Joseph Barbati
Mr. Gorman
English 11
March 3, 2016
Blog post

Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what lessons did you learn?

An incident or time I experience failure, was junior year of high school, this year. Sophomore year of high school I played JV basketball and was six man. After coming off a bad season, I was excited for next years basketball season on varsity A. However, near the end of my sophomore year, I heard that if I were to go to varsity A, I would sit on the bench the whole year, and then senior year there would be a possibility I would be doing the same thing. I had three choices to make either play A and be a bench warmer, play varsity B but have practice late everyday and not have as good competition or quit. I thought about these three choices for a couple of weeks, the choice I decided to make was to quit basketball. This is a failure to me because, I had the opportunity to play on either varsity A or varsity B yet I chose to just quit. This decision affected me in a very negative way, I was depressed I was giving up on something I love so much. It was a failure to me that I wasn’t going to be able to at least get some minutes in a game on varsity A. The failure was both that I quit the game I love and I didn’t work hard enough to earn minutes in a varsity basketball game. As I said I was affected very negatively, but I realize that life like so many other things has keep moving forward. Some lessons I learned from this experience were, don’t let something in the present affect you and what you want your dreams, meaning don’t let something negative affect you now when you could work hard over a short period of time to change the outcome. Another very important lesson I learned is just because you failed at something doesn’t make you a failure and just because you lost doesn’t make you a loser. Sure, I have regrets of not playing but I found a new hobby that I love which is bodybuilding, so although failure caused me to have a negative mindset for a period of time, I also found beauty in something else. No matter what happens in life negative or positive, you must keep a smile and keep moving forward for things happen countless times some with no reason, that was not change who we are. We all great in some shape or form, and we must all believe that just because you failed at something doesn’t mean you can’t succeed at something else.

Joseph Barbati
Mr. Gorman
English 11
March 3, 2016
Blog post

Reflect on a time you challenged a belief or idea through action or speaking out. Describe the idea, how you challenged it, and why you challenged it. In retrospect, were you right to challenge the idea?

A belief I challenged was the belief that just because you Dane have good grades in school doesn’t mean you will not be successful. This was freshman year when my friends and I were at lunch, and one of my friends idea was that he said, “if you don’t have good grades that means you will not have a successful career”. I challenged that by speaking out and saying that, “grades don’t defy your hard work or ability to think outside the box and come up with a great idea”. My friend answered back saying, “you are wrong, going to a good college makes you have the ability to have get a good job and therefor have a good career”. I then retaliated with, “Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg are self made billionaires and all of them did not go to college yet they are worth billions of dollars.” I than went on explaining to my friends that yes grades are important and they can help you get an edge on someone applying for a job, but just because you have bad grades doesn’t stop you ability from achieving greatness. Greatness is achieved by believing in yourself and simply outworking your competition. My friends than agreed with me, because of the solid information I gave. I challenged that idea that my friend claimed because, there are so many people in this world who have the ability to be great, yet they give up just because society say something. Society does not define who any one is, you define who you are by your character and hard work. In retrospect, I believe I was right to the challenged idea because, as I said before, you are who you say you are. Grades do not tell you the person you are, your character and ability to make people laugh and how other people treat you are the way you are. This is an idea everyone must see, do not let anything or anyone define you, you create your own success through hard work and belief.

In my life one thing I challenged was my faith. The reason I had questioned my faith was because of my father. My father had a heart attack and it made me question why God would allow this to happen to a man who was good and always looked to help someone in need of his help. I also remembered that there are worse things that could have happened to him and I should always be great full for what I have but I kept questioning why this would happen to me father. I realized that maybe this was a test from God and maybe he wanted me to go through this hardship in order to shape the type of man that I will grow up to be. I stood by my father and my faith and realizing that God has a path for each and every one of us, sometimes there may be bumps on that path but that is what shapes us to become the men that God wants us all to be. I was definetly wrong to challenge my faith and lose trust in Gid when he is one of the only people who will always be with us watching over us at all times.

Throughout life we challenge many things. It’s one of the things that makes us all different. One thing I’ve challenged in life was my religion. Being in a Catholic school is not the easiest thing. In religion class’s you have to go by the teachings and answer tasks with the correct answers according to the textbook. When I first came to Xaverian I expected this. It was not my first time going to a Catholic school so I was prepared on what to say and believe, but by the time my freshman year was over I realized that I did not know how I felt about what I was believing. Throughout the summer, while preparing myself for sophomore year, I read various books on the Catholic religion, and what came a long with it. I kept on seeing that there were no real facts about the Catholic religion. I spoke to my friends about my doubts and they helped me realize that the Catholic religion is all about beliefs and not always facts. You have to learn to believe in God and what He is a part of. With the help of my friends and family I bettered my knowledge of my religion and ended up in an advanced religion class my junior year of high school.

One time I challenged a belief was when I was deciding my high school.  My mother would tell me that she believed that I would benifit more from going to a coed high school.  While she supported my choice in Xaverian, she greatly encouraged me looking into other coed options. She believed that it would be more beneficial for me to go to high school in a coed environment when I would spend the rest of my life surrounded by women.  However, I had gone on a buddy day to Xaverian, seen the open houses, and talked to current students and alumni, and decided that Xaverian is the place for me.  while she was still sceptical, me and my dad were able to convince her and I couldn’t have mad a better decision.

As time pass, people change, for the better or for worse. It all depends on the environment of that person which he grew up in and the people they hang out with. Everything and everyone were so simple to understand in middle school, but once i reached high school, there became a drastic change in my life. My closest friends although going into different schools, are still close to me and I will always be there for them but one of them joined a bad crowd in hisdetroit lions jersey OSU Jerseys College Football Jerseys micah parsons jersey Ohio State Team Jersey micah parsons jersey OSU Jerseys micah parsons jersey custom football jerseys Ohio State Team Jersey asu jersey Florida state seminars jerseys ohio state jersey custom football jerseys asu jersey school which highly influenced him in a negative way. He became addicted to drinking and smoking. He wants to try harder drugs and become more messed up. At first, i just listen to his stories, but as time went on, it was getting worse and worse until I couldn’t take it anymore and I confronted him about it. At first, he was upset, and angry since he thought that I will look at him in a different light since he started doing drugs, but I told him i will always be there for him, that’s why I told him I want him to stop. He eventually understand this message and that day, I realized, i just saved my best friend from harming himself.

On the news, basically everyday, you see another murder or injury caused by a firearm. You can’t go a day without seeing it on the news. It’s just terrible and we need to do something about it. So many people die everyday in America just because of guns. Innocent people that did nothing to deserve it die from firearms. If it’s an accident or not, people are still dying everyday because of guns. It’s getting worse and worse everyday. News reporters are just talking about it like its nothing because they are so used to it and they talk about it to much. Having guns on the streets negatively effect people everyday and one day it could be me or you. That’s the scary part. One day I could be the victim of a firearm. The more guns people have, the more deaths there are because a civilian ends up being the victim or a cop has use he/she’s gun on the suspect. It just has to stop because it’s just getting worse.

I understand if you need to have a gun for protection but you don’t need to carry it with you. You can just safely lock it up at your home to protect you and your family. You don’t need to carry a gun on you. You can just keep it at home. You don’t need an automatic gun or like an assault rifle or something. There’s no need for that and there’s no point of that. You safely lock up a small pistol in your home and you don’t need to take it out unless you need it for protection. There needs to be some restriction on guns. I’m not saying you need to go changing the constitution but there needs to be some restrictions.

As I said before, there needs to be more restrictions on guns because everyone can see that guns negatively effect so many lives and they negatively effect America everyday. Someone needs to do something about it. It’s a major problem that needs to be fixed before this country turns into chaos. Even if you don’t want to put restrictions on guns, you have to accept the fact that people are injured and die everyday because of guns. It’s sad but you have to accept it. You never know when it’s gonna happen but it just does. This is a major flaw in our country and it needs correction and it needs fixing now.

When I was little, I like to watch people perform with their instruments.I played guitar and drum it gave me feelings of freshness that I want to learn every instruments to enhance myself.They couldn’t last for three months after I quit.But my parents were totally supporting me.I start to boredom myself that I can not focus and insist one thing,brief period of enthusiasm.So, I build my goal on  no more brief period of enthusiasm,now and ever.I know if I can’t insist one thing when I m little it will create a hole in my path.I think somehow childhood could shape our futures, The president Abraham Lincoln used a year to correct a bad habit just because he couldn’t realize it when he was young.I have the advantage and I took a good use on it.It have been 6 years, I still love to play my saxophone.It’s right and significant to accomplish and insist one thing.There are no much peoples can follow the sound of their heart and held out until the last,if they do then they will be madman or legend.

http://news.yahoo.com/breaking-tradition-indias-child-brides-fight-freedom-051328224.html

It has been a part of Indian tradition to marry their daughters when they’re children, even though it’s been outlawed for many years. I recently came across an article that showed a rare case of rebellion: a girl, married at 11 months old, fights for an annulment of her marriage that she found out about at 16.

This girl, Santadevi Meghwal, first saw her husband at school, where he was drunkly shouting innapropriate and harmful comments at girls in the school. A friend of hers turned to her and said, “Oh look, there’s your husband.” In tears, Santadevi went home to find that she was to move in with her husband in a few months.

Steps have been taken to stop these child marriages by the government of countries in which these marriages take place, but it has done little to solve the problem.

Not only are girls forced into marriages against their will, but being married at such a young age causes dozens of serious, even fatal, health problems due to teenage pregnancy.

What’s truly shocking to me is that even though the government says that they’re against these child marriages, when a girl attempted to get an annulment, not only as she met with stigmatizing people who shunned her and her family, but her family was actually fined $24,000 dollars for attempting this annulment.

This is horrible. How have we done nothing about these atrocities existing not too far away from us? We think that America has problems? Horrible things are going on in the world that I, personally, thought ended a long time ago. But under the radar, thousands of horrible people and active traditions still exist. What are we going to do about it?

I challenged an idea of any teenagers that are under 18 should not be facing the realistic difficulties in term of the realistic world. I believe that maturity do not retain bases on ages but experiences, there are millions of people out there seizing their chances to success or achieve their dreams, however, the legal ages have stop them from doing it. I believe that, People that are passionate about their values and beliefs, they should have stood up for what they believe in, the action of challenging an idea or belief expressed by someone else because it didn’t sit right with you or by others beliefs. But what really matters is that it was important to you, and that your decision to act had an impact on your life.