Lee Thor's Blog

Hey Marvin.. Yeah, I can't wait for Christmas break either. The break for U of M students will be a MONTH. That's GREAT! How long is your break? I remember it's either 1 or 2 weeks only.. At least you get a break though, right?

I believe this will be our last time e-mailing each other.. Well, it has been nice getting to know you and what your interests are. I hope you fulfill what you want in your future. Stay in school, Study hard and you will Exceed. Take care!

-LEE THOR

Thanksgiving break

Hi Marvin! I’m doing fine. How about you? Wow, so did you enjoy your Thanksgiving break? I enjoyed my break, like I said Thanksgiving was the first break for the U of M students. My family didn’t have our Thanksgiving until Saturday because my brother-in-law didn't come up from Iowa till Friday night. We didn’t eat on time which was supposed to be at 5. It was pretty crazy. What about you? How was your Thanksgiving? Was your whole family over? Were you excited to see them?

What else did you do? I went to the Hmong New Year at the River Center. I wore Hmong clothes with my boyfriend and we ball tossed with each other and watched the performances. yeah.. Over all, I was glad that we had this break. yep. Well, hope to hear from you soon. Take care! oh, yeah my favorite subject would probably have to be history. I like learning about why and or how this became that and so forth.

-Lee

Hi Marvin! How are you doing? How do you like gym class so far? Did you enjoy art last quarter? What was your best drawing? What about math? Do you understand fractions and decimals? Which subject is your favorite subject?

Who's your favorite basketball player? Which two teams do you think will be in the finals? I'm not really sure which team will be in the finals, but I'm always hoping the Timberwolves would be in it, just because we live in Minnesota.

Are you exciting for Thanksgiving break?! I am! this will be the first break for U of M students! I can see my whole family and catch up while eating GOOD food. What kind of foods do you like eating during Thanksgiving?

Alrite, I'll note you later! take care!

-Lee

teachers

I don't have a favorite teacher because I was never close to any of them. My teacher for world history would yell or scream randomly because the class wasn't responding to his questions. At times, i thought that was pretty funny but at times, I got shocked also. Another teacher was my AP European teacher. Her class wasn't all that bad. We had art day, and that was pretty cool. she taught us the history behind the art of why the artist did this and that in the art work. My AP biology teacher was very detailed, but she was a little CRAZY! We took a TON of notes! and i still have the notebook just in case i may need it in college. All of my other teachers were okay, I guess.. i don't give much thought about the teachers life.

2 interesting things about college

One of the interesting thing about college is that you decide when you want your class, such as what time, and what weekdays. I have a 2 hour break before my next class begins. During those two hours, I do some assignments that I didn't finish, and catch up with my friends.

Another interesting thing about college is that you have more responsibilities. You have more choices to decide and they affect the outcome of your decision. It's really up to you how you want your life to be.

LCS

Hi Lincoln students! My name's Lee Thor (female, Hmong) and I'm a freshmen at the U of M. I was born and raised in St.Paul. I went to Benjamin E. Mays for elemantry, and Murray Jr. High for middle school. I then graduated from Como Park High School which is near by Como Zoo but closer to Como Lake in June 2005.

What I like to do in my spare time is go on the net, listen to music and play games on yahoo . I usually listen to r&b, a little of pop, rap, and country.. I play quite a few games like checker, chess, dynomite to make time fly by faster, but you should only play when you have free time. Now, I don't have as much leisure time to go on the net to play games. I'm usually doing my homework in my room, and if I'm on the computer, I'm typing an essay.

So, what do you guys like to do in your spare time? Do you guys stay after school for school activities or for help on homework? What do you do when you get home from school? Do you like your neighborhood? Do you enjoy school right now or do you wish that you were done with school?

Until then I'll note you guys another time. If you guys have any questions about college or about me, feel free to ask and I'll try my best to answer them! bye!

-Lee Thor

week 7, feedback draft 1, essay #2

Feedback from my revision group wasn't as terrible as i thought. I felt I did a pretty bad job because my intro sucked and there was more info about my junior high. I felt that I wasn't emphasizing on the importance of the school location and the neighborhood that a student grows up enough to get my point across. In a way I thought that people would say that I was saying my junior was better than Lincoln. I wasn't trying to get that point across.. noo.. nah uh..

I got a compliment about how I zeroed into Willard-Hay. Yeah, I didn't want to write about North Minneapolis as a whole because I felt that was too board even though there's more statistics that could help me write my paper. I believe everyone said that I had some good facts to back up my point.

Ohio State

When we watched the movie about poverty in Ohio, I was really shocked at how the school looked like. There were holes in the ceilings, and if it rained water would drip. My high school had that problem but it was taken care of right away. And some of the some school didn't have a cafeteria. In my head, I was like "what if the students didn't have money? how are they going to eat?"

I'm glad that I live in MN because the schools wouldn't do the property tax or something like that. I think it's really unfair.

Comparing Murray Jr. High and Lincoln Community School Basic Skills Test (BST) in 2005. More than half of Murray students passed the reading and math test. In reading, 383 Murray students were tested and 294 students passed. Compared to Lincoln, where 73 students were tested, only 30 students passed, a little below half. 224 Murray students passed out of the 380 students tested for math. The math scores for Lincoln dropped tremendously. Only 20 out of the 73 tested passed.

2nd entry for week 5

I've done citations in my high school. My senior year, we had to do a research paper and cite at least 3 or 4 works in MLA style. I thought it was alrite, because I only had to cite for a book, website, and magazine. I'm glad that my high school got me to be familiar with citing.

school girls & superman and me

In both readings, their family is very important to them. LaRhonda puts her family before her education. An education that if she graduates could possibly give her a bettter job and help her family with payments. For Alexie, his father was the one that made him want to learn more. Because his father was not like other Indians who wanted to be thought "stupid," he bought books that filled their household.

LaRhonda refuses to be book smart even though people look up to her.She thinks that if you're smart, you're white. And that causes her to not want to learn or care. If you were Indian, you were considered stupid. Alexie didn't want to follow that path like so many other Indian students at his school. He spoke, answer, and asked the white man questions that others refused to do. Race plays an important role because when you want to fit in, you do what they do, like LaRhonda who spoke slang, skipped school, and go into trouble. And when you stray away from the pact like Alexie, others criticize you.

2nd entr for week 4

I forgot that we had to do 2 blog entries every week. This week has been alrite, i guess. the revision group was okay even though two other people didn't show up. I'm not really excited about having a pen pal, but gotta do it to get a grade. you cant always do what you want, right?! we'll see at the end, if i enjoyed it.

LCM observations

What really shocked me was the math and reading scores. They're less than half of the state. And comparing with the district, their scores are mostly half or a little under.

My other observation was how the students felt safe at their school. I remember taking that survey at school and wondering why we had to do it. Now I know why. And the respect for the teachers! it's low! The teachers are helping the students and they get no respect.

the things we carry VS. mean girls

I liked the first essay because she took educational knowledge with her such as the terms. And when you understand the terms, you understand what the writer is trying to say. And the teacher! She soften up when her mom talked to her, makes me wonder if the teacher did not like her.

The second essay seemed kinda of typical to me. Friends being backstabbers. What her friends did to her house was really harsh. They could have given her the cold shoulder through out the school year.

1. Maybe because he was a minority. I'm not qutie sure.

2. Religion and society played a role in the story becuase his family was catholic, he went to a catholic school, and his family spoke spanish at home only, which he felt was a private language. He did not speak english at all in school, so the nuns came to his house and told his parents to encourage their kids to speak english at home also. Which then led him to speak spanish less, and resulted him into a better english speaker.

3. What I didn't like was that he was portraying english as a bad thing. What I did like was that I could somewhat relate to him because I speak more english than hmong, and can pronounce english words better than Hmong words.