World Series

The 2009 World Series is the 105th edition of Major League Baseball's championship series. The best-of-seven playoff is contested between the Philadelphia Phillies, champions of the National League (NL), and the New York Yankees, champions of the American League (AL). The Phillies are seeking to become the first team to repeat as World Series champions since the Yankees did so from 1998–2000, while the Yankees are seeking to extend their major-league record with a 27th World Series championship. The two franchises previously met in the 1950 World Series in which the Yankees swept the Phillies four games to none.
This is the fifth Series played between teams from New York and Philadelphia. The Giants and Athletics faced each other in 1905, 1911 and 1913 in addition to the Yankees–Phillies matchup in 1950.
The series is also the fourth consecutive time that the Phillies face a team from the AL East in the World Series. They faced the Baltimore Orioles in 1983, the Toronto Blue Jays in 1993, and the Tampa Bay Rays in 2008. The Yankees faced an NL East opponent in three of their last four World Series appearances: the Florida Marlins in 2003, the New York Mets in 2000, and the Atlanta Braves in 1999.
The Series started on October 28, 2009, which was the latest start in World Series history. For the first time ever, the World Series is regularly scheduled to end in November. Assuming no weather delays, Game 4 is scheduled for Sunday, November 1 and, if necessary, Game 7 will take place on November 5. Home field advantage for the Series went to the American League for the eighth straight year as a result of their 4–3 win in the All-Star Game.
The Series will be only the third one ever to end in a month other than October. The first was in 1918, which was played entirely in September after the regular season was cut short due to World War I. The other was in 2001, when the September 11 attacks on the United States caused a delay in the season that eventually forced the end of the Series into November.

What Do I Want to Be When I Grow Up?

To be honest, I don't really know what i want to be when I grow up. Some people like my parents think that it's bad not knowing what i want to be when i grow up but i think differently. The way i think about it is that i should have as many options available so if one goes wrong i can try for another. But if i were to only have one option that i really want to do and i fail at it, i wouldn't know what to do after wards. Some people say you'll be more successful if you keep trying on the same thing. But you keep failing so there's really no use. But you can still be successful
In fifth grade, i had to do a report on Abe Lincoln and during my research i found out that he applied, tried and failed at many jobs and look where he ended up. To me it doesn't matter if the job i have is well payed or not. i just want to do something that i like and that can help others and it would be extra nice if it payed well. I believe having a job that you enjoy but doesn't pay a lot is always better than a job that pays well but it's a dread. Also my chemistry teacher, Mr. Joo has been through many jobs and he enjoyed all of them but he thought they were boring and useless. So he decided to teach and he happened to like it. Even though he says he doesn't know chemistry that good, he enjoys giving his knowledge to young adults like me.
I actually have thought of ideas for a future and one that really jumps out is being a professional baseball player because i love the sport, it pays good and i would like to travel to different places in America. Also, i want to become a professional baseball player so i can support my family and friends because i know that they always had my support.

Global Warming - My Opinion/Explanation

Have you ever wondered what will happen in 30 years from now? Based on scientific fact, it is not looking good at all. One of the major problems in the world right now is global warming. Some people think of it as just a major change in weather when it is actually much more extreme than that. Global warming will put small countries and places under water like Japan, Cuba, Hawaii, Alameda and possibly Australia. After watching former vice president, Al Gore's documentary film, "An Inconvenient Truth", it all made sense too me. The main reason why the world is getting so hot is because of the amount of greenhouse gasses we(as in everyone in the world) give off into the atmosphere. When I first heard this, i thought to myself, what the hell does pollution have to with our world getting hotter. But then I realized it had everything to do with it.
10 years ago, the hot rays from the sun would enter the earth's atmosphere, bounce of a part of earth and go back into space somewhere. 5 years later, the same thing was happening but sometimes, the suns rays couldn't go back out because a big huge cloud of greenhouse gasses was blocking it. So instead, it bounced back to the earths atmosphere. From then till now, it has gotten a lot worse. The sun's rays are continuously bouncing up and down between our earths surface and the big clouds of greenhouse gases which are located near the ozone layer. One of my thoughts to this problem is to just get rid of the greenhouse gases. I mean, how hard is it to get rid of a gas? Well after learning more on global warming, it is really hard to get of greenhouse gases. Some examples of greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, carbon tetrachloride, methyl bromide, and methyl chloroform. These gases just happen to be extremely explosive. It could be a big problem when playing with explosive chemicals and impossible to get rid of. But if we can't do that, how can we stop global warming? "That my friends, is an excellent question." We have not found a way to solve this problem yet but we have found ways to help the situation including turning off a light when your not using it, unplug electrical things if its not in use, carpool more often, and a big one is to not buy things that are factory made. Factories are a big factory in the cause of global warming they give off more than half of the worlds greenhouse gases. Global warming is way worse than it sounds.

Fights

Growing up, I didn't get to watch many fights other then the ones on T.V. like wrestling and UFC. Fights aren't really common in Alameda. The other day, I was over at my friend's house because he was showing my friend and I a video in that took place during the Muni at San Francisco and I just watched the fight. I heard there was a short video clip in the news. My friend was just translating it and I watched this in awe.

It started with them arguing and just yelling at each other. The Chinese woman explained the situation, which was the other woman’s purse placed there, and she wanted to sit, so she moved it. So it led to an argument which got out of hand. The Chinese woman was dared to repeat what she just said, so then she got hit in the face. It led to a fight on the muni and the crowd watched and a few people tried to stop her. The Chinese lady was mad and explaining to another woman in Cantonese (or Toy San, a dialect) how she was harassed.

In the news, they only showed a small 5 second video clip, which made the Chinese woman look bad, but in reality, it was quite understandable what she did. I would stick up for her if I was on the muni. I think its a little internal feeling to just help your own race. There’s a love deep down inside and I feel the need to defend her, other then the fact that she was provoked and not the other way around. The news clip made her look bad and it was in a way, misleading information. It was biased because you only seeing the African American lady get clobbered for no reason and people can assume.

Stereotyping

(9.) Stereotypes, omissions,[7] and distortions all contribute to the development of prejudice. Prejudice is a preconceived[8] judgment or opinion, usually based on limited information. I assume that we all have prejudices, not because we want them, but simply because we are so continually exposed to misinformation about others. Though I have often heard students describe someone as not having “a prejudiced bone in his body,” I usually suggest that they look again.

(10.) Prejudice is one of the inescapable consequences of living in a racist society. Cultural racism—the cultural images and messages that affirm the assumed superiority of Whites and the assumed inferiority of people of color—is like smog in the air. Sometimes it is so thick it is visible, other times it is less apparent,[9] but always, day in and day out, we are breathing it in. None of us would introduce ourselves as “smog-breathers” (and most of us don’t want to be described as prejudiced), but if we live in a smoggy place, how can we avoid breathing the air? If we live in an environment in which we are bombarded with stereotypical images in the media, are frequently exposed to the ethnic jokes of friends and family members, and are rarely informed of the accomplishments of oppressed groups, we will develop the negative ideas about those groups that form the basis of prejudice. […]

These two passages in Beverly Tatum's book tells how our society affects the way we look at other people. If you live in an all-white society, seeing people that aren't white will be very strange because you won't be use to it. But race isn't the only factor to this. Rich, poor,upper class, lower class all have effects in making people prejudice. Because everyone is different, everyone is prejudice im one way or another. Even if you say or do things that may prejudice, your thoughts about others still may be. For example, if a quite, nice, average school girl encounters a big, loud, black guy, she will stereotype him as a criminal or bad person. One day in class, Marcus mentioned that if you like racist jokes, then your prejudice. At first i didn't think that statement was true but then when i thought about it, i agreed. Racist jokes emphasize the negative ideas on other people of different race. Being prejudice is the same thing

My High School Baseball Career

The Black Sox is an 18 year-old and younger baseball team. I joined the team last year as the only freshman and I wasn't expecting to play at all because i was the youngest member of team and I was still learning how to be a good an infielder. But surprisingly, my coach (Erik Schuler) had confidence to play me in the games and the best part is that i never failed him. Except my batting was shaky because the pitching was very fast for me at that high level. After the summer, I was ready to go for the high schoolseason.
For the Alameda High baseball team, I made the junior varsity team and was the starting short-stop and batted lead off hitter the whole season. I did excellent that season having a batting average of .403 and a ridiculous on-base average of .864. Our team had a succesful season and tied for the league championship with Berkley High School. Near the end of the season, I got moved up to varsity.
Varsity was an extremely faster and much more intense level of baseball. The practices were a little more intense but they were also longer. After two weeks of practice, we were in the NCS playoffs. Our first game was against, Rancho Cotati and we beat them easily. The next game, the semi-final, was against Cardinal Newman, and we came out with the win. After the two exciting games, we we're in the NCS finals against Clayton Valley at the A's colliseum. We have already faced them earlier in the season and we beat them. We pitched the same person who pitch to them the first game which i thought was a mistake. Their first batter lead off their team with triple. Our team only had two hits the whole game. One from Dan Smith (Spike) and the other from Joe Norton. After Joe's hit, I pinch ran for him. This was the worst thing that has ever happened to me in my whole life. The pitcher picked me off. Even though I thought I was safe, I went back into the dug-out and I felt so terrible that i just sat the very end of the bench embarrassed and pissed off. After we lost the game 3-1, I had a very quite car ride home. When I got home, I knew I wasn't going to anything besides lay down, think about what happened and get more pissed off. So I thought of something else to do. Then a very touching thought came to me. I was thinking to my self, why i love baseball so much and the first thought i had was that it was fun. After that, I realized what I was gonna do. So i called some friends if they wanted to go play some stick ball (playing baseball with a wood bat and a tennis ball). We played, laughed, and just had a great time. After I got home from playing stick ball, I realized that it was okay being picked off because baseball is all about having fun and enjoying the game. The most awful thing happened in the best day of my life. After that game/day, whenever something bad happens while I'm playing, i just remember that im out here playing ball with my friends having fun.