Dance Moms

One of my favorite TV shows is called "Dance Moms." It comes on lifetime, and there is a new episode every tuesday at 8:00. It is a fairly new show, this is only the second season. It is a very funny show but can also lead you to wonder what will happen next. In the show, there are 7 little girls who go to Abby Lee's dance studio. They are incredible competitive dancers. On each show, they show one of their competitions, practices, and the thoughts of the dancers and their moms. The moms of these dancers are crazy! They always have a problem with something, and they are just as competitive (or even more competitive) as their little girls. It is very entertaining, because you can watch these beautiful dancers, while their moms argue with each other, and the dance teacher Abby.

In the last episode, Brooke, (who is the oldest in the group) skips a competition to try out for cheerleading at school. If she were going to make it, she was going to quit dance. And if she didn't make it, she knew she would be in a heap of trouble. She made the cheer team, and that is where the episode ended. I am not sure what will happen in the next episodes. Brooke's little sister still goes to the dance studio. I wonder if she will end up quitting to, because Abby already puts her under the other girls. But if you haven't seen this show, I reccomend that you watch it because I am hooked on it now. I know of so many people that love the show. It is a truly great show.

Global Issue Research Paper

I am writing my research paper on the harassment of disabled people in England. Lots of people have asked me how I came upon such a specific topic. The truth is, I am not even sure how I came to this topic. Our whole class went to a website with very broad global issues, and Disabilities caught my eye. My Parents are both doctors so I am interested in Medicine and Health. Then I went to another database and started to try and narrow my topic. That was the hardest part so far. I started out with disabled people in Ugonda, but I didn't like that topic. I kept looking, and found an article about the mistreatment of disabled people in England, and I knew that was what I wanted to do.

Finding sources for my topic was another challenge. But after finding 8-10 sources, It has been a lot easier. I have lots of good note cards, even though I am not using them all. I feel like now I can write a good paper with the information that I have. I have gotten off to a good start. I am in the process of writing my rough draft. I think that the hardest part of the paper will be (like most papers) the introduction and the conclusion. But overall, I think that it is going pretty well. Hopefully after monday, when we learn how to do the correct introduction, I will be able to write a good intro.

My weekend:)

I had a great weekend! On friday I went to see the movie Incredibly close and Extremely loud. It was the movie about the little boy whose dad died on 911. It was a great movie. It was sad, but it was truly an amazing movie. Then on Saturday, I had a gymnastics meet at night. But before that, I worked at the session before mine. It was at my gym which made me feel good. We started at 6:45. I ended up getting first on vault, bars, beam, floor, and the all around. I was very happy with the outcome. My teamates had a good meet too. It was a fun night and I got to see some old friends that came to support us. I also had a lot of family come and watch me too.

Today, on Sunday, I will be pretty busy most of the day. I have a lot of homework and studying to do. I had a great weekend, and I wish that it could go on longer. But I know that I have to go back to school tomorrow. Overall, I had a really great weekend, but I know that I have to return to the real world tomorrow, and get back on my normal schedule.

Reading this week

This week, I read the 17 pages in the Norton Field guide that we had to read, and my outside reading book. The pages in the norton book gave me information on how to do certain things that I will need to do for our up coming paper. I learned how to paraphrase, summarize, and quote correctly. I also learned how not to plagerize, because that is a very serious matter that should not be taken as a joke. If you plagerize, you can get in a lot of trouble not only by the school, but it is also illegal. So now that I have read and taken notes on those pages, I should be able to write my research paper without problems of cheating.

I also continued reading my outside reading book called "It's not Summer Without you." so far it is an AMAZING book! I absolutely love it. It is about a girl named Belly (her real name is Isabella) who goes to a summer house with her family and another family for the whole summer every year. But this year would be different because the boy of the other family named Conrad's mother got sick. So her two boys, Jeremiah and Conrad don't really care about anything and the summer is tunring out to be terrible. This is also the last summer that they will spend in this house again, which makes matters worse. But anyways I really can't wait to see how this book ends because I love it.

Free reading-

Norton Field Guide- 60 mins- 402-419

"It's not Summer Without you" (Jenny Han)- 90 mins- 114-175

My birthday:)

So today is my 15th birthday. I share my birthday with a few of my friends, which is pretty unusual. Olivia St.Romain, who is in our english class, shares a birthday with me. Another one of my friends from gymnastics also shares the same birthday with me. This weekend, my friend who lives in Texas came in to visit. I had a great weekend with her. We went to snowball (a cotillion party), and we also went to an LSU gymnastics meet. I was sad to see her leave, but I was glad that she got to come in for my birthday. I am very lucky to have the day off of school for my birthday! For the past two years, my birthday was on a weekend, and this year, it is another day off of school.

I spent my birthday with friends family, and my coaches. I have a competition coming up this weekend, so I spent lots of time in the gym today. I am very close to all of the girls there, so it was fun spending my birthday with them. After practice, my family and I went out to eat for my birthday. We went to Tokyo cafe. It was a great meal and I had a great time. I had a great birthday and I am blessed to have such loving family and friends.

Literary Analysis Essay

I can't believe that this essay is almost complete! It feels like forever that we have been working on this paper. I am very proud of how far I have come with this paper. When we started, I never knew how i was going to accomplish it. But now, I am just happy that I could finish it. This was probably one of the most challenging papers that I have ever written. It made me think so much more than I ever had, but I know that I will have to do these in the future. Now I will be more prepared for the next analysis that we will have to write. I am glad that we took it slow so that we could fully understand the assignment, and write better papers.

So far I am happy with how my paper has turned out. I am not used to something this vague in terms of choosing a story and coming up with your own thesis statement. This essay has pushed me out of my comfort zone, but I think that it will benefit me in the end. I think that the hardest part of the whole essay was writing the conclusion of the paper. I really struggled with this part. I knew that I could write a literary analysis when I read the short story, "Dead End." And coming up with the thesis wasn't even that challenging. But putting the paper together was the biggest challenge of all. Overall, I am happy to see this paper be finished and see how it turns out compared to the first thing that we started with this paper.

New Quarter

Now that we are starting second semester, I think that we can all be relieved to have a fresh start. The first quarter was a little rough, because we were just getting used to high school and the challenges that it brings. Hopefully now we are used to it and can strive to do even better this quarter. We have a clean slate and we should all try to make the best of it. I plan to make this semester a success by a few changing a few things. On my homework and in class assignments, I plan to give more effort to. Not that I did poorly in this, but i could have gotten a few more points is i would have done them better. Another thing that i want to improve is my worldly wise tests. i am not sure why, but I know the words but on the test, I don't always do great. I am going to try and study the synonyms more and look at exercises in the book to help me do better on the tests. Overall, i am happy with how I did in first quarter, but there is always room for improvement.

I think that we can all agree that our class could use a better attitude in the classroom. We can all try to participate more and give more enthusiasm. I think that class might be a little bit more enjoyable if we all try to do these things. I am hoping that by the end of this quarter, our class will not have the negativeness that we had in the first semester. I know that if we all give it a shot, then things will improve. It can't hurt to try, right? So I am hoping that this new quarter will bring success to many, and a whole new attitude to the classroom. If so, I think that we could all remember this class as a fun, productive class.