Bolt Magazine

Winter Crickets by Rajesh Barnabas

http://www.mediafire.com/?tkfijlv0ij4

My Power Grid

Rupert Murdoch (Owner of MySpace) and his connections

Landslide news story

10 things I did over the break

1) I stayed in Rochester.
2) Spent holiday with family (my sister and parents) and also with new family (my wife and her family). My brother lives in France so I didn't see him.
3) Played Tennis.
4) Played Basketball
5) Made beats with iDrum and Garage Band and posted them into my blog.
6) I saw the movie "Burn After Reading" which was pretty funny.
7) I had lunch at a Mexican restaurant named Salinas.
8) Edited a movie from my wedding this past summer. Gave that as a gift to my wife's parents.
9) Hung out with my best friend Ajay Trivedi.
10) Spent New Year's downtown and saw the fireworks. It was bitterly cold out.

New Year - New Changes

Welcome back and happy New Year. I am happy to see most of you back, healthy and looking good as usual. We do have the best looking students at Franklin if not the smartest! This second half of the school year we are going to be a bit more organized. That goes for me (the teacher) and you (the students).

A few things will be changed this semester.

1) First, you will all have assigned computers. The reason for this being that last semester quite a fuss was made about this student or that being on “their computer.” So now choose your computer today and you will stay on that computer for the remainder of the school year.

2) Second, there were some tardy issues last year, mainly with the same repeat offenders, I won’t call out names here, but you know who you are. Now if you are late, you will have to sign the RED BINDER. If you are late more than 2 times within 1 week, you will have to stay after school with ME, Mr. B. or write an essay of 500 words or more as to why you were late and why you believe being late is okay.

3) Third, we have an exciting new schedule of projects and activities, as well as guest speakers for this second half of the year. I know a lot of the time, students walk into class and wonder what is going on today. Well that will all change. Everyday you will know exactly what we are doing by theme and routine.

Mondays will be Media Mondays: Using the textbook Media Writing, every Monday you will have an assigned reading with questions, which you will then answer into your Blog

Tuesday will be typing Tuesdays. You will spend a good portion of classroom time learning how to type correctly. Most of the students in this class do not know how to type properly. Typing is an extremely important skill in most professions today. Typing is primarily important for college. All those who plan on attending college, will have to write at least 50 term papers. This job will be a lot easier if you learn how to type now.

Wednesdays will be World Events Wednesdays. You will work in news teams to research a story that is of global significance and then report that to your fellow classmates the following day. Each team (3-4 members) will produce a written report and a visual (image or video) to go with the story.

Thursdays will be THE NEWS SHOW day. We will video record your reports in the Television Studio. Each team will have 5 minutes of fame!

Friday will be Freestyle Friday. This is where we will have guest speakers and you will work on your own special projects (Magazines, Web Design, Music Production, Photoshop, Video/Movies). These are semester long projects that you will showcase at the end of the year and be proud of. YES!

FINALLY, I want to say that it is a pleasure to be back and I am excited about all the projects you guys will be producing this year. Just remember, Rome was not built in a day. Harvard did not become Harvard overnight either. First there were a few super smart people coming together, then more and more. Hip hop came about in NYC because a few artiste there were committed and had something new to show the world. Lil Wayne worked on his craft for decades before he made it big. I look around the classroom each day and see an amazing amount of talent. Let’s make people take notice of us. But I every student in here to produce. I need you to sit down and work hard on various projects and see which ones you really want to do. Then tell me. I need feedback. I need students that are going to be doing projects outside of the classroom and thinking about creating things beyond this school, and even this city. I need you to dream bigger than you already are!

A lot of things are changing. We have a new president in Barack Obama, we have a new superintendent of Rochester city Schools in Jean-Claude Brizzard, if you didn’t notice Dr. Rodriguez is the youngest principal in all of Rochester City Schools. That is a good thing. GMA is the place to be. Take pride in it and make this next 6 months together memorable. Let’s Go!