Free post: Freshman retreat (:

Our retreat with the entire freshman class was held on the 25th of October. Now I'm not sure if it's just me or has the entire month of October been absolutely hectic. Consisting of an entire new quarter, big assignments, homecoming and halloween, and even more. It was nice to take a break and go on a retreat with my class. Unlike all the others upper school grades the freshman had to do service work, of course. We're freshman duh we're going to get the not fun activities. We all arrived at school by 7:45 then packed up on the bus. There were only two buses with our packed grade of about 110 students. Every seat basically had to fit three people WHICH it was only made for two. Imagine how uncomfortable that is, especially in the morning! By eight o'clock we were off to the park out in Baker, Louisiana, which isn't that far away. When we arrived my first thoughts were, well this park looks waaay too nice to need some more service work. Turns out they had a lot of work and help to get done! We split off into advisories and the group of advisories I was in was awesome. Our first activity was canoeing in the lake and picking up trash. Of course I was going to like this even if we had to pick up trash because canoeing is the bomb . com of course. My canoe had Katie and Kris in it, I don't think I laughed so hard in a canoe before. It was so pretty out there as well!! So many big beautiful trees and flowers and just everything. Next activity we went to was clearing the trail, or at least the plants that were hanging over the trail. I have never been pricked by so many thorns before, that was a pain. Then we went along the beautiful path to the next activity. Which was actually clearing a trail. That was hilarious! About seven of us went to lunch earlier too, whoops. Then after a good pizza and playground lunch we headed to the last activity. The last activity was just a discussion on being aware of the environment and how to take care of it. I was surprised how long some things take to decompose! After that we all once again packed onto the crowded bus and headed back to school. We arrived back at school at 2:50 and we were dismissed, which was awesome! Honestly, not having to wear that dreaded school uniform for the past 3 fridays is awesome. In conclusion I did actually like working for an entire day with service work and learning. I know in a way it brought my advisory and others closer. I hope we have class retreats more often or trips, they bring us into a family like we should be.  

reading upon reading

I've read three different short stories over the past week and annotated them. 

Those three were

-Araby by: James Joyce

-The Cat by: Andrew Barton Patterson 

-Aloha Oe by: Jack London

Each short story took about 30 minutes each including the annotating. 

I started back up on The Fault in Our Stars and read 30 minutes.

Honestly the one that I most enjoyed most was  The Cat, this one attracted me by the name because cats are the ish. This story basically brought out a cat's actual life instead of what humans think or believe their lives consist of. The cat's lives claim to be more exciting than humans. It was definitely an interesting story.

My second favorite was Araby, written by James Joyce. It was just cute to me how the young boy had been admiring this girl living across the street from him. Him finally getting courage to talk to her and stuff. The only reason it is my second favorite is because the ending through me off. I was very confused, I know he arrived at this fancy business place but the description and the thoughts from the narrator scrambled me up. 

The last one I read was Aloha Oe, written by Jack London. In my opinion I didn't enjoy this one. It was long and very hard to comprehend. Being bored from the start I know through me off to not try as hard to understand it as I did with the others. The characters and what actually was going on was when I got lost. 

Reading times

The book I'm still reading at the moment is The Fault in Our Stars by John Greene. I haven't read any this week book wise. I do like the book a lot though. Just jam packed with studying and short story work.

1 hour: Short story preparation/drafting and actual writing

1 1/2 hours: Studying for short story test and re-reading short stories in the book

Personal Questions:

- Why does reading bring joy to some and to others none?

- Do I personally like reading as much as I should?

- How do authors create such complex and unique characters?

Reading

My reading for this week wasn't as consistant as usual dealing with all the short stories things. I am still reading The Falt in Our Stars by John Green and I'm enjoying it. I plan to finish it around this week since I started it a while back. 

My reading times for the week were about 30 in class reading on my book. 1 hour for reading short stories and another 30 minutes writing a draft of my own. 

plot for my short story

The exposition:
-Introduce the main character Aiden, her brother Jesse, father, and step-mother.
-Give info about Aiden's point of view upon herself (confidence, social life, academics, sports)
-Tell the opinions and thoughts about family etc. from Aiden's point of view.
-Tells background on when things were 'bad'. As in her emotions at that time and what was going on.

Rising Action:
-Give background info on family ordeal, step-mother and Aiden get into a fight.
-Aiden started getting overwhelmed
-She turns back to her attitude as a rebellious student in school, depression, and decline in her self-confidence.

Climax-
-Aiden gets very stressed out with step and decides to move out only when she's fifteen, possibly goes with her brother.
-She developed such bad anxiety that she turned to starving herself everyday for 7 months to the point she had lost over 30 pounds due to not eating and was diagnosed with anorexia.
-She becomes depressed and confused about what to do.
-Her father is regretful and thinking about his daughter Aiden and the step-mother, Aiden doesn't know but he will choose Aiden.

Falling action-
-Aiden is at the lowest point she's been doesn't know where to go, what to do, or how to handle the situation.
-Aiden is worrying about everyone but herself, which she is suffering the most.
-Her brother gives her hope and reassures her everything thing will be ok.

Resolution-
-Aiden's father reassures Aiden how much he cares and would much rather her over some step-mom.
-Step-mom moves out
-Her brother rents an apartment a good driving distance to home but in another state.

Reading

In the past week we've read about 2-4 short stories some of them were difficult but I enjoyed reading the. I enjoyed 'Dry September'. I especially liked the end where the man who was so eager to rade Will Mayes turned out to be aggresive to almost everyone when it told he was beating his wife. It was very intregeing.

the short stories took about 1:15 for the ones we read

and outside reading 1 hour- The Falt in Our Stars