Senior Trip

The Senior Trip was yesterday and it was a lot of fun, I got to hang out with friends all day and go on some rides. Even though it rained for like half of it, I tried to make the best of it. It was the first time that I went to Hershey Park and it was definitely a trip I remember. The worst was getting to the front of a line and then having the ride close, or even worse being on the ride, ready to start and then it closes. Although you do not need to ride rollercoasters to have fun, I had a great time hanging out with friends and not being in school. Also I think that it is a curse that for every senior trip that it has top rain, or maybe it just seems like that. It was still a great time and meaning that the seniors are one day closer to graduating.

Kan Jam

In gym this marking period I am doing life time games and one of the games is Kan Jam. Kan Jam is so much fun and probably the best games out of all of them. For those of you that do not know what it is, you have two cans, a frisbee and  a partner and throw the Frisbee to your partner to either hit the can, slam it in the top or slot it. It is a great game to play in the summer with friends out in the sun and can be played by almost anyone. I use to play it at camp all the time and loved it, it was so much fun to play with a group on friends and to see what team who do the best. We had games to see who was the best Kan Jammer in the cabin and would even play it at night, making it more challenging. The other lifetime games are fun but I think that Kam Jam is clearly the best one of them all.

Gale vs Peeta

So after recent discussions with other people who have read the Hunger Games books a topic came up about who is the better person, whether it was Gale or Peeta. Some people, you know who you are, think that Peeta is better than Gale because he is nicer and better for Katniss, this however is not true and Peeta got lucky to have Katniss. He did not have the courage to talk to her before the reaping and afterwards the only reason he did was because he was going to die. Gale on the other hand is independent and knows Katniss better than Peeta does and has always been there for her, while Peeta is lucky to be alive. Also Peeta surprised Katniss with the whole in love with her thing and therefore almost tricked her into liking him because they had to for the audience and to survive. If it was not for that, they would have never met and he would have died. I am not saying that Peeta is a bad person I am just saying that Gale is clearly better; he can hunt, survive and support a family while Peeta can bake bread and hide in mud.

Prom

So prom was over the weekend, and of course I went and it was a lot of fun. Got to dance and show my dance moves, while people mostly just watched. The food there was good, which is what really matters to most of the guys there. Sorry Spalding i was not looking at all of the prom dresses so I can't tell you which one was the best. The after prom is where the party really starts, and you can tell that is what the guys were waiting for, the games, the show and the prizes. The games were fun, it was able to keep a bunch of kids entertain at the early hours of the morning. Now the prizes, they were great, but like last year i was not called up until near the end so I ended up getting the best of the worst. Overall I can't complain I won 2 shirts, a homer trojans coffee mug, a Nazareth water bottle, a hat, some tissues, a free taco at taco bell, and a blanket. I had such a good time, even a better time than last year, mostly because of the people i went with.

Importance of Index of Refraction

Okay so lets say you are stranded on a deserted island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, right? All you have is your clothes which are torn from the shipwreck, no food.... no water...things aren’t looking good. So you decide to venture into the jungle in search of food better and find berries but what if they’re poisonous? Better not take a chance and eat them. You could end up dead in a matter of minutes so instead you decide to break a branch off a tree and create a spear since all you can manage to find are berries. You spend hours perfectly making it until its exactly how you want it then, you walk out into the water and start to look for fish you see one, aim your spear at it, and almost strike BUT WAIT you remember that the index of refraction is 1.33 that means that light is refracted in water, so you’ll have to readjust your aim before you try to stab the fish, since you remembered the importance of refraction, you caught the fish and were able to survive until you were rescued. The End.

Track Meet

Homer had a track meet today in Ithaca, and it was all relays which means one person runs their race and then hand it off to someone else to run and that goes on for 4 people. I ran the 4x1600, where each person runs a mile and I ran my leg in 5:26, not my best but I am happy with it. I also ran the DMR, which is a 1200-400-800-1600; I finished the 800 in a time of 2:22, a personal best for me. It is also fun watching all the other relays, the one I think is really fun to watch are the shuttle hurdles, where one person runs 100 meters over hurdles and when the cross the line another person runs in the other direction and does the same in the opposite direction, it is interesting to watch to say the least. Also to support your team is a lot of fun, cheering them on seeing them sprint it out on the final 100 meters with another runner. Even though it is always cold for track meets it seems, we make the best of it and just bring blankets and wear about 10 layers, and it also seems crazy to run around the track 4 times as fast as you can for fun, but I love it. It is a challenge and even when you get beat, you can still beat your pervious time or just the feeling that you gave it all. It is a time to show everyone what you got, and what you have worked for, standing on the line seeing the official lift the gun, and everything is quiet and the nerves sink in. BANG! I am off and running and forgetting about everything else and just running thinking how fast can I run this one, I run my race, giving it all I can and then feeling like crap after and feeling so good at the same time. That's why I run.

College

With all of the seniors deciding on colleges and slowly beginning to hope that the summer will be here and then college, the seniors are beginning not to care about schoolwork as much. It is hard to focus on high school when we are always thinking about college and learning about new topics and experiencing new things. Since I made the choice to go to Nazareth college I have been so excited to get out of high school and this town and finally get some freedom that I believe I deserve. Most people believe that college is just going to be more school, but it is much more than that, it is a chance to really learn what you want to do with your life. It also gives students a chance to become independent, since most children have had their parents do a lot for them. College is a chance to start over, to just be yourself and be free.

Almost There

With spring break coming to an end we will be back at school soon, but only for another 10 weeks or so. Being a senior this final marking period seems like it is going to take forever. I just want the school year to be over so i can focus on my plans for the summer and for my future life at Nazareth college. For over the summer i am going to continue working at Crossroads Animal Hospital, I will also be volunteering at a spay and neuter clinic, and also accompanying one of my father's co-workers to a zoo to study animals. there. Needless to say my summer is going to be filled with animals and medical aspects, which is how i want to spend it. During my free time i will probably just be hanging with friends, swimming, running and just getting excited for the fall.

Tales of An African Vet

I have recently started reading a new book called "Tales of An African Vet" by Dr. Roy Aronson, the story is as you guessed stories of his veterinary experience. So far the book is very interesting with great stories about all of the animals that he has dealt with, from rhinos to lions to elephants. It also deals a lot with the veterinary medicine, which to me is very appealing and love reading about the adventures that this man has. Some of the stories that I have read so far are very dangerous and have the reader on the edge of their seats asking what will happen. So far I highly recommend this book to anyone who like veterinary medicine or anyone who would like to read about some crazy real life story.

Weather

The weather in New York is crazy, we can have a day of sun and warm weather and then there are days like today that it is raining/snowing and freezing out. Yesterday i had a track meet that lasted all day and i only had 2 events to run in, so I was sitting around for most of the cold day. The meet lasted for about 8 hours and I ran 2 events each I ran in about 2 minutes, so I ran and warmed up for about 5 minutes and was sitting around in the cold the rest of the time. Now this I wouldn't mind if it was like 70 degrees and sunny, but since it was so cold most of the team was just sitting under the tent trying to keep warm. In New York we seem to have the most extreme weather days, from freezing cold to a blizzard to blazing hot which makes each day different than the next.

Hunger Games Overview SPOILER ALERT

The novel The Hunger Games contains a great story line that keeps the reader hooked from the first chapter. Unlike some of the other books this one seems to appeal to a wider audience, since it contains action and violence, a future post war society, and a love story all intertwined within each other. Also the author does a great job of giving the story many twists so the reader can not predict what will happen next and therefore they will not get bored with the book. The writing the author uses is easy to follow and gives great images of the environment and of the people. Also Suzanne Collins really allows you to know the characters on a more personal level, which makes the book that more interesting to find out what will happen to these fictional characters. An example of this would be when Katniss describes her fellow tribute, Rue, as looking a lot like her sister, this allows the reader to connect to her and really feel bad when she is killed since the reader also fells a connection with sweet innocent little Prim. Another aspect of this book that I enjoy is that even at the end of the first book, with the Hunger Games over, it still leaves with the reader eager to know what will happen next and begins reading the next book in the trilogy. This can be also seen as a negative part of the book since some people might not want to wait to get the second book and want the answers then and there. A down side of the book is that at parts it is hard to follow since there are 24 tributes within the arena you start to forget who has died and who hasn’t, and at the beginning of the games you do not know all of the tributes’ name, making it harder to understand at parts. This small flaw can be overlooked since if the author were to go in depth with all of the characters, making the reader attached to each of them it would defeat the purpose that Katniss is the main character and that the reader is suppose to be cheering for her to win and not one of the other tributes. Also if the author had to explain all of the tributes the book would have to be a lot longer and would just drag on at some parts. The creativity of the novel is incredible, from the idea of having children fight to the death for entertainment to all of the mutants that she puts in the story. Suzanne Collins created a future world with so much detail that it feels real and where the characters come to life. She also adds in political aspects as well, but those are not well seen until the end of the first book. I would highly recommend this book to a number of people since it can appeal to such a large audience. Any one of my friends would love this book, from my guy friends to my girl friends, since the boys will love it for the action, fighting and violence while the girls will enjoy it for the love story and the strong female main character. This is personnel one of my favorite books, the main reason that I like the novel so much is that it is very hard to predict what will happen, which I enjoy. If I can predict what will happen right at the beginning, then what is the point of reading it, but this book is not like this at all. In fact after reading this novel I have recommended it to some of my friends, one of who is reading it right now so he can watch the movie. 

Hunger Games Theme SPOILER ALERT!!!

The main theme in the novel the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is the basic human goal of survival. At the very beginning of the novel Katniss is just trying to survive in the terrible environment of district 12. After the death of her father she had to go out on her own to hunt and bring back food for her and her family to live off of. The Capitol makes this task even harder by making hunting illegal so Katniss has to be very careful while selling her game and sneaking into the woods. She is alone in this objective until she meets a boy who also lost his father at a young age and has to survive as well. Gale and Katniss soon become hunting partners and the challenge of surviving becomes a more bearable task to accomplish. Katniss surviving in district 12 by hunting foreshadows how she will survive during the Hunger Games and how she will be able to be a real threat to the other tributes even if they are a lot stronger than she is and the fact that she can live off of the land if worse comes to worse. The theme of survival appears again and again during this novel, the next appearance it makes is when she has to do an interview with Caesar Flickerman, an interviewer of all of the tributes before they are put in the arena. Katniss is not social and the interview determines if people outside of the games will help her once she enters fighting for her life. Therefore the importance of this interview is like she is trying to survive before she even starts fighting with the other tributes. Once she enters the games there are many aspects that relate back to the main theme of survival, right at the beginning she has to run away from the other tributes so that she is not in the middle of the war zone and dead within the first moments of the games. Once she has escaped the blood bath the need to surviving never leaves her mind from that point on. From her years of hunting she has an advantage over some of the other tributes in surviving, but another aspect of surviving in this environment is luck. Throughout the games Katniss gets very lucky and lives because of it. An example of her getting really lucky is when she is up in a tree and there are a pack of tributes on the ground trying to kill her, she gets lucky when another tribute tells her of a tracker jackers’ nest (mutant wasps created by the Capitol that can kill if stung too many times). This tribute, Rue, could have easily killed her but instead she decided to help her and tell her of this nest, which allowed Katniss to escape with only a few stings. Later on in the book she is almost killed by a girl, Clove, and could have easily had a knife buried into her    throat if another tribute, Thresh, did not come to her rescue. Clove could have easily cut Katniss’ throat and been done with it, but Thresh came to the rescue since he thought he owed Katniss something for helping out his fellow district tribute, Rue. This is also the reason that Thresh lets Katniss live after Clove was killed in a very brutal fashion. The idea of survival is a basic human instinct that our bodies have made us experts at; whether it is our ability to think, use tools, and the adrenaline that rushes through our bodies during moments of emergency. Throughout the games, all of these aspects can be seen from Katniss, from her outsmarting many of her fellow tributes to her use of snares to catch animals to eat. Finally at the end of the book Katniss finds out that the Capitol is not very happy with the final action that she did while she was in the arena and that an uprising might be in the making. This moment foreshadows into the next book that there will be more challenges that she will have to survive through.

Hunger Games Summary

The story of the Hunger Games takes place in future day North America and is run by a very controlling Capitol. The country, now call Panem, is divided into 12 different districts each having their own specialty. The main character, Katniss Everdeen lives in district 12 that is one of the poorest districts and the males have to mine coal. Katniss has to hunt illegally with her friend Gale to provide for both of their families, since both of their fathers died in a mining accident. At only 16 years old, she has to provide for her little sister, Prim, and her mother. The Hunger Games are the way of the Capitol keeping the 12 districts in line and so that they will not cause a rebellion. A boy and girl from each of the 12 districts, from the ages of 12 to 18 years old, are picked at random to be tributes in the Hunger Games. They are then put into an arena and forced to fight to the death on live television with the winner getting fortune and fame. Since Katniss is from the poorest district they have only had two winners, one who died of old age and the other is Haymitch who is always drunk. So being a tribute from district 12 is almost like having the death sentence but for the enjoyment of others. Then at the Reaping for the tributes, the unexpected happens; Prim is chosen to fight in the Hunger Games and Katniss volunteers to take her spot as tribute. She then promises her sister that she will try to win for her, since Prim has hope that Katniss does not have at this point. From then on she is forced to fight for her life against 23 other tributes, while also dealing with the obstacles that the game makers throw at her. 

Origami

With 4 posts is should probably talk about something that is unique to me, which is origami. I started origami when I was in 5^th grade when I got my first origami book from my grandmother, at first I hated it, I didn’t know how to do it and it was just so frustrating. Soon though I understood the basic folds and begin to make paper come to life into animals, flowers, and just random figures. For me origami is very relaxing and a good hobby to do in your spare time, also seeing what you can create and challenging yourself is one of the best parts. 

Origami is the art of paper folding and can be traced back hundreds of years, and now in modern times it is getting more and more advance. Scientists and mathematicians are using their knowledge to expand origami by using geometry and computer programs to see just how fair they can take this art. So far the possibilities seem to be endless, origami is used to fold a parachute into a backpack for skydivers, and they are also looking at folding proteins to hopefully discover cures for diseases. Origami can be as simple or complex as you want it to be, which is why I really like it. You can make gifts for friends and family or become really good and sell your amazing origami, the sky is the limit for this art form.

Spring

The sun is out, birds are singing, spring is here. I love the spring season, everyone is just so happy from the long winter (well not including this year) but it is such a great time of year. The days are getting longer so it doesn’t get dark at like 4, being able to play outside with my brother or dog in only shorts and a t-shirt (if that). Just yesterday I played Kan Jam with my brother, and for those of you who don’t know what Kan Jam is. It is a Frisbee game where you throw it at two cans and have to get the most points; it is one of the best games of all time. Anyways I don’t know if it is my senioritis or the fact that spring is here, but I really don’t want to do any more schoolwork. It is so hard to focus on math problems or reading when you can look out the window at the great weather. The first half of the year zoomed by, but now the days are ticking slowly toward the end of the year. It will be the end of my high school career, where I will graduate and spend the summer having fun, working, and running before starting my new life at college. Honestly I don’t think it will be that sad to leave Homer and move on to my college life, I have learned a lot here and it has prepared me for my future education. People say that saying good bye to your friends is the hardest thing after high school, but I will see them again it is not like I am moving half way around the world. Also during the summer I will hang out with my friends before I leave and when I get back for breaks. Now that I have gone so off track from my original spring talking, it seems like a good place to end it. So to summarize spring is awesome, I don’t care that much about schoolwork any more, and looking forward to college.