Finishing Up

My first year of high school has definitely been one to remember. I have made so many new friends and experienced new things. The best memory I have of this year is varsity sports altogether. Soccer and basketball made this year so enjoyable. Starting off the year playing soccer helped me form relationships with older girls and helped me get out of just the small group of people I have been hanging out with since K-5. The best basketball memory I had was the game against MJCA at home where we came back from being down around 15 points. Another great memory I can't leave out is going to Washington, D.C. I learned so much about our nations capital and even about my friends. I bonded with different people I never thought I would have something in common with.
Throughout my freshmen year I have learned things academically (because it's school) and socially. This year taking Chinese turned out to be super fun and I really enjoyed it. Also reading novels in English so getting to do that is also fun. Socially I have definitely learned a lot this yea
r. Between all the drama and events that have happened I have come to know who I can really trust and who I can just have casual conversations with. Mainly it has been where and who I can put my trust in.
After going through this year with its ups and downs, I have a few pieces of advice I could give to the upcoming freshmen. The first thing would be to always study and do your homework. Things are different then they were in middle school and doing your homework helps a lot. The second thing would be to branch out and try new things. High school offers so many different clubs, athletics, and arts that doing at least some of them help you out a lot. The third thing would be to be social. Don't be shy (which is easier said then done). People in high school are (in a way) separated into groups. Go out and make friends.

Equality

While reading The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, many new ideas, facts, and lessons were displayed. One new fact I learned was that the period after the war was hard for the newly freed people. In the novel, Miss Jane and others still experience many hardships after the war. The freed people were still beat and treated harshly. Also, long after the war ended the the people were still not treated equally. For example, the black people couldn't drink out of the white people's water fountains. A lesson from this book that I learned tied in with the new fact is that if you don't think of yourself equally and treat yourself equally as others you will never be equal. Ned talked about this at his sermon at the river, and it ended up being my favorite part of the novel. I think you could still apply this in today's world. These two examples were just some of the new ideas I gained from reading a novel set in the past.

Stereotyping

Throughout The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman Ernest Gaines establishes several different stereotypes. One stereotype I noticed in particular is that all white people dislike the black Americans. This is not true to some extent. Several people in the book reach out and help Jane and Ned along the way. For example, Job took them to Mr. Bones and fed them, and Mr. Bones let Jane work on his plantation. Although some people help, many others don't feel the need to.

Why should you read "The Hunger Games"?

A great book that appeals to many different age groups because of its action packed story-line and love triangle is The Hunger Games. This book was written by Suzanne Collins. A movie was recently released that depicts the movie very well in my opinion. Katniss Everdeen is chosen to go the 74th Hunger Games. In the process, she finds love and tries to escape with her life. One reason why you should read this book is because it is action packed. The Hunger Games captures your attention with scenes you wouldn't expect to happen. If you aren't into action, there is a love triangle between Katniss, another tribute, and her best friend back home. The last reason you should read this book is because there are many good values shown in the book, like hope. If you decide to read this book, there are two more that follow: Catching Fire and Mockingjay.

"With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility"

Throughout Animal Farm, Napoleon demonstrates a connection between real-life situations today. Napoleon is just like any other human in a bad situation that he wants to change. “With great power comes great responsibility.” The pigs had everything under control, and if the power hadn't gone to their head things could have gone a lot better for everyone. People today are like this too. Say a boss gets fired and a co-worker is promoted. If he isn't careful (depending on the kind of person he is), it could ruin the business. In general, Napoleon represents anyone who has power go to their head. People today are greedy and want everything for themselves especially the people with the most power.

Being Thankful

Thanksgiving is a time of year to be thankful for family, friends, and really anything in your life. The thing I am most thankful  for is my friends and family. Without all of them I don't know where I would be. I am especially thankful for all the people older than me in my life because they have been great influences in my life. They have shaped the kind of person I am. I am also thankful for my family. They are some of the coolest people I know. Even though they get on my nerves a large percentage of the time, I love them to death. I would do anything for them. Another thing I'm thankful for are my coaches. My coaches are one of the main influences in my life. I guess I could sum it up by saying that the thing I am most thankful for is people. Without people life would be boring. By people I mean different types of people, like my friends and family.

"Julius Caesar" Casting List

Since our class read Julius Caesar we have to pick out actors that we think could depict them well in a movie adaptation.

 To act as Caesar I picked Joaquin Phoenix. He played Johnny Cash in a movie awhile back. I picked him because he has a face that says, "I think I'm better than everyone else." I also think about Caesar being young because usually people that are ambitious are more on the younger side.

To act as Brutus I chose Bruno Gunn. He is going to be playing Brutus in Catching Fire and has acted in a couple of other movies. Most people who are bald are pretty noble. I imagined Brutus as a middle aged man.

To act as Cassius I picked Wes Bentley. He acted as Seneca Crane in the Hunger Games. I think this is a good depiction of Cassius because of how he has a "lean and hungry" look to him according to Caesar. 

To act as Mark Antony I picked Xavier Samuel. He played Riley in Eclipse (part of the twilight series). I picture Antony as someone who is very loyal and trustworthy, but also has that anger in him showed by Antony. I also imagine Antony as a young boy in his twenty's. 

Julius Caesar Project

After reading the play Julius Caesar, we all had to select a project to do over the material. For my project I chose to do a tri-fold on Ancient Rome that talked about religion, politics, and social class. To complete my project, first, I had to gather all my information. This was probably the hardest part of the project. Then, I had to figure out how I wanted to display all of the facts I had found. Finally, I glued everything down and turned the project in the next day. From doing this project I learned many things about ancient Rome. There culture was very different than ours today, so I enjoyed learning about it. The main thing I learned was not to procrastinate so much. As much as I hate to admit it, I didn't finish the project till the last minute. 

Do You Think Your Fears Are Rational?

Most people have that one thing that they are deathly afraid of. Some people are afraid of completely different things. One thing that is scary to one person may not be scary to a another person. For me, my biggest fear is losing my family. You see all those stories in the news about things that happen to little kids and car accidents taking lives. I think everyone has their common, rational fears and then the things that just scary them silly. Silly things I'm afraid of would be scary movies, spiders, the dark, and suspicious people. My mom tells me that it's not smart to be afraid of so many little things, but I guess I just can't help it. Some people love working with spiders and know everything about them, but when I see one I just want to kill it. There is usually nothing in the dark that would harm me. There is something in my head that when I go into the dark I get scared. By cheetah100

Building It Up

²⁹ Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. - Ephesians 4:29

I can remember times that my parents, friends, family, teachers, and coaches have built me up. I feel like I am being built up all the time, even if it is with criticism. My favorite example of this was during a basketball game last year. Lets just say we hadn't won a game in a while. We were tied and had to go into overtime. We ended up winning the game. I had been so discouraged before, but I still had knew that we could win. Everyone was congratulating me and I felt like I was on top of the world. I know that I make bring people down sometimes and I don't mean too. That is something that I want to work on throughout this year. I want to be nice to everyone and not because I have too because I want too. 

Summer Reading Presentation Recap

Now that we have finished up our summer reading unit, I can kind of wrap up what we had to do. Our group was assigned to do the conflict in The Outsiders using Google Presentation. Google Presentation is just like making a Microsoft powerpoint. The reason I think it is better is that Google Presentation allows multiple editors on different computers to all be working on it at the same time. After finishing up the summer reading unit, I feel like I learned how to annotate. Before this annotating was sort of confusing and hard to do. Now that I am done with it, it is much easier. Another thing I learned was how to pick out symbols. Symbols can be a character, object, or place that has another meaning behind its physical/literal meaning.

Goals for a Freshman

  

Freshmen year is a year where we all must grow up and start to learn how to become more independent. My first goal for this year would be to make different friends. All these years (since K-5), I have pretty much had the same group of friends. It's not a bad thing though. Every once in while a new friend is nice, especially since we are all in such a small grade/school. Now that I am in high school, there are more opportunities to hang out with different people. A second goal for my freshman year would be to try and become more comfortable with public speaking. I have never really been all that comfortable public speaking. It is a very necessary skill to have not just throughout school but for life. I would be comfortable doing so much more stuff if i didn't struggle with it. A third goal would be to actually learn Chinese. This year instead of taking a Spanish or Latin or French, I decided to take Chinese. It will be difficult, but by the end of the year maybe I can actually have a conversation with what I have learned. My fourth goal would be to come closer to the Lord. I think that this year will be the biggest change ever (in a good way). I don't want to just sit there and listen, but actually absorb the information that is being said. I want to actually take it to heart and think about it. If all three of these things can happen in the same year, it would have the makings to be one of the bests yet.

Photo by Lauren Manning