Important Leaders

Ho Chi Minh was a Communist leader who led the Viet Minh. Also, he led the rebellion against the French and other occupying forces that the vietnamese people did not like. He led the North Vietnamese government and wanted to destroy the South Vietnamese government and its supporters. The largest city in Vietnam is named after him.

Ngo Dinh Diem was the first president of South Vietnam. Worked with the US to create the Republic of Vietnam. The US supported him because he was not a communist. He was assassinated by the end of the war.

Truman gave aid to the French in the 1950s to fight the Vietminh. Then he sent military advisors to South Vietnam to train the army there.

Eisenhower sent the army there more equipment and weapons, and also he sent more advisors. Eisenhower refused to send combat troops.

 Kennedy strongly believed in fighting communism. Kennedy sent more money to fund the army in Vietnam and rose the number of advisors to about 16,000.

Lyndon B. Johnson escalated the Vietnam War heavily. Johnson sent the first ground troops in 1965. Johnson increased US numbers from 16,000 advisors to 550,000 combat troops. He also told the public that everything was going well and that it was no big deal, this ended after the Tet Offensive occurred. Many protested against him.

When Nixon entered office, the war was extremely unpopular. He wanted to end the war quickly. He started bombing Indochina, particularly Cambodia heavily. After he was removed, the remaining troops of Vietnam were removed slowly by Ford (his successor).

Do you set your own course?

            Just about everything you do is in your hands and your hands only. Your parents might give you guidance or set you up for a certain life style but its up to you to take the course given. I think it all depends on motivation. You have to want a certain life style for yourself and you have to work towards it.  Sometimes things happen in life that interfere with something you’re trying to accomplish. But that still isn’t an excuse because you can still do what you can to control yourself with the situation. Whether you chose to take a path or not, they both lead you to different futures. I’m currently in a situation that's relatable to the topic. Freshman and sophomore year I didn’t care about school what so ever. I never did homework assignments, I didn’t study for tests and I ended my trimesters with mostly C’s. I was completely capable of doing well I just was lazy. Junior and senior year I realized that the grades I had been getting were really going to take a toll on where I go to college. The past two years I’ve ended my trimesters with mostly A’s and some B’s. But because of the first two years of poor grades my GPA is not as good as it should be, and I have to go to a community college for a semester next year. I set my own course for myself. I didn’t care about school so I didn’t do my work. Now my GPA is suffering which in turn has an effect on where I attend college, which could affect my future life. Such as where I live, the jobs I get, the people I meet and the choices I make. People set their own courses for themselves.

A Noiseless Patient Spider

by Walt Whitman

A noiseless, patient spider, 

I mark’d, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated; 

Mark’d how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding, 

It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself; 

Ever unreeling them—ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you, O my Soul, where you stand, 

Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space, 

Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,—seeking the spheres, to connect them; 

Till the bridge you will need, be form’d—till the ductile anchor hold; 

Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul.

Overall the poem is talking about the spider in his loneliness. He's sitting on top of a pond, trying to stay above the water. He takes time to think about where to go next and how to still stay afloat. I think the whole poem in general is speaking about the spider and his thoughts in the peace and quiet, by himself. 
My favorite lines are when the author says, "Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space". Although it is not said, you can infer that the pond probably isn't that big - to a human at least. But to the spider the pond is huge and endless. It also painted the image in my head of how alone he is. I also liked the part when he said, "Seeking the spheres, to connect them". When I first read this line in my head I pictured the spider sitting on a lily pad, and looking out to all the other lily pads in the distance; trying to find the best path by connecting them. I'm not sure if my thoughts were correct but thats just the first image that popped into my head when i read it. 

Christmas Post

         Every year for Christmas my family and I go to my grandparents house with everyone on my moms side of the family. I have two cousins who come as well, both guys and a few years older then me. I’m very close with them. We all go to my grandparents house on a lake in middle of no-where Georgia and spend about two weeks together. It seems pretty boring but it’s surprisingly a lot of fun. The time goes by very quickly, we usually sleep in pretty late, and then occupy ourselves with whatever we can for the rest of the day. When I say middle of nowhere I literally mean middle of nowhere. The closest airport is about three hours away, along with the closest mall being about an hour and a half. So we stay around the house, besides the occasional trip out into society. When were around the house, my two cousins, my sister and I have to occupy ourselves with whatever is in the house. We go down to the lake or the woods, or watch dumb movies, play board games or literally drive to Publix “for fun”. It sounds kind of silly but it’s actually a lot of fun... Like I said, the four of us are very close, so we share the same sense of humor and get along really well. My grandparents, aunts, uncles, great grandparents – they’re all extremely southern. So every meal consists of mashed potatoes, green beans and some form of fatty meat. It gets really repetitive REALLY fast. But my cousins and I always joke about it when were not eating it so I guess it’s not so bad. I love being there a lot, because since there’s really nowhere to go there’s a lot of family time. Sometimes all twelve of us sit in the living room and we’ll talk about just funny stories or whatever for hours and hours. My mom’s family is really funny and I don’t know why to be quite honest. 

First Letter Response

During my first year of high school everyone would tell me that it would come and go before I knew it. I never really listened to that because I felt like it was such a long time away and that everyone says that about everything. I thought four years sounds like such a long time. But it honestly has gone by so fast I can’t believe it. Today my art teacher told me that we are more then half way finished with senior year. Which is unbelievable! (Coincidently) Today, I was in marine biology class and a student from Mr. Miller’s class asked if I could come with her to the yearbook room. She told me that I had been chosen as most talented high school artist. I laughed when she first told me because I honestly didn’t think she was being serious. I’m like two projects behind and I always feel as if I’m the worst in the class. I mean it felt great to be told I won it, and I guess that might be something I would be remembered for once I graduate. I don’t really know what else I would be remembered for. I don’t take part in any after school activities aside from a few clubs. I remember last year a couple months before my boyfriend and our best friend graduated they were telling me about how much they regret not taking up social opportunities when they were given to them. They would sometimes just casually decline going to a party because they were too tired or didn’t feel like it. They were telling me how much they regretted it because they were realizing that the time they had with these people was limited and time was going by pretty quick. From that conversation on I remember the two of them always attending any social event they were invited too. And by doing so they met tons of new people and really regretted not doing it sooner. I say this because I’ve been remembering that conversation recently and been thinking the same thing they were. 

Vegetarian Consciousness and the Meditative Mind

Since I was about ten years old I've been a vegetarian. Everyone else in my family are vegetarians as well so our family eats very healthy overall by also buying many organic products. Although I eat really healthy already, I still thought it would be interesting to research vegetarianism. I found an article titled, "Vegetarian Consciousness and the Meditative Mind". I clicked and and learned about a lot of benefits of being a vegetarian. After reading this article it made me even more glad to be a vegetarian. And thats some what something along the lines of what I want to incorporate into my blog in the future. I want people to better understand what I'm writing about and also, "feel" something I guess. One thing I didn't like was the layout of the blog. I thought it was difficult to read because it was very wordy. Almost the entire blog was filled of paragraphs! This is something I should probably look out for as well, not making the blog too wordy. It was also very distracting with advertisements, which isn't really an issue I'll run into but I figured it was worth mentioning.

http://www.3ho.org/articles/vegetarian-consciousness-and-meditative-mind

Best Blog Post

Overall, I think my blog improves with each post. The past couple posts I really understood either the directions or the topic well. I don't know if it's because I'm trying harder, or if I'm just improving in general. When I don't understand the topic or directions I just throw together random things and the post isn't well done. But I have turned a new leaf and now much better with posts. I think the appearance of my blog is fine, it's easy enough to follow and not too confusing. I'm really terrible at thinking of titles for each post so I tend to just make it a general title, which is something I need to improve on. It would probably draw more attention to the reader if I added catchy titles.

My favorite post I’ve written is probably the one I analyzed titled, “A Birthday” by Christina Rosseiti. I understood the poem well and I thought it was interesting to write about. It had a whole different meaning behind it then what I originally predicted. I felt like going on and on about it because there was so much to write about so hopefully my analysis was correct. I think one thing I could improve on is my writing technics overall. Sometimes I get repetitive and don’t use the best vocabulary. As long as I keep that in mind from this point forward I should be able to improve a tad.