LA “Stocks”


We did a project in Language Arts for four months about stocks. We were given twenty thousand dollars to spend (not really, of course) and bought several shares of stocks of our choice.

We then monitored the stocks over the year, to see how everything was doing, and learning how to handle them. These stocks weren’t real, of course — we were just seeing how they would have been and how we would have been if they had been real.

It was a really interesting experience for me. I never gained money, not once — but I think if it had been real, I would have chosen companies more thoughtfully and carefully. I learned a lot about stocks, and while it may have terrified me to actually ever do stocks, I realize how important they are. All in all, it was a fairly fun experience!

Why did we do this, you might be wondering? Well, we read The Westing Game earlier this year, and a character in the book, Turtle, loves stocks and is really good with them, and it’s also a good skill to learn, of course.

And, yeah, that’s it! Thanks for reading this!

Making my TED Talk

I recently, in my Language Arts class, gave a TED talk. No, not a “real” one, where I studied for years and then gave a twenty minute talk — I gave about a five minute one, and I studied for a few weeks. And my audience was my Language Arts class. However, it was definitely still hard and nerve-racking — and here’s the process it took for me to finally give my TED talk.

At first, I watched a lot of TED talks. (As in a LOT OF TED TALKS.) After that, I tried to chose a topic I was interested in. I couldn’t really seem to find a topic I was truly interested in and connected to, but a classmate gave me the idea of doing it on how learning a second language affects your brain. This connected to me, because I used to go to a bilingual school where I spoke and learned in English and Spanish, and it was interesting, so I decided to do that.

And so I did research. And did research. And more research. This was really because I kept finding information, but it kept being the wrong information, information that would help me. It took me a while, but finally I felt prepared enough to make my presentation. I made it, felt unsatisfied, edited it, edited it, and edited it some more.

After I felt satisfied with it, I started presenting it to my friend. She gave me advice, and so I edited. I presented it a lot of times to her, and that really helped.

And so then I presented! (I actually presented yesterday, or May 27th 2021, to be precise.) I was really nervous throughout the entire thing, but I tried to speak slowly and clearly, and I tried not to make it confusing, and hopefully I achieved that.

And that was the process! It was stressful, but it definitely payed off in the end.

Making Tree Books


About two months ago, my LA class and I started making tree books, working with an artist named Peg Gignoux. My book is in the images above. Here is her link: https://gignouxart.com/

First, we did screen printing. We made short poems (just a sentence or two) a little before this about a tree in our yard, and we used some words from those sentences and to screen print onto the cardboard that you now see glued onto the front and back of the book. After this, we cut the top of the cardboard to look like branches.

After this, we folded a big piece of white paper in ways that actually made the base of our books. Then we used akua ink. This was really fun. We gathered plants and brought them to school, and we did a process that ended up with akua ink prints of the plants on paper.

Next, we collaged some of those prints and other things on our tree books. After that, we added two or more pockets, decorating them to look cool.

What we used these pockets for was to put in things we’d written. We wrote three things. One was a piece of writing called Salute To My Roots. We each wrote about a few people that had really influenced our lives and made us who we are today. I wrote about my parents.

We also wrote Life Lists — a list of things we want to do during our lifetime, and that was really cool. I’ll probably look bad at mine in five years and say, “These were the things I wanted to do in life?!”

And finally, we wrote several wishes we had — I wrote mine on a piece of paper with an akua ink print, and we glued them into our tree books or put them in a pocket. They could be wished for us, for our family or friends, for the world. We did this because we’re reading a book called Wishtree by Katherine Applegate about a wishtree and how the tree’s life is.

 

And after all this, we actually got to see our book displayed at an art gallery (Frank Gallery: https://www.frankisart.com/) and that was really, really cool and super crazy. And that pretty much sums up making the tree books!

Wings of Fire: The Dragonet Prophecy


Clay is one of the five dragonets raised in a cave under a mountain, preparing to end a war. But he’s never felt special. All his life, he’s been expected to fulfill this great, world-saving prophecy that will end the war that has been tearing apart Pyrrhia for almost twenty years. But he doesn’t know how to do this! He would be perfectly happy  living quietly the rest of his life with his friends (and plenty of food). But his friends, the rest of the Dragonets of Destiny, want to get out of the cave where their guardians have kept them all their life. Clay isn’t sure how to react — but when the life of one of his friends is put in danger, he knows he’ll have to do whatever it takes to save her.

The Wings of Fire series (the series that this book is the first book of) is just AMAZING. The characters are relatable, and nothing’s ever boring. I would seriously recommend reading this book. I give it 5 out of 5 stars, definitely.

Frances Dowell Story


This is my story cover.

Frances Dowell is an author who lives in Durham, North Carolina, and recently, with my LA class, I did a writing workshop with her. I did a similar workshop with my friends last summer — and both times, it’s been super fun, and I’ve learned a lot.

I started by thinking of What If questions. Basically ideas for stories, but like this: What if humans could fly? What if a whole town burned down? What if a huge volcano erupted and everybody in America had to evacuate to other places? Things like that.

Then we learned how to make a good beginning — how to draw the reader in, giving them enough information but not too much. Then it was learning how to make stick and stone problems. Stick problems are little problems, ones that get solved super quickly and easily. Stone problems are harder to solve. They can’t be solves immediately, and and there needs to be some struggle on how to solve them.

After that, we learned a lot more — about the crisis point, the big monster scene, the resolution, things like that. I’m actually pretty proud of my story — it took a long time to write, and I’m mostly proud of my characters. I think I got across their personalities pretty well.

From time to time, we got feedback from our classmates, and that was really helpful. They noticed things I hadn’t noticed, and I think it’s always really useful to have somebody else read your writing, because they’ll be reading it like a reader, not a writer, and everybody has a different view. Frances Dowell also gave me feedback one time, and that was awesome. It made me more aware of what I’m doing right and that I should do that more.

Here is the link to Frances Dowell’s website! https://francesdowell.com

Window or Mirror?


For starters, what is a window or a mirror in this context? Well, if a book is a mirror to you, then the character, plot, or something else is very relatable to you or your life. If a book is a window to you, however, it might be relatable in some small ways, but it’s mostly not very relatable. Most books are probably going to be windows, especially if you like reading books with dragons and spies and magic, (unless you’re a… magical dragon spy, which something tells me nobody reading this is) but not necessarily for everybody.

The book I’m currently is The Mark of Athena, by Rick Riordan. It’s the third book in The Heroes of Olympus series, which is the follow up series to the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. This book is about a group of seven demigods (people who have a godly parent) who, by the order of an ancient prophecy, have to stop the rising of Gaea, who is, basically, the earth (the ground, not the planet.) I’m sort of scared to say more then that, because even through I could probably reveal more, I don’t want to spoil anything, because there are SO MANY important plot details that are revealed during the book, some in one of the first chapters, some almost at the end of the book.

This book is definitely a window to me — I’m not a demigod, for one thing, (although I wish I was) and I’m also not on a quest to save the world (although, again, I wish I was.) I also don’t really relate to any of the characters that much — they’re all great characters, but none of them are really much like me.

Anyways, this is a great book, I’d highly recommend reading it — although make sure to read the first two books in the series and the Percy Jackson series before you do, if you haven’t already. Thanks for reading! Bye!

Daily Habits


Hi. So, in November and December, I think, my Language Arts class and I did something called Planksgiving. I may have made a post about that separately, but basically we started with a plank for thirty seconds, and every day we added ten seconds. Eventually, we all did our final plank, and I made it five minutes. Which… isn’t that great, but it’s better then I thought I’d do!

And that’s just it. I probably wouldn’t have made it that long, if I’d done a plank every day, or at least I did it most days. And that’s how daily habits help, in a way.

Now, in February, I have a daily habit of writing every day. I’m currently writing three stories, one for LA. I can never remember to write in them (especially my LA one — figures) and I really need to start writing in them more. So, I decided back in January my daily habit would be writing every day, and it still is my daily habit. It doesn’t matter where— if it’s in one of my stories, or anywhere else, that’s okay, I just need to write in some way every day.

I think I just have to remember that in the end, this will really pay off, even if it’s kinda annoying right now.

Well, that’s it for now. Thanks for reading! Bye!

What Kind of Punctuation Am I?

I think I’m probably either an exclamation point or a question mark. I’m generally pretty loud and goofy, and I feel like exclamation marks would be really silly — if there were just random punctuation marks wandering around. Which there aren’t, sadly. But I’m also super curious, and that would be a question mark. I could also see myself as a comma — I tend to leave things unfinished, and a comma never ends things, just leaves them dangling there. But I honestly think I’m most like a question mark — I’m a really curious person, and I’m always asking questions, about everything, even if I don’t say them, I generally have a lot of questions and ideas in my head all the time, probably about whatever is around me or whoever is around me at that moment.

 

Writing

Something I love to do is writing. I really like reading, but whenever I read, I always think, oh, what if that happened? Or, I think the author should have done this here.

And when I write, I get to make stories the way want them to be. My friends always tease me about how I have so many ideas, and… maaaaaaaaaybe I do have a lot of ideas, and MAYBE I end up talking too much because of that, but that’s only because I have SO MUCH TO SAY! So… DON’T JUDGE.

And with writing, I can create characters, places, I could create a teleporting machine that the protagonist accidentally found and learned that it was from 1852, but it’s super dangerous to use… I can really do anything I want with stories.

And that’s what makes it so cool — that I can make the world the way I wished it was in my story, or if I’m mad, or sad, I could write a scene that channeled that.

Well, that’s all for now — thanks for reading! Bye!