FINAL BLOG POST OF THE YEAR

Finally the school year has come to an end (well almost). And time has come that I write my final blog post of the year.

Reading


I wouldn't say that I love reading, but I wouldn't say that I hate it either. If I find a book that's intriguing, then I will read it everyday. Like I did with The Blood Of Olympus by Rick Riordan. But if a book is really slow-paced and has long and tiresome chapters, then I usually put it off and often times finish it in a long time. This picture represents me as a reader because when I get started, I usually zone out and loose track of what's happening around me. My mom thinks its weird. But on the flip side, my biggest obstacle with reading is; I delay a lot on sitting down and simply opening the book.

The last time I got lost in a book was when I read, Wonder by R.L. Palacio. That book was an easy read but thats not why I liked it so much. I loved the book because it had an emotional aspect to it and I could somewhat relate to it because he doesn't fit in what everyone, and neither do it (I still have friends) . But thats okay because "you can't exactly blend in, when you were born to stand out." - Wonder.  Here is a trailer of the book, its only a minute and a half long so I'd recommend watching it because it WILL MOVE YOU.
https://youtu.be/fgB7_KpBDss

BLOGGING

           

This picture is a perfect representation of how I feel about blogging. I always sit down with an idea in my head and I start off strong. But around 3 or 4 sentences into the first paragraph, I open a new tab and start messing around. A couple YouTube videos later I come back to my blog and type some more sentences. Then back to some other website. So it usually takes me 30-40 minutes to type a blog. I know... I have a problem :(

The best part about blogging was being able to share the good books that I've encountered over the past 180 days, and also finding interesting books to read by reading other people's blogs. The worst thing about blogging was definitely just sitting down and beginning to type. It was long and tedious but now looking back in hindsight, at all of the books I read and wrote about, I feel proud of the quality of work I did and it was worth the hassle.

If you want students to accept blogging, then we should go to the lab on some specific day and we should get time to blog. Pretty much like we did for the first two or three weeks when we started blogging. This provides us with time to blog, because at home blogging doesn't sound like a fun thing. Going to the lab would be beneficial because at school we are in school mode and we do some work, but at home we watch TV or Netflix and don't feel like going back to school mode.

Freshman Year of High School!

I think I am speaking for about half of the Freshman at Mason (maybe in the world). The year started off slow but slowly and steadily it got faster and now we're here. Every year I want the school year to be over when school starts but, when its time for summer, I feel a bit nostalgic and think 'it wasn't that bad. Maybe it should have lasted a few more days.' I was in Geometry this year, which is mostly sophomores, so I had to adjust to the two grades and making friends with two different species. Sophomores have completely interests than Freshman. I've grown tremendously over this year, especially in Science, English and Speech and Debate. All three of these classes have helped me the most because they all had material that was new to me.

**Here's a tip. DO NOT TAKE SPEECH AND DEBATE. Taking this class was the worst/best decision I've made this year. Best because it helped me get over my fear of public speaking (somewhat). And worst because the grading system is really strict and you don't learn how to about the speeches too much. You just learn how to set up and format the speech.

For my sophomore year, I hope to go through it with good grades, because I'm doubling up in Science, doing AP History and playing fall+spring sports. So it should be an interesting year.

Well now that I finally typed this speech (over 2 days), I just want to watch Netflix and I dont know how to finish this off so Ill just do it like this...
 

Duces

Dorothy Must DIE by Danielle Paige

Yes you read right, Dorothy Must Die. That's not a typo. A new series of books; written by Danielle Paige, have recently come out and they all revolve around The Wizard of Oz. This particular book revolves around how Dorothy returned to Oz and took over the Emerald Palace. She has turned eevviilll. Everyone and everything has become her slave. She runs the place.

So far I've read 120 pages out of the book, and they've gone by pretty fast. I think part of the reason could have been because the book has short chapters. So when I'm reading, I usually read one or two chapters more than I had originally planned.

The book starts out with Amy Gumm, the main character, describing her mediocre life, her dad who ran away with some girl, and her jobless mother. She describes how her life has been a complete mess. Then a few events later, which I won't reveal, she ends up in Oz. It is completely opposite of what she expected Oz to be and how it's been portrayed in media. As the day goes by, she finds out that Dorothy is responsible for this dichotomy.

She, along with her friends, make it her goal to. "Remove the Tin Woodman's heart. Steal the Scarecrow's brain. Take the Lion's courage. And Dorothy Must Die."

Concluding on all that I have read so far in this book, I would say, you don't have to be a Wizard of Oz fan to understand this book. Having seen the movie once and faintly recalling the events is enough.  The book starts off on a very catchy note and is a journey till the end... or at least till page 120. Let me know on what you think of this book just by reading this little appetizer; in the comments below.

Something to remember for Thanksgiving

By Mary Schmich

     When reading the column, I think Schmich wants us to feel like, no matter how little we give or receive, it's significance may be found out later in life. This is backed up by what Schmich said in her column, "... no matter how little you think you've gotten, you may understand later that it was huge." This shows that the quantity of items received may not be appreciated immediately, but later down the road the recipient may understand it's importance. 

     Schmich wants the reader to remember her personal anecdote because it is what occupies most of her column. And also because she connects the anecdote to her main message of the piece. "Off and on for years  since then, the vision of my father giving me money that was hard to spare had come back to me," this was said by Schmich in her column. This further backs up my point, because she says that the memory; that was hard to forget. is coming back to her. Here she connects her story to her message.

      The purpose of this column is to inform or to help the reader realize that little things can go a long way. The quote here is the same as the one used in the first paragraph,"... no matter how little you think you've gotten, you may understand later that it was huge." This... again shows that the quantity of items received may not be a big deal at first, but later down the road, the recipient may understand it's importance.

     The author incorporated a variety of paragraph lengths throughout the column. There are short paragraphs, there are long paragraphs... there are even one sentence paragraphs. For example, "Again, I turned around," was a one-sentence-paragraph. This variation in paragraph lengths shows us which part is important to understand and what Schmich feels should stand out. 

     What this column adds to our society is that we shouldn't we too greedy with the amount of gifts we want to receive... or the amount of gifts we think we 'deserve'. I feel like this goes along with any movie that features rich kids who think they deserve wayyy tooo much, but at the end they turn around and realize that they should be thankful for what they have. Overall this column teaches us to become a little more modest. 

So, do you agree with how I interpreted this column. Did you interpret it in a similar way, or was I way off? Let me know in the comments below!

     

     

     

MY SPRING BREAK!

Over this Spring Break, I decided to go study, work and basically 'school' free. Well, except this blog, and studying for Spanish... So, sorry Mrs. Leitsch but this one's not about a book :) This one's about what I did over Spring Break 2K15. 

My weekend was nothing but mundane. We went to a hockey game at the US Bank Arena. This was my first hockey game ever so I was pretty excited to go! It was the Cincinnati Cyclones vs Fort Wayne Komets. The cyclones was in the lead by 3-1 until the last 4 min of the game. I think they thought that they had the game in the bag, and they loosened up. But they probably regretted this, as the Komets caught up and the game ended in a 3-3 tie. But the worse part happened during over-time. Komets scored another goal to take the win! Let me tell you, I did not see this coming.

Lets jump to Wednesday, 3:00 am. My friend and I went to San Francisco; without any adults! We went from Cincinnati to Detroit. And Detroit to San Francisco. We arrived there by about 11 PST. And then we took an Uber to a Hop On- Hop Off tour bus. We visited most of the major attractions SFO has to offer. Some of them were Union Square,  Golden Gate Park, California Academy of Science, Palace of Fine Arts, China Town, Pier 39 and the daddy of them all, Golden Gate Bridge! We visited all of this within the day as we had to leave at 11 pm.  Over all this was an amazing trip, I met numerous people, and they were very kind and welcoming. 

When we arrived back in Cincinnati, both my friend and I were extremely tired and felt very jet-lagged. I slept around 11 hours that day. But I guess this is the price we both had to pay in return for 24 hours of fun. I definitely enjoyed this experience and I hope I can do something like this next year too. 

     In this blog I'm going to blog about a different kind of book that I'm reading. It doesn't have a story, characters or a typical plot. This is a book about increasing my vocab list and it helps people use more elevated words. It is called, Word Power Made Easy, by Norman Lewis. As we get older, we should be able to communicate our message clearly. As boring as it may seem, it has really helped me grow as a student and a reader. I've started to use more specific and mature words like extroverted instead of 'outgoing'. Philanthropic instead of 'he's a giver'. Anachronistic instead of 'old times'. 

I think this has been seen by my teachers too. Not so much of my math of science teachers but more like my English and Speech & Debate teachers.  On tests I use words that I normally wouldn't use and it's slowly beginning to crawl into what I say. 

     I would definitely recommend this book to any freshmen who would like to increase their vocabulary and just sound smart when speaking to a mature audience.  You can get this book at Barnes and Nobles for around $3 which is unbelievably cheap for something that can result in such an academic growth. Here is the link to the book:  http://www.barnesandnoble.com/listing/2671223929072?r=1&kpid=2671223929072&cm_mmc=GooglePLA-_-Book_5To14-_-Q000000633-_-2671223929072

     I hope you at least give it a try. 

"I'm not going to describe what I look like, because whatever you are thinking of... it's probably worse."





     Over the past week and a half, I read the book Wonder by R.J. Palacio. I knew that this book isn't really recommended for a 9th grader but I've heard that it's a great book by many people and it's been on my bucket list for a while now, so I gave it a shot.

     In the book, there is a kid named August Pullman, and he has a deformed face. Even after numerous surgeries, the doctors can't seem to fix it. And he gets made fun of for that at school. He has lived through this his entire life. And it's not that other people are doing it to make fun of him, they do it simply because they can't control their emotions when they look at his face. Throughout the course of the story, you will read how he makes some friends, and spends some time with people who like him for his personality. And you will also find out how he comes around to being glad that he is 'different'.

     Now, a week and a half later, I'm really glad that I read this book. It's simply one of those books that titillates you and leaves a lasting impression. Wonder has been an easy read for me, and I was easily able to complete the book. Not only did this book make me think about our society, it changed my viewpoint on judging others and making fun of them. And I know that sounds a bit cliche and cheesy, but it really did. The book was written in such a manner that you felt like you would want to go up to August and give him a hug.  This book is an AMAZING read and I would recommend it to anyone and everyone. You get grabbed with the story from the beginning and it's a type of book where you would loose track of time when reading it.

Dover Beach

     I'm really glad that we went over this poem in class! I had little to no idea on what this poem meant and why Ray Bradbury chose to include it in Fahrenheit 451.  I have 2 ideas why Bradbury chose to include the poem and why it made Mrs. Phelps cry.

     My first idea is, because it compares the reader's and his new bride's commitment to each other to Mrs. Phelps's marriage. This is why Mrs. Phelps cried. Although she wasn't able to completely understand what the poem was about, I think that she understood this key point and it made her break apart inside. I think she wanted that kind of relationship with her husband or at least one of her husbands.

     And another idea is because the reader in the poem, pretty much says to his wife 'no matter what happens, we will always be together'. And this part stung. Mrs. Phelps has gone through 2 marriages previously and is now in the third one. But a part that builds on top of this is her third husband; who is serving in a war said to her, 'If I die, you go on marry someone else.' This means that there is no commitment in their marriage. It's almost like a marriage is a joke in their society.

     This is, at least in my opinion, why Bradbury chose to include Dover Beach in his novel and why Mrs. Phelps cried after hearing the poem.