HAPPY SPRING (or mud season)
Please be kind to Mrs. Williams. Enjoy the long weekend & I'll see you on Tuesday.
Period 1:
Vocabulary quiz
Reading quiz
Inside/Outside box
Period 2:
Vocabulary quiz
Reading quiz
Personal myth papers
Period 3:
AI: Artificial Intelligence, continue viewing
Period 5:
Publish or perish day...
Thought for the day...
"I love spring anywhere, but if I could choose I would always greet it in a garden." - Ruth Stout
44 comments:
A Cheater
By Austin Albro
What is a cheater? A cheater according to the dictionary is a person who practices fraud or trickery. A cheater according to the dictionary is a person who violates rules dishonestly. A cheater is a person using steroids to enhance performance on the field, court, or track. Steroid use occurs on different levels, from high school athletes to minor league and professionally athletes. Steroids have many negative effects and are not a fair way to increase athletic ability. Are steroids worth the cost?
Steroids on the High School level is completely unnecessary and in attempt to limit use states like New Jersey, Texas, and Illinois have implemented random drug and steroid testing. Though the results may not show massive amounts of steroid use in high school athletics all of those caught have been given an opportunity to change. The associated press says that in 2007 only 18 tests of the 30,799 conducted have come back positive. Some say that the tests are not worth the high cost and time however it is necessary and only helps the athletes who make wrong choices.
On the professional level of athletics, in sports like baseball, cycling, and track and field steroids have become an issue. Barry Bonds the all time home run leader having hit 762 homeruns is accused of using Human Growth Hormone. Athletes like Lance Armstrong, who has won 6 straight Tour de Frances is going to have to live being accused of using steroids. He is only being accused of using the banned substances because he is successful, and succeeds in the "Steroid Era". Marion Jones, a phenomenal track star admitted to using steroids and lying to a federal jury. Jones having won 3 Olympic gold medals and 2 bronze medals said, "I have been dishonest and you have the right to be angry with me. I have let (my family) down. I have let my country down, and I have let myself down."
Steroids may indeed help athletes in pursuit of being the best, however in my opinion the negative outweighs the "positive". Steroid's cause "Roid" rage angry and violent outbursts, severe mood swings that may lead to depression, and kidney and liver damage. Steroid's positive effects include being able to pay more attention, muscle growth and faster reaction times.
A cheater to me is a person who uses steroids to enhance their performance. Steroids show many effects that are not good such as liver and kidney damage. Steroids give people a very negative reputation and in some cases causes people their lives. A cheater takes away opportunity for the average Joe to participate in sports they love.
~Chocolate Chip Cookie~
Cookie, Cookie I love you!
Soft and sweet with tons of calories!
Your my comfort food.
Chocolate melting in my mouth.
Blah blah my towns lame
It puts all its inhabitants to shame
It is very easy to relate to Kim's writing. It is something that most everyone has dealt with. The want of a very good food, even though it might not be healthy!
Kimmy, I really like your view of the cookie.
Dylan's piece, is meaningful even though it has very little words. His town to me is definitely a place I don't want to go.
Huge Cookie
Have you ever dreamed of having a cookie so big you could sit on top of it and see for thousands of miles? How about having one as big as the biggest Ferris wheel in the world? Well, I have seen such a cookie. It is on a new land few have viewed called Cookiapolis. On Cookiapolis, average size cookies grow on trees that have sprouted from the ground that, of course, is made of cookie. If you are into the less known cookies like biscotti cookies, you will have a better chance of finding them by the milk ponds scattered throughout Cookiapolis. Huge cookies like the ones I mentioned earlier are everywhere on Cookiapolis, also. So if you ever need to get away, just head towards Cookiapolis and all your problems will disappear as you eat cookies to your heart’s desire.
Faith.
I have it
You don't
You need it, but you won't
I know someday it will come your way
I know because I have faith
I like yours Nicole, its like a cheer for religion...lol
Dylan, your town reminds me of mine.
Nicole, interesting topic for writing this poem. I liked how it seemed you are talking to someone or more than one person in your writing. Very Creative
Luck?
What is luck?
What is being lucky?
A four-leaf clover,
A horseshoe,
A rabbits foot?
What is bad luck?
What is being unlucky?
A black cat in your path,
Walking under a ladder,
Opening an umbrella inside?
They are all superstitions
Myths that we believe
We control our fate
There is no good luck or bad
Just coincidences
My Hometown
Norton isn't exactly anything you'd see up here near the small town of Woodsville. Massachusetts is a place where a lot of gangs and trouble devour the state it's self. In Norton Glen, all the long housing units lay across both sides of the street, our community pool ow dug away, I remember a teenage girl. She was young, about the same age as I am now, and she got into with another one of her kind ad pulled a knife on her. We had drug atics living in all four corners of the little community. The playground, where I use to play when I was little, was dominated by many teenagers come that time of night; doing their kinds of things. I remember the sun shines the same as it does here, little things remind me of my town back home. Despite the bad things that happen there more frequently, it's still my home. I still had fun and laughed there, my family always near or right down the street, and i just loved my friends. I still visit there often, almost like a revisit to my past, it's refreshing to see how I use to live back then; in my hometown. =)
Cookiapolis is deffinately a place I want to be. It would be very unique to be on top of a massive cookie. I like the imagery in being able to see for miles.
I like ducks. It is a plain and simple fact. Ducks are cool, because they are yellow. Yellow is my favorite color. Ducks go quack, but cows go moo. You see ducks go quack which is cool. Haha what did the duck eat for snack? QUACKERS!!!! Get it? Oh yeah and in open season the deer was like i'm a doe and a buck, i'm a duck. That was cool. Well some ducks aren't yellow some are green or some kind of other color. Some waddle which is funny to watch. I think if I could be an animal I would be a duck. Oh i quack myself up
I sat on a rectangle-shaped sheet of metal near more cookies that weren’t round, or prepared. About ten minutes pass before the sheet was picked up, and put into a square shaped room, before the door was closed I heard someone ask “How hot should I put the oven on”, and then someone responded “About three-hundred fifty degrees”, and then the door was closed, and the room got hotter, and the chocolate chips started to melt. After a half-hour later the door was opened up again, and something was pulling on the sheet it was like a glove of some sort, and then the metal sheet was placed on a counter. I heard someone ask “Are the cookies done yet”, and then I knew my life was over.
Jacob, I like how you focused on the positive and negative effects of luck. It was easy to relate to as well.
i love your poem about the cookie and the line where it says "Soft and sweet with tons of calories." i love it!
good job.
---Kim
Where am I going?
I'm going to make my life meaningful. I plan to finish high school, and get into a good college. I want to find a job that that I love, and that I will stick with. Then I plan to eventually have a family. I've decided I'm going to make my life full of adventure. Adventures like traveling to different places with the ones that I love. My life will be filled with love; love from my friends, family and the guy that I hopefully marry one day. I'm going to make my life mean something. That's where I'm going.
Austin, I liked yours but it was totally different from what I thought it would be by the title.
Mute by Lauren Simano
Viola Davies sat at her lunch table alone, the round table in the corner of the cafeteria, as she bit into an apple and stared into a book laid flat on the table. Today was a rare day; Viola was being tame, not working on an independent art project, or snapping random pictures of anyone or anything. It was more of a surprise that she was actually eating something in place of working on her art.
The book she was reading was about Impressionism; this was going to be her newest project. As she read, she unconsciously wove her fingers of her left hand through the loose fringe of her hot pink knit scarf. Her feet tapped the leg of the table, the rubber sole of her checkerboard vans making a dull thud each time they hit the metal. She wore spandex-material leggings with vibrant yellow and orange swirling and blending, splattered with leopard print. She had a white mesh tutu skirt over them with a gray v-neck tee. She had a small, electric purple bow pinned in her piece-y, chin-length onyx hair.
Though Viola never intended to be noticed, her outfits gravitated the attention of others towards her, as did her flailing arms while she was painting and sculpting. She was a firm believer in self-expression, and everything she did made a bold statement. The interesting thing was that Viola didn’t speak; she was a mute. Viola hadn’t spoken since eighth grade, after the death of her mother.
When her mother had been alive, she had raised Viola herself. Viola would talk to her mother all the time; they would also sing together while her mom played the piano. This was one of Viola’s favorite things to do.
Right after her mother died of breast cancer, the school counselors said that Viola had stopped talking because of grief. They said she would begin to talk to people again within a year or two, but when sophomore year had come and gone and she still didn’t talk, they knew there was a problem, they just didn’t know what it was. They were unable to find out because she wouldn’t talk to anyone.
Viola did stop talking because of grief, at first. As she got older, she found that she didn’t have anything to say to her classmates because they probably wouldn’t have anything substantial to say back. She never resumed talking, or singing for that matter, because no one inspired her to do either of the two.
It would be easy to assume that Viola would be forced to speak in class when teachers called don her. When she stopped talking in eighth grade, teachers stopped calling on her. She understood the material, completed all of her work and relieved fantastic grades on top of that. The teachers heard how strong her voice was through her work, so they didn’t prompt her to speak aloud. There was no need.
jacob, i liked your some what poem about luck. It was truthful and although it was short, you seemed to believe in what you were writing a lot. i liked it because it and me second guess about luck and believe you that it was just a cioncedence.
Nice supporting facts on why you like ducks Nicole
NICOLE I LOVE YOUR DUCK STORY! :)
It rhymes, and it makes me laugh!
-Katie
philip, haha i loved your cookie story. you had me at a place called cookiapolis, and i immediately wanted to live there. im loveee cookies and they way you described it was great!
i love your poem about faith and the line that says "You don't, you need it but you won't." and the part where you said that you still have faith in that person. good job!
---Nicole
Austin I like your take on steroids, and I think it also takes away opportunities for people who want to compete honestly
My Scary Place...
My scary place would be a dark basement with all this unusual equipment hanging on the wall. Like rope, chains, and unusual substances in jars, like in movies.
All alone by myself, with no one to call on for support when I feel like breaking down. As I walk around in this dark, cemented, underground box, I feel eyes on me, but no one's there, not a soul. Though I know I can sense movement all around me, I can't seem to wrap my head around the fact that there's NO ONE THERE!
I can't call on anyone for reassurance, there's no one around. My mouth opens, but nothing comes out. I can't make a sound. For the mere fact that "they" will sense my fear, the people that I dread in this dark scary place.
"They" love that I get so afraid. I can hear them laugh at me and taunt me. They are always hoping that I'll go down there one of those times with the light off. Not me. No way. Not a chance.
Please don't get me wrong. I fully understand the situation behind my fear. My imagination. It runs wild sometimes and goes places even I didn't know it could go. I know that there is really no one in the basement taunting me or waiting for me to go down there in complete darkness. That's just my imagination. I can't help it some of the time.
I know I should just go down in the basement with the lights off, and face my fear, but then all that anxiety will rush in and take over, and that's never a good thing for me.
Now that I, Abraham Donnahugh, have told you about my scary place, encourage you guys out there, to face your fears and not let anything get you down.
Jacob I like yours because it gives
different reasons on what luck is. :)
Nice job!
nicole, i adored your duck story! it was great, but what i loved about it the most was that it was so random. you didn't have one particular way of coming at it, you just talked about ducks. haha =p
Phillip I like your story, and it is very creative
Dylan:
I like what you said about your town. It shows how much you dislike your town.
Nicole:
I love your little blurb about faith. It shows that you have tons of faith. Its good to have faith especially with the way the economy is going.
Long fingers reached up to the heavens. They were branches, bleached white from the moon. round and white, Kyuuketsuki trudged through the birch tree forest. She was traveling at a quick pace, trying not to slow down or look behind her. Many different sounds filled her ears. The distant howl of a lone wolf, calling its mournful song to the shining moon overhead. The creek of tree branches rubbing against one another, creating a slow, disturbing, grating noise that sent shivers down her spine. The wind was blowing relentlessly causing her blood red hair to fly in every direction. She stopped suddenly when she heard a distant laugh. It was a very strange laugh. The laugh was distant, but she knew it was a guy. A guy she was running from. The guy that started this.
As kyuuketsuki continued her way it started to sprinkle. The rain was not something she needed right now. It splattered against her pale skin, chilling her to the bone. The rocks and leaves scattered on the ground had already gotten wet and slippery from the rain water. She slipped and skidded as fast as she could. She had to get away; had to hide before he got any closer.
SUddenly she lost her footing and landed with a thud on the ground. She was covered in mud and soaked from head to toe. The sleeves of her sweatshirt were torn and ragged from running though so many sharp branches. She got up slowly. It was eerily quiet now, except for the rain fall. She looked around franticly. Everything looked wrong. Everything was shining white from the moon reflecting off the wet land. She panicked again as she once again the menacing giggle. He was close, extremely close.
MY HOMETOWN!!!
Warren is the best town ever! Even though people make fun of Warren and how we have the mall, makes me love it even more. The Warren Mall is located on the boarder of Warren and Wentworth, with ratty old windows and a off white door it is probably the coolest place to hangout in Warren.
Warren isn't as bad as people make it seem, there is a basketball court where all the kids in town pretty much gather to play sports. It is like a little field with old trees hanging over the green, green grass. With a brown and white gazebo that is probably about four steps away from the basketball court. On both ends of the basketball court are fences that go up to the sky. When we are playing a little 3 on 3 it is good to have these so that the ball doesn't go into the road. The only problem with the fence that is faced towards the main road would be that it is slightly folded so that the ball actually does go into the road, kind of defeats the purpose of even having the fence.
Another good thing about living in Warren is that it is such a small town that everyone knows each other. However, not everyone likes each other. About a year ago we had the town elections for the road agent and there were two people running for it, there were signs all over the place and on the hill I live on there was a sign placed upside down so that you couldn't read who it was for.
Of course there are some bad things that go along with all the wonderful things that Warren brings; first on my list would be the Troll Lady. She is an old hunched back woman who walks around with her shorty shorts on and a tube top. I'm gonna let you in on a little secret, she is the type of person who shouldn't be revealing any section of skin. One of the ways you can recognize her in the winter time would be the bright yellow coat with the green pom-pom hat she wears, oh and you can't forget the hunched over walk. Another thing about Troll Lady would be the time when me, Stephanie, and Kala were walking to the store and we met up with the Troll Lady. She walked past us and then turned around and accused us of stealing her "chicken pot pie". We all just started running, frequently looking back to see if she was chasing us.
Here is a cheer for how much I LOVE my hometown!!!
We got spirit yes we do.
We got a Troll Lady
How bout' you!!!???
okay, i have no idea what this s supposed to be about just yet... and the first section is supposed to be in italics, but i can't figure out how to do that.
An empty field surrounded her. the grass was long, up to her hips, and a bleached, dead brown. it rustled in the cold wind. she looked up at the dull gray sky, nearly blotted out by the black crows all flying overhead and crying out their hoarse warnings. she searched for softness, for a patch of blue sky, or a single green blade of grass, but found none. all was coarse, and gray, and dead. the crows continued flying in black clouds, cawing down at her. a voice, smooth and flowing as water, male yet female, dangerously beautiful, floated over the cackling of the crows, yet seeming to come from the harsh throats of the black-feathered birds, called her name.
"Leila... Come, Leila... Come to me..."
"Leila, get out of bed! you're going to be late for school!" her mother's voice carried up from the kitchen, dragging Leila out of her dream. it felt like Leila was slowly resurfacing from the depths of a very deep lake- or maybe an ocean. she groaned and turned her head, waiting for her eyes to focus enough to tell her what time it was. when her cute old-fashioned Mickey Mouse clock came into view, she nearly screamed. crap, crap, crap! it was 7:55 and she had to be at school by 8:10. she hoisted herself out of bed, still feeling like she was wearing a 50-pound suit, and staggered around trying to get ready.
Austin, I like how yours is more like an essay—not the usual creative writing topic. Furthermore, I like how you discourage the use of steroids, focusing on how negative they are in society, despite their popularity.
Phillip, I think I would become my inner fat kid if I lived in or visited Cookiapolis. I would rapidly get diabetes from my high blood sugar, and I would rapidly die. But I would die a happy fat kid. I thank you for the wonderful image of cookies growing from cookie trees and milk ponds, the best thing to go with cookies.
This is an section from a novel I'm going to start or at least try to start.
Everyone was going crazy trying to make sure we had everything for 4-H. I really didn't want to go because I had to deal with Jared, the most annoying person on the planet, and he most likely would ask me out again for the onehundredth time. We were half way to the 4-H building when mom realized she forgot the keys.
"Carly did you remember to grab the keys to the 4-H hall?"
"No, I thought you had them."
"Now we're going to be late!"
"Mom, relax. We'll only be a few minutes late."
"Your right Carly. I'm over reacting."
We headed back home and I found the keys. They were right where the agendas were. We managed to reach the 4-H hall with a few minutes to spare.
"See mom, that wasn't so bad now was it?"
"Carly, you were right and I'm sorry. My mom and I both laughed. I almost forgot all my problems in life, until Jared walked in and bocked the sun out of my life.
"Do you need help?" Jared looked hopeful. His blue eyes were staring at me. He always looked like that when he asked me that same question.
"No I don't, but thanks for the offer." I was starting to wish I stayed home sick.
"Carly, why do you keep refusing my help?"
"Because I'm a big girl and big girls can carry their papers by themselves."
"Why won't you be my girlfriend?"
"For the one hundredth time it was never meant to be!"
"Couldn't we at least try?"
"NO!"
"Why?"
"Because I'm dating someone else."
"Yes I did. You just never listen because your a stubborn red head!"
"I'm not stubborn!"
"Well you're sure acting like it a lot lately. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a 4-H meeting to run."
Jacob,
I love your poem about luck!! I like how you described all the different symbols of luck! Like, a horseshoe, and a rabbit's foot.
Kim,
I love how you wrote your story. I like how you add that it is your comfort food and that it has lots of calories.
Austin, I really liked your opening paragraph. It grabbed the reader's attention and it was a great introduction.
Jacob,
Nice job on your poem about being lucky. I like how you took all the superstitions and tied them into your writing.
Nicole,
I love your duck story, and how you said the joke and then at the end you said how you quack your self up. Your my favorite.
Kim, I related to your poem a lot. It makes me want to eat a cookie right now.
Sarah- Your story was very good. Fear is usually just something that people make up. It was really good.
Nicole- Your story about ducks was adorable. It was so random that it made it really amazing.
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