Wow that is a lot to talk about so here in order are the most recent events of my life.

A shot of the new hair cut!Look at the curls!

Model pose!(this one shows the bangs really well!)

I believe that brings us to the essay. Actually I have two the first one is really long and I think it is terrible but my teacher had some positive things to say along with some not so positive. He said I am a talented writer though. Please read it if not I understand give me your feed back.

Picture yourself walking down a dusty dirt road wearing a straw hat and overalls. You're walking home from the fields after a long day at work. As a black man many whites come to their doors and give you a look of disgust. Now think of yourself as a white man walking down a dusty dirt road. Many neighbors wave at you as you pass. When you walk to the end of your street your children come running to you and jump in your arms. You walk to the front door where you see to your delight a freshly prepared dinner ready to eat. Small towns in the South defined the American culture in the 1930's; however, the atmosphere, social problems, sources of income, and culture varied.
The Great Depression, an aspect of the 1930's that cannot be ignored. The Great Depression left thousands of people jobless and with barely any money. Most people were just happy to have a house to live in and food to eat. "Many people date the beginning of the Depression at October 24, 1929, Black Thursday, the day the stock market crashed" (www.ingrimayne.com). Although, a deep economic blow worldwide, the United States and Europe withstood the greatest hardships. "By 1932 approximately one out of every four Americans was unemployed" (www.english.uiuc.edu). Most middle class families survived but it was a hard life style. An example of such would be the Finch family in To Kill a Mockingbird. Atticus Finch acts as single father with two children. He worked as a lawyer in Alabama just as the Great Depression began. When Scout, his daughter, asks him if they are poor, he responds "We are indeed" (Lee, 21). Atticus explains to his daughter that they are not overly poor like some folks but they live a poor lifestyle (Lee, 21). The Great Depression became considered by most to be the longest, hardest economic hardship that the United States ever faced. The Great Depression left hundreds of thousands of Americans jobless: without food, clothing, or shelter. Towns in the South struggled because of the Civil War that had taken place in the 1890's. Even though it took place 40 years prior, there was still fall out. Because the reconstruction act failed, the South struggled to find money for simple everyday commodities: roads, schools, even government buildings. The Great Depression simply added to the struggle. The government experienced difficulty with the stock market crash as well, now they faced the task of helping a nation on its knees. Since the end of the Civil War, hundreds of free slaves moved back to the South. The black men and women who had been slaves now had to be paid, which was hard on the white farmers who were already struggling though the Great Depression. The blacks work as hard as they could, and still lived a lower class lifestyle; this is because no matter where they went in the South, they would always be discriminated against. Racial related discrimination existed as a colossal issue in the South. African-American men and women worked extensive hours for the whites. African-American men found difficulty in finding a respectable job in the South, if not impossible. White men looked down upon black men, no matter how hard he worked. Somehow whites had bitter feelings toward the blacks because of the fact that the blacks had been freed from slavery. The South lost the battle to the North over the issue of slavery. Blacks did not have as many rights as the whites simply because the white people believed themselves superior to blacks. Tom Robinson is an example of this in To Kill a Mocking Bird. He was accused of raping a young white woman and bought to trial where Atticus Finch was assigned to defend him. Atticus was warned by his neighbors and family not to take the case; nevertheless he took the case. The night before the trial a mob of men come to the jail house to "lynch" Tom Robinson. "There was a smell of stale whiskey and pigpen about" (Lee, 152). "Some wore hats pulled firmly down over their ears. They were sullen-looking, sleepy-eyed men who seemed unused to late hours" (Lee, 153). These men were in a drunken rage, they were going to commit a hate crime against an African-American man who had not yet been given a fair trial.
After months of preparation Atticus goes to court ready to defend Tom Robinson. In the end Tom Robinson was convicted of raping a white woman, even though Atticus proved that he was innocent. "Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed" (Lee, 241). Scout helps us realize that even though Tom was innocent he had no chance testifying against two whites who claimed he was guilty. In the South blacks had to work hard to helped end racial discrimination. The 1930's were a dark period for blacks, and even though admirable people like Atticus in To Kill a Mockingbird who helped blacks, whites still thought of themselves as superior.
The general atmosphere in the southern towns was a sense of pride when one person would talk about their town. In To Kill a Mocking Bird Scout talks about how everyone in Maycomb knows the fellow people and the simple lifestyle. Everyone knows if a family is poor, and they know the general mannerisms of a particular family. In Mockingbird, Scout explains to her teacher, who never lived in Maycomb before now, or in Scout's words "{not} a native Maycombian" (Lee, 23), that she is wasting her time trying to convince him to take the money. Because Scout grew up in Maycomb, she knows a Cunningham will not take something that they can not pay back. (Lee, 22-24). In small southern towns it was important for everyone to know the stories or the myths about certain people living in their town. When some shocking notion would happen in the community, merely the next day everyone in the community would discover the shocking news.
Southern towns suffered during the 1930's; nevertheless, the South defined American culture and culture around the world. "You never really understand a person until you consider things from {their} point of view until you climb into {their} skin and walk around in it"(Lee, 30).To truly describe the South would be impossible, the only way would to be to travel back in time and look at the South from the Southerner's point of view.

And the next essay which is shorter and I think better...

In Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird Tom Robinson undergoes a trial against a white man and his daughter. Bob Ewell claims that Tom Robinson, a poor black man, raped his oldest daughter. Controversy arose; everyone decided that Tom would be given a fair trial. Atticus Finch, a lawyer who raised two children by himself, was assigned the case. When the trial began, everyone seemed to think that Tom was guilty. After Atticus made his point, the evidence pointed to Tom's innocence. Unfortunately, prejudice led the jury to convict Tom of rape and send him to his death. Prejudice affects worldly issues that would otherwise turn out differently; nevertheless, people still give in.
Prejudice is defined as "an adverse judgment or opinion formed beforehand or without knowledge or examination of the facts" (www.answers.com). The jurors in the Tom Robinson case were all white men. The trial drew hundreds of people out of their houses. Most of the town decided to go to the court room."'T's morbid, watching the poor devil on trial for his life. Look at all those folks, it's like a Roman carnival" (Lee, 159). The trial became an exceedingly public trial, most of the townspeople knew of it and had made up their minds that Tom Robinson raped Mayella Ewell. Herein lies the prejudice; back in 1930's, particularly in the South, it was common for an African-American man to be looked down upon by a white man. To nearly all whites, a black man existed as scum of the earth. "Tom was a dead man the minutes Mayellla Ewell opened her mouth and screamed" (Lee, 241). Every juror made up his mind, no matter how Atticus pleaded for Tom's innocence. In their minds, Tom was convicted before he stepped into the court room.
On August 29, 2005 a hurricane, called Hurricane Katrina, made landfall in the southern United States. The hurricane resulted in the deaths of 1,836 people, and the damage of over 81.2 billion dollars. After the hurricane millions of people were left without houses, and for people who inhabited the greater New Orleans area without any city to live in. The government, unable to make a quick response, left a number of people questioning the integrity of the government. African-American men, women, and children believe that they were being discriminated again simply because of their race. Numerous claims existed saying the President George W. Bush hated black people; that he helped only the whites because blacks could fend for themselves.
In conclusion, the two stories tie together because in both some form of prejudice exists. In Mockingbird it is racial related because of the way Tom Robinson was treated by the jury and also Bob Ewell the man convicting him. In Hurricane Katrina it was prejudice towards the government because people believed that they underwent discrimination, in reality it was a vast misunderstanding. In both cases the prejudice not only hurt people but created a sense of tension and anger that did not help either side of the story. Prejudice is nothing more than ignorance of man, and the unwillingness to accept the consequences of certain actions (www.answers.com).

In conclusion here are a few pictures of me and my team for cross country. I had another race this week and I ran. I did horrible but that is also with a hurt hip. I apparently move one hip move then the other so the hip that is bugging me has more work then the other. It must look werid from the back...

me and the girls doing our thing! So much pain!

Ok so this is the most pathetic picture ever, but I still love it. You try running 3.1 miles then show me how you look!

In the end I am really am enjoying Cross Country. I love the feeling after I cross the finsh line it is just getting there that is the hard part...