Last Blog of the Semester

This semester was actually alright, the classes were not too hard and not too easy. I enjoyed my first semester at Newton-Conover High School. My first period was math, it was alright, I do not have any friends in there but I made acquaintances. My teacher was not all that bad, he was very kind and tried to just do the right teacher thing to do, teach. There's nothing to really say about him because I did not really get to know him. My second period was American History. In that class it was so chill, but we got a lot of things done, we took several notes but we got to relax and chill after doing what we needed to do. To be honest, I do not think he really payed me any attention in class and I probably did not exist to him and I do not think he really knew my name, but it is okay because he was still chill. My third period teacher was pretty nice as well, she was funny, always made jokes. She also wanted to make us get out work down and she made us do a couple group projects that were actually graded by the way you presented. Not many teachers actually grade the way she did but she was nice. My fourth period teacher is also very chill, she gives us direction and she lets us complete our work and she let's us become more independent. This semester has been very relaxed and I hope it continues to be calm.

EXAMS

The exams are this week, and we're starting on the 13th of January, which is a Wednesday and it makes no sense. Also this weekend is a 3 day weekend because Martin Luther King Day is on Monday and we take out last exam on Tuesday, which makes even less sense. At my old school, and I know the years before at this school now, they got to go home if a note was given to the teacher for being excused. After that you were aloud to leave campus and do your own thing. But this year is chaos, you have to have your parent sign you out in between 12:30-1:15 and if you are signed out after that then you are not able to leave campus. Many students are leaving and that is causing many parents coming in and having to wait and try to sign their children out. This causes impatience to the parents and causes them to get frustrated with the secretary's at the desk who call the classrooms to sign children out. Because of this happening the secretary's get punished for a rule they did not even make or a rule that they do not like or agree with. This caused great problems and drama. Most review sessions in the afternoons after the exams are empty. In the reviews their are barely any students and in most review sessions students just "chill" and watch movies or go on their phones or just talk among their piers. I know of this because I also did this and I know there are several other students who stayed but only had not even half of their classroom students appear for review session. Also, today is Friday and at the moment we are having out 4th period "review" session. During this review several students are taking their teacher exam. Which is not fair because what if those students want to go to their review exam. which is not likely, but it takes away their chance to go to review. None of this review stuff makes sense and it confuses me. Please, Newton-Conover High School, change this crazy exam to make it more convenient for parents and students and teachers because teachers are basically wasting their time trying to review when no students show up. They are basically babysitting high school students.

Lori Walls - The Glass Castle

Lori Walls was the oldest child out of four children. Her parents were Rex Walls and Rose Mary Walls. She was the one who first realized and questioned why her family ran away from their problems and why they always were always moving around so much she decides she wants to go away and move away from her family. The reason why she wanted to move was because it was too overwhelming living the life she lived. Lori had gotten her life together in New York and that's when she invited Jeanette and they supported each other. Lori was the one who supported her siblings as well. Before Lori left to New York, the original plan was for Jeannette and herself to save money. The reason why the plan did not work out was because their father, Rex Walls, stole the money from them. Then Jeanette got asked to babysit out of state from her babysitter and that she'd get paid. But Jeanette told Lori that she should take the option and use her money to go to New York. Lori was very lucky she got the option to go to New York. Lori then becomes an illustrators. 

The Glass Castle - Rex Walls

Rex is actually a great father when he does not drink. The title of the book came from a promise that was made when Jeanette was younger. That one day he will someday build a Glass Castle for his family so they could live in, he carried blueprints with him everywhere so he could show everyone he met what his future consisted. Rex loves his family but causes difficulty for all the children and his wide. He always made them move or he never kept his job for long. His drinking caused much chaos to all of the family members. Since he made his family move He always spent money on alcohol and never came home. Although he is trained as a skilled worker, he rarely holds a job for longer than six months and often gets into trouble by arguing with authority figures.Rex always has projects in mind for getting rich quick, but these never lead anywhere. He occasionally brings in extra money by gambling; at one point he enlists Jeannette in hustling a pool player at a bar by letting the player believe she will provide sexual favors to him. He justifies this by saying he knew Jeannette could take care of herself. Although Rex's contributions to his family have always been erratic, towards the end of the memoir, Rex comes up with $950 for Jeannette's final year at in College.

The Glass Castle - Jeanette Walls

Jeanette Walls is the writer of the memoir, "The Glass Castle", she is also the main character of the memoir. Jeanette writes from her perspective and she writes her story. Jeanette is a girl who belongs to a distressed family. Her family moves from house to house and is dealt with great difficulties that she overcomes. Jeanette's character was a very curious one. She always wondered how she going to achieve something or she always wondered why something occurred. Jeannette also wanted the best for siblings and herself. She tried to save up money for her older sister Lori to go to New York so she can start a new life there. She was always trying to give them and herself a better life they deserved. She even got a job and she tried to buy them the right amount of groceries. She thought of them before herself. Jeanette was always bullied as well as her siblings were always bullied. This helps others know that if you bully someone, just know you do not know what you are going through. Even though they were experiencing bad times she always found a way to get them what they needed. Jeanette was the second oldest out of four children and she was hurt physically and emotionally several times in her childhood. After she was old enough to move out to go to New York, she set up her life by herself. She was in college and she got a job and that is where she grew into her success. After her great career turn out, she decided to write her life story and experience and shared it to the world.

My Thanksgiving Break

My Thanksgiving break was a good start. I slept in on Wednesday and got to talk to the one person I love to talk to the most, Nathan. On Thanksgiving day, Thursday, we went to my church to set up the food and decorations for the Thanksgiving feast that we were having. There was so much food and all of us ate a lot, but the good thing is there was still left overs for us to take home. After the Thanksgiving feast we had at church, we went to the Hmong New Year. The Hmong New Year occurs every Thanksgiving break. Thursday-Sunday. Thursday evening we went and just walked around to see what they had in store this year. After the walking around we helped my church set up a booth that was sponsored. Our church booth was there to encourage other Hmong people to come to our church and learn the word of the Bible. After the Hmong New Year, we went to my house to chill and watch movies and eat some leftovers. The next day we went to the Hmong New Year again because we had to help make balloons and pass out flyers about our church and about the word of God. After that we chilled and walked around to explore more of the New Year, we ate really good food and enjoyed the hot weather that we did not think we were going to have. After the New Year I went to work to experience a slow day at work. The next day we went again to the Hmong New Year, this time we dressed in our traditional Hmong clothes and walked around all day and ate really good food. After that I went to work again to experience another slow day. Sunday came along and it was fairly good. I went to church and had dance and then off to work again. It was better at the time but as a memory it was not that great and exciting but to me it was.

My First Job

I recently got a job at Burger King as cashier. It's my first job so I do not know whats a good job and what a bad job is. But the first day I actually worked, I watched several 5-45 minute long videos about greeting people, sanitary directions, and a lot more. I watched for videos for at least 5 days before I actually got to work. The first day I worked, they made a person who just started working a week ago, train me. She was just as new but she told me she had worked several other fast food jobs as well. So that made it easier for her. I did not know what to really do, I just put fries into their cartons and bagged some burgers and nuggets. That is all I did my first day, it was not anything too hard. I later helped clean the diner with my trainer and we got done with things very quickly. It was nice having someone to help, but I felt as if I was so unprepared or my next time at work. The next time I worked, they already put me by myself at the front line. I was so nervous, and I usually never get nervous. They gave me a cash drawer and told me it had to have exactly 125. So once I got my drawer into the cashier, I began taking several orders. It was pretty difficult and I was nervous about everything. I did not know the cashier board very well and it was hard to quickly find the right sandwiches. It went on like this for several days, but I think I have gotten better. It's only been my 3rd week and I think I got the hand of most things. They just recently started training me on drive-thru as I do front line so I hope I can be more useful and do drive-thru and front line soon enough.