Post #26 (for 05/13/11)

i cant believe we're finally done with senior yeaaar! although we still have endersession left it still feels good to be done with academic classes. i feel like i finished each of my classes with a good end. i'm a little excited for endersession just because i feel like it'll be fun to volunteer with my classmates. the camping trip was also a lot of fun even if it was supeeeeer hot. i'm excited for what is to come :)

Post #25 (For 05/06/11)

The past few weeks have been super hectic and busy for me so unfortunately I lagged it on my past blog posts :( However, the past two weeks have been pretty interesting. Last Tuesday I took my placement exam at Mesa which is my backup school in case financial aid doesn't help me out very much, and got placed into English honors! Then on Thursday and Friday I visited UC Santa Cruz and University of San Francisco. I thought San Francisco was super cool, I think it would be cool to live there, but I liked UC Santa Cruz better than USF and decided to accept UC Santa Cruz on May 1st and see how much financial aid they will provide for me. I also worked on the inquiry project all weekend and did a LOT of work and was also able to turn in my honors article essay on Monday night. My partner and I are pretty much done with the inquiry project and are just putting our final touches on our presentation speech in order to prepare for the presentations. I'm excited for the school year to be over! And I really hope we win the Commencement Challenge.

Oh yeah, and on Tuesday I went to Sacramento for a day to participate in Teen Capitol Day. It was fun :) 

Post #21 (For 03/18/11)

This week we wrote our second essay for the Spring Inquiry project. I'll admit -- I definitely procrastinated reading my 679 page book, the Prince of Tides, but luckily I was able to concentrate on finishing it and I am proud to say I finished it in 5 days! Haha. I think that it was difficult for me to read this book just because the beginning was very, very slow and I didn't feel like reading a lot of the very detailed descriptions that Pat Conroy includes in his writing. I ultimately did end up skimming through several of the long paragraphs which were just basically describing how something looked or felt, and focused more on finding the answer to my essential question: What are the causes and effects of depression on a human being?

I definitely liked this book more than the first book I read, The Bell Jar, because it included a lot more information that helped me write a good essay about my essential question. The Prince of Tides was definitely a heartbreaking story and although it is difficult to get through, I do recommend it to other people.

Post #20 (For 03/11/2011)

This week was a short week for us because we had no school on Wednesday and then we had a half day on Wednesday for SLCs. We finished Twelfth Night and I have to say I actually really liked this story because of all of the twists it had in the plot and the ending was a happy one for most characters. Although I do have to say, it seemed a little unrealistic that Olivia and Sebastian ended up "falling in love" and getting married because they barely knew each other. I honestly think that if this were to happen in real life they wouldn't last at all, it seems more like Olivia was in love with Sebastian's LOOKS but in love with Viola's PERSONALITY, which is kind of really really creepy! I also liked watching the movie version of Twelfth Night. Personally, I really like Helena Botham Carter as an actress and I think she played out Olivia really well.

It was also a lot of fun to watch "She's the Man" in class because I think that movie is really hilarious and it was fun to see how the movie was related to Twelfth Night. I'd seen this movie before but I think I enjoyed it even more because I know the original story now and because I was able to laugh along to it with my classmates.

Post #19 (For 03/04/2011)

This week we continued to read Twelfth Night. I expected the story to be pretty interesting because of the movie She's the Man, and so far I think it's really interesting. I find it funny how the love triangle in this story is so complicated, because I think it would be pretty funny if this happened in real life. I also think it's funny how gullible each character in this story is, and it seems like the smartest person in the story is the fool, which is pretty ironic.

I've been struggling with my book "A Prince of Tides," especially because the author includes so many details and I feel like sometimes they are excessive. The book is over 600 pages so I hope I really can get more into my book SOON.

Post #15 (For 02/04/11)

I definitely feel like I was very productive this week! I was able to complete most of the things on the checklist and even finish some of the things that I wasn't able to finish last week because of my absences. My partner and I are a little behind on finding articles and media relating to our topic but I'm pretty sure that we will be caught up by next week. We also were able to contact several psychologists and a couple of them responded as well. I'm excited to talk to them mostly because I'm also interested in someday becoming a teen psychologist. I've been reading more of the Bell Jar and while some parts of it are kinda depressing, I've found that in other parts it's easy to relate to the main character and several of the things she says. I hope the book keeps getting interesting.

Post #14 (For 1/28/11)

This week I was sick :( so I didn't go to school Wednesday and Thursday and I feel like I had a very looooong weekend, which was nice but then again I feel like I have to catch up on a lot this week. I'm not really sure about what went on too much during English class, but basically I just worked on completing the items on the pink checklist. I'm a little worried because my partner and I don't really know who to contact for our topic on depression. We were thinking about talking to psychologists but we don't really know where to start. We also started our Diigo group. Hopefully this week I feel a lot more productive since I'm not that sick anymore.

Post #13 (For 01/21/11)

This week we finished up reading Beowulf and also answered the last questions on it. I thought Beowulf was pretty dramatic and interesting, but not as interesting as I thought it would be. I also finally finalized my plan for the inquiry project, and my partners are now Diana and Deborah. Our focus is on books about depression, specifically we are looking for the physical and emotional effects of depression on a human body. We are reading the books, "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath, "The Prince of Tides" by Pat Conroy, and "Ordinary People" by Judith Guest. I have a feeling that these books are going to be really depressing but hopefully they don't get to us too badly. I'm excited to read these books because this semester we put more effort into finding books that were appropriate for honors but that we actually wanted to read.

Post #12 (For 01/14/11)

This week we read the epic "Beowulf." I'd heard about Beowulf before, to be honest I'd heard of Beowulf because Beyonce is known as Beowulf as well... :D We looked at the book and saw how Old English was VERY different from modern English, and I was very surprised that people actually spoke and understood that kind of English before. Beowulf was interesting in some ways, like the parts where they're in battle. I'm curious to see what Grendel looks like, but I've heard the movie isn't very good.

Aside from reading Beowulf, this week I started thinking more about the Inquiry Project for this Spring semester. I'm partners with Diana again, and right now it's most likely that we are going to read books about people suffering from depression, or to read books about teen love. Our options right now are The Bell Jar and the Prince of Tides.

Post #11 (For 01/07/11)

This week was the first week after winter break and we started our new classes. I have to say that I really enjoy my new classes a lot more, and I feel like my schedule is a lot more laid back, since I get the two hour Gov't class in the morning as well as Math. After lunch, it's painting (which is VERY laid-back) and English, which is my favorite subject. This week has already had a lot of reading involved, and I'm a little bit more excited about this semester's inquiry project because I am hoping to put more effort into finding really interesting books. I hope I keep up my good work ethic throughout the school year, because I am definitely trying not to procrastinate anymore. This week we have studied language during English class, specifically the kind of Englishes we speak. I think that I speak three kinds of Englishes -- the professional kind (that it used at work and sometimes at school), the kind I speak with my family (which is kind of like "broken" english & "spanglish") and the kind I speak with my friends. It was really cool to think about this because I never really thought about it before. I'm interested to see where we are going with all of these readings about languages.