Tales of Tenth Grade

  This school year was nothing  like I expected it to be. It started off pretty average but the second half of the year was far from normal. This whole situation really goes to show fast things can change completely. For me personally, it's just meant being home 24/7 but I know things have changed tremendously for other people. People have lost jobs, family members, and much more. I reread my September blog post in which I talked about my feelings for this school year. I mentioned the workload I was expecting, my sleep schedule and various other things. I had no idea what this year would turn into and why would I? There was no way for us to anticipate this but it's honestly kind of funny to compare the expectations versus reality. "It's still bearable at this point because we're still starting the year but when we get to the peak of learning, I'm not sure how I'm going to handle it all."  I was worried about how I'd manage all the work a...

          After spending around a month doing distance learning, I've formed an opinion on distance learning. Here, I will compare my thoughts about school and distance learning,           I've never really loved school but I never hated it. I've always viewed it as something I just have to get through and that's it. As a high schooler, the most annoying thing is the work that I get. The one thing that I appreciate school is how easy you can learn there. Everything is so organized. Because of the class periods and how long the school day is, I'm able to keep track of everything, spend a specific allotted time doing work for a certain class. The school environment also allows me to focus on my work. School also provides me with time for gym and orchestra. It's mandatory that I have to go to those classes because it's on my schedule. I love those classes because it's fun and easy and it gives me a break. Overall, school is just school. ...

Quarantine isn't fun. We've been out of school for 40 days now, which seems like a lot, because it is a lot. But in trying to find a topic for this month's blog post, I found myself reading all of my previous blog posts in hope of finding some inspiration. I did. You might have forgotten about the time when our Thanksgiving break was extended by almost a week in December because of that crazy snowstorm. Yeah, we had eight straight days off of school because Thanksgiving break was followed by four snow days. It seemed like a lot at the time. The irony. In fact, I thought it was so much that I decided to write my December blog post about it. Here are some of the best quotes from that post that definitely did not age well. 1. "As I sit here on our eighth straight day without school..." -- Wow, eight whole days! Crazy! 2. "It's always fun and relaxing to sit at home... I am free to do whatever I want to help relax myself in antici...

If one month ago you had told me that we would be switching to online school for two weeks because of the coronavirus, I would have called you crazy. Yet here I am, awaiting our first day of online school tomorrow. This past week, I have heard murmurs about us possibly going digital for a few weeks. At first, I remember thinking to myself, this will never happen . As the week went on though, I slowly began to change this mentality. This will never happen slowly turned into this probably won't happen, which eventually morphed into this might happen, and finally, on Friday, ended with this is happening . At first, I was extremely panicked. I sat there on Friday, our day off, watching as my bio assignments began to pile up. This, on top of the realization that we would essentially be trapped in our houses for two weeks, drove me insane for awhile. Come Saturday morning, however, I finally came to terms with reality. Yes, the assignments look like a lot, but all of the assignmen...

          Grades are one of the most important things for me. If I were to rank the top 5 most important things to me, it would go as(in no order) grades, family, friends, health, and the Jets/football. Since kindergarten, my mom instilled a work ethic in me when it came to school. I'll never forget it. It's the origins of why grades are important to me. I've always been a good student when it came to grades, and I plan on keeping like that throughout the rest of my academic career.           On every assignment or test that goes into the grade book, I always aim for at least a 90. A 90 is like the line between an A and B+. I don't like getting anything less than an A- because I want to be able to understand whatever I'm learning and demonstrating skills and knowledge that go above the requirements. Getting a 90 or better proves you can do that.          College along with grades is important for me. I want to ...

As I sit here on our eighth straight day without school, I figured that I would classify my experiences on each surprise day off. 1. The First Snow Day (snow days left for the year: 4) The First Snow Day is by far the best one. Nothing makes me happier than finding out that my weekend is going to be a day longer than expected. It's always fun and relaxing to sit at home and watch the grey, post-autumn-foliage world get coated in a blanket of fluffy snow. As long as the power doesn't go out (side note: somehow I never lost power), I am free to do whatever I want to help relax myself in anticipation of our return to school. 2. The Second Snow Day (snow days left for the year: 3) The Second Snow Day is mostly expected, especially after hearing about all of the power outages in town. This extra day off is nice, but not quite as nice as the first one, since at this point, I haven't seen my friends in six days. To ease this thought, I think to myself that seeing them...

I always keep working. Staying up until 3:00 a.m. seemed like a good idea at the time. Yet after hitting snooze too many times, you realize that you have to leave in ten minutes. You hastily brush your teeth, throw on some clothes, and run out the door, skipping breakfast. "It doesn't matter, I can get through until lunch." I need energy, but I'll keep working. While on the bus, you remember that you have a biology quiz first period, and that you forgot to study. You rip out your notes from your folder and skim through them for five minutes before getting distracted by the snow whipping by the window. Before you know it, you're at school, and you've barely studied. "It's fine, I skimmed through everything." I need more time, but I'll keep working. When you read the first question of your quiz, you panic. Grasping for bits of information, you guess through half of it.  "Why didn't I know any of the ans...

Here's a game to try. Add 8+5. Simple right? Most people can do this math almost instantly and get the correct answer of 13. Now try adding 8+5, but following these steps... Rewrite the numbers 5 and 8 Find two numbers that 5 can break into. Of the possible pairs, choose the one that can easily add with 8 to get a sum of 10. (In this case, it would be 2 and 3. You can add the 2 to 8 and get a sum of 10). Then add the remaining number that you broke from 5 to the 10 you got previously (In this case you would add 3 to 10 to get 13).  The second way is more confusing, isn't it? The second method was based on the Common Core. Today, children are learning to not only add, but multiply, divide, and much more using obscure methods like this one. Although it may seem easy enough for some people, it makes learning a great deal harder for others. For instance, one student may know how to add by counting off of their fingers or by visualizing the problem. With the Common Core, eve...

It feels as if it were only last week that I was in school taking my finals at the end of my freshman year. Now, here it is four weeks into my sophomore year and I still don’t feel fully acclimated, whether it be procrastinating work or almost forgetting about homework that is due. It is only recently that I have been getting into after school activities, including lifting and captain’s practices for wrestling. Simultaneously, the quantity of work I have been receiving is starting to spike, giving me less time to procrastinate. Because of this decrease in free time, I am forced to budget my time better, usually getting my homework or studying done as soon as I get home. Consequently, during the wrestling season, when the amount of free time I have is at its lowest, my grades have had a trend of being highest. Wrestling, being a very physically and mentally draining sport, makes me appreciate and crave sleep much more than I do during the summer. On the days of some away matches, I ...

Many kids, including teens, often second guess themselves either in school or on the sports field.  But what good comes out of that?  Recent studies prove that when people have a positive mental attitude toward a topic, it will increase the effectiveness of the brain and probability of success. In 2018, Stanford School of Medicine conducted a study with 240 students ages seven to ten.  47 students were analyzed using an MRI while doing basic math.  The results were outstanding!  Students who had a positive attitude toward the subject of Math were found to have a more active hippocampus.  The hippocampus is a part of the brain responsible for memory and learning.  Lang Chen, leading author of the study stated, "...the unique contribution of positive attitude to math achievement is as large as the contribution from IQ."  This reveals that when students are have a positive attitude toward a subject in school, they are more likely to retain informat...

        I've always loved history class. Really ever since 6th grade was when I started loving it. During the summer leading up the 6th grade, I started reading the Percy Jackson series. I just absolutely fell in love with the story and greek mythology. That sparked my interest in history. In 6th-grade history class, we learned everything ranging from Ancient Mesopotamia to the Ancient Greeks. I just found it all so interesting. I did really well in that class. My average was a 93. The following year, I was pretty eager for history because we were going to learn about something I also fell in love within history. That was civics. In class, I learned about the basics of the British government and then in-depth about the American government. I thought the class was super enjoyable. I again did well. I actually improved. My average finished as a 96.         8th grade was when I felt like I really separated myself from the pack. It was also a time wh...

We're slowly drifting into a normal school schedule and I'm still not ready. Summer didn't necessarily feel short but I would've been completely fine with some more time. Just like most people I've talked to, I spent the last few days, doing my summer work, trying to make up for the time I'd spent procrastinating. Usually, I get myself together and do the work by mid August, but this year, I couldn't bring myself to do it. It was like completing the homework meant admitting that summer was over and I couldn't get myself to do that. In past years, we've had and orientation or open house to signify that school's starting soon. Not having that to remind me this year, I didn't fully comprehend that we were going back until I was setting my alarms the night before. I also didn't bother correcting my sleep schedule so I started the year with awful sleeping patterns. I tried to go to bed somewhat early during the first week but my body wasn...

Imagine your classroom during a test, nice and quiet I would imagine right? Then imagine in all that peacefulness someone coughing disrupting your tranquility. Well that has been me recently, and many many others in the Sparta High School with this "plague" going around. It's actually just a cold, but the way it's going around the Sparta schools it is imitating the way a plague acts. Before school started there were probably around 3 or 4 kids that had this cold, but as school started and people are kept together in close proximity for about 7 hours this cold spreads at rapid pace becoming a plague. You could be sitting next to a kid in class who sneezes or coughs without covering it with their elbow. As gross as that is, that happens because people are gross, but germs spread that way, and guess what you are probably gonna get sick now and hate that person next to you for getting you sick. Also, sharing drinks with friends- everyone does it- maybe they have a coo...

Since school has started, everything is pretty uneventful so far. All of my classes are still kind of getting into the groove of school, so we only have had a couple assessments and not much homework. The Cross Country season is starting to get difficult. Over the summer we just ran long distances at a pretty easy pace, but over the past week or two leading up to school, we are starting to do more difficult workouts like sprints and hill work and intervals. At our second meet, it was super hot out, and the best runner on our team, James, had a heat stroke. He finished the race, but then he collapsed at the end and he had to go to the hospital, and he was there for a couple of days. The next day we got educated on how to run in the heat and how it can be dangerous if you don't handle it correctly. Other than that nothing very interesting has happened yet this year. I have the same friends, similar classes, similar activities, and I'm fine with that. I'm not really someone wh...