Chris "Alexander Super Tramp" McCandless

My first impressions of Chris were actually very bright and high. He looked to me as a special, unique, and a very intriguing individual. My impressions did not change as the movie progressed. He was as I thought he was, until he ate that poisonous seed thing. Poor guy misread the book's drawing due to his hunger already. Anyways, I think he is doing what he is doing to prove that we don't need all these buildings and cars, and roads, and all this money to live. He was able to survive in the wild without any of those things for a whole 100 days. That is why I believe he burned the money, and why he left his home, his car, and chose to live in the wild for awhile. All he needed was tools and his own will, to keep him alive (of course, until the point with the root, and well, yeah). He proved society that they don't need all those buildings, you just need some faith in yourself, tools, and happiness. Then maybe you might survive everything thrown at you.

Backpacking  Trip To The Sierra Nevada Mountain List:
1 Sleeping Bag 3lbs
2  Canisters of Water 4lbs
1 Set of Cooking Tools 5lbs
1 Book on Wild Plants 0.5lbs
1 Book on Wild Animals 0.5lbs
1 Topographic Map 0.1Lbs
1 Geographical Map 0.1Lbs
1 Map 0.1Lbs
2 Flashlights 4lbs
6 Sets of AA Batteries 2.5lbs
2 Sets of Emergency Foods 8.2lbs
1 Tent 2lbs
1 Knife 3lbs
5 Sets of Clothing 7lbs
1 Jacket 1lbs
1 Knife Sharpener 1.5lbs

Slang Dictionary

Bloke (n.) - a male; (adj.) - someone who is drunk

Bloody (n.) - A strong oath; (adj.) - extremely hateable

Brock (adj.) - describing someone as a badger; emotionless

Dip (adv.) - RUN AWAY REALLY QUICKLY

Git (n.) - British Slang for a foolish, contempible person; (adj.) - foolish, contempible

Grimy (n.) - sticky, unkempt, gross, unattractive

Idjet (n.) - an idiot, or an extreme moron

Mook (n.) - stupid

Prick (n) - a huge jerk

Prune (adj.) - shriveled up, old; (n.) - a dried up fool, an elderly person

Fear

I believe I can be brought to believe we are powerful beyond measure as Coach Carter says, and yes, we are truly inadequate. But mostly because we make ourselves to be. My biggest fear is fear itself, and to fail in something I can do really, really well. What's holding me back is my inability to confront my own securities. And to be overwhelmed by my fear, and underwhelmed by the challenge of my fear. What might bring me to fight this is to be true to what I can do. And fear is nothing but an imagination of one's mind. There is nothing to fear, but then you can also fear yourself. I keep on telling myself this, but I just can't handle my securities and my inabilities. I will make myself powerful beyond measure because I know of my obstacles. I will face them and break them. My mind shall open, and I doubt many will understand it, but at least it has been opened and can be faced and understood by those who choose to understand it. Then, I can be powerful beyond measure, and then even more than that.

Inspiration

Awaken to open your eyes on this new day

Awaken your sore body, and ignore the delay

Awaken your eyes and listen to the song of rain

Awaken your voice, to end the silencing pain

Awaken your ears, for you are not alone

Be free for you have nothing to atone

Lay sleep to those who passed, tell their story

so their names are unmasked

Lay sleep to pressure, tell your story

so to turn it to treasure

Lay sleep the rain, the song is sad

so turn it and make the sun shine again

Lay sleep the journey, it was long

but now you're home, goodbye to life's tourney

Advice Column

Dear Eva,
I can really relate to how you feel about the whole, "I must protect my own" sort of whole ordeal... I can understand that. My, friends, they are practically my own too, I will protect them no matter the cost.. But you must understand this too, "follow yourself." I have had a problem with following the codes or whatever you might call them.. But you have to understand you can't always let other people influence you. Sure, everyone in this world is not completely innocent.. We have all done something, some more than others. Some blinded with the status quo, images, and worst of all, peer-pressure. I have been pressured to do things I wished not to do (all of them ending in failure, mind you), but all the same with the crap about "everybody is doing it", or, "you want to groupies, do what we do". I never joined in on them, but just by the sheer art of looking at them, you will see how much struggle they have. They struggle like me, and you, but unlike them, they are almost too lost to save. You have a guide, a sort of "light" to help you. But you also have to allow yourself to either follow that "light", or follow your own "light", i.e., your own heart. It is a sad truth, I know what it feels to have lost someone.. Or even know someone who was put on a stand like yourself, to defend someone, and struggling with right, and wrong.  But at the end of the day, the person who is always with you, knows you the most, defends you the most, is always just you. Understand yourself, a simple concept that is hard to achieve, and you'll know what will always be right. You will always have people that understand you though, only if you choose to let them in. You forge your own path.

Freedom Writer's Entry #1

I had a really hard lesson for me to have learned was to learn who your true friends are, and people who are just 'friends'. It nearly destroyed me when I had to learn it but I found out that I had 4 friends I can really rely on, and are my true friends. They helped me (one of them was involved in it as well) get through, and we took it all on together. It was a hard lesson to learn, but it was better to learn it, than not learn it at all. I was also lucky to have learned it so early in my life, than later on. Without having learned this lesson, I think I would still be that cocky little, word that rhymes with witch, who thinks everyone can be trusted. Nope, not anymore, I enclose myself, but not completely, unless I feel you truly do want to know me for the better reasons OF knowing me. This lesson is truly a lesson needed to be learned by more people than they should think. I'm glad I was one, who has already learned it.

#3 My Pet Peanut - To Be Judged

"Judging the shell from its soul"
After playing the peanut game, there are numerous objects that are uninviting on the outside, yet can be proven appealing on the inside in my opinion. Mostly near destroyed book covers. These books on the outside may be half-destroyed but the writing and the story in the book shall always stay the same. The words never change and the story never change, they will always be appealing no matter how much it looks on the outside.

"Misunderstood"
I have always been misunderstood. Sometimes when I say one thing, some people think the other. Like people who THINK they know me, but really, all they know is either basic, or a lie. But most of all, some people misunderstand ME. They think I am just another face on the yearbook. Well, I might be, but that doesn't mean I don't have potential. Some people think they are different about how they dress, or how they act. Quoting a part of the song, "I can do it like a brother, do it like a dude", practically, I can act like you, and know what you do, so, why can't you understand how I act, and what I do?

"Covers"
Judge me, if you know me,
Read me, if you know me,
For I have read you, you see,
And your book is as boring as me.
So judge all you want, you'll still be the same,
As anyone can be,
But it is you who judge badly, and that's a shame.

"A Cliché"
You judge me from the color of my shell and skin, but why can't you judge me from my soul, and the color of my heart?

Freedom Writer's Diaries #2

In Diary Entry #4, the author blamed all his troubles on his friends. I don't really remember a time I did get "caught up" in something my friends did, but I guess this is closest to one: My friends one day were going to go egg someone's house, I didn't want to go, so I didn't. I guess when they did it they got caught. I got caught up in it because apparently, I "joined in" when I was at home. I cleared it up that I WASN'T there. I didn't get in trouble, but my friends did. They didn't care though, it was, in their words, "Jolly, Good, Fun."

The Author of Diary Entry #5 calls himself "his own gang" due to him not wanting to be in a bigger and easier group to be taken down. I do think it is quite necessary since he will pull the trigger on someone who has their trigger towards him. He also was targeted once already, so he could be in trouble as much as any other gang.

The "War" that the Author of Entry #6 talks about is a war between races. Its a war between two races, and each at are each other's throats. She lost a friend during this war, since he was in the wrong place, at the wrong time. The Author said that that friend will not be the last friend she will lose in the war. That might mean that this "war" will go on until they feel that one gang has lost all their members, or when it finally ends.

The Author of Diary Entry #7's attitude to me is cocky, overconfident, and a "dead-man-walking" type. I think that this Author will keep getting hurt until he finally drops. Or he might be killed in an unprecedented gang fight and be shot. Or he can acquire a wound that would send him to the hospital for. A rare happening for me, is if he would choose to change his attitude, his "job" and convert to a new side of the leaf. But, really, anything can happen.

Freedom Writer's Diary 1 - Quotes, Zlata Filipovic, A Roadblock

Comment 1:
"To her, I'm sure we're the "below average kids" kids no one told her about when she was getting her credentials." - To me, it's like these kids don't have faith in themselves as much as Ms. Gruwell has faith in them. This to me, is significant because it would show in the future how other students of Ms. Gruwell might think of themselves.
Comment 2:
"The only people I'd have to worry about in that class are the really cool and popular people who think that they're better than everyone else." - Okay, this is important to the story since it is not only the gangs who segregate, even the popular 'white' kids segregate anyone who is not like them. That's important because even though they are all the same 'color' they still act like any other 'gangs'.
Comment 3:
"My P.O hasn't realized yet that schools are just like the city and the city is just like prison." -This a bit reminds me of The Shawshank Redemption. This is so because in the prison, they still have deals as they do in the city, and in the city, what's happening in the prison is happening just the same out there. So the two is more similar than some people usually think. A prison has the same happening as almost any other city. Some want to escape prison, as they want to escape the so-named city.

Zlata Filipovic was born in Sarajevo, Bosnia i Herzegovina, and is the author of "Zlata's Diary". She was also only 10 when she started to write in her diary (in which she named "Mimmy"). Zlata was considered the Anne Frank of Sarajevo.    In "Zlata's Diary", she described what it was like growing up during a war, and what the war was doing to her family, and also mentioned that she knew she was being compared to Anne Frank. The only difference between them was that the members of Zlata's family all survived and fled to Paris in 1993. But both were very young and were surrounded with war around them. Zlata still continues to write about anything related to her stories, but now she also helps non-governmental organizations with her time.

One of the covers to Zlata's Diary

A Roadblock - Malefactors

The biggest roadblock in my life I believe is how I am affected to things that happen to me. When acted on by a malefactor, I usually just feel the need to stop but move towards where I need to go (especially in school, i.e., go to class, stay, but don't feel the energy to do work, bell for next class, go, repeat). I try to not let people's negative actions come towards me, but it is a hard thing to overcome. This is a huge roadblock to me, but little by little, I can get over it. But then, when a malefactor engages again, it brings me all the way back and erases what little progress I have achieved. But I have overcome part of that roadblock with one of the strongest weapons a malefactor uses, words.