Kimball Khetani

Wade English 9

November 25, 2019

How Fight vs. Flight Has Affected My Life

        There was one time when I was with my friends in the gym lobby hanging out. We were all having a fun time making jokes and laughing, and there was this one joke that was directed towards me. Everyone laughed and thought it was funny but it kind of hurt my feelings. I knew that the person intended the joke as something to be funny not to insult me but I took it the other way. So I roasted him back. When I did this, I knew that I had made the wrong decision. After I made the joke he kept making more jokes about me and I was hurt even more. When everything was over I thought about how I had fought back and maybe I should’ve just laid back and accepted the joke because I knew he didn’t mean any harm. This was kind of like the time in the Odyssey when Odysseus fights Scylla instead of fleeing. Now when I am in these kinds of situations, I know just to take it in and probably know that they mean it as a joke.

Kimball Khetani

November 5, 2019

English 9 Wade

My Fatal Flaw

Not Thinking Before I Act

        My fatal flaw in life is definitely not thinking before I act. This has been a huge problem for me starting in middle school and I thought this was a really good example to talk about with this prompt. I have made a lot of bad decisions in my life. There were a couple of big ones but mostly small ones. I never really think about what I am doing. If every time, I stopped and thought about what I was doing, I would probably realize that I would get in trouble and the risk is greater than the reward. The reward, that was the major reason that I did everything I did. It wasn’t like my friends making a bet that I wouldn’t do it, it wasn’t them saying “I will give you a dollar if you do this.” It was attention. I always wanted more and more attention. Every time I did something that made my friends laugh, I felt really good. When I got so much attention, I had a hard time stopping and I couldn’t quit doing what satisfies me most. And then that one thing happened. In the eighth grade, I did the most stupid thing in the world and I had never gotten in more trouble. That is the decision I regret the most. That is when I realized I had to stop. I had to stop being stupid, not thinking before I act. I tried and still try to think about what I am doing before I do it and sometimes it's a comfortable environment so I still do a minor thing. But since that one incident, I think I really have turned things around.

Kimball Khetani

Ms. Wade

English 9

October 20, 2019

Connecting Adam Aronovitz’s Activity to the Odyssey

     Life begins at the end of you comfort zone

- Unknown

    When I walked into the library and saw paper, scissors and tissue paper, I thought that the activity was going to be a little childish. When we got started I was confused with the directions because he gave us a totally random country, and we had to make resources out of the material we had and try to give it to the other country. The two countries were Minia and Maro.

    As Maro, our country got to work and made some schools and houses with the paper. We went over to the other country to try to give it to them the schools and houses but they would not accept them. We tried making some more things to bring them, but they still said no. We finally gave up and came to the conclusion that Minia was very arrogant because they didn’t think that we could make what they want. At the end of the activity we all came together to talk about what went well and what went bad. And I don’t think that anyone said anything that went well. The main thing that everyone from Minia said was bad was that we were trying to give them stuff that they didn’t want and maybe if we had let them explain what they needed then it could've gone better and everyone would be happy. 

    During the activity I also noticed that Maro had virtue. We were always trying to give Minia what we thought they wanted. We found all sorts of things to make out the origami and tissue paper. We made money, houses, schools, transportation, water and fields. Maro attempted to give all of those items away but we never considered asking what they might have wanted. 

    Adam showed a lot of metis coming up with this activity. It was interesting how he kind of set us up to fail and disagree with each other. When we were not succeeding in what we wanted to do, we didn’t realize what we should’ve been doing better. I found it cool that when we all came together to talk about how the Minia and Maro could’ve taken a different approach in which we all agreed with and found the reasoning to our failure. 

    Overall, this activity was really cool. I really liked the activity and talking about it at the end. Adam did a great job explaining and executing the activity.

Enjoying The Ninth Grade

Making The Ninth Grade More Enjoyable

Enjoyment is an incredible energizer to the human spirt

- John C. Maxwell

    Excitement is one of the many things that boys are looking for at this age. As fourteen year old boys we need to be moving around and we can’t be just going to class everyday. We are all worried about applying for schools and writing essays, taking the ssats, having conversations with our parents, and interviewing. We are so stressed out that we need to have the time and ability to relax and chill.

    I think that we should be able to have more senior time at the Boonisars house. After a long day of hard work and sitting in class for a long time, we should be able to have fun, hang out and do whatever we want. I think that on Fridays after lunch we should have senior time instead of study hall. At the end of the week I want to just be excited for the weekend. We should have the senior tie on Fridays from two until three that way everyone is calmed down and they know that after lunch they can relax, have fun, hang out with their friends, go to sports, and then have a great weekend.

    I also think that we should meet with our committees more often. Meeting with committees is a fun time to hang out and talk about how you can accomplish your committee goals for the year. Talking with your committee group is a great way to develop your teamwork skills and expand your thinking skills by coming up with new ideas.

    Another thing that would be great is if in the schedule, we had more study halls. In the seven day rotation I only have one study hall during the day. Last year I had two and we were in eighth grade. This year in ninth grade we have lots more homework but less study hall time. I think that Fenn should change that.

Fenn is a great school, community, and place to be during the day. But there are some changes that could be made. Having more senior time, more study halls during the day, and meeting with the committees more often would make the ninth graders life some much more manageable considering the amount of work we have to do with all the secondary school stuff and even just homework. Overall, the ninth grade is a time for us to be leaders, work hard to get into secondary schools, but we also need time to relax and live a little.

Kimball Khetani

May 31, 2019

Fitz English 8

End Of Year Reflection

How I Improved On Reading And Writing

Give a damn and figure it out

- FItz

    This year was full of writing and reading. As a class we read, Tom Sawyer, All Quiet On The Western Front, and we had a free read. Those books took up about three quarters of our year and while we were not reading, we were writing literary analysis’, narratives, and literary reflections. This year was full of work and reading but I learned a lot of classics, writing techniques, and why we annotate books that we read. I was very disruptive in class and I apologize for that but that didn’t stop me from learning. I kept moving forward and as the year progressed, I got better and better at writing, reading a focusing in class. 

    I think that I did a really good job learning these different writing and reading techniques. I really enjoyed using the writing rubrics because when I write just a really long paragraph, I run out of ideas. But when I have the rubric, I find myself writing different ideas into the different boxes and I end up with a very good essay or paragraph. At the beginning of the year I didn’t want to write. Our first assignment was to write five-hundred words and I was so worried. But as the year progressed I learned to be able to write more and I was beginning to become a better writer.

    In my past schools, for english all we would do is read but that wasn’t going to help me for college. This year, Fitz’s main goal was to get us prepared for high school. He taught us how to read for a long time without getting bored an writing a lot but with one topic. I am struggling writing this metacognition but if I wasn’t in Fitz’s class, I would be able to write two-hundred words. He taught us to be patient, and write, write, write. I am going to be well prepared for college and high school because I will know how to write like a pro and read like a expert.

    It was a very rough year for me in english class. I was a very misbehaved kid. Sam and I were very troublesome together but not as much when we were apart. I am like the gasoline and he is the flame and the other way around. When we are near each other, we usually get in trouble. We are really good friends though. I get in trouble a lot and I don’t usually mean to. Sometimes, I think I am doing something funny and I don’t even think about the consequences. I get in trouble and I realize how stupid it was to do it. I have been trying not to do stupid things lately and Fitz threatening to tell my parents has really helped even though I shouldn’t need to be threatened to stop. This year has been awesome and full of challenges and there were some good times. I learned about reading, writing, and improving my behavior.

Narrative Reflection Paragraph

How Smitty Changed My Life

The people in your life should be source of reducing stress, not causing it

- Unknown

You are going to have person in your life that affects you in a good or bad way. It might be a sentence that they say or the person that they are but they are going to do something that changes your life forever. My experience was in the fourth grade. I was going into the fourth grade at Fenn and I only new about five or ten kids. I had Smitty as and advisee. I was kinda scared but when I first walked in his room all of my stress was relieved. I felt stranded at first at the Fenn school but when I met Smitty, I felt like I was found. He was the best. I brought up funny conversations and made random jokes that everyone laughed at. He was the best teacher that Fenn could have hired for the fourth grade teacher. He welcomed kids to his classroom like he already knew them. I was at the Fenn school. And Smitty was always there to support me. He always was going out of his way to make sure that we had a great day. During flop, he would do trivia and the winner would get some of his coke that he got from Star. I couldn’t have gotten a better fit for me. During the year Smitty was so awesome. One day, I was messing around with a friend and my pizza money ripped in half. I was devastated. I went to Smitty for help and he taped the five dollar bill back together. At the end of the day, he wen with me to the pizza sales to make sure that they would accept the money and I would get my pizza. Thanks to Smitty, I was the happiest fourth-grader ever. Smitty was the best and I will always be able to go and have conversation with him whether its for fun, I am having trouble with something, or I just need to talk, Smitty will always be there for me.

Kimball Khetani

May 28, 2019

Fitz English 8

Literary Analysis Paragraph

How Determination Played A Huge Role In Through The Tunnel

Some people succeed because they are destined but most because they are determined

- Unknown

Every boy has determination but in the book Through The Tunnel, by Doris Lessing, the boy Jerry has lot of determination to find and swim through the tunnel. Jerry sees the older boys going through the tunnel and he has a lot of determination to do it himself. “Soon the biggest of the boys poised himself, shot down into the water, and did not come up. The others stood about, watching. Jerry, after waiting for the sleek brown head to appear, let out a yell of warning; they looked at him idly and turned their eyes back toward the water. After a long time, the boy came up on the other side of a big dark rock, letting the air out of his lungs in a sputtering gasp and a shout of triumph.” I keeps looking to try and find it but can seem to only see a rock. I goes a little deeper and finally sees it. I begins practicing holding his breath for a long time to go through the tunnel. 

Jerry was so determined to go through the tunnel that he practiced so much. He worked very hard to hold his breath. He did as much as he could at times. Some days, he even went back to the villa with a bloody nose and he was feeling dizzy. His mom wanted to let him go and do his own things to make him feel like he wasn’t trapped but when she saw his nose bleeding, she got worried and made him stay with her for a day. “Have a nice morning? she asked, laying her hand on his warm brown shoulder. Oh, yes, thank you, he said. You look a bit pale. And then, sharp and anxious, How did you bang your head? She said. Oh, just banged it, he told her.”

Again his nose bled at night, and his mother insisted on his coming with her the next day. It was a torment to him to waste a day of his careful self-training, but he stayed with her on that other beach, which now seemed a place for small children, a place where his mother might lie safe in the sun. It was not his beach.

His determination was very important in getting to his goal; he didn't have any determination then he would have a hard time getting to his goal; “He was without light, and the water seemed to press upon him with the weight of rock. Seventy-one, seventy-two. There was no strain on his lungs. He felt like an inflated balloon, his lungs were so light and easy, but his head was pulsing.” Determination is what kept him going and to keep trying. 

His determination got him to his goal and that experience probably taught him that if you work towards something, you can achieve it.

Kimball Khetani

May 6, 2019

Fitz English 8

My Experience Reading All Quiet On The Western Front

How The Book Effected Me

Alone we can do little; together we can do so much

- Helen Keller

Responsibility

Dont be afraid to rock the boat. If somebody falls off your boat, they were not ment to be in it

    On Saturday morning I was really excited. I was going with my dad to the woodshop at Fenn to re-varnish the wood that is on my boat. Last year, my parents went to this auction at Fenn and they won this thing where you can do any project with Mr. Hienze. I chose to re-varnish the wood. We got there at eight thorty in the morning and he was already there and getting ready for us. I think that he was more excited than my dad and I. We immediatly got started. We had to sand the old varnish and stain off of the wood in order to put the new coats on and that was the hard part. Mr Hienze and I used the huge sander to get the big pieces of wood while my dad what using a electri handheld sander to get the small areas. If my dad and I did this at home it would take forever but at Fenn it took a while but at the end the wood looked brand new. Then we took some tack cloths to wipe off the extra sand dust that was on the wood. That way there wouldn't be any lumps on the wood at the end. After that we started to paint the appoxy on. My dad and I were planning n using stain but Mr. Hienze suggested that we use appoxy so that we could see the grains in the wood and it would look better. We ended up applying only one coat of the appoxy because it takes overnight for it to dry. My takeaway from this experience is that you have to be responsible for your own stuff. It was really hard work but it is going to look much better than it did.