Making My Way

Happy New Years

Hello everyone this is MakingMyWay coming to you at the big 2008.  I apologize for not writing for over 2 months I have just been very because of school starting back up.  I hope to start writing more often because of my sports season ending and be having an extra 2hours everyday to do what I want at home.  I have been working on a video game using this website.  I will be posting it up on my website and it will be very addicitng to you and all the other people that come to my website.  It is kind of like a Halo Game just a bit less on the graphic side.  I myself think that it is very cool and I will be making a huge world out of it.  My inspiration is actualy coming from a game called World of Warcraft.  It is a huge MMORP(Massively multiplayer online role-playing game ) .  It has over 6 million people on it a day and it is growing by the minute.  I dont hope to get that big but I do hope to get a few amount of people who like my game and will tell other people about it.  So thats all for today and I hope you keep coming back to the best gaming website you have ever seen.

Book Report on Up From Slavery

For the past month or so I have been reading a book called UP From Slavery by Booker T. Washington. It is a bibliography of his childhood as a slave and how he was the first real leader at the college known as Tuskegee University in Alabama. This was a very good book though it was slow.

Booker T. Washington was born a slave in Franklin County, Virginia. He says and I quote, “ I am not quite sure of the exact place or exact date of my birth.” He goes on to say I was born around 1858 or 1859. He doesn’t know the month or day. He was born one of the hardest times of our history. It was right after the Civil War had ended and word had been going around that slavery might be abolished. To most people this was a mans dream that he shared with the rest of the world. But in 1865 when Booker was 7the slaves were freed. Booker almost immediately found a job in the coal mine. His wage was 15 cents a week. He and his brothers worked to provide for there family and each helped each other to find money to eat and drink everyday. When Booker was of age he thought about school but that was more of a challenge since there was only one school opened for black kids and adults. It was called Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute. It was very far from where Booker lived he had to walk the whole way. He waited a few months to leave so he could save up some money. With the help of his brothers he had enough money to make his journey. He really had no idea where he was going so it took him months even with a carriage. He spent most of his nights on the city streets until the school opened up and more problems opened with it. One: Tuition. Since he had spent all his money on food to live off of he had no money for a tuition. Two: Housing. He was used to spending his nights on the street in a ditch. So when he learned tuition was 75$ he gave up. Until night school opened. It was a chance to get a full tuition paid off and education. He still had to work so that he could money into his tuition but he got both his education and a little cash at the same time. When he finally got through school he didn’t leave he decided to get a PhD and became a teacher at Hampton Institute. On the day of May 1881General Armstrong(long time friends of Booker) got a telegram from a gentlemen from Tuskegee, Alabama asking if he knew anyone good for taking charge of the soon to be Tuskegee University. General Armstrong asked if Booker was interested and without doubt Booker excepted. When he moved to Tuskegee he at once took charge of putting up the University. In a few years they had a full campus. Though it wasn’t big it was very successful. So successful that they had to make it a big campus in the years to come. Soon people started to learn Bookers name and he started get invites to public speaking. The big one that he is famous for is

Atlanta Address of 1895

. After that everything started going great. He got plenty of offers of money for his school and had plenty of space for the thousands of children coming to his school.

I hope that everyone will read and enjoy this book. It is a good example of a man who went through slavery and made himself someone from being a no body. He went from no one knowing his name to everyone knowing his name. As I said this book can be slow at times but is very enjoyable to read.

RAPME Part 7

Hello again!  Today at RAPME we had another guest speaker.  More like speakers.  They came from the Film Factory.  That is not the film that is in movies actually the film that they put in diapers and other things that absorb liquid.  The part of the diaper that they make is the top layer.  It is actually like a webbed sheet of film and they let us keep one so I will post pics.  It is veryyyy soft and is for the part that would touch the babies body.  It is supposed to be more absorbable.  Which means that it will last longer if there is an accident in the diaper.  Which we all know is going to happen evetually.  So we did that for about 25 minutes and then we went back to class and were allowed free time on the computers.  They also talked to us about what we will be doing tommorrow and made the group that will be working together tommorrow.  IN the afternoon we finally finished the house and it looks awesome.  It will displayed at the VCU Engineering Building with me and an undergraduate's picture next to it.  It is all colored and looks very sharp.  Hopefully I can get pics of it toommorrow and post them on the site.

RAPME Part 6

So..... today we went to the aviation museum and learned more about the Wright Brothers.  It was pretty cool to see all the old planes and to hear about how two ordinary men created what scientists couldn't.  I actaully learned something new about the Wright Brothers today.  I learned that they created the plane at a time when bikes were just coming out.  And these bikes were like the ones that you see in cartoons with one big wheel in the front and a really small wheel in the front.  That seems amazing that they created something that would change history forever when they had barely found how to make a good bicycle.  That was all we did in the morning and we got to take a bus with tvs in to the museum o it was pretty cool.  In the afternoon we finished up with everything in the house except for putting it together. We painted and glued the cans on today with this new polyurathang glue.  Supposedly its brand new.  It actually dried realy fast and know we will be able to finish early. By tommorow actuall, so I will be posting pictures at the photo album tommorow so take a look.

RAPME Part 5

After missing Friday of RAPME it seems like I'm behind for some reason.  I had taken my hair out of braids and now i have my afro in and that was a big surprise to everyone who saw it.  The people at RAPME hadn't seen it yet so they all were touching it and I said hands off the merchandise!  Well besides my afro not a lot happened today.  We did another power point presentation on a famous African American inventor and presented them to the class inside the auditorium.  My group picked Madame C.J. Walker hew created the perm.  Actually an interesting fact about the perm is if ladies before the perm wanted to straighten their hair they straighten it with a iron!  OUCH!  So that was really all we did in that class but in the afternoon I painted the house that we are making and we measured how many cans we will need to put them between the boards.  It was real fun cause I don't  really have anything else to do during the day besides sitting at home with my brothers.  I'm really looking forward to when we finish it.

Weekend of Fun

If anyone has read all of my posts then you all know that I wrote a essay to ACEC for an engineering camp/competition.  Well I won!  Well partially.  I got to go to the camp and I enjoyed it a ton.  Though I didn't win I have lots of stories to tell.  We had many Engineering professors come including, Mike Matthews(Structural Engineering), Dr. Stanley S. Smeltzer(Aerospace, NASA), and Colin P. Britcher(Professor and Chairman of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at ODU).  We had a few more that came and it was really an enjoy.  Some of the army's engineers also came with some awesome technology like a tube camera with light inside and a robotic machine controlled by a remote that is used in the battlefield to detect roadside bombs and deactivate them.  I also got to put on a 45 lb bulletproof vest that they use in the bomb squad.  I also did 6 push ups in it, the max at the camp that week.  The man showing us the uniform also put on the pants and helmet, which added up to a womping 90 lbs, and did 30+ push ups.  On that same day a lady from the Richmond Times Dispatch came and interviewed me and my two friends, Micheal Harold and Tyrin Ellington.  We were quoted and got our pictures taken and put in page 2 of the Metro Times.  On the website our picture isn't there but if you happen to get the Richmond Times take a look at it. Its in Saturday's July 14th.  We also went on two field trips to the Water Treatment Plant and the Jamestown Settlement.  Both were very cool and fun and I had a blast.  I'm hoping that I will have this opportunity again.

RAPME Part 4

Today at RAPME we created crysatls out of some mini crystals  and some kind of hardening clay.  I dont really know what it was called.   We put it into shapes that were 3-D and we waited for it to harden for 30 minutes.  None of ours came out the right way.  They all fell apart when we tipped them over.  Mine came out as a pancake  when I was trying to make a sphere.  In the program in the afternoon we put a coating of some smooting cream on the wood and then let it dry.  We started to paint the parts but we didnt have time since we had about 15 pieces.  We also listened to a man named Jullian Miles.      

RAPME Day 3

Hello again.  Today is day three of RAPME and Im actuall doing this post from the office of Dr. Karla M. Mosi.  It is a slow day today when it comes to building the house.  We didnt have enough paint so I really dont have any thing to do besides sand the wood, whioch of course I already did.  RAPME was also very slow toaday since all we did was wait for some guy from the waste plant come and talk to us about water treatment.  It ended up that after 2 hrs. of waiting in the auditorium he never showed up and we ended up doing tons of math problems that no one knew and didnt care about.  A lot of kids actually fell asleep because he kept just writing and writing for hrs.  Im hoping that tommorrow will be more fun and that we will actually do our lesson plan.   Our lesson plan for tommorow is to make crystals like the greeks did back in the 1400s!

RAPME Day 2

Today I worked on my power point presentation and we presented them today as well.  We didn't do alot of activities just lots of talking and explaining and scheduling.  It was still a little slow like the first day but we got a schedule of what activities we will be doing.  They include a guest speaker and about 6 field trips.  One of the places we are going to is the Aeronautical Museum.   In the program in the afternoon I started cutting out the shapes for the house with a saw.  We made measurements on the boards and sized up how many cans we need between each board.  In the end the house will be made of all recyclable items.

RAPME

For the next 3 weeks I will be blogging on my experience at the VCU(Virginia Commenwealth University) campus.  I will be doing two things there.  In the morning I will be doing a program with RAPME, phase 1.  This is not an ordinary camp.  I had to write a 500 word essay on why I think I should be accepted.  Luckliy I was and I am now going to the second tommorow.  I will be working with kids my age and our "teachers" will be undergrads and graduate students.  Two of their names are Mr. Cocks and Mr. Narringburg.  They will be my constructors for this week.  In the afternoon I will be going to the Engineering Building and will be working with just grad students on building a house out of recyclable items.  The woman who I talked to about getting in this program is Dr. Karla M. Mossi (Her picture is on the left) .  I will only be with her for 2 weeks.  Also I have a camp this weekend for engineering at Jamestown.  I will be staying there over the weekend by myself.  I will be over 2 and a half hours from home! YES!!!  So as you can see I have a packed schedule this summer and hope to keep wrtiting on everything I do.

My Cousins

I have lots of cousins but only 4 I see almost every weekend.  Their names are Deisha, Brianna, Cristina, and Daria.  Deisha is 10(and a half), Brianna is 8, Cristina is 5, and so is Daria.  They all are almost identical ages to myself and my brothers.  I am 13 and my brothers are 8 and 5.  So when they come over we kind of split up in ages.  Because our ages differ we fight a lot and don't always get along.  Pretty much the older children, me and Deisha, go to my room and play on the computer on games that we like.  Sometimes the rest of the kids will just play with toys or split up and watch movies or play video games.  But when they are here and we go in the car it sounds like a herd of elephants all tried to pile into a box!  And it's even worse when we go to the store or someplace in public.  It also sometimes gets boring because my mom and dad get tired of yelling and just throw us outside for 2 hours.  Actually thats what happened yesterday and during that time period I fell out of the tree and now I have a scrap down my thigh and calf.  When I was falling it felt like I was going to die, and the only thing I could hear was my dad saying that I was going to fall out of the tree eventually.  He actually laughed at first when I came and told him what happened. Here are some pictures.

PBS Presidential Democratic Debate

At Howard University in D.C. on June 28 a democratic debate was held.  The host and moderator was Tavis Smiley.  The president of Howard was also there, Dr. H. Patrick Swiger.  Guests included Tom Joyner and Gov. Deval Patrick.  The actuall debate consisted of 8 democratic governors and senators that are all running for president.  They were Senator Hilary Clinton, Senator Joe Biden, Gov. Bill Richardson, Former Senator John Edwards, Senator Barack Obama,  Congressman Dennis Kucinich, and Former Senator Mike Gravel.  Here you can find the podcast and show to watch straight from your computer.  The topics included Katrina: Right to Return, Crisis in Darfur, Crime and Punishment, and much more. 

I very much enjoyed this debate and I recorded it so that I could watch it a few times.  It is very interesting what senators and governors of non-color have to say about problems for people of color.

NOTE TO READER: Clicking MENU on the right side of video will pop up more videos based on the ones up there. Take a look at all of them.

China Page

I created a China Resource page for my teacher Karen Farrell.  She is going there this summer and asked if I could help her create a website for her. The link is here.  I created this school year and will be upadating some of the info soon.  Karen Farrell, my teacher, also used this to create an info page for her to send back as a "journal".  I go to a school called Falling Creek Middle School.  It is a descent school with lots of good teachers.

Book Report on Black Like Me

Black Like Me

Black Like Me is a book about segregation and prejudice in the south during the 1950s. To most whites in this time racism is over and prejudice has disappeared. At least that’s what most white people think. They believe that racism is over in the south and that black people are happy, even though they aren’t. John Howard Griffin is the author and is the person who changed himself from white to black using a type of medicine. He wrote this book about the experiences he went through.

John Griffin was a happy white man who had 2 children and a wife. He lived in Texas and always wondered how it would be to live as a black man in the south. He decided one night to find out by turning himself black with the help of some dermatologists. They gave him a prescription of medication that he had to take everyday. Within a week his skin turns black and he starts to live the life of a black man. The first thing he has to get used to is food and bathrooms. He soon learns that he can’t walk in to any bathroom or restaurant. He sometime has to hold the bathroom for hours until he can find the bathroom that he can go to. He moves from state to state starting in New Orleans where prejudice isn’t that bad. But then he moves on to Missouri where things are much worse. On the way to the state on the bus 2 white people can’t find a seat even though 3 white people are sitting alone. The bus driver yells at one of the black people to move over with the lady next to him and he says no. Though nothing happens big happens, it just shows the hateful attitude of whites towards blacks during that time. He moves on to Georgia and finds things are not much different. He come to New Orleans and is so mad and hungry that he takes the time everyday to scrub off the black “paint” and puts it back m on at night we is full and feels better. When he comes back as a white man and talks to all the black people he knew they are very surprised and shocked. They surprisingly don’t ditch him. But when he goes back to Texas to see his family and friends his friends turn there back on him and send death threats to his mother. He comes to New Orleans with a photographer and takes pictures of all his friends there and uses the information he found out to make this book.

This is a very good book that talks about real life problems and doesn’t lie about things that are really going on. I really enjoyed this book and would recommend this book for all ages. It’s a very good book to read if you are talking about black history.

Bowling

On Wednesday my family and I went bowling with a couple of friends.  We haven't done a lot of stuff this summer so it was very fun to go out and do something for a night.  I found out that my mom has some hidden talent in bowling.  If I remember right she won twice and I won once.  The rest of the people just kind of relaxed and talked and enjoyed the time together.  There was actually one of the adults mom out there and she got a strike and a couple spares!  She's 76 and she was rolling the ball and doing better than me.  It kind of surprised me how much strength she had at her age.  But all in all it was very fun.  We had a good time as a family and with friends.  If u are interested in finding bowling alleys look here.

Fitness

Fitness is a very impotant thing our life.  It helps us live longer and live healthier.  My mom is a very good example of that.  We go to the gym with her every night and she works out doing cardio and some weights.  I sometimes work out with her but since I can only do the bike and other cardio equipment I don't all the time.  I don't have a lot of sports going on at this time so going to the gym and working out is my only excercise.  I am thinking about my health a little bit more since watching my mom.  She set a goal of so many lbs and now she has gotten to her goal.  but just because she hit her goal dosen't mean she stopped.   She also worked on her eating and drinking habbits.  She stays away from soda and kool-aid and focuses on water and milk.  I hope to one day hit my weight goal and I think I will in time.