A Reflection Of Seventh Grade

Let’s be frank,
this was probably the most boring year ever. It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t fun, but it had one thing going for it: boringness. All of the somewhat interesting things this year were nothing to the great events of my fifth and sixth grade years. This year was just dull. Boring. Uninteresting.

Way back in August, I thought this year was going to be just like sixth grade- nice and easy and done before it began. Oh boy, was I sure wrong. Soon, I was up to my neck in after-school activities and submerged in homework. Soon, I barely had the time to do homework along with chores. I was stressed and really irritable. When October rolled around, I realized that I needed to manage my time better. More homework was coming as mid-terms approached, and I was not prepared to face that. I started by doing more homework at school, and in my film class. I started to be able to have enough time to do chores. By march, I had everything figured out. I even had time to mow my lawn and earn a few extra bucks pet-sitting for neighbors.

This year, one of the main things I learned was that friends come and go. I made a ton of new friends, but I lost some that I just couldn’t keep in contact with. It’s sad, but I have to deal with it. Also, you can never have enough time to do all of the things that you want or could do. Compromise and conform, I say!

As the year comes to a close, I’m really, really, glad this year is over. It was like sixth grade, it just seemed a little bit longer. I learned so much outside of class that will most definitely help me out later in life. I do have some advice for next years seventh graders, whether they take it or not- always listen to your teachers. Always, always do this and you are set for the year. As a side note, do your homework. You won’t have to worry about grades if you turn in homework, even if it is a bit late. If I had to do seventh grade over again, which would be horrible, I would procrastinate less. That would clear up all of my minimal worries of school.

This year was boring, but it was also a good wake-up call to get me to realize that you can’t expect to do well by skating by on tests and quizzes. All in all, it was a good year, and boy am I looking forward to summer!

Week 7: Leadership

I am a natural leader. I can lead a group of people I have no idea who they are or where they came from. I also really enjoy leading. My problem is, I don’t have enough time to lead outside of school. That leaves only one time during the day for me to lead- during school. Here at West Ridge, there are great opportunities, like student council and section leader in band, for me to lead. But, those need votes and that is something that is hard for me to get. This whole leadership thing is a catch 22- you need to lead for people to be confident in your leadership, but if you have never lead before, how can you expect them to go far enough outside there comfort zone to vote for someone new? You can’t just assume that people will vote for someone who is new, for all they know, I could be horrible leader like Stalin or Marie Antoinette. I tried to become a section leader, but I got one vote, no where near some of the more popular kids were getting. Also, I would not even think about trying to get on the student council. The amount if time and effort it takes is way more than what I am willing to do, or even have. Plus, I have noticed that only popular kids really get elected. Sure, I would have my friends vote for me, but in reality, I am only known in my group of friends.

Leadership at my school really boils down to who is the most popular. Popularity is something that I am definitely not interested in. I like to do non-popular things like sit on my computer and play indie games instead of playing sports. As you can probably tell, I am not a ‘sporty’ person, which does not help my popularity, but WHO CARES! Not me! I despise popularity.

In my own circle, I am a leader. But really, we all are leaders. No one bows down to anyone and no one looks up to one ruler. We all treat each other as equals and friends alike. Not one of us really follows a crowd. We make our own decisions and do what we like, not some ‘popular’ thing that is boring and uninteresting to us.

After writing this, I realize that this post is quite a rant on popularity. It was good for me to rant on popular people. I was building up quite a load of things to rant and I needed to let some steam off. Now, I have been satisfied.

A Poem About Horn

Horn was his name
Black Magic did he invest
And released a curse,
Not even his aim.

The Pygons were abundant
And the sword rusted

But Horn had a mission

To put an end to this plague

 

To the coast, to the mountains

freeing all along the way

Until, the king was freed

and the curse was not lifted

 

The Pygon High Emperor was still alive

sitting on his throne

watching the progress of the door to beyond

and the curse was not lifted

 

Through the mountain

above the lava

slowly solving, jumping

and the curse was not lifted

 

Close to the seat of power

In the king’s citadel

Westernesse was in ruin

and the curse was not lifted

 

And the quest was not done

not finished

not fufilled

and the curse was not lifted.

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A screen shot of the game.

 

This poem, for any of you free-app-watchers, is about the current free app of the week. Horn is a game with a super rich story and backstory, good gameplay, and an all-around amazing look. What inspired me to write this poem is the story from my point in the game. I felt that the story could be put in a very poetic way.

Week 4 and 5: Media And A Memory


“NERF N-Strike Recon CS-6 (2009 Commercial).” YouTube. YouTube, 23 Oct. 2011. Web. 11 Apr. 2014. .

This was my favorite toy when I was little. The Nerf Recon CS-6 was the most customizable, highest power,  and good-looking Nerf gun I could get my hands on. On Christmas morning, I can see myself walking down to the spot where I could expect a nice, new toy just for me. I saw it, and my only dream of that time came true. The gun that I had shot at my friend’s house, and immediately fell in love with it, was mine.

It had both a removable stock and barrel, plus a laser sight for pin-point accuracy. The gun had six shots in it, allowing me to shoot for an almost endless time. Later, I got an extra clip to add to the time needed to empty it before starting the process of finding and reloading the darts into the gun- an activity that I both loved and hated at the same time.

I loved this toy more than the commercial above can capture. My Nerf wars were never complete without it as soon as I got it. I remember spending hours on end shooting, reloading, and hiding from my friends in our seemingly epic battles. Somewhere in my storage I still have it- plus a bucket full of darts(considerably more than when I got it) and even more guns for my friends who weren’t as fortunate to own one of the most fun toys that may have ever existed.

Here is the full gun that I have pulled out of storage just for this occasion:

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This toy will be forever immortalized in my heart as the fist dream-toy that I ever got and still have to this day.
 

What is so great about Austin?

This was the place. This is going to be my home. But in the back of my mind, I was wondering, “What is so great about Austin, anyway?”

There are many reasons Austin is great, but it boils down to one amazing reason; Austin is weird! Austin has so much weirdness, that normal places like San Diego seem like the most boring and uninteresting place one could possibly live. For instance, if you were to walk down south congress and take in the sights, you would just scratch the surface of how cool and weird Austin is. Almost anywhere you look, there is something weird that you couldn’t find in another city. Personally, I like being able to see people just as weird, and weirder than me walking around my home city. “Why be normal?” is the best way to describe Austin in all of its glory.

Also, there is so much do to here! You could go eat at a really good restaurant, see the bats fly out from under the congress bridge, and listen to live music all before the night is over. Say you were to come during one of the many festivals throughout the year, you would be entertained for days! Even the neighborhoods surrounding the city are cool and interesting. Go for a drive on the east side (east of I-35) and compare that to the westlake neighborhoods. Take a drive up to Lake Travis and spend a day out on the water. Even after 3 years living here, I still can’t believe how much I haven’t done here.

Austin is a great place to live and grow up in. Now that I live here, I just can’t imagine living in a boring, uninteresting city.
Austin Aglow
Creative Commons License Photo Credit: Andy via Compfight

Pi day!

Happy Pi Day (to the 69th digit)!
Creative Commons License Photo Credit: Mykl Roventine via Compfight

On the first day back from spring break, one of my classes held a pi day celebration where kids brought in a bunch of pie and we found numbers in a really cool pi searcher. Turns out, my birthday is in the first 200 million digits of pi!

This year it was cool, but next year, it should be all over the world. Not only will it be 3.14, but it will be 3.14.15! More digits of pi will be in the date, so it will have    much more importance.  This many digits of pi will happen only once in then next few eons, so it is truly a once in a lifetime experience. We will be able to tell stories to our children and grandchildren of the day with the the date 3.14.15.

Heck, I could even write a book about pi day and what happened!

Five Facts: Gimli!

Time to find out more things about the people of Middle Earth! This time we learn about Gimli, a great dwarf and a friend to a elf.
Gimli is my favorite dwarf of all times.

1. Gimli was going to go on the quest for Erebor, but Thorin decided against it because he, being only in his sixties, was too young to go. Speaking of the quest of Erebor, Gimli is the son of Gloin and a relative of Óin, Balin, and Dwalin. I think the dwarves are very closely related.

2. The main reason Gimli joined the Fellowship is that Legolas joined and Gimli doubted his intentions. Funny thing, Legolas and Gimli became best friends!

3. During the battle of Helm’s deep, Gimli was forced into the Glittering Caves. After the war, he became the lord of them and led some of Durin’s folk to make a new dwarven colony.

4. Gimli is the only dwarf to sail to the west to the undying lands. Toliken wrote that this would be very strange for a dwarf to go to an elf land.

5. Gimli uses two axes, both having a long staff in which they could have used as a walking stick. After the Moria Incident, he used Balin’s double-edged axe, but only in the book was it mentioned.

Fun Fact: In the game Terraria, Gimli is one name a demolitionist can spawn with

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Gimli at the siege of Moria

“Wikia.” The One Wiki to Rule Them All. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Feb. 2014.        

What did you find interesting about Gimli? Post it the comments and I might figure the most unknown thing about this dwarf.

 

 

Why are school supplies important? (Expository Writing)

“Class, take out your pencils!”. Wait. I don’t have my pencil. Again… Having your school supplies is extremely important.

For instance, school tells everyone that you need pencils every day. Say you were to come to class without a pencil, how would you write and keep track of what you learned? I would find it very hard! It’s your responsibility to have and know where your supplies are.

Furthermore, without a binder, organization is futile- you papers would fly everywhere! Plus, you would have no place to store your precious pencils. If you were at the office and your files fell apart, and all the newest ideas fell out, how would you feel? How would your organized co-workers think of you? Nobody wants that kind of humiliation. Having a binder- or any organization system is essential!

Throughout the day- and even you life, have the correct supplies is critical, for learning, for life. Therefore, you should always be prepared. I wonder if there is a way to store all of you materials and supplies together?

MLIA Week 5: YouTube

Recently I bought a screen recording software to make videos on YouTube. So far my channel was a whopping 4 subscribers! I really love thinking, filming, and editing these short films. After all that I post it to my channel and do all the normal things like monetizing and adding annotations.

My weekly schedule for recording goes something like this:
First, on the weekends I record enough videos to last the whole week. This is known as batch-recording. When the week rolls around, I edit them starting with the first one I recorded. When I’m done, I record special stuff like games with friends Sam and Myles. Sam has his own channel, but Myles is just a partner of my channel. Myles and I run a small conglomerate of channels known as NWK Studios. We get our friends who are just starting out to join us and we edit for them and post their videos. In return we get some of the profits that their channel makes. By the way, our main channel has been up for two years and we have made 12 cents. You might think that 12 cents is a tiny amount of money, but the cost to make these videos is absolutely nothing.

There are some YouTube channels that make 10s of thousands of dollars per week just from the huge fan bases. The only problem is- they all have well over 2 million subscribers. I don’t think that all of our channels combined have even 30.

This little operation is not for the money quite yet, but rather it’s just a bunch of friends messing around.

This week I have been playing a lot of Civilization V with Sam. We play together while talking on Skype and one of us hosts the game. Just in case you were wondering what kind of gear I have, here is a list of my stuff;

Microphone: Audio Technica AT 2020

Screen Recorder: Camtasia Mac

Keyboard: Razer BlackWidow

Mouse: Razer DeathAdder

Computer: iMac From late 2011

I hope you learned some interesting things about me and my favorite pastime.

 

MLIA Week 4: Snow Days!

First let me ask, who thought that there was going to be snow on Friday? Like, seroiusly, we live in TEXAS! Why would it snow here in the first place? Nevertheless, I was confident in the weather’s snow-creating abilities. By the end of Thursday, I consulted the evidence and concluded that it was indeed, going to snow tomorrow. In preparation, I did all my homework, I mean all of it, and stayed up about 45 minutes later.

I awoke at first at 6:30, my normal sectional time. My mom told me that there was a late start the night before, and I changed the wrong alarm. After that, I was awoken again a 8:30, the late start time. My mom told me that there was no school that day. My instincts made me look out side to what-do-you-know, snow! It was not something to behold, but come on! Snow! I couldn’t believe my eyes!

Later, I woke up around 10:30 to see the snow was still there. Earlier that week, I said that I would be content if I could make 1 snowball. It looked to me that my requirement would be met. I made a grand total of 10 snowballs, ten times that of my requirement. My dad had the great idea to make a “Texas sized” snowman. I took four of my snowballs and then promptly threw one at my dad. We arranged the snowman on top of our mailbox as shown here:

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As you can see, it is of the very finest type of snowman complete with a saggy carrot nose. I’m glad we got a picture, because it fell apart quickly afterwards.

I went to school on Monday as usual, but little did I know how ice can cause a snow day just as easily as snow.

So this is today. A day that can barely be qualified as day-off worthy. It went pretty much the same as Friday, but with more uncertainty. I awoke early, the went back to sleep as for a late start day. Then amazingly, I woke up again right at the time when I needed to get up. I was a little concerned that I had slept in and needed to rush for the bus. But that was not the case! My mom, the informer of all weather related events, told me that there was indeed going to be no school today.

What did you do today and Friday to celebrate the day off? Did you frolic in the snow/sleet like me? Did you sit around and be lazy like me? Whatever you did, just remember to look out for things that make your life AWESOME!