Aaron's English Blog

 Prompt: I would use a gumball machine as a metaphor for my own mind. I chose a gumball machine because it has many different things inside of it and I am always thinking of a million things at once. The gumball machine also only lets you take one thing out at a time. That is also similar to my mind because I have to filter through all those thoughts to find something to say or do. Summary: Today in class we read an Emily Dickinson poem. Reflection: I thought that the poem was interesting but I didn't relate to it that much.

 

 Prompt: An adventure that I would like to go on is skydiving. I have never done it before and I think it would be very fun. It is the closest thing to weightlessness that is actually affordable, unlike the weightless planes, and I would like to see everything from above. I think that would be a great adventure because it is something fun and interesting and something that you only do a few times in your life. Summary: Today we read a poem by Emily Dickenson and answered questions about it. Reflection: I didn't really relate to the poem that well but the presentations were interesting.

 Prompt: I will never fully understand why people listen to influencers on social media so much. A lot of what people say online is wrong and also the people who you listen to are not in the same situation as you. I see lots of people comparing themselves to social media and ending up feeling bad about themselves because they cannot live up to the impossible standards of social media. I don't get why people care so much about other people online who they don't even know. Summary: Today in class we presented our origin myth posters. Reflection: I learned about the many different ideas that my classmates had and I found their stories interesting.

Prompt: Something that I wish I had more of is time. I am almost done with high school and I don't know what I want to do yet in life. I have a general idea of the field but I wish I had more time to figure things out and decide on what I want to do. I don't want to choose something that I will not enjoy so I feel a lot of pressure to look for colleges and decide what I want to do. Summary: Today in class I worked on my poster for my origin myth. Reflection: I learned I need to manage my time better as I have some assignments that I still need to do this weekend.

Prompt: The most creative thing that I have ever made was a marble run in 8th grade. For science class we were tasked with creating a marble run. My group and I spent weeks planning ours and acquiring the necessary resources to build it. The finished marble run had multiple loops and even a section where the marble went backwards into a half pipe. This is my best work because of the amount of time that I spent working on it with my group mates and the technical problems that we had to solve to give the marble enough speed. Summary: Today in class we continued working on our origin myth stories and began a poster for it. Reflection: I learned how to write a story by planning out the steps to make it.

Prompt: My two most burning questions about life are why does life exist and how are there so many different religions. I want to know why life exists because to me there does not seem to be a reason for the first microbes to form and later crawl out of the sea. Also, does that mean that all life is essentially inbred from the same common ancestor? I also find it interesting that there are so many different beliefs about whether there is a god and if so how many and all the other things that people believe about religions.  Summary: Today in class we started working on our origin myths. Reflection: I learned how to plan a story using key details about what my ideas are.

 Prompt: I have adapted to the demands of this course by making sure to do my assignments in class to avoid having to do them for homework. I think I will be strong in doing group work as the most recent assignment was group work and our group did well. A challenge might be remembering to do the blog posts because I forget to finish them in class. I can counter this by forcing myself to do them in class and checking if they are posted on time.  Summary: Today we worked on the projects about the origin myth we are studying. Reflection: I learned that I need to make sure that I get my work done on time. This post was completed on Friday the 15th however I did not have internet at the time so I redid it today as it didn't save properly.

 Prompt: A time I felt completely lost was when I went on a hike with my family. My family was hiking up a mountain that had two paths up and my brother and I saw the alternate path. When we went back down the mountain we decided to hide on the other path to scare our parents. Our parents didn't end up going down the other path and my brother and I got lost trying to find them. We eventually found someone who took us back down to the parking lot. Summary: Today in class we presented the projects about the origin myth that we are studying. Reflection: I learned that a theme is a sentence and that a topic is a one word or phrase answer.

 Prompt: A situation where jealousy negatively affected a relationship I experienced was when my brother and I were playing with Lego. My brother and I were building pirate ships out of Lego and his was bigger than mine. I was upset that his was larger because he had larger bricks to build with and I didn't and I thought that was unfair. I ended up pushing his ship down the stairs and when he found out he was angry and broke mine. Jealousy negatively affected the relationship because we both lost what we had created because of my jealousy. Summary: Today in class we read the story "The Jealous Father" and started a powerpoint about it. Reflection: I learned about the consequences of jealousy and how the Navajo made a story that taught about them.

 Prompt: A meaningful place in my life that carries a story is the basketball court at the school across the street from where I live. That is where I first started playing basketball two and a half years ago and it is where I spent most of the past two summers practicing. I have made many friends there and learned the value of hard work as it is not easy to get better at something. That court is important to me because it is where I had to overcome challenges such as being frustrated with my performance and also where I have had some of the happiest moments in my life while playing basketball. \ Summary: Today in class we read the Navajo creation story and took our school pictures. Reflection: I learned about the similarities between the Navajo creation story and the Bible.

 Prompt: A time I felt connected to nature was this summer when I went on vacation to Grand Teton National Park. This was the first time that I had seen huge animals up close as bison lined the sides of the road and moose drank at many of the lakes. The top of Grand Teton itself seemed to never draw any closer, no matter how far we hiked. The largeness of everything in the park made me feel how insignificant a human is compared to the vastness of nature, but it also made me feel how important it is to protect it. Summary: Today we took notes about Native American literature and different types of stories. Reflection: I learned what the components of an origin myth are.

 This is the test post to see if this works.