mountain doh

2 weekends ago some friends and I went to the George Washington National Forrest.  It was about a 3 hour drive to the base of the Mountain that we climbed.  The Trail was called Crabtree Falls and was about 1.8 mile hike up to the observatory.  As we were climbing we noticed how foggy it has become.  The dense fog cause us to have only about 25 feet of visibility.  We kept hoping and hoping it would clear up as we got closer to the observatory spot.  But of course with our luck, we couldn't see a thing.  I was so furious, but we decided to keep hiking up the mountain.  We then reached a chill resting spot where we decided to eat lunch.  After eating we hiked for about an hour more before we had to head back because it was getting dark soon.  We made it down just as it was becoming real difficult to see on the mountain.  It was still a good trip even though we couldn't see any scenery.  I had a good time.

Cicis

I went to Cici's pizza restaurant the other day and lets just say it was still as good as when I was a kid.  To start off, the pizza buffet only costs $5! How can someone beat that?  Cicis offers pizza, pasta, salad and dessert.  All of which are amazing.  I started off with pizza, which was lined down about a 25 foot bar filled with pizza and desserts.  I definitely got my 5$ worth of food.  After I ate I had some spare change so I decided to hit up the arcade that has always been in there.  I played a racing game and a shooting game with some friends.  It was a chill day.

New post

This week of class has been pretty good.  On Monday my grammar shmammar group presented our power point on Run-ons and comma splices to the class.  We were supposed to present it on Friday but we forgot about.  Mr. Sweeney was cool and let us do it on Monday.  Although it was only me and one other person in the group, I think we did pretty well.  So far this week is going pretty good.

Ashland Berry Farm doh

Last night a group of friends and I went to the Ashland Berry Farm.  They were having a special Thursday night promotion, so we scored $13 tickets.  Once we arrived to the Ashland berry Farm, a friend of mine said that it wasn't that busy compared to what it was like last year when he went.  I was excited though to say the least.  The $13 deal included 3 different attractions, or scary tours.  The first one was the scariest with it having us in complete darkness trying to crawl through this maze contraction, talk about crazy.  The journey started with us taking a hay ride for about 5-10 minutes to the middle of nowhere, and then having to walk through a maze in a cornfield.  I was extremely disorientated at this point. It was also pretty cold outside, which I didn't mind. The stars that were out though were magnificent.  They were so bright and vibrant and I could see so many.  The 2nd and 3rd attractions were haunted houses.  The 2nd one being extremely dark, which made me more concerned with getting out of there, than being scared of the people trying to scare me.  Overall it was a great trip. My favorite part was when we were in the first maze and having to crawl through this small area.  I highly suggest going to the Ashland Berry Farm for a fun, scary time.  

cursing

In class we had a lot of discussion about curse words and the way we view people that use curse words. Many people in my class curse, including myself.  We discussed that some people look down upon people who curse or think that they are less educated than them.  Also about how some people use it out of anger or rage. The idea behind this class discussion was a reading that we read, titled Lets Hear it for "bullshit".  It starts by telling about how Senator Tom Harkin was running for U.S president.  Harkin's was campaigning in Iowa when he used to the word "bullshit" in his address and was later scolded and resented for it.  The author of the essay then addresses the Senator and agrees with him.  He then says how the word is an expressive mood of the country.

Museum doh

Recently I went to The Civil War siege museum in Old Town Petersburg.  It was a rainy muggy day and a couple of friends and I just got a bite to eat and had nothing to do.  As we were driving we saw the sign for the museum so we decided to check it out.  When we got there we found out that it didn't open for another 15 minutes,  so we decided to wait it out.  When it finally opened a nice little old lady came and let us in.  She was our tour guide, and showed us around the museum.  First thing we did was watch a movie on the Siege of Petersburg that was produced by a man from Petersburg!  After that we went and saw what all the museum had from cannons, to clothing, to money from the Civil War.  I soon found out that the tour guide does not like cell phones in the museum and thought I was taking pictures of everything.  I assured her I was sending a text message and she told me "not to text it either".  It was a nice museum if you have some spare time, it cost $5 to enter.

Burr

Another knowledge filled week of English class.  Our class had a rough draft of a personal narrative due this past monday.  The personal narrative was to be 750+ words and had to be about an experience with language,  either positive or negative.  On Monday and Wednesday our class got into our grammar shmammar groups and we helped each other revise them, by reading them aloud and getting our peers input.  It's always good to get a second opinion when writing essays or other assignments, to help find grammatical errors or other mistakes.  Aside from the essays, our class also takes part in an assignment called grammar schmmar.  We were broken into groups and instructed to make a video, or powerpoint presentation to show the class about a certain grammar rule. 

Week of class

This week in English class was pretty chill.  On Monday we met in the library conference room, or whatever its called, and a librarian took us on a tour of the library.  The amount of knowledge in the library is astonishing.  There are books on books on books in there for anyone that needs to use for research, or to enjoy reading them.  They have a quiet section upstairs for anyone who would like a quiet place to study, or rooms for group projects.  There are even more books up stairs for someone to use.  The library has about 20 more stacks of books with hundreds if not thousands of books for use.  A new edition to the Richard Bland school library is a collection of dvds and movies for students to check out.  Thousands of dvds were generously donated to the school by an anonymous donor.  Computers are also available to the students who wish to access the internet library or online databases for research.  Overall our class was informed about the benefits that the library can provide us.  Class on Wednesday went well.  The students that had to do grammar schmammar 1 presented it to class.  It was okay, they talked about the uses of apostrophes and gave examples of sentences without apostrophes.  Overall it was a good week of class.

Superman and Me

Superman and Me is about a young Spokane Indian boy living on a Reservation in eastern Washington.  The young boy lives on the Reservation with his family and to which some standards may be considered poor.  His father attended Catholic school and is absolutely in love with books.  He reads anything from novels, and murder mysteries to backs of cereal boxes and bulletin board posts.  The man would read anything he saw and his the young boy saw his fathers love for books and that is what made the boy love books.  He soon understood that all the books his father had, they all had paragraphs of words which he couldn't read.  When the young boy picks up the Superman comic book for the first time he sees that there are pictures with words under them and and they are in  paragraphs or grouped under them.  He then realizes that those words under the picture are saying what the picture is doing. The boy is incredibly smart and gifted that read the "Grapes of Wrath" when he is just in Kindergarten.  If he wasn't on a Reservation he might of been called a Prodigy.  He talks about how it was hard for people on the Reservation to really make it far but he was determined not to fail.  He now visits schools and teaches creative writing to Indian children on Reservations.  Its a great story

Mother Tounge

For Mr. Sweeneys English class we had four readings that had to be read.  One of those really fascinated me and is why I am going to blog about it.  It is called "Mother Tounge" and is about a woman who talks about the different kinds of English that everyone speaks and uses differently.  Her name is Amy Tan, A Chinese American Writer who is writing about her experiences with a "broken" or "limited" English language.  She discusses the type of English her mother speaks and the language she speaks with her compared to other people.  The writer says how her mothers English is "broken" in the sense that other people might not be able to understand but very understandable to her.  Amy Tan talks about how her mother is a main influence on her writings and uses her as mother as the reader for her stories.  She uses all the Englishes she grew up with which are the English from her to her mother, her mother to other people, and the translation of Chinese to English.  Amy Tan uses her mother as her biggest influence and is what she believes makes her stores "so easy to read"