person

My Learning Style0

To my 9th grade English teacher:

I am an interactive learner. I am happiest when debating and discussing. If you try to make me take notes and listen to everyday lectures you are guaranteeing that I fail. Explain to me a theory or a lesson then relate it to me and the world around. If you give me something worth learning I will put my heart into understanding it. Please make your best effort to integrate technology at all costs, it is an invaluable tool. I am visual and linguistic. Don’t be the boring english teacher find out what kids want to know and teach it to them. Hope to have a great year!

Tori

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Leaving0

During all the reflection on the wikispace, I felt pressured to leave some great words of wisdom or something that’s “so me”  that people remeber it forever in connection with me, but then I thought who cares? Do the teachers remember the parting words of the 8th grade class of 1997? Do they even remember the ones of 2000? Memories fade, web pages and typing get deleted, or get lost in the inter-web. If your trying so hard to think of something that’s ” you” in a phrase most of the time if you are thinking about it you can’t come up with anything. The way I think of it is that people will remeber me for the person I am and the experiences we shared and the “so me” things I said during casual moments not what I typed in some end of year “words of wisdom”. If they don’t remember me as a person then end of year “phrases” aren’t going to help them remember. Either they knew me or they didn’t, if they did good knowing you, if they don’t see you around.

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Future Me0

Like almost everyone in the class I think, I had totally forgotten about the FutureMe e-mail we composed in August. I got mine at just about the worst time. It was 4:30 in the morning I was stressed out about my ism project, close to tears, checked my e-mail to see if anything would cheer me up and I got that. I had mentioned some things that at the time I made the e-mail were a big deal, as of now they passed but with a great emotional upheaval. So you can tell what reading about those when I was in that state did to me. Now that I re-read it in a better state of mind, I havn’t acheived all of my goals or even most of them. They were more long term than a year I have re-sent that e-mail in a slightly different form to be recieved at the end of november, and everytime I get my FutureMe I will send another mail to myself because it will remind me. This is a marvelous tool, website, reminder, and program. I thank Mr. Wilkoff for introducing it to us. It’s one of those things that I never would have looked for but is invaluable now that I know about it. I want to give the creator a hug what a great idea! Well me and FutureMe are off with our goals in mind and a reliable reminder system!

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Personal Curriculum #30

All right! Here is your fantastic mini lesson on commas and quotation marks! First the basics. This >>>>> (“)<<<<< is a quotation mark. It is used as either a double quotation (“) or a single quotation (‘) and it is mainly used in speech. When you are writing a dialouge of people talking you use it like this. Jim said, “Look at that flying toaster!” The part he actually said is within the quotation marks and it is seperated from the part introducing it by a comma. Use of either double or single quotations is correct but if you want to use speech inside speech you must always use the opposite one from the one you started with. Ex:  ” Jim said,  ‘look at that flying toaster,’  ” recalled Joe. OR ’ Jim said,  “look at that flying toaster,”  ’ recalled Joe. Notice the difference in the placement of the double and single quotations. Quotations can somtimes be used in irony, humor, and emphasis but only carefully, because if they are used in a conversation they could be easily confused with speecg quotations and confuse the reader. Commas and quotations go hand in hand. A comma looks like this >>>>>(,)<<<<<. You use commas in speech to seperate the introduction from the speaking, but the comma has many other uses. It’s top three uses include using it to list things (ex. use red, purple, watermellon, etc.)  to join two independent clauses (a group of words that can function as a sentence) , and to insert a related but interrupting sentance into another sentance. Most of this information was found on Wikipedia.com and translated to normal language. For more punctuation and it’s use please go there. Write on!

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Personal Curriculum #20

My second personal curriculum involved my wonderful horse Dori. The goal was to, back in January, create and follow a training and conditioning program, to get both of our minds and bodies fit to place in the top five in the first competition of the year. I compete in the triathalon of the equestrian world, for more info click here.  It is one of the most grueling sports in all of the equstrian world. Picture running 5  miles and how hard you would be breathing, well if you are truly making the horse WORK the way they need to in order to be competitive, then you get that amount of physical labour in about 5 minutes. Anyway I worked that hard with my horse 5 days out of every week since january, but it payed off.  I entered my first horse trial of the year feeling confident, cool, and ready and I walked away with a third place and a great time. Here is a video of cross-country (exactly like human cross-country but over much longer courses, and the jumps in this are about 2′ 7″ high) : Follow this link, search madorra cross country,  switch to .avi format let it jerk it’s way through once then it will play fine ignore the backround voice that was the announcer.

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Search0

Searching but never finding,

Wondering who i am and where to go,

My soul is a dark place,

but i see the light at the end of the tunnel (I hope it’s not a train),

I’m sorting it out,

Slowly but surely,

WHY DO I HAVE TO BE DIFFERENT,

Sometimes being different is why they hate me,

but being a blend-in isn’t good either,

you don’t have any presence, self-worth or individuality when you are a blend-in,

Iv’e tried changing my personality to many times,

And every time i get told “I DON’T LIKE YOU BECAUSE OF THE WAY YOU ACT”

What should I do?!?!?!,

Should I accept that some people just aren’t going to like me and i have to deal with it?,

Yes probably but that’s not going to happen,

I’m a perfectionist I MUST please everybody,

But if someone doesn’t like me what’s the point of me trying to be friendly to them?,

Common courtesy I guess,

Why do I have to be nice ?!,

Sometimes you just need to blow off steam,

So do it at the person who already hates you.

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High School On The Horizon0

Only 8 full weeks of 8th grade left. It doesn’t seem possible. To me it kind of seems like we were sevies not to long ago. High School isn’t that far away, are you ready? I know i’m not. Not completley anyway, but ready or not here it comes in August.  How will we change? I know we all will, even if it’s just a little bit. Will we be friends with the same people? Will we keep our “style” that we were known by in middle school? When we go into high school we will be going from being top of the class ( aka 8th graders vs. sevies)  to the bottom of a 4 year totem pole. It’s almost to far away to think about, but then it’s also to close for comfort. I can’t really comprehend it when i think “High school” all that fills my head is a blank buzzing. Some people say it’s hard, some people say it couldn’t have been easier, everyone says your future depends on it. So it’s 6 months away, live, learn, and have a great time doing it!

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Rules0

Sit down. Shut up. Listen. No back talk. Don’t steal. Don’t lie. Rules are everywhere, you can’t possibly know them all, so should we be blamed for breaking a rule we don’t know? Okay so rules can be good in some settings, obviously we don’t want a total anarchy where everybody goes around doing whatever they want, but some rules are arbitrary, outdated, and overkill. Like all this stupid grrr mantra. Yes we know we need to behave, and have our stuff, and be on time, and… but do you think drilling it into our heads repeatedly is going to help? NO!!! It makes us so sick of it that we want to run screaming from the room anytime someone mentions it. Another slightly ridiculous rule is that you must work quietly on your own when told so. Why does it matter who told you to? That leads me to another point. What makes an authority figure be an authority and why are they so powerful? I mean yes most of the time their older,  they can punish you, etc. but does that mean they automatically are better/ higher on the authority “food chain”? Why can’t student’s punish teachers? Why can’t you ground your parents? Saying that people can punish you just because they are a certain age or social position is basically segregation. I have always been the person who asks why. Why do we have to blindly follow you? Why can’t we have a say? Why do you condescend to me? WHY WON’T YOU LET ME DECIDE WHAT TO DO WITH MY LIFE?!? Why do we have to listen to you and only you? And finally Why do I have to crush my creativity to follow some dusty rule that no-one cares about anymore?

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Competition0

Why does everything have to be a competition? Why do we always have to be better than those around us? Trust me i am a perfectionist so I would like nothing better than to come out on top, and be better than those around me. Sometimes though it just doesn’t work that way and we have to accept being “number two” as it were. I think that the main reason that we compete and want to win is to feel good about ourselves, which is really self-centered if you think about it. There is always technically a winner and a loser at EVERYTHING, but does that mean we have to always be classifying things/people by “winners” and “losers”? Athletes always say it is like “you are on top of the world” or something like that when you win but what about the times you don’t win? Now I am not really into the typical sports people keep track of, I watch a little bit of soccer, a little basketball, a little baseball, I HATE FOOTBALL, but I don’t keep track of scores like its a life or death matter like some people do. I have seen people at games (especially at final/chapionships) riot, cry, swear, etc. after losing.  At some point you have to realize that it is just a game and all thats on the line is self-ritious egos and reputations that in the big picture of things really aren’t that important. So it is cool to win but don’t make your whole life about winning and losing its not worth it.

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What did I do?0

Everything is going fine,

We are all happy,

Then you change,

You tell its been going on for awhile,

That I’ve been annoying you for long enough,

You rattle off a list of things I have done that goes back 4 years,

I can’t contradict you if I wanted to,

your mind is made up,

the only rememberence of “that” incident 4 years ago is how you shaped the story your way,

the only reason you’ve built up those incidents is because you have made an assumption about me,

the only reason you’ve made an assumption is because three months after I knew you I was expected to know what every unwritten rule was, what every glance meant, every bit of body language, and hidden messages behind the words,

YOU WON’T TELL ME WHAT THEY ARE!

if I ask that annoyes you and gets put on the “list” of things i’ve done,

you don’t even tell me anyway,

yet if I don’t ask and misread a situation because i don’t know you get pissed then to,

the truth is you shut down to me,

you stopped trying,

about 1 year after I knew you you gave up,

I was still trying to learn still trying to make it work,

but it takes two to tango,

after that your irritated more easily,

little things get blown up in your mind untill to you i am a walking time bomb,

our relationship has now deteriorated to something strangley formal,

we both know what the other thinks about us,

I don’t want to completely break it off,

the times we had together were good for a while,

but we can’t ever be true to each other,

you think you’re right but i think i’m the one who is right,

neither of us are ready to make nice,

but why can’t I let go,

I keep trying,

I keep smiling,

I know it’s over,

but i still have my bubble of hope,

for each time I reach out and you slap me back that bubble gets smaller,

i wish i could pop it myself,

but I can’t,

I need to decide,

before the pain rips me apart,

they say being able to ask questions is a good thing,

if it’s so good why does it hurt so much when I do it?

please help me,

I don’t know what i did,

I don’t know how to make it right,

All I know is that the pain is crippling,

the only thing everybody sees is the fake smiles, the fake laugh, and even sometimes the fake intrest,

I can’t change the past but I can change the future,

Can we clear history and make a fresh start?

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Google Video0

     Blogging is a great language arts teaching method. It breaks down the boundaries of the classroom walls and allows students to write using a teenage comfort zone, also known as technology. By blogging rather than writing essays, by commenting and building on others posts we have more casual, open, and thoughtful discussions. Whereas if we were talking about it out loud people would be less engaged because of some people think they are “to cool” to discuss. Blogs are a great extension of the classroom. One of the greatest things about blogs is our oppurtunity to use the world wide web in our writing, but right now something is missing.

     We have lost the oppurtunity to critique google videos as part of our blog posts. 8e6 technologies has determined that google video has inapropriate material for Douglas County School District children to be viewing. This over-generilization makes me sick. This blanket statement made by 8e6 technologies assumes that all grades from pre-K to 12th have the same level of responsibility, and every teacher doesn’t need that resource.THIS IS IN NO WAY TRUE. 8th graders need different resources than 1st graders, who need different resources than 12th graders. I think that the solution is to allow each school to have the control over the blocking software in their building. That way each school can individualize it’s need to block certain websites.

     My next question involves the ration of good to bad on google video. I agree that google video has inapropriate material. But so does every search engine on the web! Does that mean we should block yahoo? All of google? Ask.com? Msn? The answer to that is of course NO! We should not block things because of the minority. By blocking things because of the minority you are assuming that teachers can either teach or moniter their student’s online activity. I belive they can (and already do!) very well. So please, by taking away google video your asking us to be mime’s rather than a 72″ plasma with surround sound. We NEED GOOGLE VIDEO!

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Love-hate0

Love- hate relationship. The words themselves seems kind of contradictory. Love and hateare almost exact opposites so if you have a love-hate relationship with someone doesen’t it just count as an okay relationship? I think we use the words love-hate relationship to imply that we don’t want to feel both emotions about that person/ object. Either we want to love them but an almost instinctual hatred comes in or we want to we want to hate them but an instinctual love comes in, and with my experience it switches back and forth depending on the millisecond. It’s kind of hard to describe what I mean by an instinctual feeling but it happens when your in the middle of your emotion, suddenly the opposite feeling starts to nag you saying,” Now come on you shouldn’t feel that way, you need to feel THIS way because…”. Now if you’re like me this just makes you more determined to feel the way you were originally. So can you feel two emotions at once? I think you can’t. Just like you can’t look directly at two objects at once. You can look at each one back and forth very fast and you can focus on one while using your peripheral vision to see the other but you can’ focus on both at once. I think the same principle applies to your emotions. So look at them side by side but please they are two separate emotions lets treat them that way.

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Write-on0

I think the only way you can really show that you have learned some thing is to demonstrate it or show an example and explain it. But is that actually learning when you can just recite it or recite the process? Can you remember what you ” learned” in 5th grade? Can you remember what you “learned” last year? I bet you ( the 8th graders) knew most of the european contries at our final test last year, but what do you think you would get if you took that test now? What makes an experience something you remember? Can you say youv’e learned something if you can’t remember it a year later? What is learning really?

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Humor2

What is humor? This is the definition but I think it goes deeper. Some people (including me) think particular t.v shows or books or “moment’s” with friends are funny but is that really humor? What makes us laugh? Some people laugh at funny situations ( I do to), some people laugh at wierd jokes or something they THOUGHT they heard (no comment), some people laugh at others getting hurt ( ex; AFV, Jack*** , etc.) and alot of people laugh at reality shows (DON”T EVEN GET ME STARTED!) but what makes those various things funny? I don’t know and this question ahas been bugging me for 5 years. Whatever the cause, I think the ability to laugh and find humor makes us stronger. If we can look at the cup as half full rather than half empty we keep trying, if we laugh and learrn at our failings we hold on, so live, laugh, and learn.

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How Protective Should Parents Be?0

Decisions like this have no right answer. I hate to say it but what one person says, another person will argue the exact opposite. So answering this question is purely a matter of opinion. My opinion is that you should protect them while they can’t protect themselves, but after that you should let them learn through exploratory trial and error. But the line that divides the time when they can’t protect themselves and when they can is very blurry, as it is dependent on the maturity of the child. I agree ENTIRELY with Silver Lining’spost on this same question. I think a lot of people know (not to over generalize) “those” types of people. The people who can’t make any decisions or make decisions that have serious consequences because they have never learned how to make decisions from the start. It’s entirely a judgement call by the parent as to when they let the child figure it out on their own and when they shield them from mistakes. Now i’m not talking about the big stuff like kids/teens trying drugs, smoking, or little kid’s running out in the street or putting their hand on a hot stove, because the consequences of those “explorations” are two permanent and serious to be an experience. What i’m talking about is stuff like should they let the kid learn that if they start their homework at 9:00 they will stay up late and be tired or should they tell them to start their home work at 7:00 so that doesn’t happen, or if they see their driving age child speeding should they put one of the many tracking devices avalible in the car and yell at them every time they speed or should they let them get a ticket and make them pay for it with their own money. To me (and I think most teenagers) parent’s yelling at me/arguing with me get’s no result. It’s when they use something that I am invested in back as a threat, then I start paying attention. When something of mine is at stake then the situation becomes different. I think the best teacher is your own mistakes, but in order to learn from them you must have a consequence that affects you directly, not someone else.

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Fear1

I sat on the cold, blue and white checkered floor of the ICU ward of Oakfield Plaza Hospital. Doctors, nurses, and attendants walked by me carrying stethoscopes, pills, and worst of the bunch, needles. The sharp fluorescent lights lining the ceiling sent flashes of light off the needle tips. I shuddered and closed my eyes to try and block it out but it didn’t work, the chemical and plastic smell cut through every defense I had. I was feeling squeamish and my stomach felt weak. I got up with the thought of going to the restroom and ran straight into the doctor. “Oh I’m sorry,” I apologized. He had a needle. I gulped and looked away.

“That’s okay, I just need to medicate your father with 2 cc’s of morphine to take him out of pain.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“We don’t know yet, but we are working on it.”

He put his hand on the door and pushed it open. I saw the bed with my father in it. He was hooked up to all these tubes and machines, but he was still moaning and struggling to breathe. The machines and smells seemed to be surrounding and suffocating me. Irealized the doctor was still waiting for me to say something. “I’ll see you later I uhh…have to go eat something” He nodded but I was already walking away, I had to get out of there.

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Lies1

Is it ever okay to lie? The “golden answer” is obviously no. But I think 98% of the people who say that (including ME) are hypocrites, because they have made AT LEAST one lie in their life, probably many more. Now if you catch someone in the act of lying they will either deny it, of justify it with reasons such as, “I was doing it for your own good, It’s okay because everyone does it, I had no choice,” etc.,etc. Like I said I’m technically a hypocrite, but I think that even though people always come up with a reason of why it was okay to lie, that it is never really acceptable to lie. I may sound like a teacher/your parent/ whoever else lectures you but, YOUR LIES WILL ALWAYS COME BACK TO BITE YOU (trust me on this it has happened to me to many times to count).  Think of this, you lied to someone, so now everytime you see them or interact with them you have to remember what you lied about and keep up that lie, If you keep doing this all your energy will be taken up trying to remember every lie youv’e ever told anybody. What unnecessary stress! So on the whole you CAN lie but you shouldn’t, you CAN justify it but it’s not really okay, and you can say you believe in something but that means you should practice it.

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Personal Curriculum0

1. Read a book with over 225 pages and write a good book review

2.Follow a training/fitness program for my horse and I and place in the top 5 at our first competition in May

3. Learn the correct use of commas and Quotations and write a mini-lesson summurizing how to use both

What I need:

For Project #1:

• Libraries/online book finder
• A book review outline/plan
• Examples of good book review

For Project #2:

• Training books for the horse
• Fitness books for the horse
• Fitness books for me
• Trainer
• My horse

For Project #3:

• Many (at least 3) sources educating me on the correct use of commas and quotation marks
• A computer

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Pentagon Strike0

I was browsing around you tube when I saw this video:

[youtube]3G6bATe33aQ[/youtube]

Now my immediate thought was that some parts of it were fake. That is most definitely true, because after nearly every tragic event there’s always some conspiracy theory about how it’s a cover up or governmental secret plan. This idea is absolute crap! It just torques me off that when a tragic national event has occurred all some people can think about is how the government is trying to cheat us and make us swallow a lie. Now granted, politicians aren’t always the most honest and the scandals that have been uncovered have made people more suspicious, but I KNOW that there is a happy medium here! One problem I that I think makes it easier for people to believe that stuff is that people believe what they see/what makes them happy, and they are to lazy (in general) to double check what they have seen against another source.

I’m sure you have all gotten at least one piece of chain mail. Now chain mail isn’t quite as bad as the conspiracy theories but a lot of the pictures are so fake that if you ask anybody else they can tell. The wishful thinking that is behind these is laughable. More on my opinion here (except I didn’t send it to ANYONE!).

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AlliterationComments Off

For those of you who don’t know (or remember) what an alliteration is, it is when repetition of initial consonant sounds(or in my case initial letters) in neighboring words

Tasha the Turkey wasn’t the tiniest turkey in the team, infact before the tremendous thanksgiving dinner she took twenty seven hours to toast to perfection. That was last Thursday though, and the next thanksgiving is to far away to think about. But the time has come to take out the tree and trim it with typical tree decor. The tightly wrapped treasure trove of boxes beneath the tree tightens the anticipation you feel. Can’t wait for that thrilling day, take time to remember that this teriffic tree and gift time will not be around for to long, soon it will be the time to take your year in thought and take a look back on the triumps of two thousand and six.

If you make comments, see if you can correctly count the T’s ( they only count if they are at the BEGINNING of the word)

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Poem1

How can you live when there is no one that cares,

How can you live when you care for nothing,

How can you live when the future is bleak,

How can you live when you seem to be alone,

How can you live when your voice can’t be heard,

or more important how can you tell when these things are eternal,

You can’t,

So don’t shut out the possibility of joy you didn’t see coming,

Don’t let despair be your cement shoes,

Don’t sulk in gloom,

Stay blissful and hopeful,

Things will always work out,

Keep friends close,

There are always people who care.

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Out of my MindComments Off

I don’t know how I did it. There is this rich girl at my school, who lives in Cherry Hills and she invited me over to her ($3,000,000) house. I’m sitting in her living/dining room that is about the size of my house’s first floor. The living room is all in deep earth tones such as Sand, Burgundy, and Chocolate.The obviously expensive furniture ornamenting the room is all pure rare woods and real leather oiled to perfection. On the walls there many tasteful paintings. My eyes travelled up along the ceiling and they caught the giant chandelier. Their glass china cabinet was a glittering array of china and crystal.Why was I here, I felt so out of place.

Note: I haven’t actually been in this praticular situation, but I have felt really out of place before, either by who I am with or where I am, and I ‘m sure everyone has had this same type of feeling at one time or another.

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ParableComments Off

This is the story of Floyd. Floyd had a dream of becoming a rich inventor, but all he had managed to do so far was get himself stuck in a dead-end middle management position at a buissness firm. This had left Floyd with a slightly depressed outlook on life. He thought, “Why try if it might not work.” Because of this “world view” he only spent money on the basics, never expending more than he needed to, or treating himself to anything.

One day when driving to the office he got into a minor fender bender, but it really scared him because he thought nothing, good or bad, could ever happen to him. His car still worked, so he drove on to work, but he was looking back a lot more than he needed to. The next day when he drove he was almost constantly looking in the rearview mirror. At one light he didn’t look to see that it was red. He ran it, and while looking in his rearview mirror, he got hit from the side. He died on impact. This story has two morals: Don’t put all your focus on the past, or the future will never come, and Never give up on your dreams.

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AmalgamComments Off

Disclaimer: For those of you who don’t know what an amalgam is (or forgot), an amalgam is created when you take certain characteristics from people you know, and create one fictional charater with those quirks. Then you place the character in a place you know well and write a couple of pharagraphs in which you subtly say what all those quirks are. See if you can spot what they are in my piece. Enjoy!

“I was told to sit and wait but I can’t. One, because I have WAY to much energy and two, because I hate my grandma and am not going to do anything she says IF I can help it. Gretchen, my grandmother is always ordering me around. With her German upbringing she insists on proper manners at all times. By “proper” manners she means no slouching, no chewing with your mouth open, no getting up without being excused, answering her questions promptly, always calling her Ma’am, and other mannerisms typical of her time (though not generally practiced anymore).Even though I do that whenever I slip slightly I hear booming in my direction, “CHEW ZE FOOD PROPERLY,” or “SIT LIKE A LADY AT ZE TABLE.” That’s what I hate .I look down at the white cushioned chairs and see that they are dirty; being the neat-freak I am I go into the kitchen to get a sponge. As I walk into the kitchen, grab a sponge and start running water over it I stare at the shiny mirror over the sink and see staring back at me a pair of bright green eyes under the bangs of dirty-blond hair. My skin has a gentle tan with the time being late summer so the freckles on my nose are barely visible. I glance down at the sponge and see that the sponge is soaked. I wring it out and run back to the dining room. As I am wiping down the chairs I hear my brother yelling,” ELLEN, ELLEN, ELLEN!”

“COMING!” I yell back, reluctantly I put down my sponge and stride down the step into the living room determined to get whatever he wants over with. I see an orange tabby kitten shoot out from under the piano in the corner and zoom into the guest bedroom, startled by my sudden movement. Instantly my impatience vanished, the narrow tunnel of thought focused on being mad at my brother lifted and I hated my lack of compassion toward the animal, my actions, and everything I had done that had scared a poor helpless kitten. Forgetting about my brother I wandered into the bedroom and found Tigger on the bed, I went over and started petting him to apologize. Just as he relaxes my brother’s loud voice comes from the other room.

“ELLEN!” Once again poor Tigger went bounding away

“Sorry Tiggy,” I called after him. I went into my brother’s room and promptly ran into the door.

“You do that a lot,” said Matt.“Remind me again what your I.Q. was.”

“198,” ,” I said rubbing my bruised head.

“You sure don’t act like it.”

“Thanks; what did you want me for?” ?” I asked surveying my older brother (He’s 16, I’m 13).

His dark brown features looked questioning and he asked “Can you still make your eyebrows do the wave?”

“Sure, why?”

“I made a bet” he said simply “let me take a picture”

I demonstrated and let him photograph. “Well I better go back out and wait for grandma, bye.”

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TruthComments Off

How can you tell what is true? Is it something you hear from a reliable source? Is it something you witness? What is a reliable source? How do know that what you see or witness isn’t an illusion or somehow a trick, made to look like something it isn’t?

We live in a digital world, any photo, video, sound recording, or other media can be distorted, layered, cut and pasted, or changed until the material could be the exact opposite of what the original source had. Another thing is that all “history” is based on writing’s or recordings of past events. Now I know most people will say that for almost every date or fact of history that we know there is more that one record to back it up, but what if those people were trying to cover something up? What if all of the people behind the sources conspired and made it up? Anybody can think up/ write down anything they want, and if everybody recites what they thought of, does that make it true? This is one of those never-ending questions that I have always thought about. If you post a comment please give some feedback on that idea.

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Season’s GloreComments Off

Some people like spring, with all of it’s new begginings and signs of life. Some people like summer, with the long daylight hours and hot temperatures. Some people like fall, with it’s crisp feeling and beautiful colors, and of course some people like winter, with the sparkle and uniform cover of snow. But no matter what season you love there are at least 5 (and alot more if you think about it) fun things to do in each season.

Spring:

1. Plant a garden ( if your into that sort of thing)
2. Enjoy your spring break! (you get the idea)
3. Take a walk/hike outside and enjoy the fresh air
4. Start up the spring season of your favorite sport
5. Redecorate some part of your house/room and give it a fresh look

Summer:

1. Go swimming/water fighting with friends
2. Pamper your favorite pet (if you have one)
3. Rent 1 season of your favorite t.v show (or a bunch of movies) and do an all night movie marathon with your friends
4. Over a few weeks (or months) test all the baskin robbins ice cream flavors and make a list of your top 10 or 15 or 20 or…
5. Take a cruise or extended vacation ( if finances allow)
6. Just have a general party with friends

Fall:

1. Rake the leaves and jump into the pile ( NOBODY is to old for this!)
2. Bake/eat pies
3. Go to the final match/game/race/championship of your favorite sports team
4. Carve a jack-o-lantern
5. Design your halloween costume
6. Eat your halloween themed candy!

Winter:

1. Design your own website to stir things up
2. If it snows go make snowangles
3. Have a snow ball fight
4. Make a snow hut
5. Go sledding
6. Make an ice sculpture

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Alone1

The small house across the field was so overgrown with every kind of thick dark green weed, and ivy along with cobwebs were the extent of it’s paint job. At a distance you would think it was a lovely green hill. I had looked at it for so long I just had to find out what it looked like inside. I hopped the small wooden fence that kept our dogs in and marched warily over to the door. The door was so entangled in ivy I could barely get it open but when I did the inside looked no better than the outside. The house was still completley furnished in what looked like the style of the 1970’s. I walked in to the room and saw all the the old classic 70’s colors and architeture, even though they were hard to make out under the one inch layer of dust that coated everything. My shoes turned up the thick dust upon the carpet and I sneezed. The vibration of my sneeze shook the dust from the bookshelves and I sneezed again. When I could breathe normally again I walked down the hall looking in every room. Now I won’t pretend my imagination wasn’t saying things like, “What if there is a body in one of these rooms?” and ” What if some mad ax murderer is in here and when I look at him/her they will kill me?!” because my imagination was saying theses ideas. I got a slight jump in my stomach for every room I looked in, but it got subtler as time went on. There was only one room left and I was feeling pretty confident nothing was in there untill I heard a crash and a anguished scream , “WHY DOES NOBODY COME!!. My heart jumped and I felt numb all over, I looked in and saw…

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Death and DestructionComments Off

This post may seem a little morbid (oriented around death) but it is what I am thinking about right now. I am sure many of you know about the shooting that took place on wednesday, at Platte Canyon HS in Bailey,CO. I am also sure EVERYBODY knows about the Columbine HS massacre 7 years ago. While only one student died at PCHS, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris injured or killed 36 people (including themselves) at CHS. When I think of these the muddle of emotions is hard to seperate and analyze. My immediate thought is tears of rage (if that makes sense). I am so angry at whoever the shooters are and my eyes are filling with tears for the familes and relatives. Then I am a little more analytical about why it happened, so then I understand what led up to it (however that does NOT mean I accept it as an okay thing to do). The last emotion I feel is fear, because both were random, and couldn’t be stopped before deaths occured. Now granted, CHS had Dylan and Eric flagged as disturbed because of past records, but they NEVER EVER expected them to do what they did. So my question to you is this, How does it make you feel? and What do you think we (meaning teachers, students, security, law enforcement, etc.) can do to prevent these when they happen so randomly? Please include the answers to these questions in your comments.

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Ismellpretzel’s desert post.2

Ismellpretzels’s “what I would bring to the desert” post is very interesting. I am wondering how they know all of this about toothpaste. Obviously everybody knows the part about your breath, but where did they find out that you can eat it and use it as shampoo! Have they tried that before?! Very uniqe idea and I liked how they incorperated why they wouldn’t do what most people would.

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Change and Tradition3

Can always be a surprise, sometimes good, sometimes bad

Has constantly been a source of debate

Answers some questions, but poses new ones

Never boring

Gets bigger and bigger over time

Everyone’s life is immersed in it

AND

Territory and lifestyle shape tradition

Royal to regular, yearly to daily, all different types

Avoidance is impossible

Deep with endless meaning, or shallow with no purpose except for that it is a “tradition”

Infuriating if you can’t figure out how to change it and it is worthless

Tense and uncomfortable, if you are memorializing someone you know personally

Invigorating, can encourage you to plan and work for a celebration gathering

Old and classic, or new and bright

Noting it mentally will help us change, or stay the same, whichever we want

The seasons are always changing… you can too

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Why is America so Full of Itself?6

In my opinion america has one heck of a huge ego. We are trying to tell other countries that democracy is the way to go when we don’t even participate in the voting ourselves. In 44 years the HIGHEST voter turnout has been was 63%, and that was in 1960. As if that wasn’t enough, when it is a non-presidential election the numbers drop about 15 to 20 %, the lowest of those numbers was 36%. That is just LAZINESS! Another issue is our resource consumption, we are a lowly 5.6% of the world yet we emmit 26% of global Co2. Meaning that we consume about 25% of the resources. HOW IS THAT IN ANY WAY FAIR OR RIGHT TO THE REST OF THE WORLD!!! We are in no way the largest either in landmass or in population. China/Aisia is. Don’t take me wrong I like living here, but we need to quit sticking our nose in the air and acting like we can do whatever we want, before the rest of the world decides it is time to take us down a notch permanantly.

Sources:

• http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html
• http://cbc.amnh.org/crisis/resconpercap.html

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