Thanksgiving Week

First of all, on Friday afternoon, I get to hang out with my friends. After school, we are going to do a myriad of activities, including playing miniature golf! After that, we are going to go out to eat, and go to the movies. We are going to see Catching Fire!!!! This is something that I have been looking forward to since I saw The Hunger Games. They are going to spend the night at my house after that, and the next morning (obviously we will sleep in first, though), we are going shopping! Later that weekend, my family and I are going to our camp for Thanksgiving. I get to go fishing, ride four-wheelers, hike, and hunt. I can't wait for this stress-free week-long vacation, so I will be refreshed and ready to go back to school next Monday!

Blog Prompt

Imagine yourself in a scene from one of your favorite books. Rewrite that scene as if you were the character, with your thoughts streaming throughout the scene. Also, feel free to change any choices made by the original character; remember, this is from your point of view, so what would you do in that situation?

A scene from Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins:
(in the end, where Katniss wakes up in the hovercraft, oblivious to the chaos throughout Panem)

I wake up, finally free from the dreadful restraints. I am still weak, but I manage to prop myself up into a sitting position on my hospital bed. Peeta. Oh no... Peeta? Where is he? I stumble along in the hovercraft looking for someone willing to give me information as to what is going on and where Peeta is. I overhear Haymitch talking to Finnick, and anger and confusion immediately courses through my veins. I burst through the doors acting as a barrier between the others and me. "What is going on?" I ask Haymitch irritably.
 "Well, sweetheart. Had enough of knocking yourself out?" he says sarcastically. I glance over to Finnick, and I remember why I am here.
"Peeta?" I say weakly. Haymitch's hard glare finally weakens as he looks down at the floor.
Before he can say anything, Finnick interrupts, "The Capitol hovercraft got to him before us." All of a sudden, too many images to count flash through my head, of the terrible things that President Snow is having done to Peeta to try to extract information out of him that he doesn't even know. I can feel my throat closing up, and storm off to my bed to grieve in private.

Reading Log:
The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins:
11/16/13 - 30 min.

Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins:
11/17/13 - 180 min.
11/18/13 - 60 min.

Total: 270 min.

City Meet

So, as some of you know, last weekend the swim team had their City Meet. Since this is my first year on the team, I had never been to one before, and overall it was a great experience. I swam the 100 yard breaststroke, and I dropped 7 seconds from my last time! This new time, 1 min. and 26.4 seconds, put me as the top 16th 100 yard breaststroke swimmer in all of Baton Rouge! I was thrilled that I was going to get to swim in the Championships the next day, but I was even more excited about coming so close to my year's goal (which, when I set it, I didn't realize how insane it was, because I had to drop like thirty seconds from my original time). My goal was to qualify for the State Meet, and in order to do that I would have to swim the 100 yards of breaststroke in 1 min. and 25.96 seconds, which is only .44 seconds faster than my previous time. So, on the day of the Championships, I swam my hardest and I realized that the less than 1/2 a second was not going to be easy to lose, especially being sore from the meet the day before. I did not qualify, but I did learn some valuable lessons. (Sorry if this seems like a mom lecturing you about good things coming from not-so-great events, but it is true.) Anyway, I learned that not succeeding makes the times that you do succeed so much better. With a little more training, I am sure that I will qualify next year, and I think that I will appreciate that success much more, having not achieved that goal so easily.

LOTF Class Activity Reflection

During our "on a deserted island" simulation activity, the first issues discussed were the basics for survival, including food, water, and shelter. In reality, I think that there would eventually, if not immediately, have been multiple students, including myself, who would not act as level-headed as was shown during the activity. Obviously there would be no dry-erase board or paper to design a plan, and I am sure some of us would be hysterical at this point already. In class, all of us were calmly designing individual plans, then discussing them with the others to decide which parts of what plans would be most effective for survival. Even during our class simulation, though, we had disagreements as to who should be the "leader", and which issue should we concern ourselves with first. On an actual deserted island, the reality of being there forever would create such a high amount of tension that it would feel like a suspended weight above your head, ready to flatten you at any moment. This would obviously cause most, if not all of us, to lose our sense of humanity and become savage-like, rendering all possibilities of escape hopeless.

Reading Log:

Lord of the Flies, William Golding:
11/09/13 - 30 min.
11/10/13 - 30 min.

Allegiant, Veronica Roth:
11/04/13 - 30 min.
11/05/13 - 30 min.

Total: 120 min.

Reading Log 11/04/13

Allegiant, Veronica Roth

10/30/13 - 30 min.
10/31/13 - 20 min.
11/01/13 - 45 min.
11/02/13 - 30 min.
11/03/13 - 20 min.

Total: 145 min.