R.I.P. fishies

  Yesterday my mom took me to Walmart to get some goldfish. She said that if I could keep these alive then she would consider getting me a dog. I was so excited that I picked out a cute fish bowl and put cute accessories in it. It was perfect. And then when I got home today I went to check on them and they were dead. Both of them. I was so depressed. I couldn't believe it, I can't even keep a fish alive for 24 hours. Yeah so now I don't think that I will get a dog. I am a failure. ha ha:(

 

courage

      Courage can mean different things to different people. It could be standing up to a bully or building up the courage to do something you normaly wouldn't do. Many people claim they have a lot of courage but how do you know if someone actually does. How can you test someone to see what they would do. Actually you can't really test someone unless you want to pull a John Kramer. Scary!!
      I think courage is a very good thing to have. Without courage no one would be able to stand up for what they believe in. I like when people rebel and say whats on their mind without sensoring their thoughts because it shows who they really are. I think that alone takes a lot of courage to do and without that where would we be today                     

.

driving around

My best friend got her license on Thursday and on Friday we got 6 inches of snow. Friday was her second day of having her licence and even though the roads were super icy we still were driving around. It was so fun we would be driving and all of a sudden we would fishtail. I admit that I got scared a few times but we were laughing so hard our stomachs hurt. Friday night we drove out past Manchester where our friend lives and we had to drive 30mph on the highway.5 hour energy drinks, music blaring, teenagers laughing, phones lit up. By far one of the craziest nights in a long time. Many many moments that will be remembered forever.

be a leader, not a follower!

leadership is being yourself
leadership is doing what you believe
leadership is never backing down
leadership is showing others the way
leadership can start an uprising, can influence peoples decisions
leadership is needed to run a country
leadership is all around us
in schools, politics, religion and clubs
we need more leaders in the world to help us see the way.
all you need to be a leader is motivation and something worth following.

Giving during the holidays

Now that it is the holidays we all think about giving more than any other time of the year. Where ever you go there are the bell ringers for the salvation army. It is Christmas time and don't we all deserve to open a present on Christmas morning.Yes we do! and so we should all do our part to give to those who have less than us so that we can make the world a better place.And plus it also makes us feel good to give to others so there is really no excuse why you shouldn't give. SO NOW GO DO IT!!!

I whip my hair back and forth, Gypsy, and Hp7

     There is this new song out by Willow Smith called " Whip My Hair". Willow Smith is Will Smiths daughter and she is 9 years old. The song is really catchy and once you see the music video you will laugh really hard. At first when my friends and I heard it we thought it was a joke but now every time we hear it we freak out and whip our hair. My friends Sydney, Katie and Gretta and me always say it at random times and whenever it is silent it seems like one of us starts doing the dance.

      One inside joke between my friends and I is Gypsy. There is this song about being a gypsy by Shakira and it is so random that it make us laugh. The song gets stuck in your head for days and that is what made it a joke between us. We listened to the song together and then at school we would randomly sing it and everyone was like what is that so now it has become a inside joke between us.

     This past Friday my Me, Gretta, Sydney and Katie went to Harry Potter 7 part 1 and we had a really fun time. We laughed at how many people jumped at the scary parts and just stupid stuff like that. It was really immature but we had a blast. We laughed so much are stomachs were hurting. During one scary part in the movie that made us all jump is when a gigantic snake lunged towards us and at that part Gretta had her feet up on the seat in front of her and she didn't notice that someone was sitting in that seat but when the snake lunged towards us Gretta jumped so hard and jerked her legs at the same that she full on kicked the seat in front of her with the lady sitting in it. Of course it was a accident but she kicked it so hard that it almost propelled the poor lady out of her seat. All of us burst out laughing and Gretta had scared the lady so hard that she made her spill all of her popcorn on the floor. The lady didn't know what hit her and probably peed her pants. I was laughing so hard that I felt bad but I couldn't stop. Now we all give Gretta crap about that and it makes it even more funny. That is what we did at the Harry Potter movie on Friday.

Hope

       Hope is a very good thing to have. Hope is a feeling that everything will turn out for the best. I think when people lose hope they lose their desire to live. When you lose hope you just go through life like a zombie. You have no drive to you. You have no visions for your future and nothing to look forward to. Imagine feeling worthless everyday for the rest of your life. People who feel like that have probably lost hope and us as humans need something to look forward to. We need something to believe in. That is why we need hope in our lives.

       I use the word hope many times a day. I will say "I hope we don't get any homework tonight." or "I hope I get an A on my math test." But one thing that I have never said is "Man I hope I get to eat tonight." or " God I hope I live until tomorrow" We just got done reading a book about a man who survived the holocaust and he wrote about how he witnessed people losing hope and giving up on life. He witnessed people giving up on thoughts of a better future, of becoming free one day. And it made me think about how good we have it now. I admit I take many things for granted. I never stop to think about if I will get to have something to eat for supper or if I will have a bed to sleep in at night. But many people around the world have to worry about those exact things. Yes, some of them may lose hope and some of them wont. But the ones that don't lose hope get stronger from that. They know that things can be better if you make them better.

     Hope is a very wonderful thing to have. It can be very powerful. It can change your life depending on whether or not you have it and it can help you survive the worst of times. Hope is something that you should never give up on. That is what hope means to me.

Adaptation

     What happened during WWII was horrible. In J10 we are reading the book "Night" by Elie Wiesel. This book is all about Elie's experiences during WWII. He was one of the Jews that got put in a concentration camp at Austwich and he explains what is was like to be there.
     When you read the book when it first mentions that they arrived at the concentration camp he describes how awful things were. Like how bad the food tasted, or how tired they were or how hungry they all were but as you get farther and farther into the book he starts mentioning how they were not as hungry anymore. Or how they felt lucky because they got some sleep that day. I think that this book is a great example of adaptation. It helps us realize that humans can learn how to survive the the darkest of times.
    One question I have though is why did the all of those people allow the Nazis to do that to them. Why didn't they rebel. Why did they go along with it in the first place. In the book it tells about how they were loaded into to train car 80 people in one and how they had to give up all their valuables. If that were me I would hope that I would have enough self respect to not obey. Or Another time in the book Elie Wiesel tells us how the Nazis would line up everyone and make them jump into the crematorium where they were burned alive and they just did it they didn't fight back or anything they just accepted it. An the others wouldn't do anything to stop it because they were just glad that they weren't the ones heading for the fire pit. That is an example of adaptation because they have lived with it for long enough to accept that as normal because they can't think of anything different.
     Those are all examples of adaptation from the book "Night" by Elie Wiesel.

The first snowfall!

     On Friday we had our first snow fall of the season. Now it is official it is winter. We got snow kinda late this year so it seemed like fall just dragged on forever. But I'm happy that it is finally snowing. Now there is going to be so much fun stuff to do.
     This weekend my dad brought home our snowmobiles and so now I am waiting for us to get more snow and have a snow day so I can go snowmobiling with my friends. Last year we got a lot of snow and so we bought a new snowmobile for me and I love it. It goes really fast which makes it even funner.
     I also can't wait to so skiing. In the winter I always go over to Mt. Kato and go skiing with my friends on the weekends but now since my best friend gets her license in 2 weeks we plan on going over there after school some days to. This year I want to learn how to snowboard. I have wanted to learn how to for a long time and now I am going to make myself do it. My friend Gretta said that she might learn how to with me but we'll see about that. I think it will be really funny to watch.
     As of right now I am excited about winter because of all the fun stuff that I can do but we will see what my thoughts are in a couple of months when I am sick of it! But we will just have to wait until then.

what seperates us from animals?

      There are many things that separates humans from animals. The major difference between humans and animals is that humans have a more complex brain. Our brain is more developed then animals in the way that we have society's, education and technology that is way beyond the levels of animals. Humans also are bipedal.

      Both humans and animals share common emotions. When we (humans) are sad we show sad emotions and when we are excited we show emotions of excitement and that is the same for animals. There is a famous scientist who studied and recorded the emotions and actions of primates for years and her name is Jane Goodel. In one of her journal entries she details how when one of the tribe leaders dies to to wounds all of the other primates in the tribe stay by their side and tend to it until it passes so it wouldn't have to be alone. I think that shows a lot about the emotions of animals right there and if you were to read more of her journal entries there are also other examples.

      Sometimes when someone is misbehaving badly others will say that they are behaving like wild animals. I think that the concept of this saying comes from the idea of how wild animals act. Lions for instance take whatever they need to survive and don't care about anyone else. There are also humans who act like that in our society and normally those are the people who end up in jail.

     That is what I think is the main difference between humans and animals.

Pretty Little Liars.

     I have always been big on reading books. Every time I go the the mall or someplace with my family I ask if I can get a new book. But last weekend I got a new book called Pretty Little Liars by Sara Shepard and I fell in love with it. I have seen a couple of the episodes from the ABC family's show on it but never really understood it until I read this book.
     The book took me about 3 days to read. I became obsessed with it. For those days I would come home from school eat supper do my homework and then go read my book. It was just so good and I couldn't put it down. There is more books in the series but I have to wait until the next time we go to Mankato to get the rest of them and it is killing me to wait.
     I always think that it is funny when I start reading a book that I really like because it like becomes my life. All I do is read it until I am done and sometimes I will even ditch my friends to finish it. Its weird I know but I cant help it and besides I hang out with my friends all the time anyways so its okay. But I guess my way is a good way to decide if it is a good book because if I am reading a book and it takes me like a month to read it it probably is not a good book and so then I know how to give it away or not to recommend it to anyone.
     That is all about my experience reading Pretty Little Liars.

Beauty

What is beauty? Is it a person who is in all of the magazines that we buy or is it the sweet little old lady that lives down at the end of your street. What classification does beauty fall under? What is it exactly?

A really cliché thing to say is that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But it is true. Many people have different ideas of what is pretty and what is not. That is what makes our world so diverse. In different cultures different things are considered beautiful.

I think that beauty is more than skin deep. What is on the inside counts just as much or maybe even more than what is on the outside in order for me to like it…  Someone can be a really attractive person but they act like a complete jerk or they are really stuck up and don’t give you the time of day, but if a person is nice then people tend to look past what is on the outside.

Looks aren’t everything and that is also true. Like for instance when you get married you don’t want to look for just a cute spouse because if they are truly a horrible person on the inside you are not going to want to be around them at all. You want to look for what’s on the inside.

That is what beauty means to me. Beauty is all around us we just have to look because what’s on the inside counts just as much as what’s on the outside. That is the true meaning or beauty.

Fall Break

      During this past weekend it was our schools fall break. We got 4 days off of school and it felt awesome. Wednesday was our last day of school and that night I went to the school football game with a few of my friends. It was really fun. We laughed and cheered and had a really good time and then that night we spent the night at one of our friends houses. She lives out in the country so it was really fun because we got to be really loud and run around. We stayed up late watching scary movies and talked about random stuff.
      On Thursday we all went paint balling in Austin. It was a blast. We were there the whole day and by the time we got home we were covered in paint. When we were there we got put on teams and then they put you out in this course and you had to try to shoot the other teams members until everyone else but your team was out. It kinda hurt when you got hit from close up. I have bruises from it but I didn't get it nearly as bad as some other people. But overall it was really fun and I cant wait to go again.
     On Friday I just stayed home and chilled. I watched TV, cleaned my room, did homework. All that fun stuff. But On Saturday it was my moms birthday. She turned 54. So we went out to eat with my sisters and my aunts and uncles to the Green Mill. I was bored but my mom had fun.
     So that is what I did this weekend. It was fun. I was glad we had a break because we needed one so badly. It felt really nice to just sit home and recuperate after working so hard in school.

A Nice Day in October.

     Lately the weather has been very nice out considering that it is October. It hasn't been really all that cold for the most of it. My family just went on our annual leaf run where we drive over to Wisconsin and go to this one restaurant where they have the best fish and then we go to this apple orchard and go on horse rides then afterwards we stop at a pumpkin patch and pick out pumpkins. My grandpa said that we have been doing this for over 60 years.  He used to go with his parents and then when he had his own family they went and now that there are grand kids we all go. There is so many of us that we take up half the restaurant and somebody has to call ahead to the apple place and reserve horses and other stuff.
     A big part of the leaf run too the older people like my grandparents and my aunts and uncles is that they look at the land and admire it. But another thing is that my grandma really likes bittersweet so if we see some we stop and one of my uncles climbs a tree to get it for her. But as for me and my cousins we just hang out in the back of whoever car is the biggest and talk and laugh. Because we don't care about the color of the leaves but it is still really fun.
    But out of all the years that we have this has been the nicest year for how nice it was outside. And that is why it was a nice day in October.

Freedom.

        I think freedom is an awesome thing. I am so glad that I was born in a country where everybody is free. I couldn't even imagine what it would be like to live in a country where you weren't allowed to express your beliefs or say what you think. There are some countries where its citizens do not have the freedom of speech or the freedom of press. And I think that would be hard to live like that.
     In America we are born free. Yes we have laws that we abide by but they are just there to keep everyone safe. And we have the luxury of being able to say what we want without worrying that we might go to jail for it. We also have to freedom to speak up against political persons but in some countries you could get killed for speaking up to or insulting a political icon. That is why freedom means so much to me.

Justice and Fairness

       Personally I think Justice is Fairness. To me if someone kills someone else and they get the death penalty or life in prison that is justice and that is fair to whoever they hurt and their family members. But sometimes life doesn't work like that. Sometimes there is a mess up in the judicial process or the arresting officer forgot to read the killer their Miranda warning and they walk with a minor charge, that's not fair and I don't think that is justice. But in this country everyone is Innocent until proven guilty and the key word there is proven. If you just know that this person killed your the victim but you can not find anyway to prove it they just get to go free. That is not fair at all and it makes you doubt the system.
       Even when we were little and we hit someone or said something mean to someone else either your teacher would make you stay inside while the rest of your class was at recess or you would get yelled at by your parents and even though at the time it didn't seem fair to you it was fair to the other person because you hurt them and you had to pay the consequences for what you did. That is only fair and that is justice.
        So that is what justice and fairness means to me.

I want a doberman!

      So my family and I are thinking about getting a new dog. We used to have a lab named Dusty but we had to put him to sleep two summers ago. He lived to be 14 years old. We also have a Maltese named Evanna and she is 3. But I have been telling my parents about how much I want a big dog that I can take for walks around the lake and play fetch with. Yeah I can take Evanna for walks but she gets tired so quick and her little legs can't keep up with my walking pace so she is like running and then I feel bad. So we are considering getting a bigger dog.
     My dad wants a golden retriever and my mom wants another lab but I on the other hand want a Doberman. My parents think that I am absolutely bonkers for wanting that kind of a dog but I think that they are awesome. everything about them intrigues me. The way the present themselves they seem so scary and mean but that just makes me want one more. For some reason I want a dog that looks scary and mean and will make people who don't know it a little timid of it but once they get to know it they realise that it is one of the nicest dogs that they will ever meet.
      I have done some research on Dobermans and they are a very loving and protective dog and that is exactly what I want. I want a dog that will protect me. I am also excited because if we do get a Doberman the first thing that I am going to do is get a chainlinked collar like you see in all the movies like the stereotypical Doberman.
     I am very excited about this decision about getting a new dog.

    

my favorite poem

My favorite poem is Sick by Shel Silverstein. It has been my favorite poem since 2nd grade. My teacher Mrs. Schumaker would read us a poem from his book Where the Sidewalk Ends everyday and as soon as I heard that I liked it. I own the book now and every once in a while I will read it.Here is the poem.


"I cannot go to school today,"
Said little Peggy Ann McKay,
"I have the measles and the mumps,
A gash, a rash, and purple bumps.
My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,
I'm going blind in my right eye.
My tonsils are as big as rocks,
I've counted sixteen chicken pox
And look there's one more--that's seventeen,
And don't you think my face looks green?
My leg is cut, my eyes are blue--
It might be Instamatic flu.
I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,
I'm sure that my left leg is broke--
My hip hurts when I move my chin,
My belly button's caving in,
My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained,
My 'pendix pains each time it rains.
My nose is cold, my toes are numb,
I have a sliver in my thumb.
My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,
I hardly whisper when I speak.
My tongue is filling up my mouth,
I think my hair is falling out.
My elbow's bent, my spine ain't straight,
My temperature is one-o-eight.
My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,
There is a hole inside my ear.
I have a hangnail, and my heart is--what?
What's that? What's that you say?
You say today is---Saturday?
G'bye, I'm going out to play!"


I think the reason why I like this poem so much is because almost every kid can relate to it. When I was little I used to beg my mom to let me stay home and I would always make up excuses so that I could stay home and sleep. So I think one of the reasons why i like this poem so much is because every time I hear it I think about all the silly excuses that I would use to get to stay home. Also because everytime I read it, it makes me laugh. That is why this is my favorite poem.

Noise or silence.

     If I were to pick which one I like better noise or silence I would have to say that I like noise better. I think that silence is awkward. When I am with my friends it is hardly ever silent, and when I am by myself I almost always have music playing or the TV on. The only time I prefer silence over noise is when I am studying or trying to learn something.
    When I am with people I prefer noise because you build good social skills when you are talking. But at the same time the noise can really get overwhelming.So here are some things that I like noise for...

• laughter of friends
• talking with friends
• anything involving people
• listening to music as we clip the lake
• watching movies
• running
• exercising
• cheering of people at tennis matches
• joking around with friends
• waiting in elevators
• singing in the car

Those are all the reasons why I think noise is better than silence.

Helping out a friend.

    So, my best friend in the entire world came up to me at school the other day and asked me if I would do her a huge favor. And obviously my answer was yes before she even told me what the favor was. But anyways her cousin was getting married this weekend and they needed some servers to walk around with trays of appetizers during the social hour and they had asked my friend to get a group of people to do that for them. The only requirement was that we had to wear black pants and a black shirt and know what we were serving.
     That wedding took place yesterday and I have had a little over 24 hours to think about how it went and reflect on it, and this is what I keep on replaying over and over in my head... We were given such a simple job to do and I got to say I think we nailed it but all I can think about is how all of our friends came together and did her a favor without asking any questions. We helped her when she needed it and nobody was complaining about anything. We were all happy to help.The bride and groom kept on thanking us for helping them out but the truth is that we weren't doing it for them, we were doing it for a friend.
    So that is what has been going on inside my head all weekend. I have been thinking about what will friends do for each other. And what kind of a friend does it take to do things for others.Best friends means that you can't be selfish and you need to think about the other person because becoming best friends doesn't happen over night it take years to develop trust. So helping out a friend isn't even a chore it is something that I want to do. Because honestly we ended up having a really fun time because afterwards we just got to mess around and chill with a bunch of friends who were all there for the same reason and we all laughed about how awkward we felt walking around serving food. So that is my story about helping out a friend and having a good time while doing it.
   

What is friendship?

What is friendship...? At first when I was given this topic to write about I was like "Oh this will be easy I use this word a lot." But the more I thought about it the more difficult this topic became because I rarely ever use the word friendship in a conversation I always say "She is my friend." or "Yeah we are friends." But I never say "We have a friendship together." or "Our friendship is a good one". So for this assignment I thought about what is the reason behind my friends and myself and how could that be used to describe friendship.
      When someone asks me what the meaning of friendship is I think about all my friends and why we are friends. Friendship to me is trusting someone enough to know they would never do anything to hurt you. It is when you are close enough with someone that you can just be yourself without trying to impress them. Friendship also means you get along and hope for the best for one another. It has no race, gender, or size and it is not limited to a place, culture or group. There is no limit to how much friendship you can have. That is what friendship means to me.

About me!

     Hey everybody this is Tara. I thought I would start out my blog by telling you a little bit about me. Okay well I am a sophomore in high school and I love it. I have amazing friends that help the school day go by faster and when we hang out we laugh so hard we cry. Yesterday (Friday) me and a couple of my friends went to the movie "Easy A" and by the time we left the theater we had laughed so hard our mascara was running. The movie was good but that wasn't the only reason we were laughing we were laughing because we are so close we can just be ourselves around each other and say the most random stuff and laugh about it for hours. We have a lot of inside jokes that we will randomly say and if you didn't know what it means you would probably think we were the strangest group of people you have ever met. But that's okay because we have fun when we are around each other.
     I play tennis for my high school team and I think it has got to be one of the best sports out there. I could be having the most awful days ever but when I go to practice after school and step onto the court with my racket in my hand and a tennis ball in the other all of the days problems just go away. I also play the piano. I have technically been playing for 8 years but for the first 5 years I didn't care much for it. I only went because my mother made me and when I was little she would have to bribe me to practice. I absolutely loathed it but she knew she was doing the right thing by making me go because now I play all the time. There will be some days where I come home from tennis and sit down at the piano to play and before I know it a couple hours will have past and I still have homework to do. I know it sounds kind of obsessive but it relaxes me, and when I finish a song that has taken for ever to perfect I get a feeling of accomplishment and I know that I finished that song all by myself.
     Another thing about me is that my family is really close. I live with my mom and dad and my dog Evanna. I have two sisters but they are both grown up and live in their own houses. I also have a nephew named Joseph and you will probably hear me talk about him a lot because he is just so cute. He just turned 2 on labor day weekend and he is obsessed with dinosaurs. Everything is "dino, dino, dino." For his birthday everybody got him something to do with dinosaurs and I swear there isn't a single dinosaur thing left within a 100 mile radius. Their living room floor looked like a miniature Jurassic Park because there were dinosaurs everywhere.
     Okay well now I have told you a little bit about my friends, my hobbies and my life. So now I will talk to you later about the thoughts of Tara. See ya!