A Person I Look Up To

One of the people I look up to is Glenn Cunningham. Glenn Cunningham was a great athlete when it came to endurance running. He had a lot of perseverance, and in the mid-1930’s he broke the world record for the 1 mile-run. Its true there are a lot of other faster athletes than him, but the reason I look up to him is because of his story. When Glenn was a young boy, he burnt his legs really bad in an explosion, which almost burnt his legs off. The doctor’s said he was very lucky to survive, but he’d never be able to walk again. His parent’s told the doctor that they didn’t want to amputate his legs off, so they decided to try to let them heal. A few years later, Cunningham started running endurance runs with his friends. He always won. Then, he started running at the state fair, and before to long, his family had an entire shelf that was used to keep his rewards and trophies. During his running career in high school, Cunningham always ran the mile and would get around 4:40-4:30 for his time. He eventually got a scholarship to run in college, and word began to spread about a young promising youth from the University of Kansas. During his college career, Cunningham broke the world record for the indoor mile-run. He held the world record until 1937. During the Olympics in 1936 Cunningham broke the U.S.A.’s outdoor mile record with an amazing time of 3:48.4, but unfortunately he took second place over-all. He eventually retired, but was still known as one of the greatest runners of all time. Glenn Cunningham never gave up; even when he was told he would never walk again. I think his story is very inspiring, and that’s why he is someone I look up to. He never gave up, even when things didn't look so good for him, and he always kept trying to do his best. My favorite characteristic of his, is definitely his perseverance. I always try hard in school and sports, and perseverance helps me to give my all to get good grades. Whenever I'm about to race and I feel nervous, or sick I always think about what he did and it helps my try harder. One of my favorite sayings that matches up to his life is "Try and Fail, But Never Fail to Try."

The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green-Book report Part 2

Jacob and I are similar in some ways, and different in others. We are the same because we both don't like going to church, and we wish we could just skip it. We are different because Jacob is Jewish, and I am Catholic. If he was a real person, we'd both like the same jokes. We also worry about the same stuff, like school. We are different because Jacob has a reading problem, and he got held back a grade. I'm a straight A- to A student. Are dad's can both be strict about religion sometimes, but we both don't do anything about it. Are races are different, I'm asian, and Jacob is white. We both would like the same movies, and we both have sick humor/jokes. We both are average kids when it comes to life. The only difference is he's an average kid growing up in the 1970's, and I'm an average kid growing up now. So I'm guessing certain popular things are different. For instance, we both like classic rock like Iron Maiden, but to Jacob that's modern rock. And in my time rap and hip-hop is the music genre that is popular. Jacob's parents are divorced, my parents are together. In my opinion, I think his life is more confusing then mine, but he might think opposite, and think my life is more confusing because of the technology and all the honors classes I have. I'm the oldest child in my family, and Jacob isn't. I think when it comes to just an average teenagers thoughts, and interests we are both alike. But when it comes to religion, and family life, we're very different. I think Jacob was a very funny and cool character.

The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green-Book report Part 1

I thought this book was one of the best books I have ever read. The author who wrote this is Joshua Braff. He did an amazing job writing this. This book was easily one of the top 3 funniest books I have ever read in my life.

The book is about a young teenager named Jacob going through life in the 1970's in America. Jacob's dad is a Jewish man, who is very dedicated to church. Jacob doesn't like going through all of the traditions, but he respects his dad to much to tell him anything. Jacob's dad especially wants Jacob to participate, because Jacob is an amazing singer, and he is very good at reading the Tora. Jacob wishes he was like his older brother Asher, who is a popular rebel who totally disrespects everything having to do with his religion, and does whatever he wants. So Jacob goes through life wondering what to do about it. Through the book a lot of things happen. Jacob's parents get divorced, Jacob goes through school thinking about stuff the average teenager guy thinks about, (sports, classes, girls, etc.) and Jacob starts wondering about sex. Whenever something like this happens, there's always a funny twist.

One of the reason's I liked reading this book is because the author actually thought like an average teenager when he wrote this. A lot of times kids don't like going to church because we think it's boring, but we don't say it to are parents because we respect them to much. (Or we're just scared of them.) Either way, on the inside we usually want to rebel, and say 'Screw this, I have better things to do.' He also added some teenage humor, like when Asher went into Jew school and drew funny inappropriate pictures on the walls. It was almost like the story was like a memoir. I think the book was very good. I think everyone should read this.