Thursday, September 24 – Today was the first meeting of the Creative Writing Club for this school year. This year the club is under new management as Mr. Arcenas will now be leading the group. Many more people have joined this year than last year and we are eager to start reading people’s work. I am now the oldest Creative Writing Club member and therefore I have been asked to help Mr. Arcenas with the club this year. During the meeting today we went around and introduced ourselves and talked about what kind of works we like to write. I talked about the poems and short suspense stories I had done in the previous years and how much I enjoyed writing. Then we discussed what the focus of the club would be this year and we decided that each of us should bring in a work we have done and we would have the other members of the club read it and make critical comments about it, good or bad. We would do one work every week, per meeting.
Thursday, October 1 – Today was the first day of actual work in the Creative Writing Club. Because this was first time it was decided that Mr. Arcenas would provide the first submission of literature so that we could have some practice before we did one from a student. He gave us an interesting work about a commander’s experiences in a war in Bosnia and how it affected and scared him. The piece was very confused and very potent but after reading it through a few times I felt I had a good understanding of it. We went around the room to each member of the club and made comments about what we thought of the story. For our first meeting I thought we did very well and I felt that everyone had very intelligent comments to make about the story.
Thursday, October 8 – Today in the Creative Writing Club Mr. Arcenas again provided us with something to read because no one in club remembered to submit any work for the week. He gave us a selection of different phrases from different authors and asked us to consider what the authors were trying to say. The most interesting one he gave us was by Ernest Hemingway which read, “Baby shoes for sale: Never worn.” We went around the room to each person and considered what this phrase meant. Many members said it had a lot of importance and was an extremely intelligent work and maybe even the best work he had ever written. I said that I felt people were reading into it too much and that while it was certainly very clever it was not really a masterpiece but rather it was a representation of the power of words in literature and how so little can say so much.
Thursday, October 15 – Today in the Creative Writing Club we read one of my own works that I had been working on for a few years now. The name of the piece is “Company” and it is a short suspense story that I was hoping to submit to the Literary Journal this year. I had submitted this piece before in Creative Writing in the past year but I wanted feedback from a different group of people this time. Everyone read my piece and discussed it among themselves. They said that they all really enjoyed the story and thought it was very clever and appreciated some of the literary aspects I used within the piece. They then told me that perhaps I should consider changing my wording in some places where it did not flow as well as the rest of the poem and where some of the words used did not seem to fit with the style writing I had in the rest of the story. They also mentioned that I should consider finding something else to replace my use of onamonapea because it is always very tricky to make that literary feature work in a story because it is so awkward. I felt I learned a lot from having them read and comment on my story and I knew that I would be able to apply their advice to my work and greatly improve my writing skills.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
Karate
Saturday, October 10 – I could not make it to Karate today because I had SAT tests.
Tuesday, October 13 – I could not make it to Karate today because I was ill.
Saturday, October 17 – There is no Karate today due to belt testing.
Tuesday, October 13 – I could not make it to Karate today because I was ill.
Saturday, October 17 – There is no Karate today due to belt testing.
Greek
Thursday, September 17 – Today was the first day of the new Greek Club for this school year. This year I will be the only teacher in the Greek Club and while I will have some assistance from Mr. Arcenas who has much knowledge of the ancient Greek language and culture, for the most part I will running the club by myself. This will definitely be a challenge this year in terms of being organized and being able to come up with activities each week for the club. At the first Greek meeting today I was pleased to see that not only had the majority of Greek students from the previous year returned, but there were many new additions to the Greek Club from a variety of different grades. We did not do any Greek today but rather I stood at the front of the class and explained the Greek Club in terms of our goals and the different areas of the Greek language we would be studying.
Thursday, September 24 – Today was the first real learning day of the new Greek Club. I decided that eventually I would break the students up into older Greek students and newer Greek students so they could each work at their own levels. However for the first few classes I decided to do a review of the material we had covered from the beginning so that the older students could remember what they were doing while the newer students were learning. So we began by looking over the Greek alphabet and I went through and talked about each of the letters and explained their importance and their frequency in the Greek language and how to properly pronounce them. I told my students to take the alphabet home and practice and that next week we would try pronunciation next week with different words.
Thursday, October 1 – Today in Greek we spent the class working on pronunciation of Greek words. I started by allowing everyone to use their alphabets with the pronunciation tips. With the tips the students did very well. Though they would always struggle at first when I gave them a word, in the end they could pronounce the words very well. As we went through each word I explained the meaning of the word and made connections to the word in English and Latin. I then told the students to put their keys away and try pronouncing from memory of what the letters sounded like. They had a lot of trouble in the beginning but by the end of the class they were doing very well pronouncing from memory. At the end of class I awarded my Student of the Month Prize to my youngest student who was the only one to go out and buy a copy of the Athenaze Greek book we use in class. I bought her a drink and a snack as her prize.
Thursday, October 8 – Today we had a new member join the Greek Club and se is our first Freshman which I am very happy about because I feel that one of my responsibilities as leader of the club is to make sure it does not die after I leave next year and the more young students I can get to join the more likely it is the club will live on after me. So I started this class by beginning to teach the other students about the first declension in Greek how closely it connected to the first declension in Latin. The students did very well and learned the declension in no time so I had them work together to practice writing it out with different words while I took the new student aside and taught her about the Greek alphabet and all the things she had missed.
Thursday, October 15 – I could not come to Greek today because I had an interview at Smith College and I had to leave Mr. Arcenas in charge. However , I did not leave him with nothing. I gave Mr. Arcenas a passage from the Athenaze book to give to the students to translate and I told him to tell them to work together on the passage and help each other out. I also gave him explicit instructions on teaching the new Greek student the first declension and giving her some words to work with to practice her pronunciation.
Thursday, September 24 – Today was the first real learning day of the new Greek Club. I decided that eventually I would break the students up into older Greek students and newer Greek students so they could each work at their own levels. However for the first few classes I decided to do a review of the material we had covered from the beginning so that the older students could remember what they were doing while the newer students were learning. So we began by looking over the Greek alphabet and I went through and talked about each of the letters and explained their importance and their frequency in the Greek language and how to properly pronounce them. I told my students to take the alphabet home and practice and that next week we would try pronunciation next week with different words.
Thursday, October 1 – Today in Greek we spent the class working on pronunciation of Greek words. I started by allowing everyone to use their alphabets with the pronunciation tips. With the tips the students did very well. Though they would always struggle at first when I gave them a word, in the end they could pronounce the words very well. As we went through each word I explained the meaning of the word and made connections to the word in English and Latin. I then told the students to put their keys away and try pronouncing from memory of what the letters sounded like. They had a lot of trouble in the beginning but by the end of the class they were doing very well pronouncing from memory. At the end of class I awarded my Student of the Month Prize to my youngest student who was the only one to go out and buy a copy of the Athenaze Greek book we use in class. I bought her a drink and a snack as her prize.
Thursday, October 8 – Today we had a new member join the Greek Club and se is our first Freshman which I am very happy about because I feel that one of my responsibilities as leader of the club is to make sure it does not die after I leave next year and the more young students I can get to join the more likely it is the club will live on after me. So I started this class by beginning to teach the other students about the first declension in Greek how closely it connected to the first declension in Latin. The students did very well and learned the declension in no time so I had them work together to practice writing it out with different words while I took the new student aside and taught her about the Greek alphabet and all the things she had missed.
Thursday, October 15 – I could not come to Greek today because I had an interview at Smith College and I had to leave Mr. Arcenas in charge. However , I did not leave him with nothing. I gave Mr. Arcenas a passage from the Athenaze book to give to the students to translate and I told him to tell them to work together on the passage and help each other out. I also gave him explicit instructions on teaching the new Greek student the first declension and giving her some words to work with to practice her pronunciation.
Karate
Saturday, September 19 – Today in class we started by stretching. We stretched for an extra long time because the instructor wanted to give the new people and the people just getting back into Karate a chance to really prepare themselves so it would be easier to perform the Karate. Then we broke up into partners and worked on our one steps. I was really glad to learn to work with a partner again because it had been such a long time. I was also glad to realize I remembered all my one steps and I was able to perform them all accurately.
Tuesday, September 22 – Today in class we were told that it was time to move onto reviewing our forms and remembering the one we have to use in our next belt testing. We broke up into ranks and the black belts were each assigned to one of us lower ranks to help us with our form. Then each of the black belts was rotated through the lower ranks and I was able to work with many different people which was great because they all had different but very helpful advice for me about my form. I found that I had a lot of trouble remembering my form at first but then I after one review I was confident that I could do it again.
Saturday, September 26 – Today in class we began by stretching again and I found that it was becoming increasingly easier to stretch myself out because I was doing Karate much more frequently. Te instructor then told us that today’s focus would be on flying sidekicks because that was one of the focuses for this entire year of Karate. A flying sidekick is when you run and jump up and do a sidekick in the air before you land. We started by practicing regular standing sidekicks on the ground to get the feel for the kick and make sure we knew how to form it. Then we all lined up by rank and the instructor got a large body pad for us to run and jump into. Some people had a little trouble getting off the ground to perform the kick and I became a little nervous that I would be unable to it as well. However when it was my turn I did it rather easily and I was complimented on how well I performed the kick.
Tuesday, September 29 – Today in class the instructor told us that we would be focusing on our stretching and breathing to make sure we were properly preparing for performing Karate. Throughout the class we tried various stretches and talked about different ways of controlling our breathing. We were told that the best thing to do is keep a steady pulse to our breathing and remember to breathe in through our nose and out through our mouth. Then the instructor talked to us about the importance of stretching and how it prepared you not only physically for Karate by stretching your muscles and making you more flexible but also mentally by calming you and therefore making you more focused and concentrated on the Karate and how to perform it.
Saturday, October 3 – Today in class the instructor informed us that our focus for the day was intimidation. The goal of the class was to teach us to make ourselves seem larger and more confident to our opponents so that we may intimidate them into not fighting us because it always better to avoid violence whenever possible. We started the class by stretching as usual and even had a few new stretches added to our routine. Then we geared up, or put our sparing pads on, and found a partner. We switched partners many times throughout the class and this allowed us to try and intimidate many different types of people. I ended up facing one of the biggest guys in the class and I was proud that I was able to hold my ground by keeping my shoulders down, moving slowly, and working my way behind my opponent like the instructor had told us to do.
Tuesday, October 6 – Today in class we began by stretching out and relaxing our minds. Then we broke up into partners and worked a little bit on one steps to try and improve our performance. I felt I was doing very well with my one steps and I did not seem to make any mistakes with them and I remembered them all. After one steps the instructor separated the black belts to work on their forms together and told my rank and higher to find a new white belt to work with on wrist grabs. I found one and began helping them work through the basic wrist grabs they needed to know. I thought it was nice tat in this class we can go from being the student to the teacher depending on our needs and abilities.
Tuesday, September 22 – Today in class we were told that it was time to move onto reviewing our forms and remembering the one we have to use in our next belt testing. We broke up into ranks and the black belts were each assigned to one of us lower ranks to help us with our form. Then each of the black belts was rotated through the lower ranks and I was able to work with many different people which was great because they all had different but very helpful advice for me about my form. I found that I had a lot of trouble remembering my form at first but then I after one review I was confident that I could do it again.
Saturday, September 26 – Today in class we began by stretching again and I found that it was becoming increasingly easier to stretch myself out because I was doing Karate much more frequently. Te instructor then told us that today’s focus would be on flying sidekicks because that was one of the focuses for this entire year of Karate. A flying sidekick is when you run and jump up and do a sidekick in the air before you land. We started by practicing regular standing sidekicks on the ground to get the feel for the kick and make sure we knew how to form it. Then we all lined up by rank and the instructor got a large body pad for us to run and jump into. Some people had a little trouble getting off the ground to perform the kick and I became a little nervous that I would be unable to it as well. However when it was my turn I did it rather easily and I was complimented on how well I performed the kick.
Tuesday, September 29 – Today in class the instructor told us that we would be focusing on our stretching and breathing to make sure we were properly preparing for performing Karate. Throughout the class we tried various stretches and talked about different ways of controlling our breathing. We were told that the best thing to do is keep a steady pulse to our breathing and remember to breathe in through our nose and out through our mouth. Then the instructor talked to us about the importance of stretching and how it prepared you not only physically for Karate by stretching your muscles and making you more flexible but also mentally by calming you and therefore making you more focused and concentrated on the Karate and how to perform it.
Saturday, October 3 – Today in class the instructor informed us that our focus for the day was intimidation. The goal of the class was to teach us to make ourselves seem larger and more confident to our opponents so that we may intimidate them into not fighting us because it always better to avoid violence whenever possible. We started the class by stretching as usual and even had a few new stretches added to our routine. Then we geared up, or put our sparing pads on, and found a partner. We switched partners many times throughout the class and this allowed us to try and intimidate many different types of people. I ended up facing one of the biggest guys in the class and I was proud that I was able to hold my ground by keeping my shoulders down, moving slowly, and working my way behind my opponent like the instructor had told us to do.
Tuesday, October 6 – Today in class we began by stretching out and relaxing our minds. Then we broke up into partners and worked a little bit on one steps to try and improve our performance. I felt I was doing very well with my one steps and I did not seem to make any mistakes with them and I remembered them all. After one steps the instructor separated the black belts to work on their forms together and told my rank and higher to find a new white belt to work with on wrist grabs. I found one and began helping them work through the basic wrist grabs they needed to know. I thought it was nice tat in this class we can go from being the student to the teacher depending on our needs and abilities.
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