Graduation "I Believe" Speech

                                                         "A Fight Amongst Friends"

Friends fight, friends yell, friends hate, but friends love.  I believe that all good friendships experience conflict.  At about 5 pm a week or two ago, it was a sweltering, humid day, and droplets of sweat ran down my face as some friends and I played basketball.  The sound of the bouncing ball and shouting teammates filled the air, as shoes scuffed against the concrete below us.  We were having a great time, just shooting around in a friends backyard, at least until it got competitive.  It started out as one other kid and I arguing about sports, but it escalated very quickly, and it did not turn well.  However,  just a few days after it had happened, appropriate apologies were said and we were pretty much right back to normal.

After the whole experience, I came to the realization that fighting amongst friends is normal.  Although conflict is never desired, it’s definitely inevitable between close friends.  This whole experience kind of changed the way I thought about what friendship is.  Before this occured, I never really could picture such good friends becoming that angry at each other, but now I understand that it isn’t unusual at all.  In similar future experiences, I’ll know not to instigate or react to any attacking comments towards me, but will also understand that sometimes there’s no stopping something from happening.  That is why I believe in conflict within friendship.

Final Eighth Grade Reflection

I've had a fantastic, eventful, and exciting three years at Heritage Middle School.  As we come to the end of eighth grade, evaluating our achievements, experiences, and journey through the last year of middle school will be one of our final goals.  Throughout the time that I've been thinking or reflecting on my eighth grade year, I realized that there've been good experiences and bad ones not only during eighth grade, but within the time frame of all of middle school.

I've learned incredible and immeasurable amounts of information within the duration of this year.  I've learned and been introduced to all kinds of morals, vocabulary, history, and current events.  However, this list of everything that's been taught to me this year could on and on with way more than just that.  I believe that the three most influencial or important things that I've learned this year are that time is extremely valuable and should not be taken advantage of, loop holes are not an effective, or responsible to get done what's asked of you, and that balancing friendship and education is very important.

There were a lot of things we did this year that I won't forget for a long time.  One thing that I probably won't forget and that really affected me, was having Socratic Seminars on the book Tuesdays with Morrie.  These seminars really influenced how I thought about several different subjects, and my fellow students and I discussed many sensitive topics that I could truly connect to.  I feel like I won't forget this experience and many new viewpoints and perspectives were introduced to me throughout these exercises.

I loved all my classmates this year, and many of them did some really nice things for myself and each other.  We all helped each other out throughout the year and I really appreciate the support, advice, and constructive criticism that was provided for me either within the class or outside of it.  One of the nicest things someone has ever done for me in this class was to give me some really good advice on whether to admit to not doing my homework or trying to avoid it.  Someone could say they didn't care what I did, but this student suggested that I come clean rather than risk more trouble.  Due to this, I was able to make the right decision.

I've never taught my classmates something extremely significant, but I did provide both my peers and teacher with small tips, advice, and help when needed.  If someone needed assistance with technology or an iPad, if they didn't understand directions, or if they were unsure of something and needed advice, I would do my best to aid them.  I enjoyed doing this because I new they would do the same for me.

I've grown immensely mentally during this year, because of this class.  I feel that I made the most improvement in my feelings, emotions, and undying passion for reading and writing.  I will admit that I despise having to analyze what I'm reading, and I really dislike writing about things that I'm not passionate about or things that I'm not interested in.  However, reading books is one of my favorite things to do and I also love expressing my emotions through writing.  

I believe that the most challenging part of this year, was two specific projects.  The Butterfly Project, and the Aphorism Project, we're both very challenging for me.  Both of these assignments required a lot of creativity, and this was especially hard for me, because I have no artistic talent.  However, I was able to apply myself and actually produce two good projects.  That just goes to show that if you try hard and put your mind to it, you can do anything.

The best piece of writing that I conducted this year was my "I Believe" speech.  This speech is going to be performed or delivered to the rest of our eighth grade team at the end of the year, and I'm really excited and nervous for it at the same time.  I will be preparing ahead of time, and this will be the first speech that I've given in front of several people.  I think this is my best piece of writing because we were able to choose our topic, and I'm going to be writing about something I'm passionate about, and something I want to talk about with lots of people.

Of all the books I read this year, I have to say my favorite is Tuesdays with Morrie.  This specific book influenced the way I see all kinds of life lessons, morals, and vague, powerful topics such as life or death.  The Socratic Seminars that were based of or associated with this book also changed how I see things.  Morrie Schwartz, one of the book's main characters affected me the most, and the way he looked at everything he encountered inspired and left me in awe.

For incoming students in Mrs. Larson's ELA class, I would suggest that if you're assigned something that's due days from then, start it early in preparation.  Procrastination was definitely one of my biggest obstacles or challenges throughout my years at Heritage, and it still is an ongoing struggle for me.  Countless occurrences of "I'll do it later"s or "I can get it done tomorrow"s really hurt me and resulted in several late night homework sessions.  The hole that you dig for yourself will get deeper and deeper before you even realize how far behind you've gotten.  After you've dig this pit, it's extremely hard to get back out.  Good luck!

Final Tuesdays with Morrie Aphorism Project

The aphorism that I selected to base my project off of was, "Love always wins."  The way that I interpreted this aphorism, and the way I see it is that love will always outweigh the efforts of hate and anger.  I believe that Morrie is trying to help us readers see eye to eye with him when it comes to the power of love and compassion.  Especially as Morrie draws nearer to his death, he is increasingly feeling for others, becoming more empathetic, and exploring the powers of love, friendship, and forgiveness.  Morrie wants us to understand that forgiveness and love will always prevail over anger and holding grudges, and he shares a regretted personal experience between himself and a friend that justifies his message.

 I've argued with friends and family all the time, since the day I could talk.  However there was one specific argument recently, between myself, and one of my very close friends that brought this aphorism to life for me.  The actual argument was based off something somewhat unimportant, I think it was basketball, and it started off as nothing more than a discussion of two opposing sides.  Arguments like this occur all the time, but the one escalated.  The two of us felt so strongly for our own side that neither of us wanted to acknowledge the other's point of view at all.  It wasn't like either of us were wrong or right, we just did not want to step down.  At one point, I decided that one of us had to stop being stubborn and just drop the conversation even if we didn't agree, and therefore I did.  Now this example does relates to the aphorism I chose, even if it is to a smaller scale or magnitude.  Instead of being angry at one another, we had to find peace and resolve our conflict by being able to "agree to disagree."

I definitely agree with this aphorism, and I think the main cause of my agreement is personal experiences related to arguing and compromising.  I think that compromising has a lot to do with what this aphorism is all about.  In order to be able to compromise with someone and find an agreement within conflict, you have to be caring, and you have to let go of part of what you want to make room for the other persons' feelings.  The act of that can be more simply defined as an act of love, compassion, and/or understanding.  For example, in the book Morrie said, "there are a few rules I know to be true about love and marriage: ...If you don't know how to compromise, you're gonna have a lot of trouble."  This goes to show that loving someone will be very hard if you don't have the ability to agree, and compromise.  If you can't do this, you essentially will "lose".  In conclusion, "love always wins."

My Aphorism:  "Make the best out of what you're given, because some things you won't be able to change."

Tuesdays With Morrie Socratic Seminars Reflection 5-4

The Socratic Seminars that my peers and I have held as a class, have influenced my thinking and viewpoints in many ways.  Due to the fact that there are over twenty minds and sources of opinions contributing to the conversation, I've been granted the ability to see certain topics in many different ways.  Instead of viewing a life moral or subject in one locked mindset, I can now essentially see through the eyes of many others besides myself.  In some cases, a classmate was even able to completely change my standpoint on a topic.  For example, at first I believed that the common failure to recognize or address a problem within one's family or close friends was due to the love that they expressed for that particular person or for those people.  However, after one of my peers brought it to my attention that fear of results could play a role in that inability to try to fix something, I began to grasp my mind around the true potential power of fear.

In the first seminar that I participated in, I noticed that there were several instances where many students were fighting to talk.  After someone finished, a lot of kids started talking, and I think this is due to the great notes that my classmates and I took.  In result of this, there were some topics that I wanted to bring up and things I wanted to mention that I didn't get a chance to.  A goal that I set in an attempt to incorporate what I wanted to discuss into our conversation, was to be one of the first students to introduce a topic.  Therefore, I would be able to engage my classmates in what I had best prepared for and what I was interested in talking about.

As our progress in the book grew, and as the seminars continued, I noticed something else.  There were times where I had met my goal and was discussing what I wanted to, but some of my peers weren't as involved.  Because of this, I decided to make it one of my goals to do my part in drawing other class members into conversation.  As I progressively did my best to extract opinion and thought from other students, I began to see traces of significant increase in the completeness and well being of the seminars in general

As a class, we had a tendency to come a little off topic at times, or turn the atmosphere of the seminar more humorous.  Many times, this was the result of someone sharing a personal connection between the book and an experience that they had.  As an individual, I did my best to help the situation of prevent this from happening by changing the subject when I got the chance to talk by saying things like, "Well what did you guys think about this part of our reading?" or "Going back to this..."  

Tuesdays With Morrie (Which Tuesday impacted you the most?")

Personally, I think that the Fourth Tuesday, when the topic of conversation between Mitch and Morrie was death, was the Tuesday that impacted me the most.  The other five Tuesdays that we've read through have touched me in important and different ways as well, however I believe that this one affected me the most.  Throughout life so far, I've spent a lot of time thinking about death, what it's like, and what happens after it.  The mysteries and everything we don't know about death can be scary to think about, and that's why this Tuesday affected me the most.  

Morrie's courage and understanding and acceptance of reality really inspired me, especially under the extreme circumstances that he was going through.  This is shown on page 81 when the book states, "So we kid ourselves about death, I said.  'Yes.  But there's a better approach.  To know you're going to die, and to be prepared for it at any time.'"  This tells me that people are subconsciously afraid of death, and they choose to avoid thinking about it or pondering if they are ready or unregretful when it comes to their final death. 

In the book, Morrie also said, "When you realize you are going to die, you see everything much differently."  He sighed.  "Learn how to die, and you learn how to live." (Aphorism).  This also really inspired me and I admire the knowledge, morals, and life lessons that Morrie has discovered and helped create as he grows nearer to death.  Also, in learning from Morrie, I've begun to develop an interest in educating others on experiences I've gone through and providing people with advice as Morrie has chosen to and dedicated himself to throughout his experience.

Tuesdays With Morrie (Bucket List)

GSo far our class has read a good portion of the book Tuesdays with Morrie.  One thing about this book that particularily caught my interest, was the fact that the author shows the books events and everything that happened within the story at the beginning of the book.  Therefore, unlike several other books, there isn't too much suspense, plot twists, or surprises within this novel.  The author goes into detail on several aspects and certain events along the road of Morrie's death as we journey further into the book, and describes some of Morrie's morals, and life lessons for readers.

As a class, we've already talked about how there are countless aphorisms, and phrases to go by in life that readers should take advantage of and use Morrie's wisdom to guide them throughout, and at the end of life.  Readers can apply these lessons to events and occurrences in their own life and experiences in order to relate to some of the things that Morrie is saying too.  My emotions thus far into the book are mostly sadness and lots of admiration.  To be able to approach death in such a way that Morrie did, is extremely brave, and to make his own death as selfless as possible was incredible to me.

One of the themes that have impacted me the most throughout this story is to not take life for granted. Due to this theme, I've thought more about some things that I really want to do before I die, and I've organized a bucket list here below.

*Meet Michael Jordan in person

*Go scuba diving in the ocean

*Publish a book

*Get a dog

*Coach a sports team

*White water rafting

*Surf

*Ski in Colorado

*Visit every continent

3rd Quarter Reflection

One more quarter until high school, it blows my mind.  Third quarter has held many experiences, activities, and memories that have changed my viewpoints on certain things, and motivated me to change my actions for the better as well.  Unique projects and activities specifically in my ELA class, such as the Butterfly Project, have provided me with a plethora of information and new perspectives on many subjects.

I believe that the biggest area or improvement for me in ELA would be my vocabulary.  My diction, comprehension of words and their connotations, and the range of words in which I'm able to utilize is constantly growing and expanding.  There are several reasons why I think this is so, and the main ones are our weekly Vocab tests, AOWs, and the blogs that we write.  I believe that having a strong vocabulary is a major key to success in life because explanations, directions, and instructions can be much easier to provide for others, as well as receive yourself.

One of the most interesting projects that we had this quarter, was the Butterfly Project.  The thing that was so special about this project to me was the creativity and artistic effort that was required to successfully complete it.  However, art, coloring, and drawing are my weaknesses and therefore this assignment was especially difficult for me.  In the end though, I was proud of myself for completing it to the best of my ability, and for taking this project as an opportunity to expand my horizons.

The most difficult part of 3rd quarter for me was controlling my impulsitivity and resisting the urge to "check out" of eighth grade early.  I'm just so excited and ready for high school but I need to understand and respect the fact that there is still time left in middle school.  This will continue to be an obstacle for me especially as fourth quarter begins and the year comes to an end.  However, I plan on overcoming this obstacle and controlling myself until the end of the year, and keep my focus on my schoolwork.