Sportmanship

Sportsmanship is a characteristic that all sportsmen should have. From congratulating the other team, to simply biting your tongue are all parts of proper sportsmanship. It is a set of “unwritten” rules that keeps games fun, but also competitive.

A “good sport” is often what we call someone who abides by this set of “unwritten” rules. There two components that make-up being a “good sport". One is being a “good winner”, when you win you need to still respect others and not boast about your victory. The other component to being a “good sport” is being a “good loser”. I noticed that in many of my soccer games, if the losing team does not have a chance of coming back to win, the losing team changes their goal to trying to hurt opposing players for the remainder of the match. I too have thought f doing this many times, but never have I actually brought myself to actually hurting someone else on purpose. This has transferred to off the soccer field, where I still have not actually hurt someone on purpose.

Many concepts make up the greater word of sportsmanship. They’re fair play, character, and spirit. Fair play is the ability for each team to equally pursue success. A good sportsman would continue playing in a dignified manner even in the event that other participants are not. Character is the qualities of honesty, courage, and integrity. Honesty is important because if you cheat, you are cheating yourself in the process. Courage is used ability to rise against challenges, the bully at school, or the cheater in a game. Integrity is having these moral and ethical principles. Spirit is inspiring to us and pushes us towards our goals.

Poor sportsmanship not only makes the poor sport look bad, but it also makes feel bad. A situation where being a poor sport could lead to injury is if a soccer is saying obscenities to an opposing player, he makes himself a target. The opposing player could become very angry and hurt the poor sport in anyway, while also making a poor sport of himself too. In soccer many times the losing team tries to blame the loss on something other than themselves. They first blame it on each other which makes the entire team angry, and then someone brings up, “Oh it’s the referees fault, and he was terrible!” Which in most cases it was our failure to work together that made us lose. In American football, a team can get a penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct, which in other sports like soccer, saying obscenities is a yellow card, which is a warning, and if you receive to yellow cards you get a red card and are forced to sit out for the remainder of the game and the next.

All of the stated above s what I feel sportsmanship is all about. No matter what you do in life, it will require you to play and act with good sportsmanship.

Word Count: 499

Winter Term Finals: AP Physics, AP US, AP Calc

AP Physics B. This final was truly a mark of achievement. All year I have been earning B's and C's on Mr. Jensen's tests. This obviously has made my grade suffer. Even though it is an AP class and I get the GPA boost, it still has been the class that has been tanking my GPA the most. Without AP Physics, my GPA would without a doubt be much better.


Despite my misfortunes regarding my test grades in AP Physics, I must say, I dominated that final today. I earned an A- (30/33) and I am ecstatic. It is the highest grade I have received on A AP Physics test all year, definitely something to celebrate. I was even considering the idea of dropping the class due to the fact that it was hurting GPA so much.


On to AP US. This test I was worried about all term. Mr. B had warned us after the fall term final that he would be so easy on us for the final for winter term. Needless to say he was bluffing. He gave us an old AP test and had us working on it in groups. As if this was good enough, we were then allowed to take the test home that night and work on it! This obviously removed all the stress associated with this final, and everyone in my group received 100% on the final.

AP Calc is the only class I am extremely worried about. I had a few low test scores during the term that are really hurting my grade. I have utilized every extra credit opportunity there has been in order to counteract this. As far as the final, I don't think I got over a 70%... It is not looking good. I couldn't even do about 10 out of the 40 questions, so just that is 75%, and then I doubt I got all the others right as well, therefore I'm probably looking at a repeat of  fall term with some form of a D on the final. This is pretty depressing considering how hard I have worked in  AP Calc, just for some reason I struggle on the tests and quizzes

Other than AP Calc, I must say it was a very successful day of finals!

Word Count: 381

Winter Term Finals: Spanish

Whew! Finished my first day of finals for winter term! I have four tests today...ugh, but it feels good to be done! Tomorrow I only have one final (AP Lang), and it does not count for a grade so I am not stressing about it. Today was the day I had to worry about, and in general I did very well so far!

First, I had my multiple choice and listening portion of my Spanish 3 final. We took the oral and written final earlier in the week, which dramatically reduced the work load for the final. Compared to the fall term final exam, this terms was a cake walk. The fall term final exam was much more broad and covered a large range of topics, making it very difficult to study for. This term's final was mostly focused on one main subject, the subjunctive. Last night I had my sister quiz me over the entire vocabulary list for the entire unit in which the final was focused on. This proved to be very useful because there was not one word that I did not understand while taking that final. Finally, the hard evidence about the final being a success, I received an A- (59/65). I was extremely happy with this score for two main reasons.

1) My grade did not go down, which I really need to keep my A
2) In a comparison to my fall term final, I did much better. I received a B on my fall term final, after the curve, where as I received a A- on this terms final without a curve at all.

The only thing I can still hope for is that Sra. Perkins will bump me up to an A+, which I would be pretty surprised if she did, but it would still be very nice. I am not going to ask her about it though because I don't wish to anger her.

Word Count: 323

My Top 50 Movies of All Time

Here is a list of my favorite 30 movies I have ever seen. Note that the list only includes movies that I have seen.

I will write a little bit about my favorite movie though. I have watched the movie 300 countless times and love it each time even more. It is one of the only movies I can watch again and again and not get bored of. I like it for its action, some of the most exciting scenes of any movie. I also love the historical accuracy of the content. As you can tell by my second favorite movie, Troy, you can tell that I throughly enjoy my war movies. Both movies are similar in the type of movie, making them my all time two favorite movies I have ever seen.

I know that you all don't have to agree with this list -- in fact I don't expect any of you to agree with it. It is only comprised of movies I have seen which a small fraction of all the great movies out there.


1. 300
2. Troy
3. Pursuit of Happiness
4. Super Bad
5. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
6. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
7. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
8. Avatar
9. Finding Nemo
10. Crocodile Dundee 2 Las Angelas
11. Finding Nemo
12. The Incredibles
13. Hoosiers
14. Moneyball
15. Cars
16. Hangover Part II
17. Scooby-Doo and the Loch Ness Monster
18. Spider Man 2
19. Bourne Ultimatum
20.Bourne Supremacy
21. Sister Act
22. Twister
23. The Love Guru
24. Talledega Nights
25. Greese
26. Pirates of the Caribbean
27. Pirates of the Caribbean 2
28. The Pacifier
29. DodgeBall
30. Catch Me If You Can
31. Short Circuit
32. Home Alone
33. Holes
34. National Treasure
35. National Treasure 2
36. Shark Tale
37. Night at the Museum
38. Epic Movie
39. Anchor Man
40. Disturbia
41. Snow Dogs
42. Kids World
43. Sahara
44. Envy
45. Rudy
46. Coming to America
47. The Longest Yard.
48. Casino Royal 007
49. Octopussy
50. Top Gun

Word Count: 354

Poetic Parody

Ok guys, so recently I have become interested in parodies. Parodies of anything. I have been surfing the web looking at parodies. Parodies are comical renditions of otherwise serious subjects. A famous music parody artist is Weird Al Yankovic. He has taken famous songs and made parodies of them. An example of one of his songs is when he made "Canadian Idiot", a parody of Green Day's famous "American Idiot"

While surfing the web, I came across things to make parodies of and one of the easy things I saw was poem parodies. So I took one of the only poems I know of and made a parody. The following is a parody of the poem Twas' the night of Christmas that I just wrote.

Twas the night of Halloween

Twas the night of Halloween, when all through the neighborhood

All creatures were stirring, anyone could

Bags were full, hanging from the shoulder

As the night got colder

Children ran from door to door

They kept wanting more and more

Father dressed as a vampire

While Mother dressed as an umpire

Sis was cooking on the fryer

She was going out with Trent Meyer

They were cooking a Halloween feast

Both dressed as Beauty and the Beast

Along came witches through the night sky

At the party they were starting to eat pumpkin pie

The witches came on their broom

Along with cats that needed a groom

Pumpkins flew from cannons afar

A couples hits and they destroyed the bar

Our whole city was under attack

We had no choice, we had to fight back

Good legendary characters came to fight

The battle raged on all through the night

Goblin and Ghouls fought jolly Santa Claus on a roof

But his reindeer kicked them with a mighty hoof

The Easter bunny laid stink bombs

They exploded in a big array like pom-poms

Dozens were lost in this great battle

But the Devil said “Let’s skedaddle!”

Good has triumphed over evil

Our leader was Knievel

At sunrise, at last we were ready to eat

Because evil was finally beat

Word Count: 349

Wuthering Heights

I can say for certain that Wuthering Heights is one of the more strange books I have read.  One of my interesting experiences with this book, is instead of actually reading it, I listened to it on audio tape, while following along on my iPad. It felt like a very odd way to read the book, but it was something different, and it accomplished the same task.

One very interesting thing I noticed while reading Wuthering Heights was the reoccurrence of some subjects. One example of this is the reuse of names, for example, Catherine and Young Catherine. There are also many moments during the story where I had Déjà vu because I thought that some of the things had already happened.

The book at the beginning was so incredibly boring. I actually fell asleep a few times while trying to read the book. It took about one hundred pages before it started to pick up and get interesting. All was giving was background information and kind of familiarized us with the setting. This I have noticed is true of a lot of books. Even my favorite of books usually have boring beginnings. I believe that this is almost necessary because we need to become acquainted with how the book is written, so when it does pick up, we can fully understand what is going on.

My favorite part of the book by far was in the middle of it. When there was all the drama with Heathcliff and Catherine. It was exciting and suspenseful. One thing I didn’t like was Catherine’s betrayal of Heathcliff in marrying Linton. I believe that you should trust your heart instead of seeking to be a “gentlewomen”. As a result, Heathcliff becomes a cruel and mean person for the remainder of the story

By the end I felt sad when Heathcliff died, even though I am not usually affected by books. This was definitely not one of my favorite books. It was boring for most of it and was hard to understand at times, but I am glad that I have read it.

Word Count: 332

30 Things to do on a Boring Day.

1. Write a blog post - what I am doing right now! Oh the joys of AP Lang!

2. Play a board game - I highly recommend Monopoly. But if you decide to play, make sure you have at least a few hours set aside to finish. You don't want to get halfway through the game and then have to quit.

3. Play some tennis - I love tennis! It is super fun to play and is good for you.

4. Do your homework - Sounds like your parents I know... But it is a good idea to get your homework done when you aren't busy, that way when you are busy, you don't have to worry about your homework!

5. Play Badminton - Great game to play in your backyard.

6. Learn how to play the guitar - This might be for the people who are a little more determined than me.

7. Study for AP Exams - Agian, sounds like your parents but it can save you a lot of money in college!

8. Start a project - build something. That is usually what I do.

9. Do some crafts - kind of like starting a project. Make something you will be proud of.
10. Watch TV - what we usually end up doing...zzzZZzz
11. Go for a run - what a great idea! Have fun and stay fit!
12. Cook something for lunch
13. Surf the web
14. Go shopping
15. Hang out with friends
16. Go to church
17. Go to a football game
18. Go bowling
19. Go golfing
20. Play some poker
21. Ride your bike
22. Go skateboarding
23. Count to one million
24. Help you parents
25. Get a job
26. Mow the lawn
27.Volunteer somewhere
28. Throw a party
29. Draw on the sidewalk with chalk
30. Or just stay on Facebook ALL DAY LONG

Word Count: 317

Comparing Series: Alex Rider vs. Cherub

The book the Stormbreaker is a thrilling and suspenseful book that people of any ages can enjoy. While The Recruit is a great book, with a similar storyline but, in my opinion, is not quite as good. I am comparing these books because they are the same in many ways. These books are the first in their respective series, both of which I have grown to love.

In each novel, the British school boy’s parents/guardians die at the beginning of the story. Following their parent/guardian dieing they are each recruited by a military intelligence agency. Each is schoolboy is then led through an extensive training program to ready them for their awaiting mission. Both go undercover in their missions, impersonating another person. Each of the missions they are on, they stop people from releasing harmful substances to the public. Along with these many similarities, they’re many differences.

The first difference in the story is that in Stormbreaker Alex’s (main character) uncle dies while in The Recruit James’s (main character) mom dies. MI5 recruits Alex, while CHERUB recruits James. In Stormbreaker, Alex saves people from the RS Virus and in The Recruit, James saves people from anthrax. The character Alex is rather shy, but James is very outgoing and social. Now for this I think is why Stormbreaker is more interesting, because it is more focused on the story at hand, while The Recruit wastes much time explaining James’s social life.

To conclude my post, I must say, listed above are not all the similarities and differences of these great books. If you want to find out what they are then you should definitely read them. I highly recommend both books, and series for that matter. Below I have included links to Amazon so you can order the books for yourself! I hope you have now learned of the numerous similarities and differences of Stormbreaker and The Recruit.

Stormbreaker: http://www.amazon.com/Stormbreaker-Alex-Rider-Anthony-Horowitz/dp/0142406112/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334512766&sr=8-1

The Recruit: http://www.amazon.com/The-Recruit-Cherub-Robert-Muchamore/dp/1442413603/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334512814&sr=1-1

 Word Count: 322

Comparing Middle Schools Cont.

 I would say that Harding middle school was a close third. They were definitely not far behind Franklin middle school, but they did have a few students holding them back. Also because Harding had a very different layout than Franklin, Roosevelt, and McKinley, I had a difficult time finding my way around the school. I previously hated Harding, who knows, maybe I still do. My elementary school friends mainly went to Harding, with a select few of us going to Franklin. This caused a "elementary hatred" for Harding Middle School.

 Roosevelt middle school comes in fourth place. They had some students that were so exceedingly bad, it dropped them from what would probably have been second place to fourth place. In general the kids were respectful, but some were just terrible students. This was my first time actually going inside of Roosevelt, and as I stated in my previous post, it was astonishing how similar Roosevelt, McKinley, and Franklin are.

 In dead last, way behind all others, is Wilson middle school. They were the only middle school that held true to our opinions we formed in middle school. We had believed that the students attending Wilson Middle School were not exceptional students, and our opinions held true. Students there were simply rowdy and disrespectful. They could not stay focused, and were not interested in the experiments at all.

 Looking back, most opinions that we formed in middle school were completely inaccurate. And honestly, it is actually a good thing, it was just surprising, because we didn't exactly have high opinions of any of the schools really, other than Franklin Middle School, our previous opinions of the public middle schools in Cedar Rapids were not very good. This just proves you can't judge a book by its cover. We were previously basing our opinions on what we have heard about the schools, but now that I have actually visited them, I feel I can accurately form my personal opinions about the schools.

Note***You may not agree with all of my opinions!

Word Count: 340

Comparing middle schools

Recently I've had the opportunity to go around the Cedar Rapids Community School District middle schools area for Kennedy Science Roadshow. In doing so I have noticed many similarities and differences among the middle schools. The most astonishing similarity I've noticed is between Roosevelt middle school, Franklin middle school, and McKinley middle school. All three middle schools were built around the same time period, and so the architecture the buildings are remarkably similar. Personally, I went to Franklin middle school, and when I went to the other middle schools, McKinley and Roosevelt, I felt like I knew around the middle schools even though I had never been there before.



When we went to middle school, everyone formed their opinions about the other middle schools and it turns out now that I have visited all of them, not all these opinions are accurate. I had previous believe that the students of McKinley middle school rowdy and relatively bad students. When we went there, it is a complete opposite; students at McKinley middle school were by far the mildest students we had visited for Kennedy Science roadshow. These results were very surprising considering I had previously believed that the students of McKinley middle school were the worst in the district.



A close second, my Alma Mater, Franklin middle school. Like McKinley middle school, they were also very respectful and had a genuine interest in our science experiments. They were calm and collective, and very fun to work with. I will also add that was very exciting to go back and see former teachers of mine. The school was just how I remembered it, except the kids were miniature. That is one thing that I noticed a lot when going back to these middle schools, the kids seemed tiny. I have been short all my life, but these kids were small! Nevertheless, it was cool going back to visit my former middle school.

Word Count: 320

How to take the ACT Cont.

On this blog post I will continue to offer strategies to consider while taking the ACT test.

Make sure you get a good night’s rest the night before! This is extremely important because if you are tired then you are likely to not “be fully present” as Ms. A refers to it as. The ACT isn’t exactly exciting and so it could be possible to drift off, which would be catastrophic.

This strategy might seem a little excessive, but it makes sense. Use dull pencils. This is because a dull pencil has a greater surface area on the tip; therefore you can circle in the ovals quicker. This is really a minute detail but remember, every second counts! The few seconds you save could be the difference between you getting to answer the last question or not.

Skimming, not reading. If you truly read out the passages in your head, you will never finish the reading portion of the exam. Although you comprehension will likely be better, you will not have enough time to answer all of the questions. Remember, it is better to answer questions hastily than to guess, or not answer it at all.

Using a watch is instrumental in being able to accurately pace yourself. Make sure you don’t bring a watch that beeps; otherwise you will be asked to leave. When the test administrator starts the test, start your stopwatch, that way you know exactly how much time it has been later in the test.

I highly recommend that you leave your cell phone in your car, or at home. Do you really want to take the chance that your phone might go off in the middle of the test? No, you don’t want to take that risk. Should it go off, you will also be asked you leave, and your test will not be scored. That is not at all what you want.

Word Count: 318

How to take the ACT

The ACT is a large fear among teenagers across the United States. The ACT has so much weight when deciding where you go to college. It can be the reason you get in and vice versa. It is a dreadful four hours of your life on an early Saturday morning. There is a way to take the ACT test, but there are many ways how not to take the ACT.

The first thing to do is PREPARE! Find out the format of the test. It is good to know what the test will be like. I recommend taking an actual practice test because it is truly the best way to find out the exact format of the test. Another way you need to prepare is your testing materials. Make sure you collect your pencils, calculator, ID, watch, and admission ticket the night before. You don’t want to wake up and have to scramble to get your materials together.

THE TEST.

Make sure you get at least 15 minutes early. They say 30 minutes, but really you just sit around for those 30 minutes. 15 minutes is plenty to get checked in and find you room. Once you get there just sit in your seat and get you things situated the way you want and then wait for the test administrator to begin.

STRATEGY

Go quick. I believe it is better to have a hasty answer than a guess. You are obviously much more likely to get an answer correct if you answer quickly, rather than not at all. The thing that will hurt you score more than anything is not getting finished. Personally I have had this problem a lot.

Another huge tip is stay focused. If you are reading a passage, but instead you are thinking about something else, you will ultimately have to read that entire passage again because even though you “read” it, you didn’t comprehend it.

Word Count: 320

ITEDs vs. The Iowa Assessment

The state and federal governments have a newfound urge to make high schoolers take more tests. Well, in reality we are taking no more tests than we used to. This school year (2011-2012), The Cedar Rapids Community School District has switched the standardized test they are administering. In the past, high schoolers were required to take the Iowa Test of Educational Development, and it had been this way ever since I have lived here (17 years). Recently the CRCSD has decided to replace the ITEDs with a new standardized test, The Iowa Assessment. Apparently it is not a test just for Iowa, it would be called the "Illinois Assessment" if you were taking the test in Illinois, or the "California Assessment" if you were taking it in California. It is a nationwide test that is said to offer a better understanding of where student are at, and an overall better rating system.


Having taken both of these standardized tests before, I can accurately assess the two tests. In my opinion, overall, The Iowa Assessment is much easier than the ITEDs. The ITEDs were more obscure and didn't really test us over things that we have learned. This was especially true about the science portion of the ITEDs. All it would have us do is look and analyze graphs and experiments. This was partially true with the Iowa Assessment, there were some things that were pointless and we shouldn't have been tested over. Who gives a rip if I can read the graph? THAT ISN'T SCIENCE. They should change the name of the test to "Analyzing Science" because that would be a much more accurate title.


Other than this gripe about science, I thought the Iowa Assessment was much easier than the ITEDs were. Also there is a lot more subject matter appearing on this test that we have actually learned about in class, as opposed to basic algebra I learned in 7th grade.


Overall, I like the Iowa Assessment much more than the ITEDs.

Word Count: 334

¡En Español!

He querido escribir un blog en Español para un tiempo largo y ahora, estoy escribiendolo. No sé que escribir, así voy a escribir todo que quiero.

Cuando era niño, habría querido aprender Español porque mis hermanas lo aprendía. Y ahora estoy haciendo exactamente eso. Es muy divertido, y estoy muy alegre que escogé sacar Español que Alemán o Francés.

Me gusta mucho mis maestros habría tenido. En mi primero año de Español, my maestra fue Sra. Jauhiainen. Ella nos dio tarea todos las noches, y no me gustó eso, pero era muy bueno para estudiar. En los años segundo y tercero, no tenemos mucha tarea y es muy agradable.

En el año segundo , tenía Sr. Schmidt. Él fue muy simpático y comprensivo. Me gusto como él me enseñó. Él dijó chistes en su lección, cual fue muy cómico y divertido. Este año nos faltan Sr. Schmidt porque el habría salido para siempre. Estoy triste, I quería tener Sr. en AP Español también. Tú no siempre puedes conseguir lo que quieres.

Y por fin, en el año tercero, mi maestra es Sra. Perkins. Ella es considerada y comprensiva también. Ella tiene una personalidad fuerte y sabe lo que quiere. Creo que es importante tener estas characterístticas. Mi clase con ella son súper inteligente y divertido. Mi actividad favorita es "cerdos". Es un partido rapído, pero muy divertido. Es bueno para estudiar el vocabulario también.

Por el año cuarto, voy a sacar la clase de Español AP con Sr. Burke. Estoy emocionado por mi futura en Español. Quiero continuar my educación de español en la universidad.

Numero de Palabras: 265