Catching up

I realized today that I never posted last week. Once again, I'm not sure if I can make it up by doing double, but I will do it anyways.

In orchestra and Davis Youth Symphony I feel like I need to practice more, but have made some improvements. When I first started DYS I looked at the music and thought: this is going to be so hard... Now, I almost play through all the songs completely without stopping or messing up too badly. For the school orchestra, I have a concert on the 15th at Davis High. The songs aren't too hard and it should go well.

In Seminary, I just started this list of 101 services I can do over the holidays to earn a pin. I plan on doing it, but I think it will definitely be a challenge to complete all of them. I did 1 of them in class today, so 100 left to do.

The unit of math that we are doing right now looks pretty complex, but it's the only one so far that I feel like I've understood and followed along with perfectly from the beginning (ignoring the reviews that we did at the beginning of the year). It's complex fractions and involves solving fractions within fractions. It seems, this year, that I'm using everything I've ever learned in math.

Manufacturing seems to be getting faster each day. I feel like I'm getting less and less done each day. I'm building a headboard of my own design and it's quite a long process. Making each separate piece alone takes up about half my working time each day. I'm starting to worry about finishing it before the term is over.

I almost forgot about Science Olympiad. I made the varsity team, although the two teams aren't going to be called "varsity" and "junior varsity". On the test that we took to try out for the team, the scores were very close and the people who made the varsity team only did a little bit better than the one's who didn't. So now, varsity will now be called the "Blue team" and the junior varsity will be called the "White team". Both teams will compete at District and Regional, but at the State competition our coach is still unsure whether or not if the white team will be able to earn medals along with the blue team. Also, our head coach says that if the white team does better than the blue team then they will be the ones who go to nationals and not us. I think that this will maybe turn the two teams against each other because they both want to go to Florida (which is where the National tournament will be held). In my opinion though, I think the blue team will do better and go to nationals but you can't be completely sure. We'll see.

IF

This is the poem I did for 1st term, and I thought I'd see if I still remember it.

If
by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
but make allowances for their doubting too
If you can wait, and not be tired by waiting
or being lied about, don't deal in lies
or being hated, don't give way to hate
and yet don't look too good nor talk too wise

If you can dream and not make dreams your master
If you can think and not make thoughts your aim
If you can meet with both triumph and disaster
and treat those two imposters just the same
If you bear to hear the truths you've spoken
twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools
or watch the things you gave your life to
broken, and stoop and build em' up with worn out tools

If you can make a heap of all your winnings
and risk it all in one turn of pitch and toss
and lose and never breath a word about your loss
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
to serve their turn long after you are gone
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
except the will which says to them: Hold on!

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue
or walk with kings nor lose the common touch
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you
If men count with you but none too much
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
with sixty seconds worth of distance run
Yours is the Earth and everthing that's in it,
and, whats more, you'll be a man my son

Poems

Here are a few poems by Robert Frost I found interesting:

I believe this one is talked about in the book The Outsiders -

Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

This poem is the one for English class that I have to memorize, so I'm typing it like the last one to help me memorize it.

A Psalm of Life - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream! -
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hears, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, - act in the living present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

To Kill A Mockingbird and other books

This term, for Honors English, we've been asked to read To Kill A Mockingbird and Walk Two Moons. For science, I also have to read either Shackleton's Stowaway, Into Thin Air, or The Perfect Storm. I haven't yet decided which to read. I chose to read To Kill A Mockingbird first because I knew that I already owned a copy.

To Kill A Mockingbird has been an "okay" book so far. I really like the main character, Scout, though. She is more of a tomboy and doesn't really like doing girl stuff. She gets into fights and plays boys games, and her two best friends are her brother and a boy named Dill.

This book is set soon after the Civil War and life is different from how we know it now. The education system was very old, and was just coming around to changing. Scout has to deal with her odd neighborhood, school, and her family. As I read it, I can just imagine how things felt for her. With the details, you can see each expression and feeling. It sort of reminds me of how a child thinks, seeing it through the eyes of Scout.

1st term......now 2nd

I forgot to post last week, and I'm not sure if I am allowed to make it up but I'm going to do double this week anyways.

1st Term was pretty good. I've met so many new people and I barely scraped out a 4.0 GPA while keeping up with NAL, Orchestra, and Davis Youth Symphony. Some of the things that I wished I had done differently was maybe go to more after school programs. I didn't go to a single volleyball game, and now will never be able to go to one as a student at my school. I also missed concerts for band and rhapsody.

For Honors English I barely made it. I was supposed to read The Yearling for the term and that was the only reading assignment. It's over 400 pages and takes a while to get through. Well, I pretty much forgot about it til the last week of the term. I got it on Monday and told myself to read it. I, of course, waited til Wednesday to really get a start on it. I practically read the whole thing in 2 days, most of it on that Thursday. That was a disaster. I was up so late doing that.

2nd Term I think is going to be more hectic. Science Olympiad is just starting up and is going to start taking up my time. Some things I need to work on include: REMEMBERING TO POST ON THIS EVERY WEEK, practicing for orchestra, and reading. For English, this term, we have to read To Kill A Mockingbird and Walk Two Moons. I'm already about 50 pages into it so I'm doing well for now.

I've now made it a primary goal to get to know and make friends with as many people as possible this year. Why? Because I've realized now that there are so many kids that I don't know in my school. This is going well. I now talk with and hang out around kids that I didn't even know the names of last year. I hope it continues. I can see now how there are different type "groups" of friends around the school. There's a group where most of them are either in rhapsody or drama. There's a group for kids who are in orchestra and various academic groups. There's an athletic group who do all the school sports and other sports outside of school. Among these there are kids who are in between them. They're partially in one group and also in another. The trick is finding out what they're into.

The Yearling

This was my review for The Yearling:

I read this book recently and had mixed feelings that changed all through the book. I laughed, I wondered, and I had a great time with this book. I would definitely recommend it.

This book is written by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and has 428 pages. It is a 1st person story. The main character of this book is a boy by the name of Jody Baxter, living in the backwoods of Florida sometime during the late 1800's. In this book, you see everything through the eyes of Jody. He could be compared to Huckleberry Fin. He's young, clever, and is learning the ropes of life. The intended audience of this book would be anyone able to take the time to read it and is able to understand it. I would say it would be for young adult or adult.

Jody is lives with his parents on a farm passed down through his family and their only neighbors, the Forresters. Jody and his dad, Penny Baxter, are very close throughout this book. Penny is everything to Jody. He's his teacher, his provider, and his best friend. Penny teaches Jody how to get by in life by hunting, farming, trading, and other things.

The Baxter's neighbors, the Forresters, interact with them a lot in this book. They fight each other, they hunt together, and they solve the problems that come along in their area together. Jody's best friend, Fodder-wing, is a part of the Forrester family.

As Jody is working his way through his life as a boy, he encounters many problems. His friends and him face bears, wolves, rattlesnakes, and a close friend dying. To deal with this Jody finds a surprising new best friend. After a doe dies by his father's hand, he discovers that it was the mother of a fawn. Jody becomes a close companion with this deer which he names Flag. Flag and Jody go through so much of the story together, the whole time Flag is becoming a yearling. Flag tends to be rather mischievous and causes problems that make a big impact in the Baxter's lives. In the end Jody must choose either his family or the yearling.

What I liked most about this book is how the author describes each feeling and emotion that Jody has and the setting that he is in. He has very boyish thoughts. On page 3: "It seemed a strange thing to him, when earth was earth and rain was rain, that scrawny pines should grow in the scrub, while by every branch and lake and river there grew magnolias." On page 22: "Jody opened his eyes unwillingly. Sometime, he thought, he would slip away into the woods and sleep from Friday until Monday." What I had a hard time with at first, though, was their grammar and speech. It's very southern and you have to think about it to figure out what they are saying. On page 239: "He asked,"Kin Flag foller along, too?" On page 240: "If you figger on frolickin', you kin stay home, too." After a while of reading this book I got used to it and could understand it.

The main theme to this book I think is that it doesn't matter how life goes, you can always move forward with it. Jody and his dad show this by always trying their hardest and, in the end, they are able to resolve their problems.

1st Term

1st Term is just about over, but there are still a few things to do. This 4 day weekend, I haven't really done anything. I've been mostly playing video games, watching T.V., and being bored because my best friend was at Mount Rushmore and my other friends were either sick or busy. Today I realized how much stuff I still have left to do and am now rushing through everything. NOTE TO SELF: STOP PROCRASTINATING.

This term has been pretty good. I've been able to keep up with everything mostly. Some things didn't quite turn out as I expected them to, but it all worked out. I thought that NAL (National Academic League) would be a little harder, more (for lack of a better word) competitive. Davis Youth Symphony has been the opposite. It's been a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. I kind of joined it without much thought after the orchestra teacher recommended me. The music is rather complicated and there is a lot of it. I've had to practice it a lot more, and because of this I haven't had much time to practice for my orchestra class. I need to do this much more now with a concert on Wednesday. Science Olympiad has sort of been on hold this year due to not having a "place" to run it at the state level. I talked to the science teacher about it and he says that he's pretty sure that it will happen, but he doesn't know when we are going to start. Another thing that could have happened is I might have tried out for the musical. I had a friend who wanted me to try out because I went to a couple interventions with him in the drama class. I was tempted to, but when I found out about it the applications were due within the week and I decided I wouldn't really have time for it.

For Honors English, I just realized there was a book I was supposed to read. It's called "The Chosen" and it's the last thing that I have to do to get Honors English credit for this term. I've got a week to read it, so I'll probably be inside reading every day this week.

Last Wednesday, I recited the poem "IF" by Rudyard Kipling in English class. This was the term project and I think I did pretty good. The one big thing that I have left in English is book points. I finished Uncle Tungsten and have to give an oral report to the teacher after school some time this week.

Thoughts on Uncle Tungsten:
Uncle Tungsten is a very very scientific book. I'd recommend researching the things he talks about in the book as you read it (if you read it) so you can understand what he is talking about. I remember some of the stuff he was talking about from eighth grade science but I had to stop and think about it. There is a lot to learn from this book though too. Oliver Sacks (the author(this book is an autobiography)) explores the history and development of chemistry and physics and explains it how he saw it. I might reread this book later because of all the things it teaches. It was an okay read for me. It was exactly "thrilling" but a more "if you're interested" book.