End of the term

As you all know, the end of the term is coming up fast. Are you ready for it? I know I sure am! It's been hard, but as of right now I have A's in all my classes which I am so happy about! So far, 9th grade has been a LOT harder than 8th or 7th grade, for me at least. There are two classes that are really making it hard... One, is Math! I am taking Algebra 2 this year, and let me tell you... Getting an A in that class is so dang hard! There is on average an hour of homework every night, with tests and quizzes on top of that that are extremely hard. But also, Honors English is gettin' me pretty bogged down to! Not the Blog or the Falcon Forum, but reading the Count of Monte Cristo. I know I have already ranted about that book before, so I'm not going to again, but it just takes soo long to read! Now that I have gotten closer to the end, it is getting better, but I still have the AR test on it... Once I can pass that, It'll be smooth sailin' the rest of the term!

The New Band Teacher...

I don't know about anyone else, but I am taking band this year. As most of you know, our old teacher left us, and now we have a new band teacher. I can summarize my opinion of him in one word, unorganized. Every little thing that he does drives me crazy. He is one of the most unorganized people I know (he could give Cosmo Kramer a run for his money), expects way to much of us, and has big ideas that he will never (and when I say that, I mean never) accomplish. Last year, I started liking the old band teacher less and less... He was just getting annoying. But with our new teacher, oh boy... Out with the new, in with the old!

The one thing that drives me the most crazy is how unorganized the guy is! I mean he's nice and all, but this just isn't for him. On the first day of school, he had nothing ready. He told us his life story. The teacher before him was prepared the first day. He had lockers assigned, folders assigned (they also sheet music and scales in them), and we were playing music by the second day. The new band just barely finished getting everything we need. For the first month of school he kept telling us he would be getting us these "amazing" books, and that they were going to be here soon. Well, we finally got them last week. Do you want to know what was in them? Well, let's just say the old teacher had it all in our folders the first day. You don't need a whole book for it. I could go on more and more, but I'll just leave his organizational skills there for now.

The new band teacher expects WAY to much of us. Not only that, but he gives us no incentive to work for it. To get an A in his class, all you have to do is practice (although I'm not sure what there is to be practicing) and show up. That's it. You don't have to be good, you don't have to try. Just practice, and show up. But, what he expects is for us to be ready for a concert on Wednesday, with pieces that the band isn't even close to being ready for. In the mean time, he thinks that we are going to be a pep band (which in and of itself is one of his dumbest ideas) and play at all the basketball games. He takes on WAY to much. The old teacher had experience for who knows how many years, and was good at what he did. He demanded perfection, and gave you a reason to work for it.

Big ideas... Big ideas are what he has, and big ideas are what he will never finish. At the beginning of the year, he told us that we would play at the musical, play at games, and other things which he dreamed up. Musical... Wow, if he can pull that off, I'll have a little more respect for him. He won't though. There's no way our band will be able to play it and practice it with all the other stuff he is having us do. Among those, pep band. I luckily found a way out of it, but I feel bad for the people who have to do it. No other junior high in the district has a pep band. An amature teacher like himself will butcher it. He plans on, and I'm not kidding, heckling the refs, messing up the cheer leaders, and annoying everyone around... Am I the only one who thinks he is going to get booted from the gym? Ugh... He also thinks he is going to write a school fight song. All I have to say to that is good luck.

Well, I think I have stated my strong opinion about the guy. I decided I would give him a chance at the beginning of the year. He blew it time, and time again. I could go on and on, but I'll just leave it at there for tonight.

UEA

Oh man... I don't know about anyone else, but my UEA has been so boring! Thursday, I made a video for the Reflections contest (which by the way, I thought turned out really cool! I'm gonna try and figure out how I can post it on here, but for now, I'll just keep you all waiting!) and went to guitar lessons. Friday, it was my sister's birthday, so we had a party then went to dinner. That brings us to today... I feel like it's been a total waste so far! Today I've just done nothing pretty much... I caught up on emails, played Guitar Hero... There's the Regional Dance tonight I'm going to, so that should be pretty fun! Oh! I know something I did! It's not that exciting, but I found a website that's pretty cool! It's called Tonzr, and you can get 100% free ringtones! Just thought I'd share that for anyone who wants some ringtones. Well, I think that's it for me today. Oh!! Just kidding! THE RED SOX WON ON THURSDAY!!! It was awesome! They were losing the whole game, and at one point were down 7-0. Somehow they came back and won the game 7-8! I was so excited! My other team that I was rooting for (the Dodgers) just lost to the Phillies, so they're out of the World Series... But the Red Sox have a chance now! And hopefully, that comeback gives them more confidence so they can come back to win tonight! Oh man, if they lose, and it's the Phillies and Devil Rays that make it to the World Series, I'm gonna be so mad... The Dodgers and Red Sox both deserve it more. Well, maybe not the Dodgers so much... After their last game with who knows how many errors... But the Red Sox with a come back like that totally deserve it more than the Devil Rays! Well, I guess that's really it for me today! Peace out!

World Series

Ok, I don't know if anyone else has been following baseball the last couple weeks, but if you have, you would know that it is down to the top four teams right now. They are the Dodgers, the Red Sox, the Phillies, and the Devil Rays. I am rooting for the Dodgers and Red Sox, but mostly the Dodgers! I don't know if anyone follows the players, but if you did, you would know that Manny Ramirez just got traded from the Red Sox to the Dodgers a couple months ago. There is something that I really hope happens, since I am a Dodgers fan. Wouldn't it be great if the Dodgers and Red Sox (my two favorite teams!) made it to the World Series, and then the Dodgers beat the Red Sox right after trading (in my oppinion) their best player to the Dodgers? I just think the Red Sox would be hitting themselves so hard! Well I can dream, because I don't think that either of them are making it to the series... The Dodgers are down in their series 3-1, and the Red Sox are down 2-1, soon to be 3-1 since they are losing right now 13-4... Oh well, a kid can dream can't he?

Pet Peeves!

Aren't there some things out there that just drive you absolutely crazy?! Or, in other words, a pet peeve? I know there are a lot of things out there that just get under my skin, so I thought I would write about a couple of them for this weeks blog post! Ok, here we go... The one things that gets on my nerves the most is people misspelling iPod! There is no dash, and the first letter is not capital! I absolutely HATE when people spell it in any of the following ways: IPod, Ipod, I-Pod, or I-pod. It is spelled iPod! I don't know why, but I it bugs the crap outta me when people spell it wrong... Also, I hate it when people spell/say iPod Touch wrong. It is NOT an iTouch! It is an iPod Touch! I don't know who came up with the word iTouch, but whoever did is WRONG! Ok, now that I have THAT pet peeve out of my way, here goes number two! I really really don't like when people swear... It is just so easy to use a different word instead of the one you choose to use. That's all I'm going to say on that. Well, I know I have more that I could say, but I can't really think of any more right now, so I guess that's it for me tonight! I'll see you cats on the flip-flop later!

New York

So this summer, my family and I went on a trip to New York. It was one of the best weeks of my life! New York is such a cool place. Everything there is big. The buildings, the streets, everything! It's amazing! When we went there, we rented out the floor of an apartment from the Joneses. They were really nice people. They had a son named Davis, and that kid was awesome! Davis's room was really cool, it had a huge TV with surround sound! The rest of the Joneses' apartment was really cool, too. But that was just part of the trip... I still need to tell you about the rest of the city! We went to a bunch of places. There was Ground Zero, Times Square, the Statue of Liberty, and of course my favoritem, the Rockefeller Center! It is the headquarters for NBC, and a lot of my favorite shows are on that network. We got there early one morning and were on the Today Show! My little sister had a cast on, and one of the people there signed her cast! We also got to do a tour of the NBC Studios. We got to see where they filmed some of the national news and Saturday Night Live! The set was so cool. Everything from the show was there, even its own Grand Central Station look-alike! After the tour, we went to the top of the Rockefeller Building. Its view was amazing! The buildings' roofs were all so shiny, and you could see Central Park! Everything you could see was just stunning... We did a lot of other things there besides hang around NBC though! We went to a few musicals as well. We saw Grease, Legally Blonde: The Musical, and Hairspray. All the singer's voices were amazing! It was so cool! It was to bad we couldn't make it to some of the other musicals though... I would've wanted to see so many more! Every night when we would get back to the apartment, Davis would want to show me one of his CDs that he thought I would like, and my sister would show him some of hers. Most of my sister's were just children's music, so he didn't really like any of them. There was a lot more that we did in New York, I just don't have time to put it all in here! So that's it for me this week, I'll try and write down some more of the stuff later. But for now, I will see you cats on the flip-flop later!


Mr. T: I bolded all the stuff for the apostraphe quiz to make it a little easier for you! ;)

Topics!

Man, I am having a hard time coming up with topics to write about for my Blog! I guess I'll just write about Count of Monte Cristo... No offense to anyone, but I am really not liking it so far... Am I the only one? I have a really hard time reading the Old English style, and trying to keep up with all the characters whose names I can't even pronounce! All the types of money are confusing me too... There's like a bunch of different types, so I'm never sure if it's like a ton of money or not! Plus it is going sooo sloooow! Man, I have been reading a ton yesterday and today, and I am only on page 180! It's gonna take a miracle to finish it by the end of the term, let along pass the AR test... Plus, it seems that it is very condensed which kind of confused me a little... One page Edmond was in prison, and then the next page he was like talking about how he'd been there for four years... I had to go back and reread that last page... Four years?! That was just one page, and four years pass just like that?! Man... Well, I guess I'll be finished with my ranting for now... I got other homework, so I will see all yall later!

For Honors English People...

Are you tired of having to use two separate email accounts, one for Honors English, and one for personal use? If you are using Gmail for your personal one, I have a solution for you! What I will tell you how to do is forward the emails from your Honors account to your personal account. Once they are there, you will be able to reply to them from your Honors email address! Ok here we go... First of all, log on to your Honors email account in Gmail and go to the "Settings" tab in the upper right corner. Once there, go the "Forwarding and POP/IMAP" tab. In the box that says forwarding, click the circle that says "Forward a copy of incoming mail to" and then type your personal email address that you want to use. From there you choose either to keep a copy in your Honors inbox, archive it (which basically saves it, it's just not in your inbox anymore), or delete it from your Honors account. I chose to simply archive it. Now, whenenver an email goes to your Honors account, you will get a copy in your personal account as well! Now you can stop there, but I went a little farther. That last part will work with any email provider, but this next one I have only figured out on Gmail. Log out of your Honors email account and log into your personal Gmail account. Go to the "Settings" tab again, but this time go to the "Accounts" tab next. In the "Send mail as:" box, click "Add another email address". Type in your Honors English account name and email address. A confirmation email will be sent to your Honors account to make sure that it is really you that sent it, so your going to have to log out and log back in to your Honors account and click the confirmation link. Congratulations! You are now able to recieve and send Honors email from your personal Gmail account! Don't worry, you can still send as your personal account. There is a tab that says "From" when you are composing mail, and you can choose which email address to send from! Hope that helps some people save the effort of having to check two email accounts!