My Blogs

It’s only January and I already can’t wait for winter to end. Here in North Carolina, every day is either 63 degrees and windy, so pants are too warm and shorts are too cold. Or, it’s 37 degrees with a high of 42, so normal pants like leggings and casual sweatpants are too cold, but anything thermal is way too hot. All of this makes the worst part of my day even more miserable, picking out my outfit.

See links below for shopping!

Boxer Shorts

Sweatpants

Leggins

Normally, I’m ok with this as long as we get some snow. It’s like a deal with nature. Nature gets to punish us the entire season, as long as we get one snow day. But unfortunately, for the last year, nature has not held up its end of the deal. As January ends, my chance of getting any snow this winter seems more like a distant hope. 

This year in LA, we started reading Wisdom Tales. They are basically what they sound like, tales from hundreds of years ago that each have their own set of morals. After we read through around 30 tales, we all picked a tale we likes to turn in into a comic. I chose a tale called Feathers.

We used multiple apps to make our comics, but if you want to make your own all you need is a drawing app, (procreate, sketchbook, etc.) And comic life. Comic life is basically an app where you can put in your drawings, and there are many fonts and designs to choose from.

Thank you for reading, I hope you can make a comic of your own!

There are many sports to choose from, but my personal favorite is field hockey. I play for Bull City Field hockey, and my team just recently had a tournament in Virginia. My team has two hour practice sections on Tuesdays and Thursdays, where each practice we work on one skill, like wall passes, and then we scrimmage.

Field hockey takes a lot of different skills, and the skills can be different depending on what position you play. One of the most important skills for all positions are pulls. Pulls are when you pull the ball back and forth quickly. Pulls can help defenders stop attackers from getting the ball and scoring. Pulls can help midfielders pass to their teammates. Pulls can help forwards get around defenders and score. 

Thank you for reading, I hope you can try out field hockey soon!

Chinese is a very hard language to learn. But with our teacher Guo Lao Shi, it is a very amazing learning experience. During all of the hard work we’ve done we have lots of fun. We are very proud of all the work we have done this year!

One big part about the Chinese language is the characters. When learning characters, you have to follow a very specific stroke order. Characters are very specific and very challenging to master, but when we work hard it all pays off.  When writing Chinese characters in a traditional form, we use brushes and ink to make calligraphy. When doing calligraphy you have to be super careful by holding the brush right and getting the perfect amount of ink and water. This skill is very challenging to do because when you mess up a little bit the whole character is ruined and have to do the steps all over again perfectly.

One of my favorite things about Chinese class is that we don’t just learn they characters, we learn culture too. Last year, we did a dragon dance and we got to perform it in front of the school. This year we are doing a super fun surprise this year but we will not give it away. During Chinese class we made many delicious foods like dumplings, ice cream, and spicy Ramen. 

In our Chinese class we have tests and quizzes very frequently. At the beginning of this year we had a whole review lesion test with about 50-60 words. Then more in the middle of the year we started to have tests on characters and speaking. 我喜欢吃苹果。That means I like eating apples.

Thank you so much for reading our blog. We are very proud of all the work we have 

done this year!

• Sabrina 尹飒娜, Eloise 马爱璐, and Emma 林爱玛

Ever since my sister left for college, Thanksgiving has been more important to me than ever. It’s one of the only times I ever get to see my sister and spend time with my family. This has helped me not take even the basic things for granted, like having my family around. Another aspect of thanksgiving is the history around it. Did you know that thanksgiving originated from Europeans and the Wampanoags having a feast together, In 1621? Another fun fact about thanksgiving is that turkey wasn’t originally on the menu. This Thanksgiving, I had two weeks off of school. (A much needed break.) My sister flew down to North Carolina, where our family lives, on Wednesday with a lot of homework to do. On Thanksgiving day, we all shared what we were grateful for. Here are a few:

1. Food

2. A loving family

3. Education

4. Somewhere to live

5. Friends

6. Opportunities to play sports

7. Transportation

8. Clothes

9. Good health

10. Nature

And thank you for reading.

Something I’m really passionate about is running. For me, it really has no downsides at all, and I encourage anyone who has a pair of tennis shoes and is able to, to start running. Most people think running is just something people do for exercise, but that’s not true at all. Running is much more than a workout. It’s having fun with your teammates, watching yourself improve, and forgetting about the things you’re stressed about. 

I personally enjoy running because it is really easy to try. You don’t need any fancy sports gear, just a pair of tennis shoes that fit. Just that alone makes running one of the most affordable and accessible sports possible. You can run almost anywhere, just make sure you’re being safe. For example, if you’re running alone in the dark, it would be a pretty good idea to bring at least a flashlight, and tell someone where you are going. Whenever I run alone, I share my location with someone at all times. 

Overall, running is great for your mind and body, affordable, and could be social too.

I encourage you after reading this, to start running too!

HALLOWEEN. Chances are you’ve heard of it, you dress up and get candy, and if you’re a parent, you have to pay for the candy and tell little kids trick-or-treating to, “Have fun sweetie!” But, just like all other holidays, Halloween has its own history too.

In fact, many Halloween traditions such as Trick-or-Treating have been around since Medieval times. Actually, Halloween originates from an ancient Celtic holiday, called Samhain.

Even back to 1585, people dressed up for Halloween.

Speaking of costumes, (half the fun in Halloween), most people still dress up, even after 400 years. Me and a big group of friends decided to all wear the same costume to school, and go trick or treating after. It took us a while to all agree on one costume idea, but after about a month of nothing but arguing, we settled on silver aliens.

The next step was to all agree on a few specific things to wear. That took us another two weeks, so we all ordered our costumes last-minute.

You would think after all that the costume would consist of a cheap, party city one piece alien and silver glitter, but I think it turned out pretty good for a seven kid group-costume.

Taken by my friend, 30oliviab.

Last summer, I was assigned a book to read. Finding Someplace features a normal girl living in Orlando in 2005. The main character Reesie is about to be twelve, when hurricane Katrina hits. In one scene, Reese has to pack a backpack not knowing that whatever she doesn’t pack, will be gone forever.

When I came back to school in August, I was assigned a backpack project. The project was to draw a backpack with everything I would have packed in Reese’s situation. Photo taken by me.

My first thought was electronics, and then when I realized I had a lot of space left, so I started adding toiletries. Finally, I added some snacks and clothes.

Another project I did about Finding Someplace is an essay. Not a boring essay, but an interesting essay about who was the hero of Finding Someplace. I chose Mrs. Martine, Reesie’s neighbor.

Photo taken by me.

I hope you enjoyed, I 100% recommend Finding Someplace!

Bad weather, spiders, nasty food, mean counselors, were all things I thought about camp Kirkwood before I even got there. (Some of which turned out to be true, but I won’t spoil which.) I was quite open about my low standards on the bus, where me and a group of friends had been talking for the last two hours. There wasn’t much to do besides trade candy and fake dollar bills, so we ended up tossing around a pillow. As we got closer and closer to camp, word started to spread that this could end badly. Really badly. You see, we weren’t just going to some camp for school, we were going to some camp for school right in the middle of a hurricane. Hurricane Idalia.

Image from https://www.11alive.com/article/weather/hurricane/tropical-system-gulf-aug-2023-idalia-possible/85-6aa564e5-6f8c-437a-9a93-e369dee670e3

When I arrived, those thoughts of spiders and bad food quickly turned into green grass, beautiful trees, and laughter all around. We put our stuff down and gathered in the pavilion to meet the camp counselors and directors. After we got a brief preview of what was going on, we were assigned our cabins. I was lucky enough to be assigned cabin three, where I quickly find a bunkmate and a few other friends to talk to. The rest on that day went by in a breeze, and I mostly just remember jumping into a pool for the first time in a few months, and getting ready for bed in a crowded bathroom.

The next day, we woke up at 7:00 to a flooded camp. Although we were staying in a cabin with a limited view of the area around it, our cabin was right by the lake even before it flooded. After that rainy night, the water level had risen at least three feet, which is enough to expand the lake by around 10-15 feet in each direction. The rest of the day, and all of its activities were quite strange, because there were benches and even full bridges underwater. Despite this, we persevered through the rainy-swims, soaked clothes, and, “SPIDER!”shouted one of my classmates as we were on a our way to take a class photo. As we all gathered around, I caught a glimpse of a huge black and yellow spider. Other than that, we saw no other threateningly large animals. Everyone slept well after a long day of nature.

The next morning went about the same way, but this time, after breakfast, we had the best activities. The ones that they actually tell you about before you go there. I went kayaking, zipping, and I went on the giant V swing, which was followed by me trying not to puke up the lunch that was just served. Sadly, it was time to go. We gathered our stuff and headed to the bus. Some people slept through the ride back, and me and my friends played card games. As we got back, everyone shared their adventures and stories in the carline, while m and a few others waited our parents arrival for a few hours in extended day.

Routines are the baseline for productivity, organization, and overall success. In my life, I use routines to keep me accountable. Every day when I get home, I take around thirty minutes to relax and eat. After that, I take a relaxing shower, and then do some slightly less relaxing studying and homework. The only reason I keep myself accountable is this set routine. It is a steady, reliable base to achieve my academic and personal goals.

Routines can also help you fix your sleep schedule. If you’re like me, waking up early is a struggle. However, my school schedule doesn’t allow me to sleep in. One simple, bearable way to get your sleep schedule on track is to slowly wake up earlier each day. If you wanted to get up at six every morning, and you usually wake up at nine, it would only take you eighteen days to reach your goal by waking up ten minutes earlier each day.

Overall, routines are a very important step in getting your life together. Good luck fixing your sleep schedules!