Robert's Blog

Thanksgiving

Robert — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:07:30 +0000

Well we have no real blog topic so I think all of us are a little lost. So I think we’re writing on Thanksgiving. The best thing about Thanksgiving is definitely the food. For the longest time I’ve had to miss out on this part because of wrestling. Which is why it became my least favorite holiday for a few years. I use to have to sit at the table and watch everyone else eat when I couldn’t eat because I had a tournament the next day. This year is going to be different because I’m not trying to lose weight so I can eat as much as I want!

thesis statements

Robert — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:46:09 +0000

Banned book

One of my favorite books, Of Mice and Men, has been banned in a few school districts throughout the US.

Major event

This was when I was diagnosed with Dyslexia in the fourth grade.

Seasons

Robert — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:41:39 +0000

My favorite season? To tell you the truth I love every season. This is because every season has it’s perks. For example winter…whats good about it? Its cold and windy and everyone thinks it sucks. Well theres Christmas and snow, if you don’t live in Alabama. I love to snowboard. I have three different snowboards. Its also wrestling season. I love to wrestle. It is one of the things i do miss from high school.

Summer. Almost everyone loves some part about summer. No school, the beach, vacations. I can go on and on about why people love summer. I love it because I get to go out to California with my family and surf the west coast.

Spring. Skating. I’m a huge skateboarder and aggressive inline skating, all the stuff you see on the Xgames and things like that.

Fall. Football, thats all I have to say.

Halloween

Robert — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:16:26 +0000

for Halloween i went to a party…other then that it was rather boring. Although the greatest thing was I went around and got free black jack tacos all night!

Ghosts?

Robert — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:22:49 +0000

Well here’s what i think about ghosts. They may exist but i have had no reason for me to believe that they actually exist. But if it has happened to you well then you can believe it. Mainly what i think it is that our brains are so smart that we think we see something but really it is our mind. We only control about 10 to about 15% of our brains. The other 85 to 90% we can’t control. So I think that ghosts are just your brain that you can’t control is actually playing tricks on you.

Super power?

Robert — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:20:07 +0000

What would my ideal super power be? It would probably being able to teleportation. This is because I would be able to go where ever i decide. This would be nice because I do everything that is not in Alabama. These are things like snowboarding and surfing. Which all the best places to go are out west….

Dyslexia Isn’t All That Bad!

Robert — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:27:16 +0000

We have to write a paper on one of our life changing event. This one event still has a major affect on my life to this day. This was when I was diagnosed with Dyslexia in the fourth grade. Many people always ask me what it is. The easy way to explain it is that I mix up some letters or numbers. It’s not as bad as many people think it is but occasionally it can get annoying. This is because it almost always happens with numbers, and when is really about the only time you have to work with numbers nonstop? Yes, that’s right during math class. This always hurts me during this class just because I always switch numbers like 1245 may come out 1425. Then you get your test back and there’s always the big red question mark like you had it right all the way up to the final answer. But lets go back to the beginning to where it all really started.

Back in the 4^thgrade I lived in Prattville Alabama, just a little north of Montgomery. I went to Daniel Pratt Elementary School. During the 4^th grade I was reading at a 1^st grade level, when I was really suppose to be reading at a 3^rd or 4^th grade level. After this my teacher, Mrs. Reed had noticed that my reading level was so low she called a conference with my parents. My teacher told my parents, “Something is wrong with this and this shouldn’t be happening.” My parents responded, “How do you know what’s normal for him? You’ve only known him for a few months. You don’t know how the schools are run in California.” After this Mrs. Reed said, “We have seen this with many of the kids that have gone through here. It’s normally a reading or eye disorder. Something like dyslexia.” After this long meeting of my parents and her going back and fourth she referred us to UAB in Birmingham Alabama.

They were conducting a major study on this disorder and how it would affect peoples learning and things like that. The first time I walked in the building it was sort of small and not very roomy but there were three chairs sitting against the wall next to a cabinet with toys and games in it, for all the little children that come in. Across from the chairs was a desk, not very fancy, just the type they give a teacher with four cabinets, two on each side, with the fake layer of vinyl they call wood. It was like any other doctors office. You sit there forever in the waiting room, play with all of the toys once, and then do it all over again. After starting back on the toys for the 3^rd time the doctor poked his head out of the door and yell out your name. Then you follow him back into this room with all the cool little gadgets that a normal eye doctor would have. After this they tell you to sit in this huge leather chair. But it has plastic all over it which makes it slightly uncomfortable. Then instead of waiting in the waiting room with all the toys and everything like that you have to wait in this boring room that has all the fun equipment that you can’t play with. So all you can do is sit there. After a nice little wait the doctor walks in and introduces himself.

After introducing himself he starts to explain what we are going to do. So he talks for about a half hour and pretty much says we are going to run a lot of tests. Most of them are going to be the type that I would have to read these certain passages. Although some of the tests were fun but it takes forever to do. After going to UAB about 4 or 5 times, and the 3 hour drive for Prattville to Birmingham, they finally diagnosed me with dyslexia. What they did was they took all my scores on the fun and not so fun tests that they made me take and analyzed them. The doctor said, “What we look for is a major deficit between reading and all of the other things.” The good part about being diagnosed is that it made me eligible to receive accommodations. These are things like extra time on test and thing like that.

They also gave me a special teacher known as a case manager. These are the people that make sure you have all of your accommodations. They would also pull you out of class for meetings. Because I was diagnosed with dyslexia I was put on the local news because I was able to make other people aware that it’s not really uncommon. But other then that nothing really exciting happened. Through out the rest of my elementary school career I was put in a special class to help my reading. This also happened in my middle school years too. Finally getting into high school I did have a major transition from middle school to high school. At this point I had moved away from Alabama for the moment. I was living in Rockville, Maryland, right out side of Washington DC and right next to Bethesda. In high school I had been put in a class that was suppose to help my study skills. I had an amazing teacher Ms. Roit. She always fought for everything that I needed. She was probably the best teacher I have had throughout my learning career. After my sophomore year I moved back to Alabama, this time Huntsville. I started going to Grissom High School. Throughout the rest of my high school career I had to make a few changes. These were things like using a computer for my exams and things like that. This was because it really is Alabama. When I first moved here we sat down with the teacher and presented our case. When we mentioned using a computer they said, “This is Alabama and we don’t have that many computers for the kids.” It should be required that each class has another computer just incase someone else like me comes along and have to use a computer to type everything up.

Nothing else really happened until college. I had walked in at UAH to apply for my accommodations. They looked at my file and said that it was out of date and not the right testing. This means something very bad; I have to retake all of the tests. Although it was not that bad because I got to miss an entire week of school and have it excused. So I got to sleep in and go take some tests, eat lunch where ever I want, and go early and relax. When I was talking to the disability counselor she had mentioned two things to me. The first thing was called Dragon Speaking Naturally. This is a program on the computer that you can type up a paper, or surf the internet. This has really helped me with my writing because I’m able to just say it and it puts it on the computer. The other thing was from a website called bookshare.org. This is a place where I can go on to the internet and look up a book then download it on to my computer and have it read the text while I read it right in front of me on the computer. This really helps me read the required reading that people have me do.

Dyslexia isn’t as bad as it really sounds. Granted it does provide some difficulty with certain things but it’s not to the point where it affects my life to the point to where I have a hard time making it through. Although I do admit it I am special…….SPECIAL ED!

Fall Break? Is that what you call it?!?

Robert — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:54:22 +0000

So we had something called fall brake the other week…..which was all of 1 day for me because I always have Thursdays off….which is always a good thing until they decide you need to work that day…but I would not consider that 1 or 2 days for most a brake….granted we did have the weekends but with my schedule it didn’t feel like a fall brake other then I had to deal with my annoying little brother….fun right? HAHA NO its not…he’s a wrestler just like me…he started because I had started wrestling…but he’s about 45 pounds heavier then me…and I’m 155. So he’s hovering somewhere around 200. And he is my little brother….which means 3 years younger…but so he won a national championship last summer…which is good but…he has a huge head now so he thinks he’s all that and forgets who he’s dealing with….but having to deal with him for 4 days straight was no fun….the best time was when he went to football cuz that’s when he left me alone! But other then that I stayed at home and worked and hung out with my girlfriend and some other people…but over all nothing really interesting………

Now Obama….wins the Nobel Peace Prize……how? He’s not really trying to preserve the peace that much in Iraq or Afghanistan I think that sending more troops over isn’t keeping the peace just causing more fighting…..and the reason why he won……he DELAYED MORE troops being sent to Afghanistan….now i did you a favor….there’s two key words in this phrase….I put them in all caps for you…Delayed….what does that mean…to put off…not to cancel…but to just say not yet…so they are probably going over there now to fight after he wins the Nobel Peace Prize….the other key word is More….now you do realize that the nominations are in November….Well earlier this year he sent 20,000 troops over to Iraq and Afghanistan….so is that what they call trying to keep peace….not really plus he’s sending more over in a little while……..so how can he possibly be trying to keep the peace when he’s just sending more soldiers to go die out in combat….which is not peace. All though he is saying that he is going to donate the entire $1.4 million to charity…..which is nice. Now only if he could think that way about the war….

Who said anything about homecoming?

Robert — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:31:27 +0000

Well to tell you the truth my worst brake up just recently happened to me….I was dating this one girl for just under 6 months. We were going smooth up until about 5 and a half. Then she started acting weird like ignoring me and things like that. Well it was the week of homecoming of my senior year….and she calls me up and says she just wants to “take a brake”….but with no possibility of getting back together, which she didn’t state….of course. But this was after we went shopping for all the homecoming stuff…probably spent over $100 on everything that i needed…shirt, tie, flowers, tickets, things like that….well it turns out about a week after she broke up with me she started dating this other guy which she said that, “he’s a baseball player so he won’t have a chance”…………….LIE!!!!…I think thats all she did to me the six months we were actually together because after that I started hearing things about what she had been doing behind my back and everything like that…..and people still ask why I have trouble trusting girls……and this is after telling them this story…

My Life changing event!

Robert — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:02:04 +0000

The thing I am going to write my paper on is going to be on when I was diagnosed with Dyslexia. The main reason for this was because it changed my life. wow what a novel thought. but it also let me seek help where others couldn’t. Like receiving accommodations throughout middle school high school and even college. These were things like extra time on tests and being able to use a computer and things like that.