How to Annotate a Book

I started reading my book for English I Great American Short Stories and it turned out not to be that bad. The stories are actually pretty interesting and I'm already almost done reading it! I just have 8 - 10 pages left. But, there's a problem. The assignment isn't just to read the book, I have to annotate it. I remember doing a little bit during school last year, but I lost all my notes and surprisingly, so did ALL my friends.

I stared blankly into the page and thought really hard. I remember, you have to highlight something, underline, circle, make notes in the margins. But what? What do you highlight? What do you make notes about? I don't know. It bothered me for a long time. Then it hit me: Look it up on the internet. So, I did. And I found all my answers on 8 pages. If you need help annotating a book, here's the link to How to Annotate in your English class: http://www.lex5.k12.sc.us/files/39696/How%20to%20Annotate%20in%20Your%20English%20Class.pdf

I hope I helped :)

Over-Summer Assignements

Next year is my first year of High School. I'll be a Freshman, or as the rest of the High School likes to call us: Fish. At the end of my eighth grade school year, my Spanish I teacher gave me a packet with two papers stapled together and said, "This is due on the first day of school, good luck." I read the packet and for Spanish II Pre-AP/IB, you have to make a video/powerpoint/poster about yourself. The highest grade you can get is 100/93/100. There's about 40 days left till school, and I have just written out what I am going to say to the camera.

Then, I got a piece of paper in 6th Period English. Next year for, GT/Phoenix English I, I have to read and annotate 6 stories from Great American Short Stories by Wallace and Mary Stegner. There's only about 40 days of summer left and I've read the first 3 pages of the book.

I don't know what to do. It's summer and I'm in no mood to talk in Spanish or read about Rip Van Winkle. There's so much more to do! But I still have to do the assignments. I keep pushing it off saying "I'll do it tomorrow." or "I'll start it tomorrow." and tomorrow just never comes. There's always something better to do. And not enough time to do everything. Maybe if I start getting up earlier and I have more time to do things then I can do the assignments. Maybe.

Right after I post this, I'm going to go and start reading Great American Short Stories by Wallace and Mary Stegner. But it's already 3:37 which gives me 1 hour until I have to get ready for swimming. Again, I'll have no choice but to push it off until later.

10 Days is WAY too much

So all last week I was up in Michigan and Ohio. Way up north where it's barely above 90 degrees in summer. That's pretty cold for a girl from Texas. On the trip, we went up to Upper-Penninsula Michigan and saw Soo Locks (gates that even the water levels of Lake Superior and lake Huron so that ships can transport materials between the two lakes). We were actually lucky enough to see two HUGE ships go through. And two tourist ships. We also went to a little town called Sault Ste. Marie (pronounced soo-saint-marie). It was actually a really boring place, I just liked the name. Other than that all we did was stay home and spend time with family. Except my dad, my cousin, and I watched Despicable Me in theatres. It was hilarious.

After we got back, I had to go back to swimming, of course. I had missed ten days of practice! That would make it super hard for me to start again. Luckily, on my first day (yesterday: Monday, July 12, 2010) my coach had written up a relatively easy workout. And thanks to that, I lived long enough to write this post. Since, I'm still not used to swimming again (I only had one day of practice), if the work out today is hard this just might be... my last post. Naw not really, I'll live, but I'll endure a lot of pain. So let's see how today goes. Wish me luck.

Hurricane

In my previous post Power Out, I told you about a power outage that occured here in Texas. Well, I volunteer at a Library for NJHS hours and I'm working in a Poetry Workshop and so I am required to write a poem as an example for all the students. I wrote about a Hurricane getting the ideas from the storm that raged through our town a few days ago.

Hurricane

The dark night,
It sways the trees.
Your mind in fright,
The harshness of the breeze.

It kills the light,
It darkens your mind.
You are afraid tonight,
For your eyes are blind.

You see nothing but the rain,
The storm raging through your town.
You see nothing but the vein,
On your forehead throbbing about.

You sit in the corner,
Alone by yourself.
The storm is a dancer,
It dances around you and itself.

- I can fly

Eclipse: One of the Books RUINED by this generation's Directors

Yesterday(Thursday, July 1st, 2010)I went to Eclipse with one of my friends Stephanie. We met there and watched the movie. The point is: many people have been saying that "Eclipse is Hilarious!" "It's the best of the three." etcetera etcetera. But I strongly disagree. I don't see how they like it so much when it's barely anything like the book. All the books that are made into movies are horribly terribly mixed up, jacked up, ruined! I just don't understand how people can like them. I admit, it had humor in it here and there but read the book and you'll find nothing except for the plot alike. It is certainly NOT the best of the three... new moon is. Taylor Lautner didn't even look that hot in this movie. (There's a shocker for some girls out there.)
Some other movies that I got really mad at are all the Harry Potters so far and the lightning thief. The directors are taking the books and twisting them around makeing different things happen making the plot worse. In the lightning thief, not even ONE scene was from the book. (I would know, I've read the book about 5 times)That made me and my friends mad. I hope you get my point.
Note to Directors: Please stop ruining all the good books out there