10th grade Talk

     Music is something that is essential to me. It plays an immense part in my daily activities. In fact, I have organized playlists for different emotions and occasions!     This month, six songs have been stuck in my head, I've been addicted to, or have come up on my playlist often.  1. Dry Flower by  優里 (Yuuri)                                                                                                         The first song is Dry Flower . It is written and released by 優里 (Yuuri) in October of 2020. It's your typical breakup song where you're trying to move on, thinking about how the other person is doing and how much lighter your...

🥔 Potatoes are a fan-favorite food for many, and so I've decided to make my own personal review of the different types of potatoes. These are biased opinions because they come solely from me or a trusted source, but each one I review will get a summary and a rating from 1-10; 1 being the worst and 10 being the best.  1. French Fries This is an easy start, french fries are amazing. French-fried potatoes, or simply fries are allumette-cut deep-fried potatoes, originating from either Belgium or France, they are prepared by cutting the potato into even strips, then drying and frying it, usually in a deep fryer (Wikipedia). There are so many different types: standard cut, curly, crinkle cut, shoestring, chili cheese, potato wedges, steak, waffle, sweet potato, cheese, smiley, garlic, Belgian, and so many more. In my opinion, you can never go wrong with fries. They're the perfect side dish and the perfect snack. On top of all that they're officially ranked the world's most f...

       These past few months have had a lot of change in them. From going back to school, the summer fading away and much more. (Keep in mind that I wrote this a week ago, so some of the things I talk about in present tense are in the past.)     1.)  The first thing which I currently feel has made the most important changes in my life is going back to school, full time. To be honest, coming back the first week wasn't as bad as I made it out to be to my mom. It was nice to be in an environment that I hadn't taken part in in a while. However, as we near a month of being in school, I don't think I can say the same anymore. The work is starting to flow in and this can be a little hard, but I think I just have to get used to it again. This is definitely going to be hard considering we haven't even had a real week of school yet. Of course everyone loves less school time, myself included, but I know that this is only going to hurt the students....

                                                                                      Summer 2021 This summer was a little bit more uneventful then I thought it would be. Coming out of a COVID filled year and with restrictions coming up that I would be able to do more. In the beginning of the summer my mom had to get a toe surgery and had to be in a boot for a while. All the beach trips, parties, and long days of walking had to be put on pause. Most of my summer was spent sitting in my room, going in the backyard or walking around my streets. On some weekends me and my close family friends would get together and hang at one of our houses. We would play pool, eat pizza, watch movies and sing (all theater and band kids). These "parti...

                                    Gymnastics Life By: Reese Smith  Hi! My name is Reese Smith and I'm been a competitive gymnast for almost 9 years now. Gymnastics has been my life for a very long time. I'm a part of the USAG gymnastics level which is known as Artistic Gymnastics. Gymnastics has really shaped me into who I am by being a multi-tasker, independent, and positive-minded. I love gymnastics so much because if the school wasn't the best that day I just go there and let loose to do the sport I love. More about the sport there are levels 1-10. And I just did level 8 this past year and I'm working to get to level 9 for this competition season. My favorite event is uneven bars even though my best is the balance beam. Even though it is a demanding sport and demanding hours every week I could never see myself doing another sport that demanding because I can't picture mysel...

Fantasy Football, my teams       Its week 2 in the NFL, I'm 1-1 in two of my leagues and 0-2 in one of the leagues I'm in. A lot of my players haven't been living up to the expectations I hoped for. One of the teams I have Saquon Barkley, coming off of his injury he hasn't been playing as good as he did the years before. He has only gotten me single digit points which with a top 5 pick isn't doing great. While other players have been doing very good for me, such as my quarterbacks in two of my leagues who have been super good for me and getting a lot of points. Just like a lot of my wide receivers have been playing very good and also keep getting me a lot of points.      Other teams in my league have been doing a lot better with some of those teams are averaging 110+ points and are 2-0. Some games I haven't even gotten over 100 points some games. With the other teams running backs sometimes getting more than 30 points which, is what I hoped my players ...

You've probably heard of the Dream SMP. And if you haven't, well, let me give you the long story short. The Dream SMP (or DSMP for short) is a Minecraft roleplay series with fans all over the world tuning into the content creators' livestreams on Twitch. Using their own imaginations and Minecraft's resources, members have built and destroyed countries, held elections and banquets, fought wars, and developed amazing character / story arcs. Contrary to popular opinion, YouTuber Dream actually didn't name the roleplay. The name comes from fellow YouTuber and Twitch streamer TommyInnit's video titled "Tommy's First Dream SMP Stream EVER." SMP is short for Survival Multiplayer--a type of Minecraft world. Tommy used Dream's name to gather more views, as Dream is extremely well-known within the Minecraft YouTuber community. When fans talk about this specific roleplay, they use "c!" when referring to the character and "cc!" when dis...

 My Thoughts on Baking Baking is a hobby of mine and also like a second job aside from the restaurant I work at. It started a while back as something simple: taking a few baking classes with some friends. But it then became something bigger.  I have always been into baking because my mom was. She would make cookies almost every week and also made me and my siblings birthday cakes, whatever we wanted, every year since we were young. It then became something fun and exciting for me to be able to also create delicious things, from scratch, that could be anything I wanted, and a good activity to do with friends and family.  Eventually, baking became more than just a hobby to me. I started to get requests from others to make cakes for baby showers, christenings, birthdays, anything. Although now that I have become very preoccupied with school, tennis, work, studying, and a lot more, I have not been able to bake often, it was always flattering and exhilarating to hear that some...

Okay, so I couldn't figure out what to write about for my first blog post. It took a couple of weeks until I started to spitball ideas with my friend that made me realize I should write a 'who's better' type of piece. So in this competition, we have my 3 dogs, Pierce, Bella, and Toby against Juliette Sanchez's cat, Mikey. My dogs will have to come in a package, they are a team and will obviously always win in my heart! :) Mikey’s Story:  Mikey was born on a farm in upstate New York. In New York, Mikey was more of an outdoor cat, rather than a house cat- he was very aggressive in nature. Sometimes he would come back with scratches from  fights with beavers. Juliette’s grandfather took him in, but couldn’t come to continue taking care of him. Her grandfather then offered Juliette’s father, in Spanish, an opportunity to have Mikey live in the Sanchez household. Her father didn’t really side with the idea of having a cat in the house. Her grandfather then asked Juliette...

The Drive to School (Could Not Upload Pictures) Driving to school is a pain. My sister drives me to school every morning, we live about 10 minutes from the school but it takes about 25-30 minutes just to get into the school. The traffic to school is absurd and annoying. The first few days we went down Glen Road and would get stuck in the traffic as soon as we got to the bottom of the road and would be sitting there forever and once we got to the school it would still take a while just to get through all that traffic. We would have to wait in lines around every corner and I felt bad for anyone not trying to get to a school because they had to waste half their drive just sitting in school traffic. The first few days they had messed up the school start times so not only did we have to be with all the high school traffic but all the middle schoolers trying to get to school were also in our traffic. Now we go down Edison Road and avoid all the traffic until we get to the high school, once w...

Here are some of my favorite Harry Styles song's that I believe everyone should listen to  (In no specific order)  1. "To Be So Lonely" is the seventh song on the Fine Line album, it is a lighter song but has a lot of meaning behind it. In this song, Harry Styles is basically backing up or explaining his side of a breakup. Putting it that way makes it sound like any generic song, but you can't even tell it's a breakup song until you goggle it or someone tells you. It does have a couple bad words so be careful if you're listening with your mother.  I didn't always love his music, I thought it was really hard to get into, just really hard to be obsessed with. I have come to adore, see what I did there, his music because of my friends love for him. "To Be So Lonely" was immediately one of my top songs on his album. 2. "Golden" is the opening song on the Fine Line album, the energy of the song is just overflowing with happiness. This song i...

  I've always had a love, hate relationship with the dress code. Dress code is everywhere...it's in certain restaurants, at work, in schools, or simply just out in public. I've personally only been dress coded 2 or 3 times, but I know several girls that have been dress coded almost everyday...so here's my thoughts about it.      Dress code is necessary in some circumstances...the problem is when females get obsessively sexualized is where I believe it crosses a line. For example, two girls could wear a tight shirt and jeans...but these two girls have two different body types. That's where the issue hits. Most times one girl is shamed for it, while the other is not. It's not either of their faults, they can't control that they are two different people who look completely different. It's just unfair that girls have to be put down constantly because they don't fit the standards dress code demands. Having someone come up to you, and tell you that you are...

     For the past 2,400 years, humans have adapted the idea of astrology and horoscopes. Originally created by the Babylonians, Astrology has made its way across the Mediterranean into the rest of the world and still remains a popular belief, in fact, over 70 million people in The United States alone read their daily horoscopes, according to the American Federation of Astrologers. These people that read their horoscopes will seek advice and live their lives according to the stars. Now call me crazy, but I don't think giant balls of gas 4.37 light-years away have any impact on a single individual's personal life.        Let's get one thing clear, there is a difference between astrology and astronomy. One is science, the other is BS. Astronomy is the movement of celestial bodies, using physics, math, and chemistry, Astronimists study planets, stars, and all the wonders that reside in our universe. Astrology however is a pseudoscience, a belief...

Warsaw, Poland  This past summer has to be one of my more chaotic ones. I was constantly out and about, whether it was sports, spending time with my family/friends, or traveling. At first, when school ended, I had a week where there was nothing, but then lacrosse camp started. I was up at 7 a.m. every morning getting to work with a bunch of little kids for 5 hours. The funny thing is I don't even like kids but still optionally chose to be with the K-4th graders. Once that was over, my parents and I traveled to Poland and we were going all around the country without a break for two weeks. Sleeping in the same bedroom as my snoring parents is something that I would never like to experience. As we traveled to all the different cities, we spent a couple of days wandering around the unknown places, we would get back and I'd be stuck with the same people I spent the whole day with. All I needed was a little break. Thankfully once we got back from the two week trip that felt like two ...

Traveling is definitely one of my favorite things to do ever. I love exploring new countries, trying a variety of new foods, meeting new people, trying new experiences, and exploring as much as I possibly can. Traveling is something that I want to continue doing throughout my entire life with friends and family because I want to explore and hold onto life-long memories from the places I have visited. In this blog post, I am going to be reviewing my top three favorite vacation spots that I have traveled to over the past few years. My top three vacation spots include The Bahamas, Aruba, and Puerto Rico. The first place I am going to be reviewing is The Bahamas, which is a country located in the Caribbean. I stayed at the Atlantis Paradise Island hotel, which is an ocean-themed resort on Paradise Island in The Bahamas. This is an enormous property, which offers a variety of tourists attractions like snorkeling, scuba diving, has several pools for swimming, and has one of the largest w...

           This is inspired by Blake's blog post (which you should definitely read if you haven't already) about her first impressions of Sparta. It struck me that not every place deals with the pain, the suffering, the sorrow, the grief, the fear evoked by these things. They live in your ceilings, on your floors, in your trash can... they are everywhere. And I hate them.        They go by many names, like camel crickets, camelback crickets, and spider crickets, fitting yet disturbing. None of these names change the fact they are the worst insect ever. They are not only crickets, they're also spiders, the worst of both worlds. This abomination and complete freak of nature, known as a cave cricket live in my house, and in my head, rent-free. I know they're literal bugs, but these things have traumatized me.        My first experience was when I was around 5 years old. I had this horse stuffed animal; we were best frien...

 The famous sitcom, Gilmore Girls, has seven amazing seasons, with numerous ups and downs that will leave you wanting more. I have watched Gilmore Girls two times through, and am currently halfway through my third time. In my opinion, Gilmore Girls is one of the most heartfelt, surprising, and uplifting tv shows on Netflix. When you start watching thinking you'll watch an episode or two, you'll end up laying in bed at midnight having watched over a season in a few hours. In this blog, I will be reviewing each season of Gilmore Girls, to describe why this incredible tv show should be watched by everyone.  Background In this series, the two main characters are a smart, spontaneous, and outgoing mother-daughter duo that live in a small town called Stars Hollow, Connecticut. Rory and Lorelli Gilmore are closer than any mother and daughter you can imagine. Lorelli has Rory at sixteen and is raising her as a strong, independent single mother. As this mother and daughter try to navig...