MadWords Then

First of let me say that the assembly was awesome. at first I thought that it was going to be stupid and that it was going to be relly boring like some of the others and that I wasn’t going to take it seriously. But when the principals annonced that they were going to let kids opt out of it I was kind of rethinking whether or not I should take it seriously. I decided to take it seriously.

When we listened to the guy speak I was struck in the face at how horrible Columbine was. And to think that this could’ve been prevented if people had been nicer to those students it’s just really…sad. Everybody at the school must have thought that somthing like that would never happen there but it goes to show that it could happen any where.

I think that Rachel had the right idea when she stood up for the guy that was disabled and I am wowed that she saved his life. I am also amazed at the courage she had to go up to the new kid and sit with her I would probably not have been able to do that.

It makes no sense that the shooters shot the person that was most likely to help them it’s like eating the hand that feeds you. When listening to the 911 call from the teacher it was really frightening and I feel sorry for the students that died and for the students that watched their friends die

I thought that the presintation was better than I expected and the speaker did a really good job with the peresintation.

I think that the presintation was to try to get people to be nice to each other because if you diss all of your school people are going to get angry and then people, innocent people, will get hurt.

Tess

Hey Mr. Madden,

The assembly totally changed my look upon other people and on how kindness does mean somthing to someone, even if it’s little!!!

I was touched by the presentation and, I couldn’t even imagine the thought of seeing my friends being shot right in front of me!! I was trying to keep my neighbor from crying so I wouldn’t cry to!!!!

It had a total impact on my life!! I know it sounds stupid but it’s the truth!!

Got to go,
Haley

P.s
Your car was parked in TWO parking spots when I left school. What is up with that parking???????

Since I asked you to post this… I’ll go first.

I had a hard time with the presentaion. Parts of it, were… overemotional. I hated the feeling of vulnerbility (sp?) that the presentaion brought. At the end, when he had us close our eyes and think of our loved ones…. it was too much to handle. That’s when I broke down. I started sobbing into my knees, hugging my best friends next to me. The tears stung while he put us in the state.

Walking away, I was in the starngest state of mind. It was definatley hard.

But I think people are taking it seriously. When I logged on to Myspace about 20 bullitons were posted, saying “Start A Chain Reaction” and when I turned on my phone I had 17 text messages saying something to the effect of “I love you” or “I’m glad were friends,” “If I lost you I’d die,” etc…

Some people were effected more than others. I hope everyone took away SOMETHING though.

And a I do beleive in chain reactions can work. As my daddy says, “Evil only continues as long as no good man watches, listens, and observes…” He’s just saying if a good person doesn’t pay attention about his surroundings- he can’t stop something from happening…

Haley
xox

I am really glad our school(s) got to see this. I think that this was an essembly that EVERYONE took seriously. It changed my whole perspective because we have students every day that are getting singled out. And that just makes me ache inside.
I thought it was so ironic that she had that picture of a rose with thirteen tears……………(you know what I mean!)
When I got home I started breaking out in tears. I couldn’t stop them. For me, it wsn’t that I was scared, it is that it is so hard (for me) to take that all in. I started crying because the fact that all the students were mentally tortcherd(I couldn’t find how to spell it…sorry) and then just shot dead. I could never, never,never, ever do that. I don’t have the guts to do it. Not saying I was EVER thinking of doing such a violent thing!
There are other things that I can’t even put into words. . . .

Delanie O.

p.s. Mr. Madden, you should start student council because I really want to do it!

The Rachel’s Challenge presentation yesterday was the best assembly yet. Like Tess, I thought I was going to be bored during the assembly just as usual. Earlier this week I’d heard it was going to be about bullying again. I was immediantly thinking that it would be the same thing as last time. But then yesterday morning I learned that it was for “Rachel’s Challenge.” I had no idea what that meant. Throughout the day I knew more and more about what it was for. I kept hearing that we might cry and if we can’t handle it we can always go to the lunchroom. This all made me think a whole lot differently about the presentation that I was about to see.

For me, the presentation made me think…a lot!! It was so horrible to hear the teacher screaming to her students to get under the tables like that. One of the big parts for me was when they were saying how Rachel knew she would be famous and die young. She’d always said that. Once she was killed, both of those things happened at the same time. It was so hard to hold the couple tears wanting to come out. When her uncle said to close our eyes, I tried, but right when I did, I had to open them and just put my head down instead. I knew tears would slowly crawl down my face if I kept them closed.

Once I was home, I went to youtube to see more on what happened. I could feel my heart pounding fast and hard during some of the clips. After about half an hour of searching and watching, I knew I had to stop. Those two guys made me feel sick to my stomach (in a sad and hurt way…not like I was actually sick…but almost). I had to just relax for a bit. I felt like I had a huge knot in my throat. When I’m at a certain point of saddess, I always get that. It makes it hard to talk. If I talk too much during these times, I will start to cry. I talked to my mom about the assembly for a minute or so. If it was any longer I was going break down.

For the rest of the night, I had to just chill out and watch a couple movies to get everything else out of my mind. Rachel’s Challenge really changed how I think and it has an extreme impact on my life.

Kaitlyn S.

To go on about Haley’s quote about …Evil only continues as long as no good man watches, listens, and observes… that reminded me of a quote “Rules are written in blood” I think that that is completely true because we don’t know if anything is going to happen untill it happens and when it does someone usally gets hurt. It sucks.

Tess

P.s. Mr. madden you really need to work on your parking skills.

mr. madden-
The presentation really touched me. It made me think about the people around me, and what i would do if i lost some of them. Im not sure what i would do if some of my freinds and family members were gone…..I honestly think that one simple act of kindess may change a person, maybe not right away but they may change some way somehow to better themselves.
One thing that truely hurt me was when i looked around and i saw a person laughing. yes, a person was actually laughing during that presentation and it made me think what could possibly be funny about people dieing, and nothing came to mind, not one thing is funny about someones death. I hope that people took something from what the speaker said, thought about it, and chose to better themselves as a person, because you never know what tomorrow will bring you.

This is totally off subject but:

Delanie wrote:
“p.s. Mr. Madden, you should start student council because I really want to do it!”

Thank you! He won’t listen to Mr. Palacios or I when we told him he should be the advisor. If we don’t have a student council this year… in High School we could not have:

*Prom
*Homecoming
*Jr/Sr. Banquet
*Leadership Class
*MASC Board of Delegats
*Any school dances
*etc.

See Mr. Madden? It’s a chian reaction…

Mr. madden-
When i saw the word pava i went to dictionary.com and it toled me it was someplace in India, which i dont think thats what you mean.
And then i thought that it sounded spanish so i looked for it in a spanish to english dictionary and found sqaut… so what does it mean???

Jessi,

Good old pava. Actually, the posting to which Jessi refers to is located on the MadWordsNow blog, and the full name, or at least one of the full names, is:

Can I pava?

I feel much better showing the full respect to the whole pava clan. (And, no, this is not a name.)

Have a fantastic rest of Sunday! Go Buccaneers!

-Mr. M

wait what is pava??

Tess,

To be exact, it’s not “pava,” it is “CAN I PAVA?” or “I CAN PAVA!” Or, a few other variations as well.

It’s the craze that is sweeping the nation.

-Mr. M

Mr. madden- quit beating around the bush, im still confused, what exactly does a person mean wen they say “can i pava” or “i can pava”?!?!

Hey Mr.Madden,
I am writing a responce to the Rachels Challenge blog. WOW!!!!! I do beleive that doing something nice could really start a chain reaction! I cried a lot ecpecially during the part where he had us close our eyes I just burst into tears. When i got home I called everyone I knew and told them how much i love them and how much they ment to me. It really at least for me changed the way I look at people and how I react to my surrondings. The part about the eyes crying and the rose was strange. My mom thinks Rachel could have been an angel on earth making all these predictions and having such a strong impact on the world. But i guess you never know.

P.S. Only 30 times. Oh and what is can I pava?

You know, Jessi, “Can I pava?” or “I can pava!”, truly great words spoken by our elders (yes, I have elders).

Wow. It is going to take me a while (two words) to decipher the meaning, as deep or as shallow as it turns out to be.

Life, unbelievable.

-Mr. M

Mr. Madden you should really think about student council. Make your alumi’s proud!

Delanie

So mr.madden, i hate to keep going on about thiis whole “pava”, definition situation but unfortunatly im still confused as to what it means!!!??? help!!
P.S- hmm studnet council, i like that idea, that is if people are able to run for president, me perhaps??

Okay Mr. Madden.

We have more angry bloggers. Brett, Teddy, Lydia W., and I all want a student council. We’re willing to start a petition (Okay, Brett has…[= )

Are YOU up to the challenge?

=]

WHAT THE HECK DOES PAVA MEAN?

Delanie