I believe that my writing has improved immensely over the past semester from all of the writing assignments we have had. The War essay was the first major essay that we had to write in the class. The prompt that you give us for writing essays with what order to put sentences in has really helped me to organize my writing and prove my point on topics in a much more efficient way. I also enjoyed that project because it helped me to analyze a film and really think about what the characters were saying.

The Laramie Project was the next big essay project that we were assigned. I benefited from this project because it showed me an important event in history that I did not previously know about and how we, as humans, can learn from their wrong-doings. The play showed me both sides of the story so I could learn what people are like that don't accept gays and why they may act the way they do. Although I may disagree with them, the play showed me how ignorant they are to the topic and how I shouldn't be ignorant back to them, but can respond in a better way and can try to understand why they would say something so ignorant. I like that you had us read the play and then watch the film because it helped me understand what I was reading by seeing how it may have actually looked in real life, rather than attempting to imagine it in my mind.

Finally, the pro/con debate project is what we are currently working on to end the semester. I enjoy this project because it is very open ended and allows me to research topics we are interested in. You allowed us to choose our own partners rather than forcing us to work with someone that might only argue on the topic rather than allowing us to work. You let us choose our own topic which benefits everyone because they can choose something they are truly interested in to research and learn more about, while their partner researches the opposing side and can uncover ideas that one side did not think of. It also benefits the rest of the class because we get to learn about both sides of various topics, meaning we are more educated about a number of topics and it can help us to choose a side with a more educated basis to reason with. Overall, all of these assignments benefited my ability to read and analyse texts, as well as research and write a well educated essay.

I thought the film interpretation of The Laramie Project did a very good job in showing how they interviews may have gone in real life. Some sentences in the book didn't make sense to me because I put emphasis on the wrong word, changing the meaning of the whole sentence; however, in the film, the actors put emphasis on a different world which changed the meaning of the sentence completely. The music in the film really helped to create emotion when telling the story of what happened the night Matthew Shepard was murdered. Another part of the film that helped me understand the book and sides of the argument was at one point when the theater was interviewing McKinney's friends. The interviewer asked her what McKinney thought of gays. She started saying that McKinney doesn't like gays, but stopped half way through her sentence, looked at the guy next to her (McKinney's friend that's a guy), and stuttered and changed what she was saying. It made me wonder, especially after seeing the interview with Doc O'Connor, if McKinney might actually be bisexual because she stopped and changed her sentence while looking at a close friend, that's male, of McKinney's. In one scene, a lady says "it could happen to any of us at any time," and the room went completely silent. I thought it added a lot of emotion because everyone stopped talking and there was a long pause which really made you think about what she had just said and how scary the truth was. Later, the leader of the Mormon church said that he wants the accused to have the death penalty, but that "I hope as he [Shepard] was tied to that fence, he thought about his lifestyle,". The camera slowly zoomed in onto the Mormon leaders face as he said this and the music was really quite which made it a very tense scene where the leader seems to care that Shepard was beaten, but at the same time he doesn't agree with the lifestyle and doesn't seem to show any sympathy for Shepard. I thought the film was a well done depiction of the play because the music and camera angles really added to the emotion of every scene. After that, we watched a speech that Obama made, concerning the new hate crime law, created for Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. I am glad that Obama understands these crimes and knows that it is wrong and was able to help support a new law. During his speech, he stated that 7600 hate crimes were committed in 2009 which really surprised me and bothered me. After that, he explained that the law is to stop any crime that wants to instill fear into other beings which I think is a good way of stating what a hate crime is.

The "20/20 Special Report" had a lot of very interesting topics discussed in it that really surprised me. The first was in the beginning of the video when they said that Matthew got raped in a high school trip to Morocco. They said that this horrible experience could have led to the decision to do meth, which makes sense because some people turn to drugs after awful experiences such as that one. Then, the video goes on to talk about how McKinney planned on robbing a drug dealer of $10,000 that night which changes his motives. He said that all he wanted to do was rob Matthew, but ended up killing him in the end. McKinney, his girlfriend, and a man all go on to say that it wasn't a hate crime, but that he just wanted to rob Matthew for money to buy drugs, which definitely changes the perspective of the whole story and makes me question what actually happened that night. When I heard that McKinney hit Russel in the mouth after trying to stop him, it surprised me because it shows that Russel tried to stop him, but wasn't able to. And if Russel had tried harder, I wonder if McKinney would have ended up killing both of them, neither of them, or what would have happened. Later in the video, when Doc is talking about McKinney he says, "He's [McKinney] been exposed to a lot of guys,". The part that I found interesting was that Doc raised his voice when he said a lot of guys, making me wonder what he meant, however immediately after Doc says that, he goes on to say that McKinney had a threesome with himself and a girl. I was shocked by this statement because the book gives the impression that McKinney hates gays, yet this statement is the exact opposite. It really makes me wonder, once again, if the motive behind McKinney'y attack really was just to get money for drugs if everyone else is right saying that he killed Matthew because he was gay. After Doc talks about the threesome, McKinney says "No," when asked if he has ever done anything sexual with a guy, however he raises his voice when he says it. I think that Doc is telling the truth about the threesome because he says it casually and when McKinney says "No," his voice gets really high which often indicates that somebody is not telling the truth. McKinney really does seem afraid of gays because even after hearing about his threesome, McKinney continues to deny any sort of sexual intercourse with guys, even though his girlfriend says that she thinks he is bisexual because he asked her to have threesomes with another guy. I wonder if McKinney is really scared to admit that he may be bisexual and is so willing to defend himself that he will kill a homosexual man in an attempt to prove himself. The 20/20 Special Report was very interesting and had a lot of insight into this murder and the lives of everyone that had something to do with the murder.

Throughout Act I, the majority of Laramie citizens repeat that they don't care if somebody is gay and they say that's the mindset of the whole town. Doc O'Connor is the limousine driver that drove Matthew to the bar the night he died. Doc says, "And I don't think Wyoming people give a damn one way or another if you're gay or straight, that's just what I just said, doesn't matter," (Kaufman 21). However, in between what the citizens of Laramie say, they say small things that sound homophobic, without them even realizing what they said. After hearing many interviews it sounds more like the town doesn't accept gays even though they all say otherwise. Doc says, "But I liked him [Matthew] 'cause he was straightforward... Maybe gay but straightforward, you see what I'm saying?" (Kaufman 19). The citizens of Laramie all say that they accept gays, however as Doc is mentioning that he likes Matthew, he adds in that Matthew's gay even though that was not needed as part of his statement. I think that everyone says they accept gays to make the town sound better, but in reality most of them are homophobic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoNBxhc8Q-U

During the presentation of Grief Girl, there was a really interesting slide that said "Life's Not Fair" on it. I'm enjoy typography, or the style and appearance of written words, and the slide had fantastic typography on it that inspired me to draw more of my own. I found the title of Girl, Interrupted intriguing when I found out that it is based off a painting that the author saw at the Frick Museum. Then, Service made me slightly scared when I heard about the cities where the author was serving. He said that "Every window could have a shooter," which is really scary and makes me surprised that he would risk his life like that. I was disgusted when I heard that the author of A Million Little Pieces started drinking at the ago of 10 and began doing drugs at the age of 12. It's really sad to hear that anyone would do drugs, especially at such a young age, so the novel did not appeal to me at all. I also was surprised when I heard he had a huge conflict with Oprah over the facts in the book, but was happy to hear that she was a nice person and apologized to him for how angry she got. A Stolen Life sounded really interesting to me because the story is so unbelievable and happy in the end because she gets found. Everyone teaches children to run away when somebody asks them for help, but sadly she got tased when she tried to run, which makes me sad. However, I'm very happy that she wrote the book to tell everyone in the world about the horrible things the man did to her. It makes me happy because he did not want anyone to find out about what he did, but she stood up for herself and told everyone about the awful things that he did. Finally, it gave me hope hearing that she hadn't written her name in 18 years while she was captured, but finally got to after she was saved. Finally, The Pact inspired me because one of the authors wanted to be a dentist since he was 8 years old and he followed his dreams to eventually become one. It was also really inspiring to hear that all 3 writers grew up to be very successful doctors or dentists, showing that you can achieve anything you want as long as you work hard enough.

I found Angela's Ashes to be very depressing because almost every child in the book dies. While on the other hand, Don't Put Me In, Coach, seemed like a memoir with a very odd style of humor. It was a very immature style of humor that might appeal to someone, but didn't necessarily interest me. Another BS Night In Suck City obviously has a very interesting title. I also think it is really interesting that the homeless shelter that the main character worked at happened to be the exact shelter that his dad would walk in to when he needed it. I noticed in Through My Eyes that the mother was supposed to die when she had her son, but she didn't which made the memoir sound like it has a lot of hope throughout it. The Big Jump had a fantastic quote stating "Nothing is impossible, until someone does it." The quote is an obvious one, but nobody would really think of saying that which interested me. I also enjoyed the quote because it's inspiring, saying that people should achieve what nobody has ever done because then they will be making the impossible, possible. I also liked how the presenter showed the connection to the title, The Big Jump, with the memoir itself, being about a jump from motor cross to race car driving. Scar Tissue showed me how messed up the authors dad is because he introduced his son to drugs, and at a very young age, which I think are both wrong. A Compassionate Approach on Addiction Intervention talked about how the author had his life changed when he went to the same asylum that his sister did, even though she actually needed to be there when he did not. And I like that he started speaking at interventions to help others after he had been cured. I was interested in The Last Lecture because the author achieved every single dream he made when he was a kid, which really inspired me. I also really enjoyed his ideas about achieving dreams and his positive outlook on everything. Finally, A Long Way Gone scared me when I saw the video of the man who had his fingers cut off and was force to kill his own son. I think that it's good that the author fights to save child soldiers now.

Hunters was the first memoir that was presented. It was really intense watching a room cleaning, where the sniper goes in and makes sure that a house is safe. Also, it was good when I heard that the snipers aren't heartless, they realize they are taking someones life, but that could mean saving many other lives. Next was Beyond the Vertical, which was amazing in the fact that the author had created a bunch of new climbs that nobody had ever done before. I really liked the video, in the presentation, that showed some of the incredible climbs that a professional climber can accomplish. Then, No Limits had a lot of interesting facts about the size of Micheal Phelps and how his wingspan is way further than it should be. I also really liked how there was a quote placed in the middle of the presentation that related to the title: "You can't put limits on anything". Out of the Blue helped readers understand the story behind why the football player does the salsa dance every time he gets a touchdown. Some people may wonder why he does that, or think it's weird, but he tells the story as to why he does it which is a really close story to him. The next memoir, Decoded, amazed me when I heard that Jay Z is worth $42 million. As for the presentation, I really liked that the song was embedded in between the lyrics so that you could read them as you heard the song. Finally, the presenter for, The Mechanic's Tale, did a really good job by embedding the video into the slideshow, next to the quote, that way the presenter did not have to switch to the internet to play the video, but instead could play it right from the presentation.

In the film The War, conflict almost leads to the death of a young boy named Billy Lipnicki who just wanted to grab a key. The film is written as a memoir from the perspective of Lidia Simmons. She tells the story of a conflict between her family, including her brother Stu and her father Stephen, as they fight with the Lipnicki family. The story begins with the children getting into fights with each other over building a tree house, goes on to create a conflict between Stephen and the Lipnicki's father, finally ending in a huge conflict with Stu and Lidia fighting the Lipnicki children, almost ending in the death of Billy Lipnicki. The War is a film that demonstrates how destructive conflict is and that creating it will not solve anything.

After seeing his friend Dodge die in the war, Stephen wants to teach his son that conflicts only create destruction. Stu went to show his dad the tree house that he and Lidia were building, and, while there, Stephen realized that his children had been fighting with the Lipnickis for a long time and weren't going to stop. He tells Stu, "And in the absence of love, Stuart, there is nothing, nothing in this world worth fighting for" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111667/quotes). By this, Stephen is trying to tell his son that fighting the Lipnickis isn't going to solve anything for him or his sister. He says nothing is worth fighting for, trying to get his son to not fight because there is no point to fighting them, they won't stop being mean if he keeps doing it. As he tells Stu about what happened in the war, he tells Stu the story of when he was fighting and had to leave his best friend, Dodge, to die while they left the battlefield. "Boy, sometimes all it takes is a split second for you to do something you'll regret the whole rest of your life," (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111667/quotes). He lost Dodge because he had to make a quick decision to let him die, or stay with him and they both die, and he decided to leave and save his own life. He wants to teach Stu that making a quick decision between fighting others and loving them could solve all of their problems. In these examples. Stephen attempts to teach Stu that fighting can only cause harm to others and won't solve anything, therefore Stu and Lidia should stop trying to fight with the Lipnickis.

Violence causes destruction and can kill people, as can be seen with Billy Lipnicki's near death experience. The Lipnickis make a bet with Stu that he can't swim across the water in the quarry while it is draining, and he completes the challenge, so they agree that they will stay out of the tree house. The way the images are constantly changing angles and the sound of the loud water flowing around helps to add drama to the scene. The Lipnickis come to the tree house later, going against the bet, and Stu decides to fight them back. Lidia explains that "War is like a big machine that no one really knows how to run and when it gets out of control it ends up destroying the tings you thought you were fighting for, and a lot of other things you kinda forgot you had," (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111667/quotes). The Lipnickis light the tree house on fire while they are fighting Stu and Lidia, so Lidia explains that war just ends up destroying things because in the end, nobody ever wanted to rebuild the tree house and it stayed destroyed from the fire the rest of the film. While everyone is fighting each other, Billy Lipnicki decides to go get the key that was thrown on the top of the quarry when Stu made the bet with one of the other Lipnicki's. Stu is the first one behind him, following up to the tower, and as they are at the top, Billy falls in to the water inside of the quarry and Stu jumps in to save him. He pulls Billy out, but Billy won't breath until, finally, he coughs up water from Lidia and Stu saving him. When he finally starts breathing again, Billy tells Stu, "You know, I saw an angel... a real one... and he was holding on to my hand... and I was going to go live in his kingdom... but he said I must come back and take care of my daddy," (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111667/quotes). The fact that Billy almost died, due to the conflict between Stu and Lidia fighting with the Lipnickis, shows that conflict does not solve anything. Billy almost died, which showed everyone that they needed to stop creating conflicts, and it worked because after this incident, they never had a conflict with each other again, they finally learned a lesson about how conflict does not solve problems.

The War is a film that demonstrates how destructive conflict is and that creating it will not solve anything. In the beginning of the film, Stephen tells his son that no conflict is worth fighting for and that he should be careful because anything can change your life in an instant. Stephen tells his son this because he lost in his best friend, Dodge, in a huge conflict, the Vietnam War. Stu does not act on what his dad says, instead he continues to fight with the Lipnickis, in fact it gets worse once his father dies. Near the end of the film, the Lipnickis make a bet with Stu and they lose, but decide to fight back anyways. The tree house gets set on fire and, ultimately, destroyed, and never rebuilt. Also, Billy almost drowns, however Stu and Lidia save him. This is when everything changes and Stu realizes what his father had taught him, that conflict does not solve anything. All of the other children realize that the conflict is only causing damage and almost took Billy's life, so they decide to stop fighting as well. Conflict will never solve any problems, the world must learn to create love, rather than conflict because it only causes destruction and will never allow people to solve problems.

I have never met any of my family members that have gone to war because they either live very far away or have passed on. My grandpa Ray Wilson was in World War 2 and my uncle Vinny Dimsel was in the Vietnam War, however I never met either of them. I have heard stories of P.T.S. on the television and in books, but never personally. All that I know about P.T.S. is that it stands for Post Traumatic Stress. Anyone that has had a very traumatic situation can get P.T.S. It is flashbacks that bring the person back to the traumatic situation that they may have experienced. The person feels as if they are having the same experience all over again. It can be really scary and brings back bad memories. The person is not able to control what they are imagining and other people can only try to help them out.

The memoir that I chose is a book by Haruki Murakami called What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. The memoir follows Murakami's life as he trains to run the New York City Marathon, while writing a memoir about it at the same time. I selected the memoir because I came across it on a famous photographers blog. I found one of his posts saying some of his favorite books to read and there were two memoirs on that list. What he wrote about this book is that, although it is about running, the book can apply to any athlete in the way that they train and live life. I thought that it might be interesting and may relate to how I train parkour. At the same time, the book is about Murakami writing a memoir while he is training. I enjoy the fact that he can write about his training and make it sound interesting, rather than just creating a log of what he did everyday. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running seemed like an interesting title because I had to read it twice. The first time I saw the title I read it fast and it didn't make sense, so the second time I read it slower and really thought about what it said. It really intrigued me and, like I said, the description of the book seemed to relate to my life as well, so I figure that I will enjoy the book.

The cover of the book is very simplistic, with a blank tan page and the title in red writing. At the bottom there is a very small picture of the author while he is running. The simple cover definitely made the book more interesting to me as well. It shows me that the book is not going to have a ton of detail about random things, but it is going to be very focused on his training, as well as him writing a memoir while training. Overall, the book seems very simple, while at the same time intriguing as it follows Murakami writing a novel, while he is training for the New York City Marathon.

I love to train my body and mind through a sport called parkour. Parkour is a way of movement, overcoming obstacles by jumping from one to another, swinging on rails, and doing flips as well because they are fun. Parkour is still a growing sport so not everybody knows about it, but more people find out about it every day. I train hard to make my body stronger so that I am able to jump further, swing further, and just be able to do difficult movements. I train my mind through parkour by practicing big movement that scare me. The fear is enough where I know I am able to make a jump, for example, but my mind is still slightly scared that I may hurt myself while doing it, although I know in the back of my mind that I will not hurt myself. The more that I trained with my friends, the closer I got to them and we decided to come together and make a time called Gremlins Parkour because one our friends called us that one day. We are growing bigger every day and want to keep it going forever. I enjoy every part of parkour and will continue to do it for the rest of my life.

 Another important part of my life is film making and photography. I love cameras in general and making films with them, as well as photographing moments in life, is one of my favorite things to do. I incorporate it into parkour by filming my friends and I training whenever we do movements that impress us. Editing the video together is really fun because sometimes it gets difficult to make the footage look very good with the song. It is a great feeling when others are really impressed by something that you have filmed and edited together into a video. Finally, photography is another passion of mine. I enjoy taking photos of parkour movements that make people wonder what is going on. Flips are really interesting to photograph because if you capture it at the right moment, it makes people confused and they look at the photo longer wondering how the person got upside down like they are in the photo. I have fun taking photos, creating films, and love to show people what I have created.

The best experience in my life was when I became a part of Move to Inspire. Move to Inspire is a team of parkour athletes that make videos, travel, teach, and help build the parkour community. It is run by my good friend Vinnie Coryell and he sponsors either athletes. When he asked if I wanted to be sponsored I gladly accepted the offer because he is a really close friend of mine and I really wanted to meet the other sponsored athletes. Being sponsored allows me to get free clothes and other things. As the team grows I will get opportunities to travel to different states for large gatherings and I will be able to teach workshops at various camps. I am really excited to see what comes and the future and I am happy to be a part of Move to Inspire. Getting sponsored was one of the best experiences I have had in my life.