WASC

    Monday and Tuesday studenet council went to Casper for the Wyoming Association of Student Councils. The first day of the convention we spent approving platforms, attending leadership workshops, and we listened to an inspirational speaker. We left at 5:30 in the morning. Which was rather sucky, but the rest of our trip made up for it. When we arrived we went through the usual proceedures of checking in and seating ourselves in the auditorium. After the boring events of the morning we listened to an inspirational speaker named Shannon Pickard. He was hilarious! His speach was informative, and he also held our attention the whole time by making it commical.

    After the speaker the cannidates for WASC council postions gave their speeches. There was one kid that was a genius. His name was Jordan C. and he answered all of the questions presented flawlessly, in a way that was hilarious, but at the same time genuine. He recieved all six of Landers votes. That night we all went to the dance that was in the caffeteria and we also had the t-shirt exchange. No one wanted to switch with me because frankly our shirts are rather suckish. After I enlisted the help of four fellow student council members we finally exchanged my shirt. Nick got one of the sweetest shirts ever! It's a Kelly Walsh student council one and it is making fun of the Kanye West vs. Taylor Swift delihma. Unfortunatly, it was too small. So he gave it to me. Thanks Nick! :D

    Tuesday we had another speaker who was amazing. He was a paralympic skier and he was super funny. We returned back to Lander at 12:00. WASC this year was the best!

Journal 4

AH!!! My AP American History paper will be the death of me! I have spent well over ten hours perfecting and editing it, and I'm still worried that it won't live up to Foxley's standards. :(

I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving break, because I need a break from the hustle and bustle of life. My family and I are going to the Black Hills, and meeting up with my cousins and some friends from South Dakota to go skiing. I'm super excited!

I've been so busy lately my schedule has been as follows: eat, school, indoor track practice(3:30-5:00PM), homework (5:00-7:00PM), district honor choir practice (7:00-8:00), return home, play Farmville (8:15-8:30), finish homework, sleep, repeat.

Next week I'm going WASC! It will be really fun, but missing school won't be very fun. It will be really hard to make up all the work. I will miss Friday due to District Honor Choir.

 

Personal Narrative

    It was the first week of my seventh grade year, as I walked out of the gym doors I saw a group of kids sitting around stretching. I went and sat in their circle and as I looked around I realized that I didn't know any of these kids, but soon one thing would bring us all together as friends and team mates. My first day of cross country practice was rather intimidating and easily one of the most difficult things I had been through.

    That day is etched into my memory, I remember Mr. Green telling the team that we were going to run Tomato Loop. He said that it would be a long run, about three or four miles. At the time just thinking about the distance made me hyperventilate. I had never ran more than the mile that was required of us in P.E., and there I was at cross country practice, without any friends, and totally out of my element. Everyone took off running and I went with them. Unfortunately, I quickly fell behind and I was walking before I had even gone half a mile.

    As I was walking and thinking about how much I hated this already, and how I was going to quit and go home, Mr. Green came running up to me and spoke to me for the first time. I don't remember his exact words, but he made me start running again. He ran with me. I came to a point when I could not and would not go any further. I let my jelloy legs give under me and I sat down in the middle of the road. My lungs were on fire and I was on the verge of an asthma attack. Mr. Green looked at me and said, "The first day is hard, but it gets better. You just have to push through the pain, dig, make it hurt. Pain is only in your mind." I looked up at him with my teary eyes, stood up, and started running again. Every time I wanted to stop Mr. Green was there telling me to look forward and pick a spot to run to and if I still needed to walk when I got there I could. Needless to say I finished a good fifteen minutes behind everyone else, but when Mr. Green and I got back the whole team was there cheering me on as I finished.

    That one exhausting day of practice was a whole new beginning for me. I continued to come to practices, and eventually I truly loved running. As the season progressed I became more and more outgoing. I was making friends and everyone felt comfortable together. Mr. Green and Mr. Lee were fantastic coaches that pushed me to strive for the best. There lectures applied not only while we were running cross country; we were friends and team mates off the "field" and we worked hard on our school work.

    Mr. Green and Mr. Lee taught me some of the most important lessons of my life, one of which is: success doesn't come easy; you have to work hard for it. I applied this lesson to my life in many ways, and I still do. It taught me that if I work hard in school, a good grade was likely to appear on my report card, if I worked hard in practices, I would run well in the meet, and if I let go of my social anxiety I could make many friends.

    Coach Green and Mr. Lee are highly accountable for molding me into the person I am today. They taught me valuable life lessons and they broke through my social barrier. That first day of cross country was critical, because had Mr. Green not taken the time to encourage me my life could be drastically different from what it is now. 

Ligeia

    In Ligeia, by Edgar Allan Poe, the narrator describes a fair skinned, dark haired, blacked eye, woman as his wife. The narrator believes that she has an exquiste beauty, "In beauty of face no maiden ever equalled her. It was the radiance of an opium dream."(pg. 2) The narrator often refers to opium, "... I was wild with excitement of an immoderate dose of opium."(pg.10) This suggests that the narrator could be unreliable in how truthfull his story is. The visions of Ligeia and his memories of her may all have been a drug induced hallucination. There is a possibility that Ligeia may have really existed, but there are so many happenings in the story to cause doubt. The opium induced high is just one of the reasons for doubt. The narrator refers to Ligeia as his "lost love" (pg.13), but he "cannot remember how, when or even precisely where, [he] became acquainted with the lady Ligeia."(pg.1) It is unreasonable that the narrator can not remember where he met his true love; it can only be explained that Ligeia does not really exist. The narrator compares to common types of beauty in Ligeia: one is the fair, dark hair, and dark eyes of Ligeia, and the other is the fair, blonde hair, and blue eyes of Lady Tremaine. The narrators diction is unreliable which can lead us to believe that Ligeia does no

WR 6- Transcendentalism

    The Transcendentalism movement was the attempt to create a uniquely American form of literature. The movement occurred in the 19th century mostly in New England, around Boston. Transcendentalist deliberately went about creating literature, poetry, novels, and other writings that significantly differed from those in England, France, and Germany.

    Transcendentalists were a group of highly educated people that believed in literary independence. The most influential transcendentalists were Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and Theodore Parker. Ralph Waldo Emerson was a major essayist and poet, Henry David Thoreau was a naturalist and author, Margaret Fuller was a feminist, social reformer, and author, and Theodore Parker was a minister. They believed that there was an ideal spiritual state that 'transcends'  physical and empirical state and is only realized through the individual's intuition, rather than through the doctrines of established religion. They believed that it was important to uphold the goodness of humanity, the glories of nature, and the importance of individualism.

    Ralph Waldo Emerson published many writings that encourage optimistic faith in the power of the individual achievement and originality. Nature was a popular topic found in trancendentalists' writing. Many authors were influenced by the trancendentalism movement such as: Hawthorne and Melville. Many authors wrote about individuality and expressed nature as a form of spiritual enlightenment. The trancendentalism movement enlightened readers of the works of transcendentalists and opened their minds beyond ordered religion to take delight in the beauty of nature.

 

 

 

 

 http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/19939/American-literature/42259/The-Transcendentalists

 

http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/ent/A0849256.html

 

http://staff.gps.edu/gaither/exam%20study%20guide.htm

 

 

 

 

 

Journal 2

Indoor track has shed a new light on masculinity for me. As a team we work out in the weight room lifting weights. A couple days ago the boys began to brag about how much weight they could bench press; they claimed that they could bench a hefty weight of 125. When it came time to bench press I was watching them, curious as to whether these scrawny twigs really could bench press the amount that was boasted to me. The bar was set up at 65 pounds. None of the boys could lift it. This made me laugh. The boys all insisted that it was heavier than it looked and prodded me to try. I was highly skeptical of my ability to lift it, but I agreed to try anyway. I laid down on the bench, grasped the bar, and completed ten repetitions. Needless to say the guys received several minutes of mocking from me as they proceeded to do their presses with 20 pounds less than I did.

Journal 1

    DODGEBALL!!! I am extremely delighted by the fact that the dodgeball tournaments begin next week. I am on the team Pigs Will Fly, and last night we had our first pre-season practice. I expect us to kick butt.

    This winter I have decided not to cross country ski and will be running indoor track instead. Practices so far have consisted of weightlifting and running. Weightlifting has so far proven to be somewhat difficult. I'm not yet used to the free weights or the wandering eyes of the football payers. I feel awkward as I struggle to adjust the weights to less than half of what the boys are doing. Not only is it a tad awkward, but lifting weights has also proven to be very painful. (I'm still sore from lifts I did last week) I'm glad that there are more people on the indoor track team than usual: Aspen Hemingway, George Case, Beau Green, and Kreymer Aurand. We have three or four meets coming up.

    Tonight I have a cross country banquet and I also have to harvest my pineapples on Farmville. I can't wait to harvest them because I will earn enough coin to purchase a size 18x18 farm. As of right now my