This I Believe

"Empathy Within Family"

I believe in the act of empathy, because sometimes you need to put yourself into someone's shoes to see what they would want. 

When I was almost seven years old, I lost one of my teeth. As usual, I wrote a letter to our tooth fairy, named “Tallulah.” For some reason, I was particularly excited about this tooth, so I had quite a bit of trouble sleeping. At one point in the night, I saw my dad come into my room, write a quick letter down, place a few dollars in it, then put it under my pillow. At the time, the tooth fairy was a big deal to me, and it hit me pretty hard to find out that it was just my parents.

When I woke up, I went into my parents room with my letter, and a somewhat fake smile plastered across my face. I was just about to tell them what I saw when I noticed my sister Caroline was sitting there as she wiggled her slightly loose tooth. I thought for a moment, if I said I found out the whole tooth fairy thing was fake, I would ruin all the fun childhood memories you have with that experience. So, I kept quiet and opened my card happily. A while later, Caroline did end up losing her first tooth and was really excited. I was glad that I never said anything because my sister was able to enjoy that experience that could have been spoiled.

As you can see, I value empathy because sometimes you need to put yourself in someone else's shoes so that they can enjoy the things I once did too.

Final Reflection Blog

Final Reflection Blog- 5/22/16

Prompts:

What are the three most important things you learned this year, what is something we did this year that you think you will remember for the rest of your life? What was the nicest thing someone in our class did for you this year, what is something you taught your teacher or classmates this year, in what area do you feel you made your biggest improvements? What is something you accomplished this year that you are proud of, what was the most challenging part of this year for you, what was the best piece of writing that you did this year, why do you think it is your best? Of the books you read this year, which was your favorite, why, what advice would you give students who will be in this class next year?

     I can't believe it! I have already finished my eight grade year and middle school expirence! It feels like just yesterday I was walking through the doors as a nervous little sixth grader. Three of the most important things I learned this year are, One, never procrastinate. I learn this lesson every year, the hard way. I always wait to the last minute to finish assignments, and find myself scrambling at the last minute to finish them. Towards the end of the year, I started doing them earlies in the week so that I didn't have to be in that perdicimant. Number two, always put forth your best effort. The reason for this is simple, if you don't show effort, you don't get a good grade. Last, always bring a sweater to Mrs. Larson's room because it is as cold as Antarctica there! 

     In all of this year, I will remember reading To Kill a Mockingbird. I feel like this book made the most profound impact on me because it taught a very important lesson that everybody should know and be exposed to. I will also remember this because we spent a lot of time working on it, the majority of second quarter to be exact. On top of this, we made notes on every page so that the story really stuck in our minds!

     The nicest thing somebody in our class did for me this year was when Ieft some assignment at school and Diana was nice enough to send it to me. If she didn't do this, I would have gotten a falcon foul!  Although I don't remember the exact assignment, I clearly remember being absolutely grateful of what she did because I was beginning to panic about it. Therefore, thanks Diana for the help you gave me when I left my assignment at school!

     One thing I taught my teacher this year is that if I work hard enough, I can create a good piece of work that I am very proud of. At some point during the year, my essays were becoming of lower quality and later on I feel that I proved I can create great pieces of writing with effort. My grades also started to drop too but I proved that I can work and make it all up so that I get a good and passing grade. I am very proud of being able to do this.

     The area which contained my greatest improvements has to be my writing. As I mentioned earlier, I started out with poor work, which vastly improved into better quality and of course, grades. I learned many new techniques and words which I have implemented into my writing which I also feel helped me improve loads. On top of that, I started to proof my work better and was able to fix many errors and mistakes that I never would have caught otherwise!

      This year, I have have succeeded in achieving second place in best of Berwyn. I am very proud of this huge accomplishment! This is largely due to the fact that I learned many things in my accelerated ELA class. Without all of my learned vocabulary and writing skills, I would not have even made nearly as far! One of the largest parts of the application parts was writing a plethora of essays, my work in ELA class made this once highly difficult process for me much easier.

     The most challenging part of this whole year was time management. I had a lot of trouble with refraining to wait until the last minute to do my "Thursday night homework." Even though I had a lot of trouble with this, I was able to slowly overcome it and begin my work earlier. I have to say that I am not the only one with this problem, just about every kid had problem with this sometime during the year. Like me, many of us were able to overcome this problem at some point!

     The absolute best piece of writing I did this year was my Morrie aphorism project. This assignment I worked super hard on and actually got a four!  I was very enthusiastic about it! I am extremely proud of my effort and hard work when I was completing that assignment. I was very excited about comparing my aphorism to Diana Nyad the 60 year old swimmer who saw, from Cuba to Florida! I found the perfect quote and was able to embed it very well!

     My favorite book that I read this year was To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I really enjoyed this book because I feel like it thought a very important lesson and left a long lasting impact on me and other fellow readers. It also connected me to understand the troubles of living in that time period and what everyday life was like during that time. Not many students read that book during their middle school years, so it sets me ahead of many kids from other schools.

     Some advice I would give to next year's class would be to never procrastinate. Every student makes that same mistake every single year, and we are all stressed out on Thursday night rushing to get our homework done! Even though you will be warned, you still need to be careful of your time management, if you have an two essays and a Vocab quiz, do one of your essays before do you won't rush through both on Thursday night! This will save you s lot of time and trouble. Therefore, if you are new to Mrs. Larson's beware of procrastination!

Morrie Aphorism Project

Tuesday's With Morrie Aphorism Blog

"There is no such thing as too late in life."

     My aphorism "there is no such thing as too late in life," means a lot to me. One of the most blatantly obvious meanings is that you shouldn't think of age as a barrier when you desire to do something. It's never too late in life to start something new. Some people may want to do something, and think that they missed their chance, but it's really never too late. You always should be able to do what you want, regardless of your age, or what others think. Even if you can't succeed at it, you can always try your best. Therefore, I believe that the aphorism "there is no such thing as too late in life" means that it is never too late to follow your dreams, and do what you want most.

     This aphorism reminds me of the swimmer Diana Nyad. At age 60, she swam all the way from Cuba to Florida, without a shark cage! Diana earlier stated, "Approaching 60 last year threw me into the existential angst of wondering what I had done with my life. I felt choked by how little time seemed left. I started swimming a few laps, just to take some pressure off the knees from all the other activities I enjoy. My workouts escalated. My motivation started to burn like a fire in my soul. At 60, I could swim from Cuba to Florida. This time, without a shark cage. I was experiencing what millions my age are feeling these days. Disenfranchised, no longer valued, terribly worried that my best days were behind me. Yet the business of life is to live large and you can dream at any age. This should be the prime of our lives. Training for this swim has filled me with the heartening, empowering conviction that it’s never too late to chase your dream." I feel like this quote really proved that you are never to old to achieve your dreams! Even a 60 year old can break records that some 20 year olds will never be able to even imagine doing in their lifetime. In short, my aphorism has a great resemblence to the amazing story of the aged 60 record breaking swimmer, Diana Nyad.

     Personally, I agree and disagree with this aphorism for various reasons. In most cases, it is true that "there is no such thing as too late in life." You can typically do what you please at any age, if you work hard enough. On the other hand, it is sometimes too late in life. If you are 100 years old and want to climb Mt. Everest, that realistically won't happen. Take Morrie's case for example, he can't dance anymore because of his disease, which is also preventing him from partaking in the things he wants. As you can see, I agree and disagree with my aphorism.

Socratic Seminar Reflection Blog

For the past two weeks, our class has read Tuesday's With Morrie, by Mitch Albom. (It is a bit ironic that we started on a Tuesday and even ended on a tuesday) During this time, we participated in "Socratic Seminars," a group activity where we create a guide, and discussed the book we are currently reading together. In total, we have had four of them, and I have learned a lot about the book, and about life! First, the seminars allowed me to look at the book in the point of view of my fellow classmates, which added a whole new level of understanding to the text. On top of this, I was able to pick up quite a few things in the book that I never would have noticed without this activity! The Socratic Seminars also influenced my life in general, this is because I learned many things living life to the fullest, and many other valuable life lessons.

     During each seminar, I noticed many trends regarding my personal goals and myself. Personally, I believe that at the beginning, I found myself being a bit less creative with what I was saying, but I felt later on, I mentioned more unique things that weren't discussed as much in the group. (Not the thing about me pushing my sister off a bridge, that was just an example) For most of the seminar, my personal goals were to help pust more people into the conversation who were having a bit more trouble participating. At the beginning, I think I did a good job at this, but towards the last few seminars, I found myself drifting away from this goal a bit, which I regret  in some ways.

     I noticed many trends in our class during the four seminars. The first trend was that we kind of changed subjects rather quickly, we would be talking about one thing for a minute, then something entirely unrelated the next, making it unorganized when somebody would go back to what another was saying. Another interesting thing was at the first few seminars, we were strictly on topic, we never really talked about something that wasn't directly in the book. Towards the last seminars, we started to branch off to other relating topics. I actually enjoyed this because I was able to connect the text to other current events going on in the world, and my peers connections to the story.

Tuesday's With Morrie Blog

Prompt: Based on the 6 Tuesdays you have read about in Tuesdays with Morrie, choose which topic (The World, Feeling Sorry For Yourself, Regrets, Death, Family, or Emotions) that has had the most impact on you or inspired you. On your blog discuss the importance of this topic with your own opinions, including textual evidence (direct quotes) from the book. 

     In Tuesday's with Morrie, the one topic that inspired me the most was the feeling sorry for yourself lesson for many reasons. First, this inspired me because a lot of people feel sorry for themselves whenever something bad happens. You see it in books, movies, television, and pretty much everything else. When you lose a pet ect, people tend to feel very sorry for themselves. On page 57, Morrie stated, "I give myself a good cry if I need it. But then I concentrate on all the good things still in my life." This shows me that when something happens, you need to remember that you still have good things in life.

     Another reason is that when I was really sick and found out I had celiac and needed to start a gluten free diet, I felt sorry for myself a lot. I was really sad because I couldn't eat pizza or any of my favorite foods like Oreos ect. Although I got used to it over time, I think that if I read Morrie's aphorism about remembering the good things in life, I would have enjoyed eating gluten free much sooner. Instead of feeling sorry for myself the entire time, I would have been enjoying all the gluten free things I could make, and test, because most of them don't taste so good, but it is still fun nowadays spitting them out because they taste so bad! As you can see, this lesson impacted me because I can personally connect to it.

     In conclusion, the lesson, "feeling sorry for yourself," really impacted me because I was able to look at things in a different way. Like I said earlier, a lot of people feel sorry for themselves all the time, but I learned that instead of feeling that way, we should cherish all the happy things in our lives that we can be involved. I also connected to this story because of my celiac disease, and how at the beginning, I was sad about it, but again, if I thought about it in a Morrie way, I would enjoyed the fact that I can find new foods for myself. Therefore, this lesson impacted ,e because it allowed me to think of things in a different way.

Tuesday's With Morrie Blog

                   

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Prompts: What are your initial reactions to what you have read in Tuesdays with Morrie thus far?

One of the main themes developing in Tuesdays with Morrie is not to take your life for granted. Based on this premise, what is on your Bucketlist? You can write a paragraph leading up to a bulleted list of what you would like to do/accomplish in your life.

     Before reading Tuesday's with Morrie I wasn't sure what to think. My dad made it blatantly clear to me that he admired the author, Mitch Albom, but What I really wondered, was what kind of long lasting impact did Morrie make on Mitch, and what kind of impact would he on me? Once I started reading, I found myself surprised at the lucky coincidence in which Mitch heard about his dear old college professor Morrie on the tv and went to visit him. I personally have a connection with Morrie, because I personally know a person with ALS, just like him. When we first found out my neighbor Ken had ALS, we were shocked, he was such a active person, similar to Morrie. At the disease progressed, his conditions worsened to the point where all the neighbors had to bring him soup because all he could do was smell them. Both of them were able to stay strong and live life to the fullest before the disease got the best of them.

     One thing that I noticed was that Morrie generally speaks in aphorisms, adding a life lesson to everything he says. I really admire him for that, because in a hard time for him, it shows he was able to remain positive, and teach others that they should live their lives to the fullest too. One of my favorite Aphorisms Morrie mentioned is, "Dying is only one thing to be sad over, living unhappily is something else." This really speaks to the audience in lieu of the fact that Morrie wants to live happily and die, then live unhappily and die. This sums up why he can remain so positive in the hardest times, Morrie wants to live life to the live fullest while he can.

     Just like Morrie, I would like to live my life to the fullest and achieve unmeasurable heights. I created a bucket list of some things that I would like to do in my lifetime.

-Graduate college 

-Become and electrical engineer

-Get married

-Swim with dolphins

-Dance with Brynn Rumfallo from Dance Moms

-Dance at the Abby Lee Dance company in LA 

-Master my back handspring, back tuck, and front aerial

-Get my pilots license 

-Go to Paris

-Go camping at Yellowstone national park

-Visit the wizzarding world of Harry Potter 

-Climb Mt. Everest

-Learn to surf

-Get a puppy

-Meet the cast of Dance Moms

-Ski the Swiss alps like my Dad did before

-Go in one of those glass bottom boat thingies

-Throw pie in my sisters face 

3rd Quarter Reflection Blog

Prompts:
1. In what area do you think you made your biggest improvements in english language arts?
2. What was the most challenging part of 3rd quarter for you can what you did/can you do to overcome this?
3. What is something that you have accomplished this quarter that you are proud of?

     In my 3rd quarter english language arts class, I have many many large improvements. I think that my biggest improvement was that I have found myself not procrastinating as much as I generally used to. In the past, I would wait until the very last minute to do my "thursday night homework" and I just realized how inefficient it was. Around halfway through the quarter, I began to start finishing the larger part of my homework on wednesday and earlier. This actually helped a lot and relieved a ton of stress which I would have had on that thursday! As you can see, just by not procrastinating as much and doing my homework, I made a quite large improvement this quarter!

     The most challenging part of 3rd quarter was probably making up the plethora of my absent work. A couple of weeks ago, I got really sick, and had to miss a ton of school. Once I finally returned, I ended up with a ton of makeup work in all of my classes. If you added the regular homework I had on top of that, it was a lot of work. I found it tricky to get it all done, because I just had a lot going on too. After a while, I was able to work really hard and get all my work done. Even though it was super tricky, I learned that if I work hard enough, I can get anything done.

    One thing that I accomplished this quarter that I am really proud of is that I was able to redo some of my work that didn't get the best grades. I am really proud of my self for taking the time to redo my work because it really helped my grades. If I didn't try to fix them, my grades would be pretty bad. From this, I also learned that I should probably do a better job of reading the directions before I get to work because sometimes I forget to add important standards required in my pieces. Therefore, I am really proud that I redid some of the work that I scored poorly on.