Finley Stevens

Fitz 8th grade English

January 21, 2019

Dogs are the far superior animal

"Dogs are like that, I guess. They know how fix you, without ever saying a word."

-Anonymous

     Owning a dog makes a person happier and that’s a fact. You would only understand this if you own a dog not of your one of those cat owners. Everyday I wake up to my dog jumping up onto me and sniffing my face to make sure I’m still alive, now if a cat jumped up on your bed you wouldn’t be able to even tell. Dogs also will always make you keep exercising by bringing their favorite toy to your feet or making weird loud noises by the door. One way that my dog does this is by going with my mom upstairs and pointing at or pawing at the drawer with all of her running clothes because my dog loves to go running on the trails. You wouldn’t be able to play outside with your cat or take them on a walk, it just wouldn’t work. Dogs can also get jobs unlike a lot of people in the world, they can be therapy dogs, military dogs, police dogs or service dogs. I’ve never seen a cat doing any of those unless sleeping  counts. Dogs can also always make you happier by doing something funny like constantly rolling around in the grass or jumping around or running around the house like crazy when you bring out their cookie box. One thing that my last dog did was every time we came home from somewhere she would greet us at the door with a random shoe in her mouth, she never ripped the shoe or anything and it was always a different shoe. There are so many different things that make dogs a better animal than a cat it’s not even a competition.

Finley Stevens

Fitz 8th grade English

January 21, 2019

The calmness of reading

"Calmness is a human superpower. The power to not overreact or take things personally keeps your mind clear and your heart at peace."

-Marcandangel

     Reading has brought me to a place of absolute calmness. Every time I open up and start reading The Swiss Family Robinson, by Johann David Wyss it brings me to a different place then the normal world and entirely calms me down. Reading The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss forced me to read in a more focused and intensive way then I’ve read before. The way everything is worded is very similar to The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer because it’s from a time when they spoke like that. This more difficult wording has made it so I can read through each page as fast so it takes me a bit longer to read each page. I was sick all this week so every time I tried to read I would start coughing and I would lose focus and lose my spot on the page. I decided to listen to the audio version and follow along, this way was much faster and I think I might continue doing this at night instead of just reading. Although I had a sickening headache, cough and fever the entire time just being in my warm bed when I was non stop coughing was much more calming than I thought it would be. Maybe having those three things isn’t very calming at all when you start reading or listening to a book it becomes just that much calmer and relaxing. It’s kind of tough to relate to a story about getting stuck on a remote island because of a boat crash because that’s never happened to any of us but I did find one similarity. The family goes through a lot of challenges throughout their journey and we all go through challenges on our own journeys it may not be struggling to survive but it’s still a challenge. When I heard that we had a month to read a book I thought that was plenty of time but then I heard that we would have to read at least 30 minutes a day and that if you wanted to only read one book it would have to be at least 350 pages so it couldn’t just be a short 100 page book. It’s worth it to do one of the most calming things in the world.

Finley Stevens

Fitz 8th grade English

January 13, 2019

Skiing

"A pair of skis is the ultimate transportation to freedom."

-Warren Miller

    Speeding down a snow covered hill going off all the little jumps on the side of the trail of then finally I get to the bottom of the hill and jumping right back onto the lift to do it again. This is one of my favorite things to do, skiing. If you’ve never been skiing your missing out on one of the most exciting and fun things in the world. What makes skiing so fun is that you have so much freedom and you can do so much on skis. My favorite part about skiing is going through double black diamond glades. Glades are so fun because your constantly having to make tight turns, there’s always little jumps or drops on the side of the trail. My absolute favorite trail that I’ve gone on was a trail up in Stowe. The trail was called Spruce Line and at first we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into when we went off trail into the woods. We finally found a real trail and of course it was moguls, halfway down Charlie and I went off trail again hoping it would be easier but it was all powder and there was no real path. When we finally got to the bottom of the trail we collapsed backwards into the snow, it was the most tiring and fun run I’ve ever done. My dream is to sometime be doing this in Colorado or Utah down what’s called a back bowl and to also go see the X Games in Aspen, Colorado. Whether the temperature is negative five or the snow is coming down and covering everything like a blanket I will always want to continue skiing.

Finley Stevens

Fitz 8th grade English

January 13, 2019

My experience reading

“The journey of a lifetime starts with the turning of a page.”

-Rachel Anders

     I’m reading the The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss as my classic. So far I’ve really aenjoyed my experience reading. I’ve discovered that my favorite place to read is in my bed at night. It’s very relaxing to jump dive onto my bed after a long and boring school day filled with work and just relax myself by reading. Each night right before I start reading I look at my clock to figure out how long I have to read for and many times I end up reading past that time, sometimes even 30 minutes longer. On a few occasions I have even ended up falling asleep while reading. One of the best parts about this unit that were doing is it gives me something to when I randomly wake up at 3:00 AM and can’t fall back asleep. So far I have really enjoyed doing this unit and am really excited to continue doing this for the next few weeks, I hope that maybe we can even do this again closer to the end of the school year.