Category Archives: Sixth

My First Poem Of The Year!

Ice cream

Creamy, Sweet

Licking, melting, dripping

Between my fingers

Yum

Recently in humanities we have been learning about poetry. So far we have learned about Haiku and Cinquain poems. We had some time to write during class and I wrote this poem. It is about ice cream. This was my first poem of the year so I chose an easier topic or something not super duper meaningful. I like this poem because it explains my experience with ice cream. If I could re write my poem I would probably try to make it about a harder or more meaningful topic. It was challenging for me to follow the rules of Cinquain. I broke a rule when I said “between my fingers” because the third line is supposed to have a four or five word phrase, but my poem has a three word phrase. It was easy for me to think of adjectives to describe ice cream because there are so many words that I could’ve used. I picked creamy and sweet because I think those words sums up what I think about ice cream the most.

Urinary System!

In Science, we were all assigned groups. Each group had to study a body system. Margaret, Io and I all did the Urinary system. We learned about structure meets function. Transitional epithelium is a type of tissue consisting of multiple layers of epithelial cells which can contract and expand. It is so named because of this function in the transition of degree of distension. This tissue structure type is found in urothelium, including that of the urinary bladder, the ureters, and the superior urethra and gland ducts of the prostate. When the bladder is empty, it looks like an inverted pyramid but when it’s full, it’s shaped like an oval. In the base of the bladder, there’s a structure called a trigone, which is the triangular area made up of the openings from the ureters and the opening into the urethra.

My First Time Story

This is a piece I wrote about snowboarding for the first time. Julia said that we could add a little bit of fiction so I did. I actually got lost, but I didn’t get really hurt when I fell. I don’t love this piece, but I don’t hate it. I like that I explained how I was feeling a lot. I don’t like that it has two conflicts. I would improve it by taking out the part where I fall and get really hurt because that didn’t happen in the first place. I thought that it would make my piece better, but it made it worse. 

I clipped into the snowboard and I was off, or at least I thought I was off. I actually fell on my face. I felt my uncle’s hand on my back. I looked up at him. He was wearing green snow pants and a red jacket. “Are you okay?” He asked me. “Yeah I’m fine.” I replied. My uncle motioned for me to grab his pole, so I did. He hoisted me back up to my feet and pulled me over to the magic carpet that brings people back up to the top of the bunny hill. My cousin didn’t fall on her face so she kept boarding all the way to the green hill with my aunt. When I got back to the top of the hill, I felt my legs start to shake. I knew that when I fell I didn’t get hurt, but I also knew that I could. I guess my uncle saw it on my face because he asked me what was wrong. “I’m fine, I’m totally fine” I said. “Ready to try again?” He asked in a soothing voice. “Yes” I answered.

My uncle gave me a push to get me going. I tightened my legs to stop them from shaking. I put my arms out to the side to help me balance. I imagined myself being an amazing snowboarder. That was when I realized I was on the green hill. “I’m doing it!” I yelled to my uncle. The only problem was my uncle wasn’t there. I felt my body hit the snow. Where could he be? I thought to myself. I felt a tear drip down my pink cheek. I decided to ask somebody for help. I saw a group of kids from ski school coming down the mountain. I couldn’t stand up so I had to wave the instructor down. The instructor had long blonde hair, red snow pants, and a blue ski jacket that said Beaver Creek, Colorado. It took a while, but eventually she saw me waving and came over to help. “I can’t find my uncle.” I said while more tears dripped down my cheeks. “It’s Okay. I will take you to the bottom of the mountain with my ski group and then we can take it from there.” She said. That calmed me down. “I’m Katy by the way.” She said.

Katy helped me up and gave me a little push just like my uncle had before. I fell a couple times, but it was okay because Katy helped me up. About halfway down the hill, I saw a man with green snow pants and a red jacket. “Uncle Adam?!” I yelled. The man turned around to look at me. I felt myself fill up with relief when I saw that it was indeed my uncle. “There you are. I have been looking for you everywhere” he said when he saw me. I thanked Katy for her help and snowboarded over to my uncle. I guess neither of us wanted to discuss what had happened because we didn’t talk about it.

I felt the cold snow hit my back. My uncle gave me his pole and pulled me back up my feet. I couldn’t catch my balance so I held on to his pole. “Emma you need to let go of my pole. I am going to fall.” He said very seriously. I tried really hard to pull my hand away, but I couldn’t. I needed his pole to balance and I didn’t want to fall. BOOM! First my back then my head hit the hard snow. Then there was a lot of weight on my stomach. I couldn’t breathe. That was probably the scariest moment of my life. I remember thinking this is the end. It happened so fast that my brain didn’t have time to react. I figured out that I was ok when I felt the weight leave my stomach. I saw a big shadow come over me. “Emma, are you okay?” “Oh my gosh! Are you okay?” “Do you need me to take her to the bottom?” “Let me carry her” “Does she need help?” I heard a lot of words echo through my ears. I tried to stand  up, but I just fell down. I felt my body leave the snow. Someone must be carrying me I thought.

After a couple of minutes I was finally able to get some words out of my mouth. “I I I a a am am f fi fi fin fine.” I blurted out. I wondered who was carrying me. It can’t be my uncle, he doesn’t smell like tuna fish. Nothing was really hurting me, but the world was spinning. “I need help!” The person who was carrying me yelled. I stopped smelling tuna. My uncle’s familiar smell filled my lungs. I think he was carrying me over to the paramedics. I thought I was fine so I kicked and squirmed. He let me down. My feet hit the ground hard. I took a step. The world slowly stopped spinning. After a couple of minutes I could see clearly again. “I’m fine now,” I said to my uncle. “Good!” He replied. “I am really sorry about letting you fall,” he said after a few seconds of silence. “It’s okay. It was my fault.” I answered. “Let’s get you some hot chocolate.” He said in a soothing voice. “Yay!” I said excitingly.

 

 

“Who The Heck Are You?” So Far

We recently started a project called “Who The Heck Are You?”. In the project we are interviewing someone of our choice. After we interview them we have to basically write a piece about them. I chose to do my mom’s boyfriend, Noah because he is an actor. My top five choices of people to do were Noah, my best friend Ella, Lizbeth (from LREI), and Elaine (from LREI). I ending up choosing Noah because I thought that he would probably have to most interesting story.

We starting thinking about what makes a good interview question recently. Now I have a list of questions and I am ready for the interview. These are the questions:

  1. When and why did you move to L.A?
  2. How long did you live in L.A?
  3. Where did you live when you lived in L.A?
  4. Did you feel like you were in a dangerous area or did you feel more comfortable than ever?
  5. Who was your closest friend when you lived in L.A?
  6. What is your favorite memory from L.A?
  7. What was your favorite restaurant in L.A?
  8. Who did you live with in L.A?
  9. How old were you when you moved to L.A?
  10. When did you move to New York?
  11. When you lived in L.A was there someone in your life who was there for you?
  12. Were you an actor when you lived in L.A?
  13. Was it hard to make a living as an actor in L.A?
  14. When did you decide you wanted to act?
  15. What inspired you to act?
  16. If you weren’t an actor what did you do?
  17. Is there someone in Hollywood that you hate?
  18. Who is the worst person you have ever acted with?

We also had to think of a theme for the questions. I chose to focus mostly on when Noah lived in L.A because I have already heard some interesting stories about it and I want to know more. I also added some questions about Noah acting because I think that is very interesting too.

100 Balloons

This is an unfinished piece of creative writing. I worked on it last week and I am very proud of it. I am proud of it because I tried really hard to make it as descriptive as possible. I begun this piece a long time ago when Julia wrote a prompt on the board. I’m pretty sure that the prompt was someone hands you 100 balloons what happens? I started this a long time ago and I started to work on it again in my own time. 

 

It was a normal summer day. I was just walking down the dusty, grey sidewalk. I saw the familiar green and white street sign on the corner. Then I saw him. The man was dressed in a puffy, colorful tutu. He was holding a big bundle of green balloons. They looked like they could make someone float away. We were the only two people on the street. Me and him. Him and me. It was just us. I sped up my pace slightly, but not too much because I didn’t want him to notice. “Hey, you.” the man said. I sped up a little more, hoping he wouldn’t notice. “Hey, you.” he said again. I was trapped. I couldn’t speed up again because the man would just call me again.

 

I walked over as slowly as I could. I was shaking like an earthquake. When I got over to the man he did a small dance to an original song. It went “It’s free balloon day, free balloon day.” phew, he isn’t a scary man at all. “Um…I don’t really want balloons. Sorry.” The man gave me a long hard stare. Then out of nowhere he grabbed my hand. In that moment I had no idea what to do. I screamed as loud as I possibly could, but it was a humid Sunday morning and everybody was asleep. I tried as hard as could to break away from his strong grip. “Take these balloons or I’ll take you.” he whispered in a scary voice. I thought about my decision for a couple seconds, even though it was obvious what I was going to choose. I held my hand out and closed my eyes. I felt his cold fingers on my hand. I opened my eyes and grabbed the light green strings of the balloons.
He let go of my arm. I felt my blood flow back to my hand. Then something weird happened.

My Parzival Essay

This is my Parzival essay. We read a book called Parzival. It was about a knight named Parzival. I am really proud of my Parzival essay because it took a while to find all the information I needed, but after I found it all I put it all together and I am really proud of it. I learned that writing essays is a really repetitive process that takes a while, but after it’s done it’s really satisfying. A way I can continue to do my best work in the future is working really hard to find really good evidence.

 

One of many jobs parents have is to teach their child about life. Their job is to teach their child to be honest, but not rude. Their job is to teach their child about religion, if the family believes in one. In the the book Parzival by Katherine Paterson, the main character’s mom doesn’t teach the main character, Parzival anything. Parzival’s upbringing hindered him in life because he had to waste time learning things he could’ve already known, he could’ve gotten punished for not knowing about religion, and he was too honest to the point where he was rude.

Parzival’s upbringing clearly hindered him in life because he had to waste time learning things he could’ve already known. Parzival had to go learn from prince Gurnemanz because his mother didn’t teach him anything.  On page three the book reads “In the ancient days, when Arthur was king of Britain, there lived a boy who had never heard of the great son knights. The only home the boy had ever known was a cottage in the wilderness of Soltane, and the only parent he had ever known was his mother.” On page 32 it says “Prince Gurnemanz also taught him proper manners. He urged him to be humble and discreet among nobility and to be compassionate toward the poor and needy-to hold ladies in high esteem and to temper daring with mercy.” This proves that Parzival’s mom didn’t teach him anything. Since Parzival’s mom didn’t teach him anything, he had to go to Prince Gurnemanz to learn about chivalry. If his mom had taught him he could’ve been doing other things in the time he was learning from prince Gurnemanz. That is one of the reasons why Parzival’s upbringing hindered him.

Parzival’s upbringing hindered him in life because Parzival could’ve gotten punished for not knowing about religion. In Parzival’s time religion was one of the most important things in life. If you didn’t know about religion you could be punished. Parzival is really lucky that he didn’t get punished, but he definitely could’ve because his mom didn’t teach him. On page 8 the books says “‘Fool!’ they cried. ‘Do you want to be killed?’ But the boy was not offended. ‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘Are you the one called God?’” Parzival was almost killed because he thought a few knights were God. If his mom had taught him about religion that wouldn’t have happened. On page 97 the book reads “The old man greeted him in return, but with a rebuke. ‘I see, sir, that you are a knight. Why is it then that you do not observe this holy season? Why in God’s Holy Name, do you ride armed, when you should, indeed be walking barefoot?’” Parzival didn’t know enough about religion. The people he encountered were really nice to him about it, but if a lot of people found out he could get in trouble. Parzival’s upbringing definitely hindered him because of this.

Parzival not knowing anything hindered him in life because Parzival was honest to the point where he was rude. When Parzival went away from home he encountered many people. In the beginning of his journey, before he knew anything, he was very honest. Almost too honest. He was really rude to people. He even stole things. If Parzival’s mother taught him, he wouldn’t be rude. On pages 13 and 14 the book reads“‘And to take a ring from a good lady if the occasion arose.’ The duchess was so frightened she hardly knew how to reply. She begged the stranger to go away and leave her alone. But he took her ring and helped himself to the brooch he found on her gown. Then he began to complain of hunger.” On page 15 the book says “‘This is the knight I loved more than life itself,’ the poor maid said. ‘And now he is mortally wounded.’ ‘He looks mortally dead to me,’ said Parzival.” Parzival was so rude to those two ladies. He misunderstood what his mom told him because she didn’t explain what she was saying, she only told him what to say. Since his mom didn’t explain what she was saying, he stole a ring and a brooch from an innocent lady. Then there was a maid who was depressed because her husband had been really hurt, and Parzival said something really rude to her. If his mom had taught him, he wouldn’t have said something really rude. That is another reason why Parzival’s upbringing hindered him.

Parzival’s upbringing hindered him in life is because he had to waste time learning things he could’ve already known, he could’ve gotten punished for not knowing about religion, and he was too honest to the point where he was rude. If Parzival’s mother taught him about life when he was young, then Parzival wouldn’t have had to spend a lot of his life learning. Parzival also would’ve known not to be too honest. Also there would be no chance of Parzival getting in trouble or hurt for not knowing about religion. It is clear that Parzival’s upbringing hindered him in life.

 

Pop Quiz

Recently in math we have been taking pop quizzes. In the beginning I got a 2.5 but then I started getting 3’s. I get 3’s now. A 4 means that you got everything right and a 3 means that you got everything but one. The pop quizzes also started getting harder and I still get 3’s.
Screenshot 2015-11-06 at 10.24.45 AM

Beowulf Annotations

Recently I read the book Beowulf. While I read it I had to annotate. I had to circle and define vocabulary I didn’t know, underling important parts, and write a chapter summary for every chapter.

I think annotating is important because if you need to remember a part in a book for an assignment or something you can scan the book and find where you need to look quicker. Also you learn a lot of new words.

One thing I am proud of is my chapter summaries because I feel like they are really helpful, but also not ten pages long.

One thing I want to improve is underlining important parts because I feel like I didn’t underling everything that was important.