I love Christmas. It is my favorite holiday, by far. You get to get out of school for two weeks, spend time with friends, and family, and just get to relax from all the pressures that are placed on you from school. Too bad that this year I didn't get to get out of school on December 18 like everyone else, and actually feel like I got out of school because of Christmas vacation. Instead, I was stuck at home with bronchitis. I was looking forward to almost being done with school on Tuesday, December 16. I would finally be done with swimming in three days! I should have known that I wouldn't make it to the end of the week. You see i have had a cough for about a week and it was getting pretty bad, but I made sure that I would stay in school for as long as possible, and I did.

On that Tuesday I felt so terrible right when I woke up. I was coughing had a headache, and I just felt plain tired, but I somehow made myself go to school, because I was so determined to make it through this week. First hour, I felt chipper even though I was sniffling like crazy. I felt really bad for all the people around me, because I knew how annoying my continuous sniffles were. I was feeling okay until I got to sixth hour... gym. Now this week was the last week of the dreaded swimming, so it would be a pain to have to make up any swim days. When I entered the swimming pool I started to cough so much that I thought my lungs were going to collapse. I just wanted to be done so badly. I made it through that day of swimming.

When I dried off everything felt odd. My skin hurt, I felt hot, and I was exhausted. Unfortunately I had to stay at school because my mom was working the Teacher Luncheon and I had to help. I tried so hard not to cough but it wasn't working. The harder I tried not to the harder I coughed. It was a nightmare. Finally, I went home and took my temperature, it was 101.3. I was glad that I could sleep in tomorrow but so upset that i had to miss a day of gym ,because I would have to make it up later on. I went to the doctor the on Wednesday and she told me I would have to miss the rest of the week due to my fever. I was devastated that I would have to miss the last days before Christmas vacation.

Emerson’s argument in “The American Scholar” about American society is very true even in today’s society. One way that Emerson’s idea is still true today is in the way Americans work. “The planter, who is Man sent out into the field to gather food, is seldom cheered by any idea of the true dignity of his ministry.” (Emerson). Today we believe that our occupation is the only job we can do. We don’t see that there is a bigger picture. The bigger picture is that our job is part of a cycle that keeps us living and prospering. There is a farmer, a doctor, and a soldier. The farmer produces food, the doctor makes sure the people are healthy, and the soldier defends the people. If you take one of those careers out of the picture, the people of the country would wither away. If the farmer is taken away the people would starve, take the doctor out the people would die from illness, and lastly take out the solider the people would be killed by foreign countries.

The second reason why Emerson argument is still true is the way we educated our children. We teach our children different subjects, so that they can decide what they will progress in at life. School gives us an oppurtunity to accomplish in a vast majority of fields, and yet when we grow up we only have one job that defines us. In conclusion, Emerson's idea is very common in our world today.

I found the debate about Rwanda to be a very useful tool in understanding the situation in Rwanda and how all major parts contributed to the genocide. My group, Paul Kagame, though played a major part in the genocide was not called on that much, because most of the questions were directed to the countries rather than the groups of people that actually were involved in the fighting part of the genocide. I was upset that I wasn’t able to answer many questions, yet I learned so much from the other groups. I was surprised that so much of the blame went on Belgium for leaving Rwanda in their time of distress. I was surprised that no one really called on the Interahamwe, the Hutu Rebel group, because they did most of the killings along with Rwandan Armed Forces. Instead most of the blame was aimed at the MRND, a Hutu group that supposedly brainwashed the Hutu people into killing the innocent Tutsi people.

I do believe that the MRND did help to get the Hutu people to become enraged, but I believe more that years of racial conflict really caused the genocide, and over years and years of fighting they just snapped and started to go out on a killing spree. The event that caused the thin wire to snap was we Hutu leader Juvenal Hirotayama’s plane was shot down. Most people believe that Paul Kagame was the one who ordered his plane to get shot down, so he could use the opportunity to become a leader of Rwanda, but there is no proof. After the genocide ended however, Paul Kagame did become vice president, later the president of Rwanda. Therefore, all of us are to blame, but some of us contributed to the genocide more than others.

I hope that in the future that we will do debates again. They really cleared things up for me that I didn’t understand, like who is to blame. I really like how all of have opinions that clash with each other. I hoped that we could have come up with a resolution together, because a whole class has more ideas than a group of two or three people. All in all the debate was a great opportunity to get ideas off your chest and see what other people think about them, I believe that we should do debates more often than not.

Saturday October 31, 2009 is Halloween. For Halloween I’m going with Brenna Gabrielson, Sarah Fier, Bekah Hagewood, and Brenna’s cousin whose name I do not know at the moment. I thought I was going with a different group, but I forgot that Brenna asked me first, so I felt bad when I had to tell the other the other that I couldn’t go with them. I felt so terrible, but anyways I still have to figure out a costume. Originally I was going to be Peter Pan, but it is almost impossible to find green tights, a feather cap, and green pants, that actually look like Peter Pan. So Cortney Marschner told me I should be Beyonce. This is almost even harder to find, a black leotard, high heels, and a brown long-haired wig. So I hope I can come up with a costume by tomorrow!

Halloween is my second favorite holiday. My favorite holiday is Christmas, because its fun having all those days off, spending time with friends and family. I also enjoy eating all the food that comes with the holidays. Anyways Halloween is so much fun, I mean who doesn’t like going outside walking for hours, and getting free candy. I love chocolate; it is by far my favorite type of candy. My favorite candy are Milky Way’s and they are always the first to go when I empty my bag-normally a pillowcase- full of candy. I always eat too much candy the night of Halloween and I always feel like I’m going to throw up when the night is done. My legs are always so tired from walking through the neighborhoods on the hard cement surfaces.

I have been a variety of characters for Halloween. I have been Dorothy, a pumpkin, a nurse, a dinosaur, and the guy from the movie Scream. At the time, I didn’t know that it was from Scream I just like the way his mouth was all curvy and such. I am not the most creative person so I usually make my mom or my sister get my costumes together. I always wished I could come up with good ideas for Halloween, I always get jealous of the people that have the super nifty

costumes.
Halloween only comes around once a year, and you really have to enjoy it, because when you get older you look strange when you go trick-or-treating. So what if you look odd, just go out to be with friends and family and just have a good time.

On Friday October 16, 2009 I went to Greenfield village with Heather Coppola, Cortney Marschner, and Olivia Campbell, and I had a great time. First of all, I had to find out what costume I had to wear. I thought I was going to be a cowboy, so I looked all around my house for blue jeans and a flanel shirt. Turned out I had no flanel shirt so I borrowed one of my dads. Now my dad is a taller man, and this shirt made me look so gigantic. I had tucked it in and it looked great. But I felt like npt being a cowboy anymore, so i grabbed a black and red checker jacket and decided to be a lumberjack! It still wasn't complete, my mom drew some mutton chops with eye liner, and then it was complete!

I was very late, and I was rushing to her house in the car. I felt so bad, but at least I was very stylish, in my lumberjack outfit. I got to her house to see all three of the girls standing there in thier lovely costumes. Heather was a can-can girl and she was wearing this really awesome skirt that was full of color. Olivia was a cat, she just wore ears and some black wiskers. Lastly, Cortney was a flapper and she wore this red dress that had tassles, and when she spun they would look like the were flying around. It was a sight to behold. When we were all ready Heather's mom took us in the car to Greenfield Village.

We took a long time to find a parking spot, but we eventually found one. We got out of the car and went to the enterance, but our tickets didn't allow us to go inside until 9:00. So we walked in the gift shop and Heather was following me around to make sure I didn't break anything. It was hard to try to look at something ,because Heather would take it away from me before I had the chance to take a gander at it. It finally reached 9:00 and we enterned the pumpkin lit pathway to see all differnt sites.

The item we recieved was an apple, which is possibly the most random food to get at Greenfield Village, but I took it anyways because I wanted to fill my orange bag. We walked and looked at the pumpkins, I was afraid that maybe Heathers dress would catch on fire from the burning candle inside the pumpkin. I was burning up from my super lumberjack coat so I gave it to Cortney who was supposivly freezing. We walked a recieved candy, which I couldn't wait to eat. Along the way people who were dressed up in costumes, and had these massive staffs would tell you where to go, and there was this one girl who would sing Happy Halloween in the greek opera voice. She couldn't sing well so Heather and I were cracking up, but i felt bad because she was right behind us, but she was just not the best singer.

The walked finally ended and we had to leave. I was so sad to leave such a great time with friends. I will always remember that night full of laughs and fun.

Will America be Passed?

China will surpass America economically, if America doesn’t come up with new inventions and ideas. America needs to come up with new inventions that the world will want such as an alternative to oil or a new car that uses less energy. With these new inventions and the world buying our products we will realize that these new inventions are what got us here in the first place. This drive for being on top will come back like it did in the 1940s, and will make sure that China will not surpass our economy.