Moving

Why moving can seem sad, but in reality it’s not

Cleaning out the past, packing up the present, and preparing for a much better future  - unknown

       During quarantine, it seems like nothing is possible. You have to sit at home all day and you never have anything to do. Well that is a bit different for my family. We are moving to Concord in two weeks, and I’m pretty excited.

An Experience With A Friend

Why having different personalities doesn’t mean you can’t have fun

When you choose your friends, don’t be short changed by choosing personality over character - W. Somerset Maugham

       Experiences with friends are usually really fun. I have had many great experiences with friends throughout my lifetime. I used to have a house in Cape Cod, and we had a boat that we would ride to Martha’s Vineyard almost every weekend. I had just got back from a week of sleep away camp, and my friend Sean was coming up to the Cape, and we were planning to ride up to a beach in Martha’s Vineyard. I was really exited for Sean to experience what I have experienced for most of my time in Cape Cod.

Reading Log

Why you should take advantage of quarantine

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies . . . The man who never reads lives only one.” – George R.R. Martin

       I have recently finished a book called “One of us is lying” by Karen M. McManus. It is about a kid named Simon in high school who has an allergic reaction to peanut oil lathered on the inside of his water cup, and the four other kids in the room are held accountable for Simon’s murder. The book has multiple other main factors in the storyline, but that doesn’t matter much.

Narrative Story

Why trying new things can have a great impact on you

Movies will make you famous; Television will make you rich; But theatre will make you good - Terrence Mann

       I have always had a lot of fun acting in theater (mostly at Fenn) because you get to spend time with your friends and you get to have a great time standing up on stage and acting. What I didn’t know about plays is that musicals are ten times different than your average theater performance.

The Power of Music

How music make you feel better in life

 “Without music, life would be a mistake” ― Friedrich Nietzsche

       Music makes you feel much better. I listen to music a lot in my free time, and I always notice how much better I feel after listening to a song I love. When I got a bad grade on my final exam for math, I felt really confused and sad. I thought I had done very well, but I was wrong. When I got home that day, I put on my headphones and listened to some pop music.

Journal Entry #3

It is Monday, April 6th, at 8:56 pm. Today was the start of the first full week of online school. Today was just like Thursday and Friday, except we had less zoom classes. It turns out for that some class periods, we will not be having zoom classes and we will have free time to either do our work or something else. I think that is a very helpful period of time to have during the day, and it helps me do my homework faster.

       I have a lot more homework this week, and I had a lot today. I had to make a video about why the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Boston is an important site and why more people should visit it. I am also starting a project in science class about ecology. basically each student picks a vocab word that is related to ecology and makes a 1 to 2 minute video explaining what it is and how it works. I’m making my video on biotic Vs. abiotic factors in an ecosystem, and explaining facts about them. I’ve also been working on this assignment sheet since Friday, and I’ve never been a big fan of assignment sheets. Writing these daily journal entries is probably my favorite part of the whole entire assignment sheet. I also have a math assignment which is on multiplying and dividing Polynomial fractions. The homework for that is super long, and there’s no way I’m gonna get it done tonight. Luckily the homework isn’t due until Wednesday, so I have a lot more time to complete it. Lastly for homework, I had some Latin. This is our first time using the third unit book in the Cambridge Latin course. We are learning about perfect passive participle‘s. The homework was to just watch a video on perfect passive participle‘s and answer some questions that are provided in the textbook.

       I am actually really enjoying all of this free time that we usually don’t get on a normal school day. Normally on a school day, we get out of school at 5 o’clock and we end up finishing our homework really late (yes I know I’m writing this at 9:00 pm). With this online school program, and our class is only being 30 minutes long, I have a lot more free time to do my homework and exercise, but mainly I just have a lot of more free time to do whatever I want.

       Speaking of exercise, the main exercise I’ve been doing for the past four days has been running. I’m not the best long distance runner, usually I can run about 1.5 miles before I have to take a break. I’m pretty sure the reason I can only run 1.5 miles it’s because I usually try to run super fast and I end up getting exhausted by the end of the run. I am going to take this time to work on pacing myself while running.

       All of this free time usually isn’t provided in a normal school year with all the work you have to do it all the time taken up, but doing online school is a much more relaxing alternative for school. 

Journal Entry #2

It is Saturday, April 4th, at 9:42 pm. Today was a really long and boring day, the majority of it just being me playing video games on my computer. Since it’s the weekend, I feel like I’m back in the three week period where I did nothing all day except eat, sleep, and watch TV. Except this time I have to do homework. Ugh.

       There’s actually a lot more homework than I expected to be on the first week of online school. The first two days of Zoom classes went better than I thought they would. The whole entire class was able to pay attention throughout the time the class was in session. The breaks in between the classes were really convenient, Because I would usually spend that time either doing my math homework or just laying in my bed. It is also nice how the day ends at 12:30 PM on Wednesdays and Fridays, and 1:15 PM on Mondays and Thursdays, because it gives you a lot of time to do all of your homework rather than a normal school day where we don’t have as much time to do homework and we usually stay up later than normal, and end up not getting enough sleep.

       I ate an Eggo waffle with Nutella on it for breakfast, and I went back into my room to play some video games on the computer. For my exercise, I ran a mile and a half with my dog.

       My sisters have been binge watching a show on Netflix called Nailed It. It’s basically a show or three contestants try to mimic a cake baked by a professional chef. My mom and my sisters thought it would be a good idea to host our own “Nailed it” show. I thought the idea of a family bake-off would be kind of cool, but I definitely was not as interested in this as both of my sisters work. They got to work right away on their cakes. They made these massive cakes with a ton of decorations and color, as I researched a “s’mores dip” recipe. A s’mores dip is Basically chocolate and marshmallows cooked in a pan, and you take a gram cracker and dip it in. Since my dish only took about 10 minutes to make, I made it right before our parents judged all of the cakes. By the time my parents started coming around and examining our cakes and dishes, I noticed for the first time how creative and skilled my sisters are in baking and decorating. Even though my sisters both won creativeness and look, mine won taste, because cmon, who can’t resist dipping a graham cracker in marshmallows and chocolate?

       After the bake off, I went into my room to start a book on my kindle that I’ve been eagerly awaiting to read. It has a really hooking start, and I am looking forward to continuing it (it’s called “One of us is lying).

       I’m expecting more challenges following the next week regarding online school, but this is a time in society where everyone is feeling scared and worried about catching a virus. So I am going to be persistent and try to work my hardest in these last few months of school.

Journal Entry #1

It is Thursday, April 2nd, at 7:48 PM, and today was not the easiest start. The whole online schooling idea got me a bit worried from the start. I didn’t think it would go well because something usually goes wrong with technology and everything gets messed up, or someone gets in trouble only for the teacher to realize that he can’t do much to punish the student for his troubles. At the beginning of spring break, I was pretty sure myself that we would be going back to school right when spring break ended, and boy was I wrong. Since I knew we were not going back to school for a couple weeks, I figured we would not need to do online school, and we would get back to school during early April. Then my mom told me that Fenn was not going to go back to school until May 4, and online school was required.

       The teachers did talk about online school and what we would do in the rare chance that we don’t go back to school, but I didn’t pay attention much, because I figured it wasn’t something to worry about. Now that online school has started, it feels so much different from regular school. You can still see your other classmates and chat with them, but you’re not with them in person and it feels kind of weird. Sometimes it doesn’t feel that much different from regular school, but when you think about it and noticed that usually you’re sitting next to all your classmates in real life rather than looking at them through a virtual screen, it feels kind of different and off.

       As the day started, I was super tired because I got no sleep the night before. What I didn’t know about the virtual classes is that they were only 30 minutes. This was somewhat of a relief, but I knew it was still going to be a challenge. I had Advisory at 9:00 AM, and then I had math class from 9:30 AM to 10 AM. All we did in math class was discussed how and what we were going to do during this time where we have to do schooling through a screen. From 10:00 AM to 10:30 AM, We had a break. We were supposed to watch a video for ASM, but everybody in my math class wanted to do the homework together. I like how there’s a little break after first period, Because math is usually my first period, and my math homework is usually the homework that I want to get over with most. I had my other classes throughout the day until 12:30 PM, and they were all mostly like math, just talking about how we were going to get taught and learn throughout the remainder of this online schooling. What I was never told about though, was that we had a meeting for arts at 12:45. I missed that meeting and I had to email my art teacher. I didn’t get started with my homework until about 7:00 PM, Because this was the first day of school work after three weeks, and I was really worn out and tired.

       Today was definitely a bit of a challenge, but I don’t think it’s going to be anything compared to what is to come. But I think I’m ready.