We beat U-High... TWICE!

 Yesterday, I spent a total of 6 hours at school. I arrived at 11 p.m., and left at 5 p.m...on a Saturday! This is because I am on both Varsity and JV girl's soccer, and I had to play in both games. Our coach, Coach Matt wanted us to come early so that we can mentally and physically prepare ourselves for the game against our rivals, U-High cubs. We sat on the steps for an about 45 mins, waiting for the field to be mowed while listening to pump-up music, painting our pinkies blue ("Pinky's Up" is our motto), and snacking on healthy, pre-game snacks like bananas and granola bars. Coach Matt even let us paint his pinky blue and told us if we go to state, we'd be able to paint all of them! Then, after we were mentally prepared, we put on our shinguards and cleats and headed out to the field. As we warmed up, our fan club was getting larger and nosier. By the time the game started, we had a total of about 25 student fans! As we played, they were handed out noise makers, which started a 20 minute controversy in the middle of the first half, between U-High's coach and ours and the refs. The U-High coach had complained that artificial noisemakers were illegal. Coach Matt and our Athletic director, proved that there was no such rule and our fan club continued on! We started out the game winning, and when U-High caught up to us, we got back at them. The tension was insane, and at the end of both matches, we were tied 3-3, so the game went into overtime. No points were scored in overtime, so we had to go into penalty kicks. EHS knights won the game, 5-3, with two more pk's than the cubs! We are now district champs!
 After the victory of Varsity, I played for JV at 4 p.m. I guess the victory of the previous game gave the team and I stamina for the second one, because we won 1-0. I scored the only goal against U-High, and we were able to keep U-High's offense away from our goal. It was a beautiful, glorious day on the soccer field for all of us knights.

"GMOs and the Problems They Pose" Paper Update

This weekend, I had more luck for writing than in the school lab. For some reason, writing at home helps me generate more ideas than writing at school. I am able to clear my head of all other subjects, and focus on my english assignment. I was able to narrow down my thesis into "Genetically engineered foods pose health risks to both humans and the environment in which they live." It is not complete yet, but I am glad that I eliminated the "pose health risks to both humans and animals..." because I would have to focus on both health risks to humans and health risks to animals, which would be too much for me to do. The topic I chose is a very hard one because there is a vast amount of sources that I can choose, and choosing the right ones takes up a lot of time. However, I still enjoy my topic because I am intrigued by public health and safety and how industry in America can be deceptive.
As I continue to write and polish the body of the paper, I am finding more and more ideas to write about. I even started to gather information from my Biology textbook. I was excited when I got the idea of looking up "genetically modified foods" in the index, and there were two pages on my topic! Obtaining information from my textbook assures me true facts, and I was happy that I could use it to my advantage in another class besides english. It's  neat how three classes are associated with my paper- English, World History, and Biology.
I worked a total of 150 minutes:
 2 Nights I worked on my detailed outline
 2 Nights I worked on writing my paper

Reading Responses for January 23

     This week, I hadn't had enough time to read my free-reading every night as I wanted to. That was okay though, because I had to read my Biology textbook and Norton. In my Norton handbook, I read pages on how to make my writing better. The first assignment given was page 404-419, which took me 25 mins all together. It took me a while because we had to annotate and take notes. It taught me how to synthesize ideas from our research for our upcoming paper for world history and how to quote, paraphrase and summarize the data we find on our topic. I made important notes on how to format my quotes and paraphrase that I had not known before.
    The second book I read was my Biology: Concepts and Connections textbook. I read an hour total of this book this whole week. Last night, I finished up the last 30 minutes while walking on the tredmill. I had not been able to sit down and read in my room because it was a Saturday, and I usually don't study very much on a Saturday, but since the test is this upcoming Monday, I had to discipline myself to do so. Walking stimulates the brain, so I figured walking a slow pace while reading may help me get the info through my brain. It worked! I read all 23 chapters in my extra rental textbook and I was able to highlight and make note of things that I should pay special attention to. The other 30 minutes of reading comes from when I was taking notes this week. It takes quite a while to read this textbook because there is always so much information on each page.

The rest of my 25 minutes reading comes my free-reading book, which completes my total 150 minutes of reading. I read a bit more of my Marie-Antoinette book called "Becoming Marie-Antoinette: A Novel" by Juliet Gray.

My New Room

      This year, my parents are letting me re-do my room. The last time I re-did my room was in the third or fourth grade, and it was beginning to be too juvenile for me. At first, we kept on saying we'd get things done, but it never happened. During Thanksgiving break, I came across a book called "Domino: The Book of Decorating" and it gave me some inspiration. I even created a board on Pinterest called "Room Inspiration" and uploaded and reposted some of my ideas.  Before, I was in a mental block because I never had time to think about my room when I had sports and school work to focus on, but now I had an idea of what color scheme I wanted. I showed my mom, and she agreed. Over the Christmas break, we went to my mom's friend, who is an interior designer, to plan everything out. By the end of Christmas break, we knew exactly what we wanted to do.
      A few weeks after Christmas break, however, the fabric for my new headboard that I chose was no longer appealing to me. It had laid in my room against a pillow for a month and I grew tired of it. Not only did I grow tired of it, but it was difficult for me to choose other fabrics that I could throw into the room. There were two lamps that I was set on having and when we went to my mom's friend's store, where we picked out all of the fabrics, I had a change of plans. Originally, I wanted a little asian inspiration thrown into my room design. With the fabric that I had chosen, that could be accomplished, but then I came across another fabric. We had been having trouble finding a headboard fabric and this one was perfect. Not only was it oriental, but it had many colors that were more sophisticated. When I found this new fabric, It was also easier to find all sorts of fun prints, velvets, geometrics etc. with out over-dooing my room. My mom, the designer, her assistant and I all had tons of fun generating ideas for my asian-inspired, cool, elegant room. We are making much more process; paint colors are up, my desk is here, pagoda lamps are ordered, bamboo beside tables are ordered,  and the new headboard and curtains are being made. Next week, we'll be painting my room. I love interior design and this whole project is something that I look forward to doing more of in my future.

curtain fabric

headboard fabric 

Reading Response for the week of Janurary 17th: Becoming Marie Antoinette by Juliet Gray

Ever since I read a book about Marie Antoinette this summer, I have become engrossed with the glamour of Versailles in the 18th century and the royal Hapsburgs. Before began reading this books, I had read The Bad Queen: Rules and Instructions for Marie Antoinette by Carolyn Meyer. I got a kindle around the same time that we begun studying this era, so I chose to read another book about Marie-Antoinette to refresh my memory. As I am getting more into the novel, I'm connecting the two books along with my lesson in World History. I'm glad that I can find a book to read that I enjoy and benefits me educationally as well.

 So far, I have read the first few chapters that capture parts of Marie-Antoinette's childhood as an archduchess of Austria, when she knew that she was to marry Louis XVI of France. In both of the books, she had to wait until she was a "half a woman" before she could marry. Even the painter refused to paint her for the Hapsburgs because she resembled a child. I had known this, but it is refreshing to read it from another perspective. So far, I like both of the books, and I look forward to finishing it.

I read this book for a total of 125 mins, on the days of Jan. 10th, Jan 12th, and Jan 15th. The other 45 minutes were obtained through reading Biology Concepts & Connections, Chapter 8: The Basis of Reproduction and Inheritance by Campbell, Reece, Taylor, and Simmon.

Free Reading Response for the week of January 17th: My Kindle

For Christmas, my cousin bought me a kindle. At first, I didn't like the kindle, but now I am enjoying it. I didn't like the idea of reading books from electronic devices and it scares me that real books may becoming less popular. Nevertheless, I find it easy to carry around one slim electronic device with a library of books downloaded on it. A weekend ago, when I was sick, I spent some time reading ahead on my kindle and figuring out how it works. I downloaded only one book so far.  I'm not certain of the capacity on my kindle, but there is a numerous amount of my cousin's books that were synced on there before it was given to me. I'm still trying to figure out how I can delete some of those books that I am not interested in reading so that I can increase the capacity on it for my own books. One feature that comes in handy is the highlighting and being able to search words in the dictionary. Now, whenever I highlight certain parts, I think that I can go to a certain page where it shows all of my highlights together. This will help me highlight parts that I want to mention in my reading responses. My view of the kindle has changed since I first got it!

Ode to Pinterest

My latest obsession is a certain website that I heard about from a friend called Pinterest. One day during break, I saw some friends on their computers scrolling through this website in awe of some really neat & pretty pictures. At first, I wondered Who would want to create an account on a website just to look at pictures? Then I learned that you can click on the pictures and go to links that teach you how to create/make/buy those items in the pictures.  There is am multitude of pictures. They aren't as random and unreliable as Google images. The majority of them are pretty alluring- both the materialistic and the unmaterialistic. Pinterest's pictures range from snapshots of gorgeous models that girl inspire to be to fun little recipes that you can bake for your friends, family, or children. I'd never been so amused!  I asked my friend how I could get one. She said she had to request my membership. So, like everyone else who falls into the trap of Pinterest, I had to wait for my email of consent to the website that told me I was now a verifiable member.

Since the first day I first got accepted to Pinterest,  I have created several categorized "boards." Pinterest has opened up many worlds of creativity to me. I have made 3 or 4 recipes that I found on pinterest and they have all turned out a success. I have even been able to show my mom ideas that I had on a board created specially for the design of my new room.  I have posted and reposted over 430 pins. (Okay, maybe I spend a little too much time on Pinterest.) However, I don't regret creating and account. Pinterest is a way for me to express my style, boost my mood, and get inspired.

Take a look! --> http://pinterest.com