Journal # 6 Revised: Where's Stevie?

1.      Journal 6: Where’s Stevie?

One ironically bright and sunny day, our investigative team heard the shocking news: Stevie Pointer had been kidnapped. We had been left a note of hints from the kidnapper on where the beloved dog might be along with a word scramble on his location. To find him, we needed to follow the clues and find the letters.  As soon as we heard the news, we bolted out the door to where our clues were primarily located, the Learning Resource Center at the University of Stevens Point Wisconsin campus. When we arrived on the scene, we bolted to the third floor because we heard loud screaming. To our surprise, the third floor was just the holding area of the libraries CD collection. The screaming just turned out to be the Rolling Stones CD. Even though Stevie was nowhere to be found, our investigative team was lucky enough to find the letter we were looking for: R. Xab ferociously scribbled down the first letter as Ellie was standing by the window looking at the next clue. Kayla was in the corner listening into a conversation between two suspicious people. The two people were gossiping over the breaking news that the kidnapper was on the sixth floor planning his escape route. When Kayla heard this, she flew to the investigative team and told them. Xab ran to the elevator and pressed the button as fast as he could. When the team arrived to the sixth floor, they spotted the kidnapper near the U.S. government publications by disability services. Ellie whipped out her investigative squirt gun and began to bolt towards the kidnapper. To her dismay, it wasn’t the kidnapper but just an im”poster.” But really it was just a poster. The poster read the next two letters for our clues: SI. After this, Kayla let out a high pitched scream due to hearing a gun shot. The team ran down to the fifth floor and began looking for possible suspects. Xab heard an orangutan screaming and began running towards the noise. The team, unfortunately, got lost in the midst of the excitement. They even stopped to ask a janitor if he had seen or heard the orangutan. He had not and left them with a weird look. Ellie then screamed “I FOUND IT!” The rest of the team followed her to where the orangutan was: the study cages. The orangutan told the team that he had spotted Stevie, but we had to leave quickly or he would be in real danger. He gave them their letter: H and told them to find Stevie and comeback for him later. The team sped to the fourth floor, and was bombarded by other investigative teams. Luckily, our team was helped and given the next letter: C. On fourth floor we were told that Stevie had been spotted on second. The team rushed to the second floor and began looking for Stevie. Although it wasn’t him, they found his newspaper and with help from the librarian were given our next letter: E. Xab had the brilliant idea that maybe Stevie had gotten lost in the library and ran to the first floor museum. Ellie got lost in the trance of the beautiful eggs shown. While she was doing that Kayla then spotted the next clue, with the letter: A. The team then thought maybe if they knew what Stevie looked like they would find him. So, they headed to the encyclopedia section of the library and looked at the description of an English Pointer. With the help of another investigative team, they were able to get the next letter: V. Then, with all the kidnapper’s clues found, the team began to unscramble the letters. Turned out to be ARCHIVES. The team ran to fifth floor, and excitedly found the missing Pointer. Unfortunately, he was dead, but the team was given his head in remembrance of him. The team learned a lot about the importance of their school’s library! It was great to see what resources were on campus The team then went to bed. The end.

Journal #9 Revised: A Hero's Scene

1.      Journal No. 9: A Hero’s Scene

In the movie 42, written and directed by Brian Hegleand, one scene of extreme importance is the scene where the Dodgers verse the Phillies. This scene is not important because of the conflict between the two baseball teams, but rather the conflict between Jackie Robinson and the Phillies manager, Ben Chapman. In this scene, Chapman stood at the dugout screaming plenty of racial slurs to get on Robinson's nerves. He would stand and scream "Hey nigger, nigger" over and over again to get a reaction from Robinson. He wanted to get him distracted so that he would strike out. Jackie, highly distracted by the manager, strikes out. It was clear in this scene that Jackie wasn't the only one to be effected by the manager’s actions. Jackie's wife was also clearly emotional in the scene when she saw her husband being screamed at by the manager. Some of Jackie's teammates also began to grow disappointed by how other players were treating their teammate. This scene is moving by how the derogatory terms finally began to affect everyone around Jackie, rather than just Jackie. Although this part of the scene is very influential, what comes next, in my opinion, is the most moving part of the entire scene and movie. After the manager screams at Jackie and he strikes out again; Jackie began to grow infuriated. Following the advice of Mr. Rickey, Jackie’s boss, Robinson holds his anger back. Instead of taking his anger out on the manager, Jackie steps into the dugout and proceeds to scream and smash a bat into the wall. He does this so he doesn't show the press and his fans how much it affects him. This scene portrays Jackie's strength throughout his journey as a major league baseball player. I believe this scene is important because it shows how strong Jackie had to be in the eyes of the press. Chapman was just one of many men who picked on Jackie because of the color of his skin. This scene summarizes Jackie as a hero, in my opinion. He shows the world that nothing will shake him despite thousands of people being against him. I felt personally connected because coming from a small town it is easy to see racism. It is hard to stand against it, but in this movie and scene the portrayal of the many people standing up for Jackie was amazing. This scene truly conveys Jackie Robinson's heroism!