So...how are you kids doing? Anybody want to talk to me? Do you have any questions? Can we please, pretty please, move on from Brave New World? Postman is not easy. Carr can be challenging too. What is going on out there??
Summer school was over last Friday, and I submitted by grades at 7:00 a.m. yesterday morning, before embarking on a 40 mile bike ride...left my house in Rossmoor, hopped on the riverbed, down to Long Beach, cut through Seal Beach, over the bridge to Sunset Beach, down to the Jack-in-the-Box at Warner, onto the beach bike trail, down through Bolsa Chica, over the little bridge thing to Dog Beach, back down to the beach bike trail, through the U.S. Open of Surfing Hoopla by the pier, and down toward Newport...at the 20 mile marker, turned around and headed home. It took four hours.
What have you been up to?
Hi Ms.Fletcher! I do not have a question, i just wanted to tell you that I think its really cool that you have a Tumblr. Also, I know you want us to move on from Brave New World, but i have something great to blog about that book very very soon, so please don't be offended when ignore your request to blog my awesome thoughts. I apologize in advance. As for what I've been doing: a lot plane-riding, beach-hanging, and night-running. Some book-reading, too, of course.
ReplyDeleteOf course I want your awesome thoughts. It's the un-awesome ones that are starting to get repetitive and tiresome, but that happens when writers don't read the blog and just dive in and start saying the same thing someone just said two days ago. Awesome thoughts, on the other hand, are awesome precisely because they embark out into new territory.
ReplyDeleteI'm also just flat-out excited that you're talking to me. Why do people ignore me? Am I scary? Boring? I don't think any of those things are true, but I could be wrong.
Where did you go in a plane? What books are you reading (besides our three)? Are you being safe when you run at night? How far do you go? Do you run on a team, or just because you like to run? Running is painful to me, but this bicycle thing is good. It works for me. I do hurt all of the time, but I just think that's how it goes in your fifties.
I await your awesome post on BNW.
I understand, I will do my best to venture out into unwritten territory!
DeleteIt's not that you as a person are scary, but you are our new teacher and that's kind of scary. I had to ask a couple alumni if its okay for me to actually reply to you, and it kind of sounds ridiculous now that I am talking to you, but I was afraid of the response I could have gotten.
I went to Hawaii for the first time, and it was wonderful. I think I might consider going to college there, if i end up wanting to go to school outside of California.
I've been reading some books by John Green and Ellen Hopkins. The most recent have been Paper Towns (John Green) and Burned (Hopkins). They've all been good books, but once I finish them, I get kind of sad. Ellen Hopkins has this depressing vibe that comes out of her writing, but it does make me appreciate my life more, so i guess it's okay. John Green never lets the guy get the girl (or at least not in the two books I've read), which is pretty disappointing if you've been rooting for them for 100+ pages. I think i'm going to read some Shel Silverstein poems after i finish my summer homework, just for fun.
I am being safe, thanks for checking. My parents would never let me do anything remotely unsafe, so I run with a flashlight, my cell phone, and (ahead of) my mom. I used to run with cross country, but i'm fasting for religious reasons and i can't drink water during the day, which would make the typical 3 mile run a suicide attempt. I was trying to stay in shape so that i would still be a decent runner when i joined again in the fall, but i'm not sure so sure if i will join anymore. It might be too much to handle during the school year. Bike riding is a good alternative, 40 miles sounds like a pretty good leg work out. Do your legs feel numb after something like that?
Thanks for your patience, I will post it as soon as I make sure no one else had the same idea.
Hello Ms. Fletcher. I'm sure you haven't forgotten the child who helped and stayed a bit later at MAP's last e-Waste collection.
ReplyDeleteI don't have any questions, I just wanted to wait for the right day to reply to this with how my summer went (I consider the day I do my back to school shopping my last day of summer). It was completely up to par with my expectations and I think it is finally time to get serious with my work.
I've been reading through the books and plan on starting on threads with Postman and following up with the two later. By this weekend, I should have had enough time to come up with an insightful post.
I don't know where to start with my vacation, but I'll just do it the easiest way. The day after the last day of school, I went on a trip with my family to Juneau, Alaska. The sights were absolutely amazing and beautiful. Alaska is one place I think everyone should visit in their lifetime. The summer days dragged on (the sun didn't go down till 9 or 10 PM and rose at about 4AM). If one wants to see the Northern Lights, as I did, they have a much better chance in the winter.
(http://imgur.com/9lcZo - a picture from a spot in Juneau)
After I returned home, my uncle from North Carolina visited and we had talks about my future (he's a high school counselor). He told me about a full ride scholarship at a school that had a good engineering program near him. I'm planning on visiting him during the week we have off for Thanksgiving break to have fun and check out some colleges.
The past two weeks have been dull, but today changed everything. I honestly think I must be the only kid who suddenly becomes ecstatic when he walks into a Wal-Mart to buy school supplies. I think we went overkill on the notebooks though. If anything, we don't have to worry about notebooks for the next couple of years. I posted it on Facebook with this caption- "Bring it on Nguyen, Headley, Fletcher, and Ducar."
http://imgur.com/IejNF (the notebook I under the SAT Vocab cards is the one specifically for your class).
And that brings my summer right up to before I replied. I hope my reply wasn't too long and I'd like to thank you now for reading it.
P.S. I don't think you're a scary person. Up until I went out to buy school supplies, I was in summer mode. When I finally went, I realized that my Junior year starts in one month and that I have work due in three weeks. I put on my serious face and now I'm ready to work hard.
-Ronald Kem-
(Who has been called various things from RonRon, Roland, Ron, and Kem. I'm fine with anything you want to call me by.)
Hi Ms. Fletcher. I speak for many when we say we're not scared, merely slightly intimidated by you.
ReplyDeleteYou guys all had such fun summers!! Here I am/was, all summer, working and working and when I'm not doing homework, I'm at school working. There is no end!! Yasmin and Ronald, you have to tell me about your trips.
The work, though I've been working all summer, is coming along very slowly. My thought process has been sluggish, and it's hard to get the ideas from my head into the page. Do you have any suggestions to get my creative juices flowing?
Ligaya Khennavong (It's a very phonetic name. A quick breakdown: Lee-GUY-uh KEN-uh-VONG. Hope that makes it easier on you.)
Gosh, I wrote a snappy and interesting comment in response to all of this, but then I accidentally deleted it before sending. Not exactly sure what the fatal key combination was. Anyway, too busy or maybe too lazy to recreate it, but just let me assure you: it was good. It was really good. :)
ReplyDeleteHi Miss Fletcher,
ReplyDeleteI find it quite amazing that you went on a 40 mile bike ride. I wonder if i'd be able to do that.. Well, what I've been up to is pretty cool. I've been in Ireland for the past two and a half weeks visiting my Mom's husbands family and exploring the local culture. It's absolutely lovely here. They have such an interesting religious history as well as their political history. There are many people and places that still possess visual evidence of the 1960 riots. 500-600 year old ruins still stand untouched and most the locals barely take a second look at them. Also, the change from Ireland to Northern Ireland (UK) is incredible. There are so many differences between to two. In the north the architectural style is different. It has such a prominent English factor such as red brick buildings and red white and blue painted curbs. Many Irish are still protesting the UK rule over the North quite avidly. It was so interesting to hear both sides of the argument.
In regards to my posting on this blog I am a little intimidated by this whole entire thing. I read your posts and get a little frightened if I'm being honest. I'm afraid that any opinion or idea I post will appear mediocre, redundant, or foolish. I want to excel in this class and complete this homework to your standards but I feel like my fear of posting may have now come back to bite me in the butt. (For lack of a better expression) I don't want to fake intelligence by typing with big fancy words but I am a little afraid that my own opinions may be irrelevant at this stage.
Dear Lindsay, I know you don't know me, but try not to be intimidated. I'm a pretty nice person.
ReplyDeleteHere's the thing. It's best to just be yourself. I like a curious mind. It doesn't whether I think the idea you are working on is "fresh" -- if it's fresh to you, and you are pursuing that idea with honesty and vigor, I am happy. What bugs me is when writers -- anyone, really -- acts like they have it all figured out. That's bogus. We have to remain open and curious to the world. Nothing is settled, once and for all.
I saw a sticker the other day on my bike ride. It said: "Gravity. It's a theory." That made me laugh out loud.
Also, the other thing you're worrying about...repeating what someone has said already -- I did go on a rant about that, didn't I? Now I've scared everybody. But honestly, some people just pop into the blog late in the game, and start making proclamations about things without having read what was just discussed a day or two ago. That annoys me. I think it probably annoys anyone who is paying attention. It's like someone butting into a conversation without listening to see what has already been discussed. IF you bring up a topic someone brought up, but nobody discussed it -- bring it up again. At this point, I'm probably one of the few who goes back into June and July to read, and if you haven't been reading all along, it's hard to catch up at this point. We all just keep moving forward. So if hasn't been discussed in the last week or so, I'd say it's probably safe territory. :)
Don't worry. I sound much meaner than I actually am.