Leaders

Leaders are (in my mind) people that are confident, understanding, they listen to the other people, they want to help as much as they can and they can relate to what the people are saying and they RESPECT. I would say that a leader that is not in our school would be someone like people's parents. They're able to listen to your problems and help you out and they will be there as much as they can for you and try to help solve your problem.

As to the people in our eighth grade, I think that the people who are leaders are people like Kiara, and partly myself. I think that because we do like to help people and we can be understanding when someone isn't well mentally or physically. We like to listen to the people that need listening. For example, when we had SAISA Swimming, we helped a girl named Baseye get over her fear of racing and she got first place and we congratulated her. But we were able to understand what was going on with her and then relate. During WOW, Kiara and I were able to guide the people through the string net thing and we were able to have people trust us. And we successfully got almost everybody through. And all my teachers last year told my parents (during parent - teacher conferences) that I was a born leader. So I think that being a leader means having people have confidence in you and you having confidence in yourself.

Parent Teacher Conferences

I am proud of how well I do projects. For example, with my Outsiders Final Project, I received an A- and for my IR museum display, I received an A. I think that is really good considering that I thought that atleast one of those projects were hard to do. I think that the reason that I did so well was because I really did try. I knew that they were big grades and I knew that I could do well on it and since I thought that way, I achieved. I am also proud of my descriptive writing pieces. For example, my Interview with Susan B. Anthony. I am really proud of that particular piece because I chose to do the harder version, the embedded version. It wasn't just a simple question-answer interview, it was hiding the questions in there. And I also did some more research and I put in some real quotes that Susan B. Anthony herself said. So I really do put in a lot of effort to what I do and I am proud of that just in general.

However, what I thought challenging was to keep up my stocks and to try to get in the lead. I do really enjoy having Stocksquest, but I do find it challenging sometimes. I think that it is hard to keep it up and to make sure that you haven't gone bankrupt and to make sure that your keeping the right stocks and selling the right stocks. I think that was the most challenging assignment of this quarter. But I have started to get the hang of it and I am doing better.

Why We Should Keep WOW

We should keep WOW for many reasons:

My first reason is that we can learn a lot from where we go and what we do. For example, when we went hiking up in the mountains on the first day, we were able to see how other people lived. Me and my friends (Kiara and Rebecca) , we were thinking how good we have it and comparing what it must be to live up there than in our houses. The only things that they really eat is what they grow on their own land. It shows that we can compare and contrast not only in classrooms, but in real life situations. WOW is important because it does help us grow as people and we learn that not everything is going to be perfect in homes. And nobody is able to have the same life.

The second reason that WOW should stay is because we learn how to live together as a team. if we have to live in the same tents and in the same camps with people that you sometimes that you don't like, that may be useful later on in life. For example, if your boss in your job tells you that you have to do a paper (or whatever you have to do) with someone that you absolutely despise, having this characteristic will help you get through that and you will know how to handle it. For example, I was in a camp with a few people that I thought were immature and I thought that I could just avoid them, but then as we started to do more and more activities together, I was getting really annoyed. I just told myself that I should find a way to handle this situation better and that I should learn to live with it. So as the time went on, I just ignored parts of what they did and I only looked at the bright side of things. So that characteristic is a key and I know that we can work on it in groups but different settings is another thing. You have to be able to work anytime, anywhere. Whether it's out on a nice, relaxing river or in a hot desert in Rajasthan, you have to be able to work there.

My final reason is that we will appreciate what happens there. It may not be right then and there, but later on, you will appreciate it and say that you were actually able to experience something that good. You will appreciate nature and probably even more obvious is that we will miss our homes and the people we love. That can even help our home life. Such as, when I got home, I was so happy, I appreciated that I was home, I was with my dad and that I was back to what I was used to. However, at the same time, I appreciated the beautiful surroundings that were all around me and that I actually existed in that spot at one point and time.

However, don't forget that making friends and being better friends was a key. That really helped people along with what they were doing and you got more support from your peers.

So all-in-all, having WOW really helps people grow and even become more mature.

My Goals for the Second Quarter

One of my goals that I would like to achieve is to learn more about Imperialism. Honestly i don't really know the definition of imperialism, so that will be a huge step, but understanding what happened throughout those months or years. That I will be able to answer any question that is being thrown at me.

Another goal would be to be READING MORE!!!!! I need to read more independently and not because I have to do it for AR. I mean, I do have to have a lot of points for AR and I need to since it is a part of my grade, but I would like to be reading more often since it is good for you and it helps you think deeper(atleast that's what I've heard). And I need to find more interesting books to read.

My final goal would be to learn how to do a proper research paper. I know how to do one, but since I know that we will be doing our first, major research paper, I know that I can learn more about how to do it and, well, the proper way for a proper MLA format citing.

Summary of my Quarter 1 Goals

I had just a two goals to achieve this quarter but I think that I have achieved both of them.

One of them was to get off to a good start without being behind on anything.
That goal was definetley achieved because I was listening a lot in class so I knew what was happening and if there was any additional information that I needed to know that wasn't posted on the board for homework. And interms of this blog that I am supposed to keep up, I have done a good jpb of that becuase I used a checklist to make sure that everything was there and included everything that needed to be there. I was definetley caught up in everything I did and I know that I have achieved this goal very well.

My second goal was to get better at poetry but I did not achieve this particular goal because that wasn't one of our lessons in this quarter. I would have liked to get better at it, meaning writing it and being bale to understand the deeper meaning of it, but unfortunatley, I was not able to.