Christian the Lion 2

Dear John and Ace,
I think you both did a wonderful job raising Christian. You really cared for him and you can tell that from the book. It sounds like you 3 had a lot of fun together. I think its kind of cool how you guys had no idea what you were doing but the way you took care of him seems to have been just right. Like how you really interacted with him so that he would be okay around other people but at the same time the games that you would play later helped him be introduced into the wild. Reading this book almost makes me want to get a pet lion but then I remember that Christian’s story is very unique and not likely to happen again. I like how you guys make you sure that the readers know that although you had a great time with Christian but that lions are not pets. I would really have liked to meet Christian, he has a lot of personality and his stories are very cute. It’s weird how he’s a cat but a lot of his behaviors remind me of a dog, like chewing up toys, and running and jumping, and just not laying around all day doing nothing. Stories like this make me interested in working with animals when I get older. I think I would like to work in a zoo one day or do like on animal planet where the families or people take care of the babies animals in shows like Growing Up Tiger Cub and stuff. You’re book is really inspiring and I love reading it.

Christian the Lion 1

So far I really like this book. John and Ace seem like they were extremely excited to get Christian and like they had a ton of fun with him. They talk about keeping him in the furniture shop where they worked because they lived above it and there was a giant room in the basement where Christian could hangout and they didn’t have to worry about him ruining things because all of that furniture needed to be repaired. People would come in just to see Christian and some people didn’t believe they really had a pet lion. Whenever people entered the store they always asked “How do you feel about lions?” and still some people refused to believe there was a lion in the store until they saw him. Ace and Christian weren’t the only ones to have exotic pets in London. There was another lady that bought a Puma or something like that named Margot. Margot was also a very good pet and lived with the lady her whole life. The casino owner also kept tigers and gorillas. It’s crazy to think about wild animals living in the middle of London. I feel bad for them because they couldn’t have had the best life possible living in the middle of a busy city when they should be out in the middle of no where Africa. Christian is really lucky compared to the other animals because John and Ace took such great care of him.

Quarter 4 A Lion Called Christian

For my outside reading book I chose a Lion Called Christian because I saw the youtube video and the Animal Planet special on him. He's soooo cute! This book is written by one of his ex-owners and it just recalls everything that happened during their time together. I've always loved animals and the bonds they can form with humans. I think that it's crazy how much Christian obviously loves Ace and John so I wanted to read more about their story and found out how they made such a strong bond with a wild beast.

Quarter 3 Post 10- Northern Hemisphere Hoodie-Hoo Day

Vaugh, S.W.. "Obscure Holidays You Never Needed to Know About". American Chronicle. 3 March 2009 .

There are a TON of really weird holidays. Like December is Bingo’s Birthday Month, I think its sposed to be like “there was a farmer who had a cow and bingo was his name-o” bingo but I’m not sure. And December 1st is Hypnotize Yourself Out of Pain Now Day, December 1st seems like a really weird day to have that but it’s a weird holiday so whatever. And National Whiner’s Day is December 26th, I wonder why… January is National Radon Action Month and it obviously isn’t very good because I had no idea the US had a problem with radon. February is national Return Shopping Carts to the Supermarket Month. And the 13th-19 is Jell-O Week. Then there’s Wave All Your Fingers at your Neighbor Day on the 7th. Get a Different Name Day is on the 13th, the examples on the website are, Goober Liverchunks, Booger Gigglebutt, and Cheeseball Wafflefanny all from Captain Underpants and the Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants. My favorite one is Northern Hemisphere Hoodie-Hoo Day which is on the 20th. A hoody-hoo is either a shout of joy made by LARPers (live action role players) or a call for the killaz according to Master P. I think it’s really sad that all you have to do to get a national holiday is buy a copy of Chase’s Calendar Events and fill out an application form to “have your special day commemorated forever in print”.

Quarter 3 Post 9- Bollywood

Bride and Prejudice was a really weird movie. I really only got to see one class’s worth of the video but still. I thought it was annoying how they’d just start singing because their voices were really annoying. I also thought a lot of the lines were really weird and cheesy. Mr. Kholi was a creep. He eats really nastily. I also don’t get why the main girl was upset when her bestfriend married Mr. Kholi because she didn’t like him anyways and didn’t want to marry him so she shouldn’t really care. The move did really remind me of Mamma Mia though. I think it was because of the random singing and the whole love stuff. Mamma Mia was better though because it was actually funny and it had pretty decent music. The Bollywood music was just really bad. I think if there were better music and Mr. Kholi didn’t eat so grossly the movie would be a lot better.

Quarter 3 Post 8- Culture

Unknown, Unknown. "Snowboard culture shares blame with Lindsey". The Associated Press. 23 February 2009 .

In the 2006 Winter Olympics Lindsey Jacobellis won the silver medal for Women’s Snowboard Cross. Snowboard cross is a sport where 8 athletes race each other all at once on a course filled with turns and jumps. Lindsey was well ahead of the rest of the pack when she got to the second to last jump, she was so excited at being ahead that she decided to throw in a little style. Lindsey did a nice method off the jump and caught her edge in the landing causing her to move down to second place. Many people criticized Lindsey for being unsportsmanlike and showboating. Rick Morissey who writes for the Chicago Tribune made a comment saying, “It probably would be a good thing if somebody explained to the snowboarders that once they decided to sit at the adults’ table, they made the tacit agreement to play to win. They made the decision to act like Olympians, which now means to act professional.” Many adults agreed with Morissey because they don’t understand the snowboarding culture. Although snowboarding is a very competitive sport and there are many rivalries almost all of the riders are friends. They compete with each other over and over and see each other at many events. Respect is part of the snowboarding culture, not just being nice a polite but respecting people’s talent and style. Snowboarding is a sport built around style. Men’s Snowboard Cross gold medallist Seth Wescott put it like this, “In snowboarding, there’s a huge focus on style, it’s the aesthetic that draws us in,” and that, “It’s the nature of how we ride, it’s second nature to us. That’s how we snowboard.” Many adults are focused on “acting adult” and being mature, they don’t understand that people that are very into snowboarding live their lives different. There are many adult snowboarders that live paycheck to paycheck making just enough to get by because they love what they do. Life needs to be more about having a good time and less about stress and the snowboard culture really exemplifies that.

Quarter 3 Post 7- Global Warming

M., Tim. "Think climate change won’t affect you, Snow Person? Wrong.". Heresy Snowboarding. 21 February 2009 .

global warming is really bad for our planet. it causes a lot of negative effects. a lot of people think that its not going to affect us because its not that bad yet but it is and it does. This year the siberian tundra has been really warm which is bad because the permafrost thaws and releases tons CO2 and methane into the atmosphere. the added CO2 would make global warmning even worse. Scientists have been warning about global climate change for a long time. NASA first starting bringing up the topic in the early 80's and now organizations like the UK MET, NASA, Australian CSIRO and Bureau of Meterology, are all saying that global warming is happening. Despite all the proof of global warming many people still aren’t worried about it. But the truth is that many people are noticing how the weather is acting funny and that everyday there is more evidence supporting climate change. If we start rapidly changing the amount of our emissions in 2010 they will decrease 47% by 2050, start slowly changing the amount of our emissions in 2010 they will return to the same levels from 1990 by 2050, if we start slowly decling our emissions in 2030 there will be a 76% increase in the amount of emissions by 2050, and if we do nothing by 2050 the amount of emissions will have increased by 132%. We need to start doing something about global warming now so that we don’t destroy the earth for later generations.

Quarter 3 Post 6- Paralympics

CTV.ca News Staff, "Disabled snowboarders want into Paralympics". CTV News. February 17, 2009 .

Last year I got to go to Copper Mountain, Colorado and watch my brother compete in the U.S. Snowboarding Association Nationals. At the end of the day everybody went and crowded around a tent set up outside of the Chalet for the awards ceremony. That was the first time i ever realized that disabled people could snowboard like everybody else. Most of the disabled riders that placed were either a single or double lower leg replacement and i couldn't even imagine what it would be like to snowboard missing part of your leg. After the shock of seeing like 4 of those people getting medals i saw the craziest thing ever, a man that was partially paralyzed from the waist down got 3rd in slopestyle. The man couldn't climb up the ladder by himself to get on stage and needed help getting onto the podium, he even had a cane! i can't even imagine how much that guy works and works and works to get better to the point where he can beat people with special bionic legs. At the ceremony they talked about how snowboarding wasn't part of the paralympics yet and that they only needed one more year of a national competition before they would be eligible. In this article it talks about canadian snowboarders wanting to be in the Paralympics. The canadians have a problem with getting enough people to be in the event. I think that there need to be more people aware of the fact that you can do a sport like snowboarding without a limb. Its different than like in track where that one kid got disqualified cuz his new legs made him too fast. i think it would be really cool if there were more disabled riders.

Quarter 3 Post 5- Mormans

unknown, unknown. "Mormon Athlete Personifies Traits of Mormon Youth". The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. February 15, 2009 .

Torah Bright is a world champion snowboarder and olympic competitor. Unlike most pro snowboarders Torah doesn't drink and party. She is very religious and doesn't go against the morman rules(?). Morman youth have very high standards to live up to. They have to attend a four year scripture study that is usually held early in the morning before school and they often participate in service projects to help underprivileged people. Some morman youth even skip out on their proms because they think the dancing and music is innapropriate, in California some parents have put together special mormon proms where the kids can go to still have the experience but without sacrificing their standards. Torah seems like she would be one of those kids. In another interview I read from Snowboard magazine she says she's never had even one sip of alcohol and that she doesn't plan on ever trying it. I think its kinda cool to have somebody so prominent in the snowboarding world to be such a good role model. A lot of the other big names in snowboarding like Shaun White, Danny Kass, Kevin Pearce, and Gigi Ruf seem like they are pretty big partiers. Shaun White even crashed his brand new Lamborgini into a tree going 80 mph around a curve in a residential neighborhood. Torah is somebody that would never do anything like that and she seems like she's a very nice person and somebody that young girls could look up to and aspire to be like one day.

Quarter 3 Post 4- Women Snowboarders

Lupick, Travis. "Female Snowboarders Catch Up With The Boys". Straight. February 13, 2009 .

women snowboarders have never been taken as seriously as men. Taylor Godber is one of Option Snowboarders only female snowboarders. She also works as a bartender and dressis in mini skirts and high heels each night. Another guy from her work never let her ride with him and the one day he did he realized that if he wanted to keep thinking he was so much better than her he'd really have to step up his riding. Taylor also talks about how she used to ride with some guys that were her bestfriends but secretly talked about her bad style when she wasn't around. Girls in snowboarding have to work really hard to not be thought of as snow-hoes. Even girls that are good sometimes get ahrassed by guys on the hill. Pro women snowboarders are slowly changing the stereotype that women suck at snwoboarding. Although there still is a large gap between women and men's riding snowboard companies are starting to feature more and more women riders and some companies like Runway Films are starting to make all-women snowboard videos like See What I See. Strength is what i think is really holding back girl riders. Men naturally have more muscle than women so they're stronger enabling them to go bigger, spin more, and ride harder. Women work just as hard as men but because of physical differences can't be as good as them, yet. Women's riding is slowly progressing more and more each year. They haven't had as much time and experience as the guys have because back when snowboarding started it was nearly unheard of for a girl to snowboard. At one point the guys were at the same level as the girls are now and i think that girls like Torah Bright, Hannah Teter, Gretchen Bleiler, and Alexis Roland are really going to progress the sport to a much higher level.

Quarter 3 Post 3- The A Factor

Nuñez, Larry. "The A Factor: Finding Patience in Paradise". Snowboard: Products, Places, and Personalities January 2009: 72-80.

South American Snow Sessions is a program that started in 2005 in Las Lenas, Argentina. SASS is a different kind of summer snowboard camp. Normally you would go somewhere like Mt. Hood, Oregon or Whistler, British Colombia, but the guys from SASS got sick of the slushy conditions and decided to head down south for even more winter. The first camp they held there were 14 campers and 5 coaches. After a 2 years they moved the camp to Bariloche, Argentina for better off-hill activities, more Argentinan culture, and easier accessibility. When you finish riding all day you can go out and party all night with the locals, in doing so you learn a lot about their culture. As Americans we tend to think that i want that NOW and everything has to be done MY way. In Argentina everything depends on your relationships with other people. If you have a good history of friendship and work they will help you get things done, if not you're outta luck. Argentinans also live a very laid back lifestyle, just going where life takes them, this attitude led SASS to develop a motto, "Don't ask questions". So if you were to be at the airport waiting for your ride and asked "when is the bus getting here?" all you get in reply would be "don't ask questions". And it works. The motto seems to help every body chill out a little bit and stop stressing over things that don't matter. I'd love to live in a country where the culture is all about being a respectable person and about going with the flow. In america it seems everybody gets caught up in the small things. If your bus is late you yell at the driver and stress out even more because your boss will yell at you for being late, I don't get why it matters if your a half hour late, if you still get the work done it shouldn't matter. And yes it is disrespectful to waste other's time by being late but hey they could probly use the time to relax or get something else done. I also admire the fact that they care more about how somebody treats them than who the person is. It seems like here so many people do things for somebody else just because they seem important and all it does is stress them out and drive them crazy. If everybody were trying to build up respect there wouldn't be so many people that push others around like nothing just cuz they work at mcdonalds or are the ones that are gonna clean things up when they're done.

Quarter 3 Post 2- Abkhazia.

Bergeri, Eric. "Absolute Abkhazia- Seeking Powder in a Country that Doesn't Exist". Transworld Snowboarding January 2009: unknown-unknown.
(i dont know the starting and ending pages cuz its my brothers magazine and he took it to his house before i did the MLA citation)

Darius Heristchian, Victor De Le Rue, Per Loken, and some guy named Remi went to a place called Abkhazia to snowboard. Abkhazia is a country that doesn't appear on any maps, except in Russia, because the rest of the world doesn't recognize it as its own country. It's a small peice of land on the Black Sea coastline and was once part of the Republic of Georgia that used to be part of the USSR. When the USSR collapsed in 1991 less than one fifth of Abkhazia's population was ethnic Abkhaz. Georgia gained its independendence when the USSR collapsed and not too long after Abkhazia did too. Ever since then Abkhazia and Georgia have had constant tension between them. Georgia tried to take over in 1992 and in 1993 they were pushed out after killing several thousand people and creating 250,000 Abkhazian Georgian refugees because their houses were completely burnt down. nstead of snowboarding the whole time they were there the guys spent most of their time wandering around and sight-seeing. The way they describe the place makes it sound horrible. The writer says "Scars of past wars were everywhere- bullet holes on building walls, the remains of the Georgian's burnt-down homes." Abkhazia is a poor country with a bad economy which probably explains why they beleive its bad luck to rebuild any Georgian buildings, they simply don't have the money to do it. I'm really thankful that I live in a place like the US and not Abkhazia. It would be so hard to live in a country that's been pretty much destroyed and never rebuilt. Living in constant fear of being attacked and taken over again would be the worst way to live. A taxi driver the guys met on the trip described the war by saying "One morning I woke up and my neighbors were not my neighbors anymore, buy my enemies." I can't imagine everything changing that fast. I think the worst part is that shortly after they left, the country broke out in war again, before they could even start cleaning up the one from over a decade ago.

Quarter 3 Post 1- Avalanche.

De Le Rue, Xavier. "Backcountry Basics- Live To Tell". Transworld Snowboarding January 2009: unknown-unknown.
(i dont know the starting and ending pages cuz its my brothers magazine and he took it to his house before i did the MLA citation)

Last year in Switzerland Xavier De Le Rue was filming with Standard Snowboard Films. He was riding on a mountain in the backcountry on snow that he just assumed was safe to ride. When he was on the upper section of his run he noticed the snow starting to crack but that didn't bother him. In those situations he just rides fast and figures he'll get out safe. But as he kept going the snow cracked more and more until it was just one giant avalanche. Xavier was wearing a special ABS backpack with airbags that you can deploy in an avalanche. He pulled the release cord on the backpack and the airbags deployed. He slid down the mountain over a mile. The airbags kept Xavier ontop of the 6 meter deep snow and although he was unconscious when he was found they saved his life. I think that if you're going to be snowboarding or skiing or hiking or doing anything in the backcountry during the winter you should be wearing one of these backpacks. This avalanche easily could have killed Xavier but because of the bag he only suffered from a torn ligament in his knee, some of the blood vessels in his eyes popped from the pressure, and snow was caught in his mouth and nose causing him to go unconscious, but thats a lot better than being dead.

3, 2, 1- attack!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/sports/playmagazine/112prodigy.html?pagewanted=4&_r=1&ref=playmagazine

Baby on Board (Figuratively Speaking)


'“3,2,1— attack!” and then Lexi rides switch onto the pipe, sliding to the end and throwing in a 180 on the landing, every bit as smooth as Harriman.' Lexi and Chase Harriman have some things in common. They both love snowboarding and they're both good at it, their differences? Lexi's a 9 year old from minnesota and Harriman is a 22 year old Tahoe local, and they are both hitting the same rail. Lexi was sponsored by Burton at age 7. I'm pretty sure she is the youngest pro rider anddd she's a girl. In the article it talks about her family being on vacation in Tahoe. They set up a jump in the backyard of where they were staying, it wasl ike 8 feet tall and lexi's maybe 5 feet tall. it seems like everything she does is over her head no matter what. They also went to a junkyard to hit a rail with 2 other guys that were like 20 and she was hitting the same rail as them perfectly. Lexi is so good she's even been compared to Shaun White, one of her nick names even includes Snow White, of course referring to shaun. Rene Hansen who used to work with Shaun White says that he has “never seen a girl at that stage be that good. . . . Right now, if she continues on her path, she will be the best women’s snowboarder who has ever lived.”.

Quarter 2 Post 8

"Newfoundland: A Comedy of Errors"
by Julia Milan
Transworld Snowboarding Magazine

This article was pretty cool cuz it was like 3 different sections. The first was like a short screenplay of what the trip was like... sort of. and the second part was a story on how the people in the article got "screeched in" and the third part was a little ad for Ski Resorts in Newfoundland. The screenplay was kinda wierd, like it would make more sense and be funnier if you knew the people. The people were Scotty Arnold, Chris Grenier, Trevor Andrew, Deuce and Jofo, the team manager, and Scott Serfas. it starts out with them eating breakfast, renting a car and not really doing anything. Then they get in the rental car, drive to another town and snowboard, then Trevor Andrews AKA Trouble and Scotty Arnold AKA S-C-O-T-T-Y and Chris Grenier AKA Dirty G have rap show at some club and then thats it. The second part about screeching in is this wierd ceremony thing they do in newfoundland where visitors become honorary locals by being spanked, saying traditional newfoundland sayings, kissing a fish, and drinking an ounce of rum. The last part just was like 4 sentences each on Marble Mountain and White Hills ski resorts.

Quarter 2 Post 7

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2009/0106091vail1.html

In Vail there was a couple skiers, a dad and a kid. And they were getting onto a chairlift but the seat of the chairlift was folded up so that there was just a hole. So when the dad sat down he fell through. When he fell his pants got caught on the chair pulling them off and his ski got stuck in the chair so it held him up. The kid was fine and he didn't fall through or anything. The kid also had a real cool coat. Vail Resort said in a press release that the man was only upside down for 7 minutes but the article says it took 15 minutes for ski patrol to respond and get him unstuck so i dont know how long it actually was. I think that the lifties probly thought that it was really funny to watch. If they were like young 20 year olds like all the ones i've seen then they probly thought it was hilarious. i feel really sorry for the guy but its still really fun.

Quarter 2 Post 6

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/WaterCooler/story?id=3769405&page=1

There was a boy who called police about his mothers driving. He said that she was swerving all over and acting wierd. He also told the operator that she had had some drinks at a restaurant and thought that they may have been affecting her. His mother kept yelling at him to hang up and the operators could hear that. She took away and ended the phone call a few times. The boy kept calling police over and over and told them what they needed to know. One time the mother hit the boy to get the phone away. The mom is being charged iwht driving under the influence, assault and reckless endangerment. She has been found guilty of driving under the influence before. The police are calling the boy a hero because he kept him and his sister safe and anybody else that could have been hurt by his mothers driving.

Quarter 2 Post 5

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/WaterCooler/story?id=3863734

In Vermont there's this lady with Celiac's disease. Her name is Patty Cooper. Because of her Celiac's disease she has severe osteoprerosis and has a helper animal to help her out. Instead of being normal and getting a dog she got a minihorse. She said she got it cuz it has a longer life span and it also has a gluten-free diet. Because of her Celiac's disease she can't eat gluten cuz it will make her sick. She lives in an apartment and her landlord said that she can't have the horse if she's going to live there. She filed a human rights complaint with the human rights trust of virginia. She hopes that they will allow her to keep her horsie. The landlord is just worried about where he'd store the hay and the horse droppings and cuz there are 23 other units that all have to share like the same yard and stuff.