours. By the time it was over, I counted the money. $10,000!

When I got home I ran into the living room and I showed my mom the box

”For grandma,” I said.  

A tear fell on one of the bills. I looked up and my mom was crying. She hugged me.

“Oh my gosh,” Mom said, “How did you do this?”

I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to tell her the truth. “The charity, is, well, we will donate the money but to another charity,” I said shyly  

“What? Why?” Mom asked wiping her tears.

I blurted out, “The charity isn’t really, um, real.”

She wrapped out of our hug with a stern look on her face, “Lulu, tell me what is going on.” I explained everything to her. The plan, the blog, even Missy!

“Lulu, this is wrong. Really wrong and unacceptable,” She said.

I looked at the ground.

She shook her head and said, “You can’t just take money from people! You need to explain this to people. What you did. Why you did it,”

I began to cry, “I can’t! Then we would not be able to go visit gran!”
“It still is wrong Lulu!” Mom said.

“Isn’t there another way we can give back the money?” I asked, still bawling.

Mom shook her head and sighed, “Oh Lulu, what have you done?”

Then a voice said, “Nothing! We can repay the people buy doing something for the neighborhood. Cleaning up, doing anything that would get you to have $10,000. You won’t have the actual money but the more you work the more money you know you’ll make in your head.”

I turned around. It was dad.

“Blake, what are you doing?” Mom asked.

“Yes, Lulu made a big mistake but she can repay everyone by doing work for them. Not getting payed,” Dad explained.

I looked at mom. She was nodding her head.
She looked at me, “Are you up for that?”
“Yes! Anything to repay what I have done,” I said.

Dad came up to me and he hugged me and whispered, “Everyone makes mistakes. Just this one will never happen again. Understood?”

I nodded.

“Good.”

                                                   

                     Tea and Biscuits

“Are you all packed up?” Mom asked, three days later. I had worked on a few lawns and cleaned a few windows so far. If I had to get allowance I’d be at $500 so far.  “Yep!” I said, as I zipped up my suitcase. Today we were going to visit Gran. All three of us. Dad, mom, and me. We ended up keeping half the money and donating the other $5,000 to another elephant charity we found. The plane tickets ended up being  $4,764 for all three of us. We also donated the left over $236 to the local home for elderly. I know that they had participated in the protest. I hopped into the car and buckled my seat belt. It was only an hour drive to the airport but it was a twelve hour and thirty five minute flight. After all we’ve been through to get this money, it makes me happy to think that it was all over. Kind of. Not really. Nevermind. But, the next step was to get dad a new job.

At the airport, we got breakfast after security. “All flights boarding to London,” announced a speaker. I smiled. This was it! We got on the airplane and sat down in our seats. We put on our seat belts and listened to the safety instructions. The flight attendants were British. They reminded me of Grandma.

   Four hours later I finished watching some movies as I ate some chips and drank ginger ale. The flight was making me nauseous and I was really tired. Five hours later:

If you don’t like gross things I recommend not listening to this. I just got sick and the flight attendant gave me a cold cloth and some MORE ginger ale. I don’t feel any better. Two Hours later. I just woke up from a nap and I feel much better! My dad just informed me that there was only one more hour of the flight. So, I got out my laptop again. I watched the protest. Carly had filmed the whole thing. I liked this part of the flight the most. Then hour later we got off the flight. Finally.

We grabbed our bags and got a cab. I am still not used to everyone driving on the other side of the road. And the fact that the wheel was also on the other side confused me. We finally got to gran and gramp’s apartment, or flat, like they call it in London. I like their flat. It’s warm and cozy and there little cat Kiss makes me smile. Gramps answered the door. “Hello, hello!” He said with a big, bright, smile on his face. I gave him a hug and he kissed me on the cheek. He took a look and me and said, “Come here Lu. Your grandmother has been waiting for you,” I took a deep breath as gramps opened the door of the bedroom. I could smell medicine. I didn’t like it. I stepped inside and there lying in bed, with a smile on her face, was Gran. I ran over to her and gave the biggest hug ever. “Hello love,” she said with a raspy voice. “Hi Gran,” I said as we held on to each other’s hand. Gramps closed the door to give us some time and all of a sudden, Gran  looked at me and said, “Thank you Luiza.” I looked down at my shoes. I forgot she still called me that.

Then I asked, “For what?”  Gran looked at me and said, “You risked a lot for me! You made a fake charity, did a fake protest, and earned money to come and visit me!”

“I can see you’ve been talking to my mother,” I said.

Two tears fell on our hands. We looked at each other. Both of us were crying.

“Don’t leave me gran.” I said sadly.

“I don’t have a choice,” Gran said. “It comes naturally.”

My thumb slipped on her pulse. I looked at Gran. Her pulse had stopped going and her eyes were closed. I began to cry hysterically. Mom, dad, and Gramps ran into the room. They pulled me away from Gran. They didn’t want me to see her like this. Gramps called her doctor over and when he came it felt like it had just been a second since Gramps had called him. I was still crying and mom had to hold me down because I was pulling and pulling to see Gran. Dad sat me down on the couch and let me cry in his shoulder.

“Breathe,” Mom said as she brought over a tray with tea and biscuits on it to the couch. I took a deep breath in as Dad walked over to us with his head down.

“It’s okay Lu,” he said putting his hand on my head and stroking it. “I know she meant a lot to you. And she meant a lot to me too!” He pointed to a picture of him on the fireplace. “She was my mother.” His voice was getting shaky and his eyes were tearing up. I hugged him for a full ten minutes. “Let’s go home,” Dad said as he pulled away from our hug. Mom nodded.

I shook my head. “We can’t leave Gramps here alone to deal with all of this!”

I pointed to Gramps and all the doctors behind me.
“Lulu, Gramps is fine,” Mom said.

“No,” A voice said, “he’s not. And that’s why Luiza should stay.”
I turned around. It was Gramps. His eyes were red. You could tell from a mile away he was crying.
“What do you mean I should stay?” I asked standing up.

“Stay with me for a few months,” he said grabbing a hold of my hand.

I turned my head around to look at mom and dad. They were nodding. I still had to take care of my chores I had to do for everyone to pay them back. But, that could wait. Right?

I turned back to Gramps. “Yes. I’ll stay,” I said as he leaned in for a hug.

I wrapped my arms around him with a big grin on my face. A grin bigger than an elephant.

                                          

                               

Circuit Essay

Family is something very important and special to have. Your time with your family is very precious and you want to spend that time with love and kindness. Some people don’t appreciate their families and they don’t realize that they help you and support you and care for you. In The Circuit by Francisco Jimenez, Francisco’s family is always there for each other.

 

Francisco and Roberto helped Mama when Toritio was sick. Torito was very sick and Mama was doing a lot to help. Papa and her would go to the hospital most nights. Mama would change his dirty diapers and feed him. She also had to feed the rest of the family. Roberto and Francisco wanted to step in and take over. Francisco and Roberto wanted Mama to rest by taking a nap. “Roberto and I convinced her to take a nap while we took care of Torito.” [p. 34.]

This quote connects to the thesis because it shows how Roberto and Francisco would take care of their baby brother who was sick and very difficult to handle. They also were there for their family because if they didn’t help, Torito would get even worse because Mama would probably get tired of taking care of him. If Torito wasn’t taken care of, he wouldn’t have gotten any better!

 

Mama made Francisco feel better after he lost his notebook. When a fire started in their home, Francisco’s librito, notebook, wasn’t able to make it out. Francisco was really upset and Mama saw that. “Well… if you know what was in your librito, then it’s not all lost.” [p. 112]

This quote was important because Mama showed Francisco that not all hope should be lost. She helped him see that he shouldn’t be upset. She was there for him when he was sad.

After that, Francisco was relieved because he did remember what was in his notebook so he knew that it would be okay because of what his mother told him. His mother was there.

 

Also, Francisco felt really bad for Roberto when he was told he was going to mow the lawn of the shoe store. Roberto, Francisco’s brother, went for a job interview at the shoe store. When he got back, he was very upset. Roberto was told that instead of working at the shoe store, he would mow the lawn of the store.“‘Oh no!’ I explained throwing my hoe down on the ground with anger.” [p. 128]

Francisco really feels bad and angry about what happened. His normal relationship with his brother is mostly helping each other and respecting each other but Francisco really is there for him.   

 

In The Circuit, Francisco’s family is and will always be there for each other. Francisco and Roberto gave a helping hand for their mother, Mama helped Francisco feel better, and Francisco felt bad for Roberto in a hard situation. These prove that their family will always be there for each other because you need someone in your life to do that for you. What if the family didn’t do this for each other? What do you think would happen? Their family would come crumbling down. But, since they’re always there for each other, they get along and they become a happy family.

 

Egyptian Tomb Website

http://web.editey.com/0Bzcf95sEze1VS21LSUhtSWQxZ1U/index.html

I really liked making websites because it was fun to see what goes on behind all those websites I go to. At first, I had no idea how to close or open a tab and now I know how to do that and write a heading, paragraph, insert a picture, change font colors and make another page!  One thing I learned was how to insert a picture. At first, I was actually scared to try and put one in my website because I knew I was going to do something wrong. All I had to do was put the link of the picture in two tabs! How simple is that? I would like to do this again because it was a really good learning experience because it was fun and educational. And I like lessons like that.

Shark Tank Simulation

 

This graph has three things being represented. The sharks, minnows and seaweed.

On our spaceship, the sharks will be represented by the human crew. They will need to make sure they don’t act too much food because then all of their food is going to run out. They need to make sure that they don’t eat all pf the protein.

The minnows will be represented by any protein that is brought on board with them. Chickens, pigs, soy, fish etc. The animals in that category will need to make sure that they have enough food so they can reproduce and survive.

The seaweed will be represented by any plants. The plants will help the humans breathe and will produce food for the minnows.

The humans eat the protein and the protein eats the plants. That is the balanced food chain that will be on the spaceship.

Infographic Review

I learned that to make colors look more darker you layer the photoshopped pictures and then combine them together.

A skill I learned is holding down on shift to keep the picture normal while you move it.

Advertising. If you make a business or if your making a protest, you can use photo shopping and the infographics to advertise.

I enjoyed making the infographic because  I liked learning how to photoshop.

I would use Photoshop and Illustrator again because I doesn’t take a long time to figure out how to use them.

Infographics were fun and I would definitely make them again. I thought it was fun to find facts and pictures to go with it.

A part of this project that I found difficult was photoshopping the small parts and details on pictures.

A part that I liked was putting the pictures and facts into Illustrator.

 

Scratch Reflection

I think that my scratch game turned out really well in my opinion. I think this because I know that I spent a lot of time on it and time and effort makes something amazing. I have done test runs over and over and every time it is perfect. At one point in this process though I was adding a new backdrop accidentally coded it into another block which just made everything wrong and confusing when I ran it. Luckily, I finished it! I’m really relived now. The thing that I’m most proud of in my game is where Dan asks: “What was your favorite planet?” Then I was able to code in a block where people can actually type in their favorite planet that they saw! The picture below is of the coding for my character, Alex.screen-shot-2016-11-09-at-6-26-38-pm

Fall Composition

This is my composition. My main instrument is the flute. I chose this instrument because I actually play the flute so this was really easy for me and I could even practice at home! My song also includes the violen and clarinet. My original main instrument was the clarine but I changed it to flute because I thought that the clarinet would make a better background part. I really like my composition and it took a lot of editing and close listening to make it how it is now. I hope you enjoy!

My Atomic Model

screen-shot-2016-10-25-at-12-37-29-pmThis is my atomic model. I used the “Tinkercad”  website to create it. I think that it mostly resembles Democritus’s idea of an atom because it is a small little white dot and Democritus’s idea of atoms was small one colored shapes. Democritus discovered the atom and I think that since my atom looks mostly like his, it’s probably correct. When I was creating it though, I wasn’t sure how I felt about my design. I wasn’t sure because I didn’t think it had enough detail and everyone else’s was very detailed and had all of them tons and tons of different shapes and colors and I thought that mine was just boring. But then when we watched the video, I felt confident in my design because I wasn’t the only person who made a plain white little dot! When Dan told everyone to raise their hand if their atom looked like Democritus’s idea, a lot of people raised their hand! My atom does not look exactly like a real one but now I understand that there are different shapes than a ball. I hope that one day I look back at my design and think: “That’s a pretty neat dot.” After studying atoms in science I learned that the middle of an atom, there is a place called the nucleus. Inside the nucleus there is something called a proton. The number of protons there are determines the type of atom. Protons are positively charged. Also in the nucleus there is something called a neutron. A neutron doesn’t really do anything but carries mass. It is also positively charged like a proton.  Now let’s zoom out to around the atom. Electrons are negative charged parts of that atom that circle around it. The electron is actually one tenth the size of the other parts of an atom. imgres