School, School, School

      On August 17th, Whitney and I went back to school after having a very nice relaxing summer vacation. It was so hard to get up that day after sleeping in for two months. Although I did get up early when I volunteered, it is still so hard to get used to being gone for 9 hours!
     The difference between being a freshman and a sophomore is huge! Last semester I only had to do 15 hours of family service, 15 hours of community service, and 40 hours of an innovative project. Now I have 30 hours for both family and community service, and a minimum of 30 hours of the innovation project, which I do on my own instead of having a class for it. However, I am a little bit more prepared for it this year, than I was last semester.
     Another change this year is not having the same English/History teacher. Our last teacher moved to Hawaii over the summer, which we were all jealous of. :) However, our new teacher is very strict, but makes it fun to learn about American culture, early Egyptian times, and essays on aerodynamic spears.
     Also, I am taking Spanish this year, as a requirement to graduate, and my teacher is very full of himself. He is most likely seen calling himself "el magnifico", "genius", and "the king"! I do think he has just a teeny tiny ego problem. However, his class is the best one this year! The only thing that I hate doing is standing up in front of the class and speaking!!!!
     All in all, I think it's going to be a very crazy, busy, exciting, fun year!

Spring 2011 Project

Last May, I went through what my school calls an innovation project. The innovation project is basically a project that you research and create about something that is new to you.

My project was on books vs. technology. I loved doing this because there are so many people that are hooked onto their electronics and don't spend enough time just reading books or, heaven forbid, talking to your parents, siblings, etc.

This project was really important because it was pass or fail. However, most people who see my grades will know if I passed or failed. If you haven't seen my grades before, I did pass! After seeing all our classmates present their projects, I could tell that maybe one person didn't pass. Our class is intelligent!!! :)

The only thing that I am not looking forward to is doing my innovation projects every year until I graduate.


More photos:

World Center for Birds of Prey

Last month I got the privilege of interviewing to volunteer at the Birds of Prey in Boise. As it was my first job interview, I was a little freaked out and wasn't sure what the interviewer would ask me. Thankfully, my mom was great at preparing me for the possible questions that they might ask. After my orientation, came the training, and finally being left alone to do my job.

Looks like it is in the desert!

Today was my first day by my self and it went great. One thing I learned was that some people do not know how to problem solve problems on their own. As I have the job of the gift shop, one of my responsibilities is to answer the phone. Today, I received two really strange calls. One of them was a teenage boy asking me what to do because a baby bird was on his driveway. As I was trained to do, I told him to just leave it alone!

I work in the red & white building - gift shop

The other one was the most hilarious one yet. A lady called and asked me if she needed to call Fish and Game because there were falcons in her tree, which was 60 feet tall! Some people just need to think things through a little!

A Change of Scenery

Two weeks ago I started something extremely different than I'm not used to. I got my name pulled from the lottery to a local school in December. It took a lot of contrasting and decision-making, but I chose to go to school, physically.
The first week was a very long transition. After being homeschooled practically all through elementary and middle school, it was a very hard thing to go back to a school. This school isn't exactly regular though. The school is a harbor method school, and charter school, so the teachers and principal expect good behavior and good grades from each student. The really cool part of this school is that everybody knows your name. When you walk down the hall and see teachers or administrators, they say hello and call you by your name.
I think this is going to be a great change and challenge!

2011 presumption: Good or bad?

As part of the Yearbook “staffers” this semester, I was trained on how to publish a post. Since I already have a blog, I didn’t really need to be trained, because it was the same layout as Blogger. However, it was good to know what type of fonts and headlines you should use.

2011 ends in an odd number, so maybe it’ll be good luck. I find that the even years are the worst, and the odd years are the best.

I know this is true, because in 2008, my great grandma passed away; in 2010 Grandpa passed away, and also somebody else. The morning of Dec. 26^th, our black lab, Snitch, left us. We knew it was coming because he was really sick on Dec. 25^th, but I was still hoping he had made it through the night. Even after all the flip-flops, hoses, and blankets that he had destroyed, he was a very good dog. I think the person that misses him most is Demon, however. After we took Demon for a walk he would go and look for Snitch. Demon has definitely been a handful since Snitch has been gone. He won’t sleep outside during the night; he wants to be in the house like every minute of the day. Saturday was the last time he actually spent like all day outside.

I really, really, really hope there are no deaths in 2011. Actually I hope for no deaths for a long, long time.