Just Like Us- Final Blog Post

This book was really interesting to read because it touched on a topic that is very sensitive in the United States. What made me most interested in reading this book was how the four girls handled the situation of legality in the U.S. Marisela and Yadira had to pass on opportunities that Clara and Elissa got because they did not have green cards or social security numbers. Marisela and Yadira had to pass on a scholarship that Clara and Elissa ended up getting and it made them upset whenever Clara and Elissa would talk about in front of them. This reminded me of how at Deerfield everyone talks about their ACT scores because everyone thinks that it is some sort of huge competition but really it is something that should be private and not shared with others for the sake of their feelings. The thing that makes me so mad about sharing ACT scores is that this seems like the biggest deal in the world but it's nothing compared to what the girls in the book are going through. Almost every town in the United States feels like they are stuck in the "bubble" and after reading the book I realized how true that is. There may be many different bubbles but the problems inside of the bubbles are a lot different. There is a significant difference between the issue of sharing ACT scores and dealing with illegal immigrants so many people don't realize how much of a struggle it is when you can't apply for certain scholarships due to not having a green card. This book put it in perspective for me at how big of a problem this is and how it's not fair for the really smart illegal immigrants to not have the chance to apply for scholarships to pay for college because these girls in the book are smarter than me but I get the opportunity and they do not.

Just Like Us- Blog Post 4

At this part of the book, it is a couple of days before the girls junior year at University of Denver. The girls decided to throw a big party before their classes started and the writer of the book, Helen Thorpe, was at the party, as she as at all of the events that the girls are at since she is writing a book about them. In this part of the book she was talking about how she had believed that she shared a connection with the girls because they were all looking for their identities at the same time. She was trying to make a name for herself but after her husband decided to run for mayor, she was known as the mayors wife every where she went, including this party. In the book she says, "I still saw myself as a journalist, and could never accept that I would be defined by the actions of my spouse, just as the girls could never accept that they would be defined by the actions of their parents" (301). This quote really stuck out to me because it shows that even though the girls had to deal with not having green cards, they still managed to follow their dreams. They did whatever they could to attend college so that they can get an education and become successful enough to support their families and hopefully one day become American citizens. This quote was inspiring to me because shows that everyone has to branch away from their parents and their normal life. It reminds me that as my classmates and I prepare for graduation and for whatever our plans are in the fall, we have to take advantage of what we have now because once we start our future there is no going back to the childhood days of always relying on your parents and the surrounding community for help.

"Financing for Colleges Declines as Costs Rise"

Lewin, Tamar. “Financing for Colleges Declines as Costs Rise.” NYtimes.com. New York Times, 6 March 2013. Web. 2 May 2013. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/education/aid-for-higher-education-declines-as-costs-rise.html?_r=1&


In this article, they talked a lot about the government funding for colleges and universities and how that has decreased rapidly. When talking about students paying more for education it said, "Students are paying more, while public institutions are receiving substantially less money to educate them." This article had a lot of good statistics about how tuition has increased over time and how the government funding has been down. The article gave the statistic that, "In 2008, before the recession, state and local government provided a record high of $88 billion to colleges and universities." After the recession, the government tried to keep the stimulus funds level through 2009-2011 but after they ran out of the the stimulus money there was a huge decline in government support for colleges and universities. While there was decrease in government funding for universities, there was a 28% increase in enrollment over 10 years at public universities. There are many people around the world that are affected by the cost of higher education, but the people that feel the most pressure are the politicians because they are the ones that have to come up with a plan to distribute whatever money they have correctly and make sure that they please the country while creating their plan as well. This article helps show how much of an issue the rising cost of higher education really is. The government spending has decreased and the cost of tuition and enrollment are increasing, so right now this is a lose-lose situation.

"The High Cost of Higher Education Explained in One Simple Graphic"

Watson, Bruce. “The High Cost of Higher Education Explained in One Simple Graphic.” Dailyfinance.com. Daily Finance, 16 March 2013. Web. 6 May 2013. http://www.dailyfinance.com/on/college-costs-tuition-rising-student-debt-infographic/

In this article it talks about how one graphic can show how much tuition has increased overtime. In the article it says that over the last 30 years, tuition has increased 1,120 percent and that compared to the rising cost of health care only increased 600 percent. The issue of paying for higher education is becoming more and more of a struggle. Many families are paying off their students loans way into their 40s and 50s. In the article it says, "should it be shocking that almost one in five families is currently paying off student loans." The graphic that went along with the article does not only show how tuition has increased over time, it also shows are the cost of textbooks have decreased and how the student debt has increased while credit card and auto debt have decreased over time. In the article it says, " The average debt total at graduation is approximately $27,500." The article is very helpful because after they say everything about how debt is increasing, they give you ideas to try and pay off your loans in a timely manner. Getting your diploma is the number one thing they say to do because employees that have a diploma get paid more money. The tip that they give is to graduate in four years because it will save you money from not paying for tuition and for room and board. This article was very helpful because it talked about the affect of what attending a university can have on you after you graduate; it also was nice because it gave tips on what to do when there are student loan debts. 

"Feature Store/ Cost of a College Degree/ Rising College Costs"

Dominique, Jill. "Cost of a College Degree: Background." Issues: Understanding Controversy and Society. ABC-CLIO, 2013. Web. 6 May 2013.

In this article, she talked a lot about the history of financial aid and there are a lot of statistics covering the rising cost of higher education. This article was very helpful because it gives clear stats of how cost has risen. In the article it says, "According to the College Board, the average costs for tuition and fees during the 2011-2012 school year for in-state students at a public four-year college was $8,244 (and 8.3% increase, compared to the previous year)." This quote shows that the tuition is rapidly increasing at all levels, including in-state tuition which is supposed to be cheaper than out-of-state tuition. If tuition is rising at an average of 8% per year, imagine the cost of tuition for when our kids go to college. There is the opportunity of receiving financial aid which has been around for a long time. After World War II, there was the G.I. bill that helps war veterans get an education or a job. The G.I. bill helped the veterans have easier access to college because it cut cost down so they could have jobs after being gone for so long. Now we have the FAFSA, Free Application for Federal Student Aid, which students that are going to college can fill out so the government can help families that do not have high income, give money towards their child's college degree. This article also talked about the recent decrease of the government's debt and that most of the money that goes to student loans come from private companies because the government cannot afford to pay for so many student loans because there is a major increase in applicants. 

Just Like Us- Blog Post 3

At this time of the book, the four girls are sophomores in college and excited to not be the scared freshman on campus anymore. At the beginning of their sophomore year they all moved to the same dorm at the University of Denver. Marisela has branched out from her friends Yadira and Clara by living with different people but they still hang out together for a majority of the time. The three of them signed up for a class about Social Inequality. There were many instances where they talked about poor people not having many advantages. One student in there class said, "It is so common that labor liners are drawn in certain ways. Like, different groups do certain kinds of work, and I'm just like, this is that way it is"(182). It is really sad to me that that's the way people think now-a-days; that a certain race has a specific job and that is the way that most people in the United States think when they are talking about work force in America. What really shocked me the most is that when everything happens in the class the girls don't stick up for themselves. In book it says, "But otherwise the students of color remained silent, allowing the white students to dominate the conversation. When I asked why this was so, the girls from Roosevelt said they had grown weary of trying to educate other students about what it was like to be poor"(182). This helped me feel a little better about the fact that the girls wanted to stick up for themselves, but people just don't understand and they were sick of explaining it. It amazes me that the girls went through all the things that they went through in their life; coming across the border, handling school and handling the fact that they did not have visa or social security cards. I think I understand why the girls do not want to keep explaining their situation. I feel like no one can ever experience what someone is going through without actually walking in their shoes or experiencing what someone else experiences. 

"For Poor, Leap to College Often Ends in a Hard Fall"

DeParle, Jason. “For Poor, Leap to College Often Ends in a Hard Fall.” NYTimes.com. The New York Times, 22 December 2012. Web. 12 February 2013. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/23/education/poor-students-struggle-as-class-plays-a-greater-role-in-success.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

In this article they talked about three girls who were friends in high school and were trying to attend a college like normal students. These girls are all very smart and have the ability to go very far in life and they need to "get off the island." There were a lot of mishaps that ruined the experience for the girls. One girl, Bianca was enrolled in community college to be able to stay home and be with her boyfriend but be a student as well. Another, Angelica was heading to Emory University in the fall. Angelica was getting financial aid money from Emory but they said that the income of her mother was higher than it was so she did not get as money for the schools as she should have and ended up having to drop out of school because she was working more than studying so that she could pay off her tuition. The final girl Melissa, was going to Texas State University. She struggled when first going to college because didn't think college was for her but when she learned that it was too late to return the financial aid, she decided that Texas State was the school for her. After many struggles throughout the four years, Melissa is a senior about to graduate and in the end staying at Texas was the right choice regardless of the things that she had to go through. There are happy endings when dealing with the issue of the cost of higher education, like Melissa but there needs to be something done because there are people like Angelica who are $61,000 in debt and will take a very long time to pay back. 

Marketplace of Ideas research

As we started this project, I thought that it was going to be very difficult because we had to be experts on a topic. My topic is the rising cost of higher education and it is a bigger problem in the country than I thought it was. I did not know how many issues there were out there that go along with my topic. I was first interested in my topic after reading an article in my English class about girls who could not pay for college even though they were smart enough to get into college. It really makes me feel bad because a lot of the stories that I've heard, the girls or boys have better test scores and G.P.A's than I do, but I am fortunate enough to attend a University in the fall. After reading many articles, I really want to take a stand for this issue. It does not seem fair that these students do not get to utilize their intelligence because they are not able to afford the expensive universities. I want to stand up for this issue and possibly create an organization that can give partial scholarships to students, that meet certain criteria, that cannot afford college. These students deserve a chance to further their education because what if they can create a cure to cancer but we as a nation would never know because they were not given the opportunity to attend a college or university. 

Just Like Us- Blog Post 2

In this part of the book, the four girls are talking about their transition from high school and what college is going to be like. The one quote that stuck out to me the most was what Elissa said after registering for her classes at Regis College. She said, "It's such a big place. I'm worried about what's going to be like. Going from this to that is going to be very hard"(91). This quote really interested me because even though these girls worked their butts off to get into college and get scholarships  they are still scared and do not know how to handle college. It is well known that Latinos are very close to their families and have a hard time leaving the things that are important to them. I'm not saying that my family is not important to me, but I think that education is higher than your family because when you are older you have your education to rely on to get a job and be successful, not your family. I think that it's really important that people realize the chance that they get to go to college and be thankful for the opportunity that they are given. Many people in the area just attend a college or university because that is what everyone does around here, but if you are not ready for the commitment to your studies, then it is not worth it to take someone's spot when they work harder than you do and will actually take education seriously. There is a problem of the rising cost of higher education and it's not fair to the kids who are a lot smarter than the kids that actually do go to college. There are kids with better test scores and grades that don't get to utilize their intelligence because they cannot afford college and something has to be done about this situation.

Just Like Us- Blog Post 1

Thorpe, Helen. Just Like Us. New York: Scribner, 2009. Print.

After reading the first part of the book, Just Like Us,  I realized how serious the issue of how the rising cost of higher education is. The book is about four best friends, Marisela, Yadira, Clara and Elissa,  from outside the Denver, Colorado area who are dealing with the college admissions process. The main issue is the cost of the schools, but also that Marisela and Yadira do not have green cards or social security cards but Elissa and Clara do have green cards. The first couple chapters talk about how this issue has caused a lot of tension between the girls because they all see the admissions process as a competition and feel as if they should be better than the other girl. One particular thing is all four girls all applied for the same scholarship, but since two of them do not have green cards they were eliminated from the selection process. When they found out that Elissa and Clara got to the final round of interviews they were very upset. In the book it says, "Marisela had done a seamless job of acting. She had been funny; she had been gracious. Inside, however, the familiar sensation of watching Clara and Elissa move forward with their lives as she remained stuck in the place left her feeling terribly alone" (45). With the competition between the two sets of girls, it can affect their friendships and the relationships with their families because Yadira and Marisela are so upset about the situation. The book is really interesting so far and I cannot wait to see where it takes me in the next chapters because learning about this issue is really important.

NFL Draft

Over the past couple of the day the NFL draft has been going on and many college players have been drafted. The one player that has the most hype is the former LSU player, Tyrann Mathieu. After he had struggled with the addiction to the drug marijuana and the many arrests, he finally got to live the dream of playing in the NFL. In the most recent issue of ESPN magazine, there is a whole article detailing everything that Tyrann Mathieu had to do to become sober. Reading this article was very interesting to read because it talked about how he had to leave all the friends he had behind because they were all terrible influence on him. That is probably one of the hardest thing that anyone would have to do in their life. After reading the article it showed me that even though he had dealt with everything in his life, he was still working as hard as he could to reach his dream of being in the NFL draft. It's really inspiring to me that he would still work as hard as he does even though he had a hard couple of months in the fall. He trains with professional athletes to understand how hard NFL workouts and being with a team actually will be. Reading this story really made realize how even though rough things in your life can happen, you can overcome anything and work as hard as possible to achieve your dreams.

Unity

With the tragedies in Boston that have happened in the past week, there has been a sense of community in the whole United States. As sad as it is that something this horrible has to happen in order for everyone to get along, it has strengthen the United States as a country. Over the week there have been many games in Boston that were postponed but when they were scheduled for a later date an amazing thing happened. When the announcer stood up to sing the national anthem, he sang a little bit then got the whole crowd to sing the national anthem. It showed a sense of unity in Boston and throughout the United States when teams like, the Chicago Blackhawks, had a moment of silence for everyone in Boston. Another thing that shows the support of America is when they caught the second suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, in the boat of David Henneberry. After Henneberry realized that Tsarnaev was in the boat, he called the police and there was a shootout on the boat to get the attention of Tsarnaev and make the arrest on him. In the article, http://gma.yahoo.com/support-replace-boat-ruined-bomber-standoff-165345489--abc-news-topstories.html, it says that Henneberry treated that boat like a child and was very important in his life. There have been plenty people emailing the Watertown Police to help get Henneberry a new boat. Many people have sent him money in the mail towards getting a new boat because they believe that he did a very heroic thing by coming out of his home during the lockdown. With people trying to support Henneberry in trying to get a boat, it shows how through this rough time everyone is trying to help out anyone they can during this tough times. Things like these are what make me proud to be an American. 

Basketball Injuries

As an avid NBA fan all of the injuries recently have been really devastating to see so many players go down. Around this time last year, Derrick Rose tore his ACL and then New York Knicks rookie Iman Shumpert tore his ACL not even an hour later. Then in January of 2013 Boston Celtics point guard, Rajon Rondo, tore his ACL and a couple weeks ago Denver Nuggets, Danilo Gallinari, tore his ACL too. What shocks me the most is how long it has taken Derrick Rose to come back to the team. I understand it is hard to gain the confidence to come back after such a terrible injury but Rajon Rondo has already been going to shootarounds with the team after two months from the injury and Iman Shumpert has been playing games since early February. The most frustrating part about this situation with Derrick Rose is that he did not start traveling with the team until January. As much as I don't want him to come back and get hurt again, I just feel like at this point he's letting the team down by making all these baby steps but still not doing anything about coming to play for the team. I think that Derrick Rose just needs to accept that he is okay and that the injury is past him and that even coming back for a little bit at a time, he'll gain the confidence he needs. Kobe Bryant ruptured his left Achilles tendon and he has already taken a positive outlook on the situation and decided that he'll do whatever it takes to come back and help his teammates get better. As the NBA playoffs come around I just hope that the Chicago Bulls can make a good playoff run and maybe Derrick Rose will be joining them in the playoff run.

Hidden Bias

This IAT test was actually very interesting to me. As I was not in the proper environment to actually take the test and get the results that I would be pleased with. There were many times that I made mistakes because I got confused due to the races switching sides on the screen. Anything that has to deal with categorizing things by pressing buttons I'm not that good at, but still believe that my results are not that different to what I actually believe. This test made me realize that there really is no way around the hidden biases we have. There are always those stereotypes and prejudices that we have and like it says on the homepage, http://www.tolerance.org/activity/test-yourself-hidden-bias, we learn them at a young age and they're very hard to get rid of. I think that it is bad to have these certain stereotypes and prejudices but according to the tests we all have hidden biases whether we like it or not. Most people I know around the area would double-check to make sure their car doors were locked in an area they don't know anything about, and I'm not saying that I wouldn't either because I even lock my car when I come into my house to grab something quickly and then leave again. I think that this test makes me realize that during the movie "I Sit Where I Want" many people were scared to sit with different people because it makes them go outside their comfort zone. I do believe that the documentary was really interesting and had a very good point behind it all, but I also think that it's very hard to try and get everyone to change their beliefs so quickly. I think that the group of students should have eased the students into becoming friends with everyone and then they could have sit with different people at lunch on their own. I think that by easing the students into becoming friends with each other first would've been more effective than just trying to jump right into sitting at the same lunch table with people that you don't know.

Steubenville Case

After reading about the case in class, I kind of forgot about the whole thing until the case went into trial this past week. This past weekend the two boys, Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond were found guilty of the rape of a 16 year-old girl. They were both sentenced to a year in a youth correctional institute and will have to both register as sex offenders, while Mays is going to serve another year after that for the distribution of nude photos. I think that this is a wake up call for Steubenville because everyone in the town thinks that these boys are perfect boys because they play for the football team. The whole town lives and breathes for the football team thinking that they can do nothing wrong. In the article I read about the case, it said that there were people that had walked in on the two boys with the girl but he did nothing about it. In the article it said that the reason he was not focused on the situation is because he was so worried about his friend not drinking and driving. I think that all around the country people do a really good job of letting kids know how terrible drinking and driving is. I think that kids are not prepared to handle any sort of situation if they experience rape. Hopefully that is something that many kids have to experience, but there needs to be some sort of way to tell kids what to do if they are in that situation. If this kid knew what to do when he was walking past, maybe the girl could have been helped earlier and been safer. I think that kids also need to have more knowledge on the situations that they're put in. No one thought to get this girl home safely, or call anyone she knew to come and take her home safely. I think kids are too immature to think about any of this which is the very sad part because if a minor is very drunk and non-responsive everyone just jokes about it and doesn't take into consideration that they need to be home safely with people that care about them. These issues need to be taken care of nation-wide and more kids need to be informed about the different scenarios they could possibly be in so they know how to handle themselves. 

Child Abuse

As we are ending our unit about sexual harassment, I read an article about a swim coach at the University of Utah, Greg Winslow, who allegedly abused multiple swimmers and sexually abused one girl. Since 2008, there have been written letters of complaints to the athletic department at Utah but there was nothing ever accomplished and the complaints were ignored. The University of Utah finally suspended him the end of February when he was involved in a sexual abuse case. It shocks me that it took the school so long to realize that the coach needed to be suspended and he needed to be investigated. The reason this is so surprising to me is that because of everything that has happened with Jerry Sandusky, that the University isn't taking these letters of complaints as seriously as they should be. Even though Winslow is not suspected of as many sexual assaults as Sandusky was, any sort of abuse is awful and should not be taken lightly. I think that both the Sandusky case and this case involving Coach Winslow is a wake-up call to all athletic departments in the nation because things are starting to get out of hand and it's not a good thing at all.

HIV Cure

In the news yesterday I read an article that said there is a baby that has been cured of HIV. When the baby was first born, doctors used a series of shots to prevent the HIV from spreading throughout the body and hiding in certain places they wouldn't be able to find later. They routinely did these tests for 18 months and then the family temporarily stopped coming to treatment. When the family came back several months later there were no signs of the virus in the child's blood. With this news coming out it gives an optimistic outlook in the medical field that they are one step closer to accomplishing a goal that is very important to the world. This is a very good sign because if doctors can notice these things when children are just born, we can go to Africa and help stop the disease in newborns to stop from spreading the disease. If we go to Africa and teach the doctors and medical personnel there what steps to take when trying to cure the newborns, it will help them decrease the population of HIV in the country. 

Drew Peterson Murder

Drew Peterson is someone that is widely known in the Chicago-land area. He was a respected police officer who ended up being sent to prison for 38 years because of the murdering of his ex-wife Kathleen Savio. What shocks me the most about this situation going on is that the law enforcement didn't do much about the murder in the first place. Until Peterson's current wife disappeared, they didn't even consider that he might have killed Kathleen. They ruled the death of Kathleen an accident but then when they realized that Drew Peterson might have actually been capable of murder after his current wife Stacy Peterson. The other day Drew Peterson was finally convicted for murder and sent to jail. After hearing things here and there about the trial it's satisfying to know that he is finally in jail for his wrong doings. There have been many issues in the trial but what led the courtroom to ultimately decide that he was guilty were his actions the other day. Right before he was given his sentence he screamed into a microphone, "I did not kill Kathleen." putting a lot of emphasis on those five words. After screaming like that it showed the lead state prosecutor, James Glasgow, that he was capable of killing someone. He went on to say in this article, http://news.yahoo.com/peterson-screams-then-gets-38-years-murder-012012133.html, that by saying what he did the court was able to see the real Drew Peterson, the one that killed his ex-wife. With Drew Peterson finally being sentenced it makes me feel more safe to know that he is finally locked away after doing a horrible thing to his wife even though he claims that he never did.

College Athletes

Recently in the news I read an article about how three football players from the University of Alabama were arrested for robbery. This shocks me that three players who were a part of a national championship team felt the need to do something against the law. I know it's hard to live as a college student because you do not have a lot of money but athletes at many universities are given special treatment. They are able to have extensions on work and are given tutors to help them with their school work as well. What I don't understand is that the students that are these three students are one of the few privileged students on campus but they don't think that they still have enough to make them happy. Being an athlete is a privilege and you are always put on the spotlight, especially someone like a college football player that just won the national championship. The football players on campus are supposed to be role models for younger boys and going around and robbing places. As an applicant of the university, his shows me that the town of Tuscaloosa is not a town where I would feel safe. It's really important to me that where I go to college next year I feel safe and secure. I don't want to go to school where three of the "big men on campus" are robbing places in the area. In the article it also said that another football player was suspended for hitting a kid and then stealing his wallet and then breaking into a car later. This definitely turns me away from attending the University of Alabama because of how dangerous the town sounds and how something like this could happen on campus.

Grammy's

I was listening to the radio the other and the DJ's were saying that this year CBS put their foot down on how revealing the clothes are for the performers. The DJ's started to joke around about what Rihanna was going to wear, was she going to wear a turtleneck? After hearing them talk about it for a little, I played back in my head the previous Grammy performances that I've watched. Most of the clothing that the performers wear are very revealing and I never thought about how inappropriate their performances are until now when talking about it in class. When we talked about Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction at the Super Bowl many years back, we talked about how people kind of brushed it aside but that was not the right thing to go because the Super Bowl is a television special that many people in the nation watch, including little children who saw Janet Jackson's bare breast while trying to watch a football game. These two cases relate because The Grammy's are something that are really fun and entertaining to watch. They honor our favorite music artists and I know that I've been watching them since I was in elementary school. The Grammy's are something that should be family friendly because a lot of people in America are watching the special to see their favorite artists win awards and to see different artists perform their hit songs. I appreciate what CBS is doing this year to not the costumes as revealing as they have been in the past, but we're going to have to wait and see until tonight if the performers follow their rules and wear less revealing clothing.

Colleges Dealing with Sexual Harasment Cases

After reading the articles that we were given it really made me realize how much sexual harassment cases happen on college campuses. At Notre Dame there were people that told the girl to not mess with Notre Dame football because of how high and mighty these student athletes are treated and they also told her that she wouldn't be believed because of how the athletes are treated.  After reading about this is many different articles it showed me how much athletes are actually treated more relaxed than any other person. Just like in Steubenville, the two boys are able to just sit around at their home because they don't have any evidence that they actually did sexually assult a girl even though there are plently of eye witnesses. This really angered me because I think that the police should do their job and stop crimes regardless of who the law enforcement is dealing with. The Deerfield Police would not be okay with anyone doing any sort of crime in Deerfield, so why should it be acceptable in any other place? Especially with something so terrible as sexual assult. What I don't understand is that The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill can even have the heart to deny reports about something so serious. I understand that there are some false reports but to reject the idea that it even happened is rude and it shows why women that are raped have a hard time telling people that they have been assulted. A few months ago the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity at Indiana University was kicked off of campus for rape charges. This shows that there is some hope with colleges and dealing with sexual assult accusations and that they are not going to take the charges lightly.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/25/unc-underreport-sexual-assaults_n_2546825.html?utm_hp_ref=university-of-north-carolina

Lance Armstrong

Over the past couple of months Lance Armstrong has been stripped of many endorsements and he resigned from the Livestrong charities board because of rumors that he was taking steroids. He hasn't said anything publicly about doing performance enhancing drugs but it is very clear to many people that he had been doing them. He has already been stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and he has finally agreed to meet and talk with Oprah Winfrey in a interview were he says that he will answer any questions honestly. Does this mean that he will finally admit it that he was using performance enhancing drugs? There is definitely no denying that he did use the drugs but if he publicly admits that he did use the drugs there will a lot more Lance Armstrong haters than there already are right now. Lance Armstrong was someone who I definitely admired because of how inspirational his story was. He was such a role model to so many people that I read his autobiography in my freshman year English class. It really makes me upset to see how someone so inspiring can even think about doing something that could potentially end his career for good and he can lose so many supporters as well. Role models are a big deal in children's life, they look up to them for everything. Lance Armstrong was a very good role model to a lot of kids and now they see that he's doing steroids, they're going to think that it's okay to do steroids too which is not right. To read more about Lance's struggles, read this article http://sports.yahoo.com/news/armstrong-awaits-candid-oprah-interview-182703998--spt.html.

Outside Reading Final Blog Post

In the last four chapters of the book Piper is mostly talking about her and other prisoners release from their prison sentences. As time goes on most of her friends have been released or sent to an intensive nine-month drug program. Piper has a hard time adjusting at first without her usual friends but she finds other women she can spend the short time she has left with them. Piper gets a letter from her lawyer telling her that she could potentially be called to testify at a trial in Chicago for someone who was supposedly involved in the drug crimes that she was involved with. Throughout Piper's travels to get to the trial, she ends up traveling from Oklahoma City to Chicago with the woman who had ratted her out, Nora Jansen. What I learned from this book was that the most unexpected people will help you out when times become very hard. When Piper was in prison she didn't expect her fellow prisoners to help her through her sentence and help her learn valuable lessons from her mistakes. She had learned in Danbury that she was a strong woman and that if she could forgive Nora for what she had done Piper would be able to accept responsibility for the path that she put herself on. With Piper's want to forgive Nora, it shows that she has accepted what she had done in her life and that it could help her with closure through the situation. Hopefully I'm never put into a situation like Piper's where I have to find out that unexpected people will help me out the most, but I think that it is a very valuable lesson to know because you do never know what life will put in front of you.