Studying sometimes, most the time notEveryday I arrive at school around 7:20 and head to the library. First hour starts at eight and so one might ask why I would get to school so early. For a couple of reason, I choose to come early to school.
The first of the reasons is that our parking lot gets very full, very fast. When I drive to school I want to get as good as a parking spot as I can. Parking closer to the school for some reason is a big deal to me. I’m not sure why, but just knowing that I parked closer to the exit because I got here early is relieving.
Another reason I come to school early is to finish some incomplete homework that I chose not to do the night before. In the library I am able to focus on doing home work if it is due that day. I also ask friends if there was any other home work that I had forgotten to do. This way I can do the assignments I remembered and the ones I forgot. It also helps that many of my classmates are in the library in the morning because if I have a question on the home work, I can ask them for help.
One more reason that I come in that early is that it helps me get ready for the day. I come in very drowsy from the lack of sleep that I got from staying up too late the last night. The time consisting of sitting at a table in the library, whether doing home work or just talking with friends prepares me for the day of interaction. It is like I am a wind up toy that is wound up during the first 40 minutes of the day at school. The 40 minutes of winding keeps me going until about 5:30 at night when I find myself doing working on school work when I suddenly get extremely tired. At that point I either choose to take a nap, or stand up and go eat something to rewind myself for another period of time in the day.
To me coming in early is my morning coffee. I don’t really like coffee at all, but I know people who drink coffee every morning to help prepare for the day. Fortunately, my technique of becoming alert and attentive doesn’t stain my teeth.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Bottle Discus/ Trackour
I have mentioned before in my blog that I have sixth period release. Because it is track season, a couple of other friends and I who have that period off are able to create games when we feel like not doing homework.
One of these games is Trackour. Trackour is a play off the new popular sport called parkour, also known as free running. Trackour however is exclusively for track runners only. All we basically do is jump on to the high jump mats doing flips yelling “Trackour,” extremely loud. We have done Trackour a lot this year, but we are very discreet about it. Our coaches openly oppose and discourage us from doing this new Trackour thing. They believe, for some reason, that someone will get hurt from doing it, they are probably right.
The other game we have just recently begun playing is called Bottle Discus. It originated on a cloudy Wednesday afternoon. The people who were in the gym gathered to have our first discus off of the season. We used a partially filled water bottle as the discus and the floor markings as the ring to stay in. It is a pretty popular sport within our track team, and even as I am writing this a friend of mine is bugging me to go play Bottle Discus.
Yesterday was our first out side competition for Bottle Discus and it came down to the last throw to decide the winner. Kevin edged me out with his last throw, beating me by a few inches. We don’t actually measure how far we throw, but we can eyeball it pretty darn good. Between throws we marked where the bottle landed with odd things. We used sticks, crumpled up tape and small flags that we found to show our farthest throw.
One time while “trackour”ing we helped a friend of ours move some mats under the basketball hoop and then stacked them on top of each other. Then he was able to climb over the top of the backboard and stand on the rim. Then he sat on the rim. It was the purest form of Trackour I had ever seen. Yet I couldn’t keep focus on it because I was scared that he was going to hurt himself. He is a good track runner and if he had hurt himself than that would have been the end to Trackour as I know it. Luckily the sport is still alive today, because he returned to the ground safely and without the coaches ever knowing what happened.
One of these games is Trackour. Trackour is a play off the new popular sport called parkour, also known as free running. Trackour however is exclusively for track runners only. All we basically do is jump on to the high jump mats doing flips yelling “Trackour,” extremely loud. We have done Trackour a lot this year, but we are very discreet about it. Our coaches openly oppose and discourage us from doing this new Trackour thing. They believe, for some reason, that someone will get hurt from doing it, they are probably right.
The other game we have just recently begun playing is called Bottle Discus. It originated on a cloudy Wednesday afternoon. The people who were in the gym gathered to have our first discus off of the season. We used a partially filled water bottle as the discus and the floor markings as the ring to stay in. It is a pretty popular sport within our track team, and even as I am writing this a friend of mine is bugging me to go play Bottle Discus.
Yesterday was our first out side competition for Bottle Discus and it came down to the last throw to decide the winner. Kevin edged me out with his last throw, beating me by a few inches. We don’t actually measure how far we throw, but we can eyeball it pretty darn good. Between throws we marked where the bottle landed with odd things. We used sticks, crumpled up tape and small flags that we found to show our farthest throw.
One time while “trackour”ing we helped a friend of ours move some mats under the basketball hoop and then stacked them on top of each other. Then he was able to climb over the top of the backboard and stand on the rim. Then he sat on the rim. It was the purest form of Trackour I had ever seen. Yet I couldn’t keep focus on it because I was scared that he was going to hurt himself. He is a good track runner and if he had hurt himself than that would have been the end to Trackour as I know it. Luckily the sport is still alive today, because he returned to the ground safely and without the coaches ever knowing what happened.
Night Routine
Every night for some reason I arrive home from track, take a shower, eat and do some homework. As night approaches I tell myself I will go to bed early, so I don’t hate myself the next morning. For reasons unknown to me after about 8:30 I get energy to mess around with my two younger brothers who always have energy. Messing around with them only prevents me from getting a good night’s sleep in.
Last night I was getting ready to go to bed when the computer caught my attention and before I knew it I was looking up videos on youtube. After I finally pried myself from the screen I continued to get ready for bed when my brother started causing trouble. He wouldn’t leave my parent’s room and they were trying to go to sleep so they called me in to take him out, too lazy themselves to force him to move. I enter the room to find him lying on the ground attaching him self to the bottom of their bed claiming to be scared of something. He started to flail as I grabbed his arms and yank him up to his feet, unfortunately though, I couldn’t make him stand up. He refused to stand, and I realized it was necessary to make him feel a little pain so he would stand up. To make him do this I pushed a pressure point, behind the jaw and under the ear. That made him stand up quickly and I finally got him out of the room.
Then when I thought the ordeal was done, we got into a wrestling match which I easily won, with my brother being only 12 years old. Whenever I walked away from pinning him, he chased me down only to repeat the process. With the task accomplished and the wrestling match won, I again continued to ready myself for the night and finally went to bed. These situations occur much too often for my liking.
Like the night before last while watching a youtube video, my brother and I were amazed at this break dance move that we saw. So for about 30 or so minutes we tried to learn and perform the move on my living brown room carpet. It seems that these events happen all the time, whether due to my brothers or to my spike in energy level. I do know one thing though, that it would be great if I got to bed the first time I tried.
Last night I was getting ready to go to bed when the computer caught my attention and before I knew it I was looking up videos on youtube. After I finally pried myself from the screen I continued to get ready for bed when my brother started causing trouble. He wouldn’t leave my parent’s room and they were trying to go to sleep so they called me in to take him out, too lazy themselves to force him to move. I enter the room to find him lying on the ground attaching him self to the bottom of their bed claiming to be scared of something. He started to flail as I grabbed his arms and yank him up to his feet, unfortunately though, I couldn’t make him stand up. He refused to stand, and I realized it was necessary to make him feel a little pain so he would stand up. To make him do this I pushed a pressure point, behind the jaw and under the ear. That made him stand up quickly and I finally got him out of the room.
Then when I thought the ordeal was done, we got into a wrestling match which I easily won, with my brother being only 12 years old. Whenever I walked away from pinning him, he chased me down only to repeat the process. With the task accomplished and the wrestling match won, I again continued to ready myself for the night and finally went to bed. These situations occur much too often for my liking.
Like the night before last while watching a youtube video, my brother and I were amazed at this break dance move that we saw. So for about 30 or so minutes we tried to learn and perform the move on my living brown room carpet. It seems that these events happen all the time, whether due to my brothers or to my spike in energy level. I do know one thing though, that it would be great if I got to bed the first time I tried.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
AP Exams
With the AP exams approaching, everyone is trying to study everything they have learned, or not learned, throughout the year. I have always thought that the best preparation for the exams starts with the first day of class. If you do the reading and home work assigned throughout the year the less you need to review what you have learned. The problem is though, that many times you do the assignments just to get them done, not to learn. With three AP classes this year, I am a culprit of practicing that many times throughout the year. I had to do it because of the extreme amounts of home work that was assigned on those random nights.
I completed home work without learning many times in order to continue increasing my GPA. Unfortunately for me however, our GPA has no impact whatsoever on your exam score.
This time of the year is when the AP teachers start handing out practice exams to help prepare their students for the real deal. When I sat down this year to take some of those practice tests, fear and regret greeted me with a punch in the face. I feared that when I actually took the AP exam that I would be as clueless as I was when taking the practice test. I regretted those nights when sleep became a higher priority then learning. The nights I did the homework only to keep my grades and GPA up instead of doing it to learn and further ready myself for the AP exam.
The last two years I have only taken one exam and I passed last years one, but not the one my freshmen year. So hopefully I pass two of them this year and get to be an AP scholar. But I am worried about this year because my attention is divided between three classes. Because of this my reviewing time compared to last years is cut into thirds. I am very lucky this year that they have greatly reduced the prices of the exams. If it was the same price as last year’s exams then I would be paying around 240 dollars for the three tests. Thanks to this new scholarship program, these exams will cost around 150 dollars. Hopefully, I do well enough on the tests than I could be refunded and the tests could end up costing as little as 51 dollars.
I completed home work without learning many times in order to continue increasing my GPA. Unfortunately for me however, our GPA has no impact whatsoever on your exam score.
This time of the year is when the AP teachers start handing out practice exams to help prepare their students for the real deal. When I sat down this year to take some of those practice tests, fear and regret greeted me with a punch in the face. I feared that when I actually took the AP exam that I would be as clueless as I was when taking the practice test. I regretted those nights when sleep became a higher priority then learning. The nights I did the homework only to keep my grades and GPA up instead of doing it to learn and further ready myself for the AP exam.
The last two years I have only taken one exam and I passed last years one, but not the one my freshmen year. So hopefully I pass two of them this year and get to be an AP scholar. But I am worried about this year because my attention is divided between three classes. Because of this my reviewing time compared to last years is cut into thirds. I am very lucky this year that they have greatly reduced the prices of the exams. If it was the same price as last year’s exams then I would be paying around 240 dollars for the three tests. Thanks to this new scholarship program, these exams will cost around 150 dollars. Hopefully, I do well enough on the tests than I could be refunded and the tests could end up costing as little as 51 dollars.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Eating Healthy
This past week, in order to better ready myself for the Drake Relays I decided to not eat sweets. I didn’t let anyone know about it, but just politely refused to eat sweets, desserts and chips when over at other people’s house. I think it has had a lasting impact. On the way home from Des Moines, where the Drake Relays took place, we stopped to eat. I bought a big bag of chips still disgusted with my performance in the race. To me that bag was like a girl’s cookie dough, which she especially eats when feeling in the dumps. After eating the bag, I felt that I shouldn’t have eaten it. Even though I felt bad, it was a welcomed feeling. With this feeling in me I know it will be easier to eat healthier, now and down the road when my metabolism has slowed to a crawl.
My father used to be an athlete, he ran all the time and talks of his self-discipline and his 5 mile daily routine. I imagine he did those things, but that’s all I can do, is just imagine. This is because he now weighs around 250 pounds without the motivation to exercise on a regular basis. Recently I have become worried about his weight, because with it comes dangerous correlations such as heart attacks.
Because I have overall been doing a better job of taking care of my body, I have decided to try and make my dad’s body a little healthier too. I do this by occasionally making him do sit ups, which many times, he declines to do. Living at home I do not notice changes in our family like my sisters, who attend colleges out of state. Like the time my sister pointed out to me that she was worried for my dad’s health because he’s gained weight. I sized him up and I came to the same conclusion as she did.
So I started to pry into the exercise life of my parents that seemed nonexistent. My dad says that because of us kids that he isn’t able to, and I love being used as an excuse (not). The situation encourages me, because if I can control what I eat now as a kid then I believe that I won’t have a weight problem when I get older.
My father used to be an athlete, he ran all the time and talks of his self-discipline and his 5 mile daily routine. I imagine he did those things, but that’s all I can do, is just imagine. This is because he now weighs around 250 pounds without the motivation to exercise on a regular basis. Recently I have become worried about his weight, because with it comes dangerous correlations such as heart attacks.
Because I have overall been doing a better job of taking care of my body, I have decided to try and make my dad’s body a little healthier too. I do this by occasionally making him do sit ups, which many times, he declines to do. Living at home I do not notice changes in our family like my sisters, who attend colleges out of state. Like the time my sister pointed out to me that she was worried for my dad’s health because he’s gained weight. I sized him up and I came to the same conclusion as she did.
So I started to pry into the exercise life of my parents that seemed nonexistent. My dad says that because of us kids that he isn’t able to, and I love being used as an excuse (not). The situation encourages me, because if I can control what I eat now as a kid then I believe that I won’t have a weight problem when I get older.
Post Drake
In my other post about the Drake Relays I mentioned how we had a very good chance of winning the 4 by 800 meter relay. With the members of our team we all expected to be first. Now after it is over I am going to talk about how we, or should I say I, screwed up.
My team and my coach told me to get ahead early as the first runner of the relay. I was planning on it, but when the gun went off and I started to sprint so were the other runners and faster than I was. I tried to go faster and not get trapped on the inside. They were going too fast and I thought to myself that if I wanted to run a decent race than I would need to conserve more energy than I was. All other teams had either their fastest or second fastest runners running the first leg. They did that so their team wouldn’t be going into the second leg second to last like ours. We would have done a lot better if Anthony a faster runner than I had gone first and also if he hadn’t tripped when I tried to give him the baton.
I came down the last 100 meters using energy coming from somewhere not known to me. I was within ten meters of Anthony and I saw that directly behind him was a first leg runner laying down on the blue track. The warning wouldn’t and couldn’t come out of my mouth, I was just too exhausted. He tripped and got back up adrenaline filled. After I handed him the baton, I stood there and realized because that guy was laying there we would probably not win this race. In disbelief I stood where I had handed Anthony the baton until one of the track managers came over to tell me to come to the field. Filled with adrenaline, Anthony ran the first part of his race way too fast and ran a bad time for his ability.
Overall we ran four seconds slower than our qualifying time, which was very depressing. Thinking about how if I had just run faster than that guy that Anthony had tripped over we would have done much better. Even though I am pretty upset about it, I am using it as motivation to work harder and when state comes around I am planning to place first for the 4 by 800 meter relay.
My team and my coach told me to get ahead early as the first runner of the relay. I was planning on it, but when the gun went off and I started to sprint so were the other runners and faster than I was. I tried to go faster and not get trapped on the inside. They were going too fast and I thought to myself that if I wanted to run a decent race than I would need to conserve more energy than I was. All other teams had either their fastest or second fastest runners running the first leg. They did that so their team wouldn’t be going into the second leg second to last like ours. We would have done a lot better if Anthony a faster runner than I had gone first and also if he hadn’t tripped when I tried to give him the baton.
I came down the last 100 meters using energy coming from somewhere not known to me. I was within ten meters of Anthony and I saw that directly behind him was a first leg runner laying down on the blue track. The warning wouldn’t and couldn’t come out of my mouth, I was just too exhausted. He tripped and got back up adrenaline filled. After I handed him the baton, I stood there and realized because that guy was laying there we would probably not win this race. In disbelief I stood where I had handed Anthony the baton until one of the track managers came over to tell me to come to the field. Filled with adrenaline, Anthony ran the first part of his race way too fast and ran a bad time for his ability.
Overall we ran four seconds slower than our qualifying time, which was very depressing. Thinking about how if I had just run faster than that guy that Anthony had tripped over we would have done much better. Even though I am pretty upset about it, I am using it as motivation to work harder and when state comes around I am planning to place first for the 4 by 800 meter relay.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Abortion To Others
The views of famous figures and their quotes on abortion both pro life and pro choice
Abortion has always been a touchy subject, so I thought to have a combination of quotes from famous people on the subject to get a feeling of what the more intelligent or important figures in society think. The quotes are from both pro life and pro choice advocates.
Former president Ronald Reagan said, “I've noticed that everybody that is for abortion has already been born.”
“Society does not need more children; but it does need more loved children. Quite literally, we cannot afford unloved children - but we pay heavily for them every day. There should not be the slightest communal concern when a woman elects to destroy the life of her thousandth-of-an-ounce embryo. But all society should rise up in alarm when it hears that a baby that is not wanted is about to be born.” ~Garrett Hardin
A Planned Parenthood advertisement pointed out how that 77 percent of the anti-abortion leaders are men, and that one hundred percent of them will never be pregnant.
“These concerns (for orphan children in India and elsewhere in the world) are very good, but often these same people are not concerned with the millions that are killed by the deliberate decision of their own mothers. And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace today, Abortion... For the pregnant women who don't want their children, give them to me, said Mother Teresa.
Senator John Kerry once said “Too many people in America believe that if you are pro-choice that means pro-abortion. It doesn't. I don't want abortion. Abortion should be the rarest thing in the world. I am acutally personally opposed to abortion. But I don't believe that I have the right to take what is an article of faith to me and legislate it to other people. That's not how it works in America.”
Margaret Sanger said, “The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.”
Mother Teresa said, “If we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people to not kille each other? Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want.”
John Kerry’s quote brought to my attention that I had fallen under the misconception that he addressed. It helped me realize that not all democrats/pro choice people are for abortions. If I could ask one question to Margaret Sanger it would be “How is it merciful to kill someone?” As for mother Teresa, I can see how much she loved people as God’s children when she says, “… For the pregnant women who don’t want their children, give them to me.”
Abortion has always been a touchy subject, so I thought to have a combination of quotes from famous people on the subject to get a feeling of what the more intelligent or important figures in society think. The quotes are from both pro life and pro choice advocates.
Former president Ronald Reagan said, “I've noticed that everybody that is for abortion has already been born.”
“Society does not need more children; but it does need more loved children. Quite literally, we cannot afford unloved children - but we pay heavily for them every day. There should not be the slightest communal concern when a woman elects to destroy the life of her thousandth-of-an-ounce embryo. But all society should rise up in alarm when it hears that a baby that is not wanted is about to be born.” ~Garrett Hardin
A Planned Parenthood advertisement pointed out how that 77 percent of the anti-abortion leaders are men, and that one hundred percent of them will never be pregnant.
“These concerns (for orphan children in India and elsewhere in the world) are very good, but often these same people are not concerned with the millions that are killed by the deliberate decision of their own mothers. And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace today, Abortion... For the pregnant women who don't want their children, give them to me, said Mother Teresa.
Senator John Kerry once said “Too many people in America believe that if you are pro-choice that means pro-abortion. It doesn't. I don't want abortion. Abortion should be the rarest thing in the world. I am acutally personally opposed to abortion. But I don't believe that I have the right to take what is an article of faith to me and legislate it to other people. That's not how it works in America.”
Margaret Sanger said, “The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.”
Mother Teresa said, “If we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people to not kille each other? Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want.”
John Kerry’s quote brought to my attention that I had fallen under the misconception that he addressed. It helped me realize that not all democrats/pro choice people are for abortions. If I could ask one question to Margaret Sanger it would be “How is it merciful to kill someone?” As for mother Teresa, I can see how much she loved people as God’s children when she says, “… For the pregnant women who don’t want their children, give them to me.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
