5 Things

The 5 definite things I can say I learned in Mr. Fielders class…

Learning to Write Papers

One thing I learned was how to write a GOOD paper, to include paragraphs, eliminate clutter, and use creative writing to better understand and make the paper more electrifying and unique to the reader and myself. Learning this definitely helped me throughout the year with other assignments and blogs.

Learning to Use Grammar

Grammar was probably one of the most confusing but helpful things I’ve learned this year, especially with the apostrophes and the Jones’, and all this time I thought I was fantastic at grammar, but learning this convinced me that I have a lot more to learn than there, they’re and their.

Learning to Margin Note

Something else that was helpful was, the margin notes, and though I dread (to fear greatly) hearing the name and thinking the thoughts of them, they really did help me not only better understand what I was reading, but to better store and organize the information in my brain, and will hopefully help me in the future.

Learning to Write Blogs

At first I thought blogs would be fun, but after awhile they turned into somewhat of a chore, but they did of course, expand my creative writing skills, and though sometimes I had to serious with them, like this for example, I did better understand myself, my style of writing and using to my advantage when writing other papers or essays.

Learning to Understand Myths

Though we hadn’t learned much about myths yet, I at least know what one is thanks to Gilbert Ryle. A myth doesn’t change facts, it twists around what isn’t a fact to intensify a story and make it more interesting. One thing I can definitely say about myths is that they aren’t fairytales, or “fairy stories”, according to Gilbert and his very confusing quote.

The Rwandan Debate.

On November 19th we had a debate about the Rwandan Genocide. We each got a group that represented different people involved in the genocide. My group was the U.N. and I was surprised that we didn’t get attacked as much as we did, I was grateful Belgium was attacked the most out of all of us.

What we did in the Rwandan genocide as part of the United Nations was really nothing at all! We sent troops in Rwanda and after 10 soldiers got killed we fled the country to be safe from the Interhamwe and Paul Kagme. It was hard to defend ourselves but after a little bit of understanding from different parts of the debate it just sort of, clicked. WE tried to point the finger at the Interhamwe for killing the 10 soldiers, and Paul Kagme for “brainwashing” the Interhamwe but hey shot us back with some pretty convincing evidence that the killing were someone else’s fault, and of course no one pointed the finger at the Red Cross because they didn’t even do anything wrong in the first place. They could have stayed quiet and no one would have ever noticed or cared.

Belgium was accused so much and I didn’t even know what part they took on the Rwandan Genocide because I completely forgot to figure out what they did when they were there… if they were there at all! I guess they did something wrong though with I sort of figured out in the end. When Romeo Delair spoke nothing he had to say even made any sense or connected to the Rwandan Genocide debate what so ever. I think I learned more from the debate then I did learning any other way, the that was probably the point… wasn’t it?

The American Scholar

Emerson’s argument in "The American Scholar" still holds true today.


Emerson’s argument is, in the past people learned a variety of skills but now they focus on one specific job and define themselves by whatever job they have. People today only do one thing and only learn the skills associated with this thing. “Man is not a farmer, or a professor, or an engineer, but he is all.” Which means we shouldn’t be putting ourselves into a situation where we only learn one thing or have one job, but we should branch out and learn other skills. People don’t need to do other things, but have lost hope in learning other skills by doing so.

People are labeling themselves and other people with their job. For example if someone was a doctor, you would probably think they were extremely smart, and if someone worked at Wal-Mart you would probably think that they are uneducated. If we think of people by their skills and ideas instead of their job we’ll be able to figure out who they really are, and we can define them as smart or uneducated.

Halloween!

Everyone allways gets excited over Halloween, it's one of my least favorite holidays though. Haloween scares me. I get scared at almost everything, and i hate being scared, and when Haloween comes around everything just gets worse. Haloween also breaks a lot of rules that we follow every single day. One of them is to not take candy from strangers, instead of taking candy from one stranger, we take candy from a lot of strangers. Sometimes you don't even get candy, i get pennys a lot of the time. Something else that is weird about Halloween is when parents bring up a baby stroller to the door, and they only have a one year old kid. Can a baby really eat all that hard candy? That would just be silly. The adult always eats the kids candy, and that is taking advantage. I mean theres that part in your life were you have to stop trick or treating weather you want to or not.

Something i like to do on Halloween is watch "The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown". It's something you just have to do on Haloween, it's a classic. The other good thing about Halloween is candy. That's about it, dressing up is okay too.

Things you have to do on Haloween:
1. Say "Trick or treat". It's a must.
2. Do not use a pillow case.
3. If you have a kid less then 2 years old, don't take him trick or treating.
4. Watch The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown
5. Don't give out pennys. That's just silly.

Insomnia, Procrastination, and Yogurt.

Today is a yet another day filled with no accomplishments. It wasn't productive what so ever, besides this blog post of course. It's becoming a trend and that isn't good. I say that because I feel like I should always be doing something productive, even if it's nothing important. Coloring in a coloring book is productive and isn't important. Scratch that, point is, I need to stop procrastinating things and be more productive. There, now saying it makes me feel better and maybe I'll actually do it. Just this morning during the M.E.A.P., I almost fell asleep trying to answer the pointless social studies questions of doom. How was I supposed to know how French started in Canada? Most of what I learned last year s about the civil war. Why couldn’t they ask me questions about that? Why do we have to take a test anyway? They don’t bother telling you these things in school, all the teachers say it’s mandatory, that’s about it.


Well I suppose it’s my fault I’m tired at school. Usually I have yogurt in the morning on the bus, which of course, I forgot this morning. It’s the only thing that keeps me awake in the morning, no matter how long I sleep, which I about 2 hours every night, and on top of all that, I have insomnia. I usually get to bed at twelve, and I don’t fall asleep until about three, two if I’m lucky. I told my mom I have insomnia and that I should see a doctor, but I don’t think she believes me. And on top of ALL that, today I woke up at about 6:40 which is when the bus gets here. I scrambled like eggs around the house for five minutes to get ready, do all of my chores, make my lunch, and find some yogurt for the bus, which I left in the car anyway.

Things to note:

First, finish homework before anything else. Second, convince my mom I have insomnia. Third, get an alarm clock. And MOST importantly, DON’T EVER forget the yogurt.

Polar Pandemic!

“Stop global warming!” I’m sure you hear this a lot, but do you actually know what global warming is? Global warming is an increase in the average temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere. Global warming wraps around the world like a blanket, especially the arctic regions like Antarctica where animals like polar bears and seals are struggling to survive. Though polar bears aren’t critically endangered they’re still vulnerable to high risk of extinction if we don’t take action to try and protect animals like polar bears, and the environment. Global warming also increases chances of flooding droughts and other naturally occurring storms. Hurricanes could also increase and could also be more damaging when they do.

I got concerned about global warming when I was in 7th grade and since then I’ve tried to make a difference by recycling more and buying environmentally safe products. I believe that we can all make a difference if we just give it a shot. We just need to take the time to put in our fair share. Throw away some litter found on the street, or recycle some clean empty pop cans, and take a cold shower once in awhile. If we all pitched in, we can make a difference and save those polar bears from extinction. We could even protect the world from deadly hurricanes, floods and droughts. Save the environment, save the world! To learn more about global warming click here. To see what you can do to help the enviornment click here.

Lunch-OUT

I left the unfamiliar surroundings of German class as the hallway practically exploded with people. Everyone knocking into each other, like bumper cars at the fair, except it lacks the smell of elephant ears and pizza. I was on my way to lunch, and I only knew one person in it. The rest were in the lunch after mine. I couldn’t spot her in the hallway as I was edging towards my locker; it was like spotting out a rabbit in the snow. Once I got to my locker about half of the hall was empty and I was hoping I could find a spot at a table when I saw my friend, she poked me and said hi as she sped down the hallway, I could barely keep up and before I knew it I lost track of her. I always wondered how she could walk that fast, anyways, I wandered down the hallways and finally found the lunch rooms, except they were both completely full, there were already people eating in the hallway.

I desperately looked for my friend but I couldn’t see her. I must of walked in and out of each lunch room about 20 times so I gave up, slid on the floor in the hallway, and munched on my food, hoping that I would see someone I knew, or at least be fast enough to catch up next time. I never even thought you could even eat in the hallways, so it was a new experience I guess. It was a slow lunch but it was sped up from my thoughts on how the rest of the day would go. People started leaving the lunch rooms and bunching up with their friends, filling the hall with conversation and laughter as they waited for the teacher to let them pass. I had nothing to do but get up and wait with them.

They let us thru and I made my way to 4th hour, slowly, but surely. I walked in the room just in time for the bell to ring, the loud shaking of metal against my ears like two symbols playing over and over again. My teacher had just announced that our schedules were messed up and we were now having the next lunch. My smile must have been pretty big considering the look I got from the person next to me, but I didn’t care because I had so many friends in that lunch that I was bound to find someone I knew in it. When I heard that, all my lunch troubles drowned away. Next goal, drown my academic troubles away.