My blog!

Merci beaucoup!

Thank you so much Ms. Waters! It is a wonderful honor to have been selected as one of the winners of the Edublogger Competition! Congratulations to all the winners!!!!

Well, I signed up for Miss Wyatt’s 2009 blogging challenge. I signed up for the one last Spring and it was lots of fun!! For Activity 2 under Miss Wyatt’s Welcome!Welcome!Welcome! challenge there are some questions to post about: I signed up for the one last Spring and it was lots of fun!!

1. Why did I sign up for the blogging challenge?

There are a couple of reasons I signed up for the blogging challenge. My first and ultimate reason is that I gain more knowledge about blogging out of it. It is wonderful to learn tips to  improve my blog from phenomenal bloggers like Miss Wyatt and Sue Waters through their posts. Blogging challenges are really instrumental in the development of my blog. My second reason for signing up for the blogging challenges because it helps connect you to a global audience. Having my name and blog link on the participants page is awesome since so many people visit Miss Wyatt’s blog. My third reason for joining the blogging challenge is that it is just plain fun!

2. Do I want to take part in the commenting section more than the better blogger section? Why?

I think I would like to take part in both of the sections if possible. I would love to develope my commenting abilities more (with the Better Commenter section) and I would still love to improve my blog and continue to connect to a global audience (with the Better Blogger section). These two sections will be wonderful and combined they will definitely enhance my blogging.

3.What do you hope some of the activities include?

I am not really sure what I hope some of the activities include. Anything that Miss Wyatt posts to do will be fun in my opinion. I would like to do so activites telling about things you like to do and ways that blogging has helped you. I think those would be interesting posts.

4.Finally, What do I hope to get out of the challenge by the end of the ten weeks?

I would love to have more visitors to my blog because of the challenge. I love to visit people’s blogs and comment and I also love to recieve comments back! I would also like to gain lots of knowledge about blogging, anything that I can do to make my blog better.

Are you participating in this challenge?

Have you ever participated in any of the blogging challenges?

I am very excited for I have never been to Ireland before and I have heard many great things about it. I will be visiting some relatives (some of whom  have visited this blog and one who has posted!) in the Dublin area and County Cork. I am excited because in the ten days I am there I will visit castles, ancient burial sites, Dublin, various little towns and hopefully go horsebackriding. I am going to practice the little bit of Gaelic I know and hopefully learn some more and my relative Doreen speaks French so I shall have opportunities to speak en francais with her. As soon as I get back I shall make a post about mon voyage and maybe I shall post some photos.

If you wonder why your comments do not get approved during this ten-day time period or there is a lack of response to your comment, do not fear, it is NOT because I am ignoring you, it is because I have not been able to access a computer. That should not stop anyone from commenting though: an email inbox full of comments-to-be-approved would make me very happy when I come home! I will try my best to get online once or twice while I am there though.

Have you ever been to Ireland?

Are you Irish in anyway?

What nationalities are you?

One of my close friends gave me the third book in a series that both of us enjoy (for my birthday). I had finished Don’t Judge A Girl By Her Cover by that night, so wrapped up in it that I was. This was the latest installment in the Gallagher Girls Series ( I’d Tell You I Love You But Then I’d Have To Kill You, Cross My Heart And Hope To Spy, and Don’t Judge A Girl By Her Cover) by Ally Carter.

I shall give you the basic information, starting with the first book: I’d Tell You I Love You But Then I’d Have To Kill You.

Cameron Morgan (a.k.a Cammie the Chameleon) is a 15-year-old student (and daughter of the headmistress) at the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women. Or a school of rich, snobby girls as the locals from Roseville, Virginia (and the rest of the world) perceive it as. Which is fine: after all every good spy knows not to blow their cover. Cammie can kill a person in seven different ways, she speaks 14 languages,  and goes to a school for spies-in-training. What could be better? To get in to the Gallagher Academy (which by the way you need at least a Level 4 Clearance too even know about) you have to be either a daughter of elite spies working for the government or a genius. Cammie and her friends Liz (a genius) and Bex (daughter of famous British spies) attend classes such as CoveOps (short for covert operations where your class could be tracking one of the teachers, attending a political rally and secretly tapping into the Secret Service frequency, or escaping from a situation where your teachers pretend to be the bad guys), Countries of the World, Culture and Assimilation…..not your normal classes and not your normal students. So what happens when Cammie fall in love with a boy, who isn’t a spy?

Hopefully you will be interested by this post and find a copy at the local library or bookseller and then you will go on to read the rest in the series.

Have you ever read any of these books?

If so, what were your feelings about them?

Je suis très heureux aujourd’hui!!!! Pourquoi? Je pouvais  être heureux parce que……………..c’est mon anniversaire!  J’espere mon anniversaire sera  être bonne aujourd’hui. Je vais être/je suis maintenant treize ans.

Quand est vous anniversaire? Comment vielle sera vous être?

—————————————————————————————————————————————

In English:

I am very happy today. Why? I could be happy because…………it’s my birthday! I hope my birthday will be good today. I am going to be/I am now thirteen years old.

When is your birthday? How old will you be?

Postscript: to those French speakers I am sorry for the simple French, even with my ever expanding French vocabulary I still have much to learn and I prefer to write the French on my blog from my knowledge: not a translator’s. Je n’aime pas à traduce!

Summer (for the Northern Hemisphere) is almost half over: ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!! So by now everyone is full fledged in summer-ish activities: swimming, going to the beach, playing outside…. I live near the sea (very, very close and unfortunately that proximity draws horseflies!) and some of the most popular summer activities of my region are: going to the  beach, swimming, and sailing.

I have been sailing for the past three summers (four if including this summer) and I do morning racing. We sail lasers and hone the skills already acquired in past summers from Instructionals, otherwise known as Knockabouts. They sail Cape Cod knockabouts (self stated) with an average crew of four to five with one instructor. No sailing experience is needed for that class and it is full of kids wanting to try something new. The summer before fifth grade was my first-ever sailing experience, I loved it and picked it up pretty quickly. By the end of my first summer I was recommended for Morning Racing (you need a recommendation to get accepted) and I started it my second summer. I am currently on my third summer of lasers and I thoroughly enjoy it. A difference between the two boats (other than size- knockabouts are bigger than lasers) is that lasers are very flighty, go very fast, and capsize very easily. The boat heels over a lot (nearly capsizing) and hiking out is neccesary. There is a hiking out strap which runs down the middle of the cockpit and is meant for you to stick your feet under. Then you sit (sometimes literally) outside the boat and your feet are strapped down keep you in. Doesn’t it sound fun?

What do you do in the summer?                           

Have you ever sailed before?        

One of my many hobbies is theater. I love to act, it is extremely enjoyable. I have always loved to pretend so naturally acting is something that I like to do. It is always a fun challenge to take the basic clues about your character (from the script) and then enlargen what you know and discover more about your character. I always go in depth (at least in my mind) about my character. It is so easy for me to be another person: I try to think as though I were them, act as though I were them, bring them to life. An important thing to do (which will help your acting overall) is stay in the moment. While onstage forget about the homework you have to do later, the powerpoint due in a week, forget yourself and completely immerse in the character. That way it’s not pretending: it is just being.

I have been in a total of seven productions: two at my school, during 6th and 7th grade, and five at a local community theater.

I also like to watch plays: I find them very entertaining. I try to watch as many plays as I can at the local theater to support them. I also have seen The Lion King at a theater in Boston, and Mary Poppins on Broadway in New York City. Both of those musicals were phenomenal!!!
Have you ever been in a play?
If not have you ever been to a play?

Tonight I am heading to a three-week long (I come home on weekends though and therefore will still be able to blog!) academic camp at a local college campus. Back in January the kids with the top 10% of MCAS* scores from my school were notified about the Advanced Studies and Leadership Program, and were eligible. Only eight out of the twenty-two from my school district would further get in, so you needed to write an essay on how the ASLP program would help you and you needed to get two teacher recommendations and a guidence counselor recommendation. After that you just sent in your completed packet (including the recommendations and essay) and hope for the best. April 10th I found out that I was in. One of my best friends also was admitted so we were both very happy.

ASLP is a three week course where we come home on the weekends. The students stay in dorms so it is like being in college. The curriculum is mostly science and involves the sea. I was lucky enough to have been put in the STEM course of Navigation and Boat Handling because I love to sail and I am pretty good at it also. The biggest project for my course at the end is steering a (simulated, of course, after all who would be crazy enough to put 12,13, and 14-year-olds behind the wheel of a 500 foot ship) five-hundred foot ship into Boston Harbor. Fun! We also take humanities courses. I wanted to get placed in the Drawing and Painting group but instead I was put in the Yearbook group (which isn’t the end of the world because I like photography).

*MCAS is a state wide test every April and May that is very boring and pretty long.

Notice how it says tonight at the beginning. This post was supposed to be finished last Sunday and therefore would have made sense, but somebody *I wince and gulp guiltily* was discombobulated and needed to finish packing….
My first week was amazing and very fun and I shall inform in later posts!

How is everybody’s summer/winter holidays (Depending on your hemisphere)?

I participated in my friend Allegra’s Summer Reading Challenge and here is the review mandated by it. The rules were to pick a fractured fairytale (a book based on a fairytale) and write a review on your blog. I was scrambling for books that would count as a “fractured fairytale” that I could get on my next library trip, after no results I forgot about it. Two Saturdays ago I just finished Zel by Donna Jo Napoli that I just picked up that morning and remembered the reading challenge. I went back to thinking of possible books and then suddenly the lightbulb came on. The book I had just read was based on the fairytale of Rapaunzel.

Zel by Donna Jo Napoli

Published by Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated, 1998

Zel has always lived alone with her mother in a remote Swiss Alm, rarely interacting with other people. The exceptions were once in the summer and once in the winter when they went into town for the market. Zel could not wait for these outings but her mother was happy to keep Zel all to herself, no matter to her daughter’s expense. While in town Zel meets a wealthy noble boy Konrad who wants to reward her for calming his horse. She simply asks for a goose egg and he finds himself with a compelling desire to find the egg for Zel. She leaves before he arrives back and he finds himself smitten, in love with a girl that he only knew for a mere hour.

He makes it his quest to find Zel, but to no avail for mother (growing jealous of Zel and Konrad’s instantaneous affection for each other) has locked her daughter in an inaccessible tower. The question is, will this fractured fairytale end up like Rapaunzel or will it have a whole new ending?

To bloggers: what are some fairytales that you enjoy/enjoyed?

Today at my middle school the 7th graders had our field day. About a week ago everyone signed up for events in their homeroom. I signed up for only one (unfortunately) the 880 run which is two laps of the track or half of a mile. Today one of my classmates was not here so I also got to participate in the egg toss. Fun!

The morning of field day is filled with kids decorating peoples’ faces with face paint or markers (if there is no more face paint) to show team spirit. My homeroom was called “International Peeps” (don’t ask!). Everyone tried to wear colors of their heritage. I tried to wear the Irish colors but I couldn’t find any gold so I was left with a green t-shirt and white shorts. This morning during homeroom I was commissioned to face paint. I got to face paint the flags of Honduras, Puerto Rico, and Italy. Many of the girls-sorry, nearly all of the girls in my class had face paint-most common stripes under the eyes that are commonly seen on football players.

Field day started out with the field events: shotput, discus, long jump, softball throw….One of my friends (no names for privacy’s sake) got second place in the softball throw! Good job! Then came the track events: 50 yard dash, 100 yard dash, 220 (half of a lap), 440 (one lap) and finally my race, the 880. One of my good friends and I were racing against each other and I was nervous in general. The gun went off and seven girls went flying off. For the first bit my friend and I were in middle to last places. That didn’t last long. The girls in front  of us went off way too fast and found themselves needing to slow down or completely stop not long after. My friend went on to take 1st place and I came in second place!!! I was happy for I am okay short distance, but I am much better at longer distances, which is exactly why I run cross-country. After that came the miscellaneous events: frisbee golf, egg toss, sack shuttle, tire roll, obstacle course… I was lucky enough to do egg toss which a lot of people were watching. My partner and I would throw and catch when the gym teachers said to do so, doing it carefully for if the smallest thing went wrong the egg would splatter. Eggs started splattering and there were only three pairs left (including us). I threw and unfortunately when my partner caught the egg it splattered all over him! We got third place in the egg toss!

The last event to take place was the class versus class tug-of-war game. My class won our first round but faced against a better team we lost, and most of my classmates (including me) toppled over. Well, we tried.

Does your school have a field day?

If so feel free to comment about it.