Prediction

Alright here is what I am presuming happened to to the main character in Handmaid's Tale:
I think that the time era she is in is a time where men owned their women. That the woman's job was to make their man happy and to take care of the home, and whenever a woman didn't have a man they became slaves or were bought by other men. Now I think that the narrator had a husband (Luke), but he died, thus making her available for any man to claim her. So she is now passed around as other men's property. Since no one claimed her she is just bought from other men now to be used for her fertility. I think this book is going to be about how she is able to escape from her "role" and change how men see woman. I think this book is a pro-feminism book due to Margaret Atwood being the author and she was a HUGE feminist so some bad things are going to happen to the male characters in this book if I am correct, and that will make this book even better.

Handmaid's Tale

I am only a few chapters in on this book but can already tell that I won't be bored out of my mind while reading the rest of the book. It is actually interesting and I don't mind if I read a few chapters ahead. It has this dark feel to it which I actually like. I am waiting for it to get funny because the blurb on the back of the book said it was funny, which I am finding hard to believe after reading about six chapters of the book. So far I have read nothing that is funny. At all. I don't even know how the author can make this book funny, it seems to be more of a serious book, but what do I know? I only just started it. Each chapter is really short and that just makes me feel like I am reading a lot more than I truly am, which in return makes me like the book even more. I have always liked when books have short chapters because it makes the story a lot more exciting, especially if the author can make each chapter end with a cliff hanger. I am curious as to what happened to the main character though, it seemed like she had it all before... hopefully I will find out soon. I definitely will not be suffering while I read this book, I have a feeling it is going to get good.

Graduation Speech

 Here's my Graduation Speech:

Decisions. They can be either the simplest or the hardest things to make. I’m sure I am not the only one here who has ever made a difficult decision. I remember not too long ago when I was only in eighth grade that I was faced with one of the most difficult decisions of my life. I had to figure out what was more important to me: my friends or my education, looking back on it I don’t regret a single thing.

That was the year I chose to become a Trailblazer at The Academy of Arts, Careers and Technology. I was terrified of leaving everyone I had known for eight years, especially to go to a new high school. That stepping stone is hard enough as it is going to a normal school, but AACT was different, in a great way.

            By choosing to go to AACT I was able to experience more than just high school, but also real life. Personally, one of these experiences could be how I ended up raising ducks, I don’t know about you, but when I thought of high school all I thought of was lockers and school work, definitely not ducks. I never really thought school could actually be fun, but AACT proved me wrong. I became so involved in everything, both inside and outside of AACT, that school became my life and I loved it.

            Graduating from high school at least to me, is terrifying. AACT has been my home for the past four years and starting today it no longer is. Today I am not only extremely proud of myself for surviving twelve years of school but I am scared, scared of the real world and college. I am sure there are a lot of us that are relieved to be done and can’t wait to get away, but to me my life will never be the same again. Today, I am no longer a kid. Today, I have more responsibilities. Today, I will not see the majority of the people I have grown up with for the past four years until our high school reunion. Today, we are adults.  I hope that most of you feel the same way when I say that I will never regret becoming a Trailblazer.

            Today is the beginning of the rest of our lives and the beginning of a clean slate for all of us. Today marks the first day where we are solely accountable for the decisions that will determine our future. We are all now in charge of our own lives. Will you choose love over your career? Will you follow your dreams or someone else's? Will you go against the grain or succumb to “everybody’s doing it”? These are only a few of the tough decisions we will face. When you think of yourself sixty years from now will you like your life story? In the end we are all a byproduct of our own decisions, you're in the driver’s seat of a short ride so make it a good one.

Congratulations Class of 2014! We did it!

Piano

For the past few weeks I have started to teach myself some classical songs on the piano. I have always been able to play little songs like Yankee Doodle, Heart and Soul and Happy Birthday, but have never really taught myself how to play the piano correctly. For some odd reason I developed a craving to play the piano about two weeks ago, not just small songs, but complex ones that use both hands to play, such as Mozart and Beethoven. So I started to look up piano tutorials on YouTube, starting with the Pink Panther. This song took me hours to conquer just because I had to use both of my hands, but once I got the feel of it, it became easier and easier to play. After the Pink Panther I wanted to learn to play some of the most classical piano pieces that were complicated, yet still easy enough for me to play. So I searched for one of Beethoven's pieces and taught myself how to play it, this one was deffinitely more difficult than the Pink Panther. Then I wanted something even more complicated than Beethoven so I began to teach myself Mozart's Fur Elise, which is probably one of my favorite piano pieces to both listen to and play. Now I want to teach myself a Ragtime song (Maple Leaf) but they are so complex that I think I'll just learn how to play Moonlight Sonata (one of Beethoven's pieces) first.

Doyle Scholarship

Here's my Personal essay for the Doyle Scholarship:

My goal is set. Life at the University of Nevada Reno; working towards a career that I will enjoy. Ever since I can remember, I have wanted to become a Large Animal Veterinarian and have worked diligently towards this ambition. I have owned, raised and taken care of numerous animals; and I currently go to an Academy school that is career based. There, I am in the Natural Resources and Animal Sciences academy. I have secured an internship where I will get to assist a UNR Professor with all aspects of hands-on sheep management. Additionally, I have volunteered at the Nevada Humane Society and The Sierra Safari Zoo in order to gain more experience with the care of animals. This will help me through my college years, and apply me with the knowledge necessary to obtain a job as a Large Animal Veterinarian. I plan to receive my Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) at Colorado State University, due to UNR not having a DVM program. I hope to start my own practice and gain a network of people that can help me achieve this along my career path. I am able to work efficiently with other people and I have the desire to work with animals and have a fulfilled career. With endless dedication, tireless efforts, and continued education, this is something I will accomplish no matter the obstacles I might face. I am determined to achieve my dream. 

College

College. The very thought of College inflicts a huge range of emotions in me: excitement, fear, frustration and nervousness. Excitement makes sense, I mean I am starting a whole new life where I will be learning things that will all directly help me achieve my goal of becoming a large animal veterinarian. I know college will probably be the best time of my life, but I also know it will be one of the most stressful. I will especially be a wreck when it comes to applying for veterinary school.

Now fear is a harder emotion to explain. I am terrified of living on my own without my parents there, I know that they will help me but I will be the one paying for the bills and rent. Not only that, but I am starting at a new school with completely new concepts, and it is huge compared to my small high school.

When I start to think of how much school I am going to have go through in order to become a veterinarian it frustrates me. I am practically going back into the 5th grade without the schoolwork getting easier. I will have to go through eight more years of school, so I really hope college will be a blast so those eight years will fly by.

Lastly I am nervous at the thought of leaving the home I have built at my high school for the past four years. Now I am going to have to go to a new place on my own and hope I don’t get lost, which is wishful thinking. College will become a great experience, it’s just the beginning of it I am worried about.

Surprise

So far the play that we have been reading in English (The Importance of being Earnest by Oscar Wilde) is actually pretty good. I can say that I was surprised that I actually laughed out loud when I read part one. I wasn't expecting that sort of writing to contain any humor, especially the kind that would make a modern person like me laugh. I would think that the way it was written would deter me from catching onto any humor, sure I might recognize when characters thought something was funny, but I wasn't expecting anything that would make the reader or I guess the observer (considering it’s a play) laugh. When I first started reading it I felt like it was too simple, that I must not be catching all the hidden meanings, but I guess I am still caught in the same mind set that I was when I read Shakespeare’s plays. Being able to understand practically immediately almost everything I read definitely makes this play more enjoyable to read. I am hoping that the rest of the play will become even more comical. This book is like a breath of fresh air considering all the drama we have previously read, and I hope it stays that way. If it does I know I will continue to enjoy this play.

Fluffy Sheep

I am absolutely, positively enjoying my Senior Capstone. This is the closest I have ever been to actually experience how my future job will be like, and lets just say that I am one hundred percent positive that I have made the right career choice (pretty impressive knowing that I was in first grade when I decided that I wanted to be a large animal veterinarian). I am getting to intern with Dr. Dale Holcomb (a professor at UNR) where I am helping out with the pregnant ewes over at UNR farms. I have only infested about five hours so far since I just started last week, but I know I am going to love every minute of it. This is the most hands on I have ever been before. Coming into the internship I thought I was just going to observe. Well I was completely wrong, they got me filthy and smelling like sheep due to how much I wasn't observing. The first day I was able to perform an ultrasound on four sheep. Yeah, I got covered in sheep filth, but it was probably one of the coolest days of my life. The next day I learned how to flip a sheep on its back all by myself, which is a lot harder than you would think considering they look like big balls of fluff. Each sheep weighs around 200-240 pounds, and for a person of my stature being only five feet tall and only weighing 105 pounds you can start to see how this can be quite difficult. Even though it was one of the hardest workouts I ever had, it was definitely one of the most entertaining ones. I can’t wait for what’s next.

Spotlight

To me speaking or even performing in public is exhilarating. Having my hands shaking, my heart pounding and my throat dry is one of the biggest adrenaline rushes for me. Those nerves people always say are the worst? Well to me those nerves are one of the best feelings ever. I love the rush it gives me, sure I am kind of freaked out inside (otherwise I wouldn't be getting these butterflies in my stomach) but after I perform I feel rejuvenated. I love the after effect too. The moment after the glory where I begin to calm down and think “wow, I just did that”, the moment where I am impressed with myself, because the person that is calming down would freak out if I had to do it again...well at least later that same day. This is when I am most proud of myself, knowing that I just sacrificed myself to the public's watchful eyes and ears. That I just risked embarrassment of the century to get someone else's attention just for a few minutes. I crave being in the spotlight, and public speaking is one of the best ways to get this desire satisfied. That is why I have this urge to speak at my graduation, I want to feel the rush and be able to say that I did it; that I was one of the four kids out of ninety one that was able to speak at graduation. I want all the spectators to look at me with awe on their faces. I want to impress; but in order to do this I have to write a spectacular speech. One that will stand out of all the ninety one other ones, one that will captivate my audience and one that will be original. I think I might be over my head a little, but one can hope.

Frankenstein

So far I have read around thirty pages in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and I have to say ehhhhhhh. I am just waiting for it to get to the part with the mad scientist and the making of a monster and have no clue on how these letters to Margaret have anything to do with it. I wouldn't say that I am bored with the text, because while I am reading it I am not suffering, it’s just whatever. I would still prefer to be reading something else, but for it being a school book it isn’t that bad. I just want it to start relating to the story of Frankenstein I have heard of, I hope that is somewhat what this book is about, otherwise I might become bored with this text. I will admit that I am one of those people that always thought that Frankenstein was the monster, not the scientist. Whoops. Hopefully by the time I am finished with this book I will have this problem solved.  Another thing I find great about this book is that it is only around two hundred pages. To me that is nothing, I could easily read that in a day, so that makes me happy that we will finish this book in no time. I will continue to post as I continue to read this book, so maybe my thoughts will change, who knows. I hope they will turn more positive than ehhhh.

And it Begins

Ever since the Christmas music has been turned on at work last week I have been craving for it to be after Thanksgiving. That way I have a legitimate reason to decorate my whole house and bake a kagillion gingerbread cookies without being one of those people that don’t wait until Thanksgiving to prepare for Christmas. Not to mention that we have also started practicing our Christmas music for our winter concert in the Reno Pops Orchestra, that is definitely not helping my inner Christmas demons. They have also decorated my work and are now asking for people to take shifts to be an elf. I definitely am taking one of those shifts, so now I am going to be Santa’s elf for a day. I never thought i would get to do that, I think it is going to be so much fun! Not to mention I get paid for doing practically nothing for seven hours. So I have been surrounded with Christmas non-stop for over one week and just need it be this Thursday so I can succumbed to my inner Christmas demons and go crazy with decorations, cookies and of course Christmas music! The only issue is I have no clue when we are going to get our Christmas tree, so I guess I will just have to do without it for a while, but i can assure your that this won’t stop me from doing everything else in the meantime.

Talent Show

The Talent Show is beginning to become a huge pain this year. We have like six or more practices, which to me are completely useless and they all happen from 2:30 to 3:30. I have off campus so this really sucks. Not to mention I work most of the time and it makes me not have anytime to eat before I have to leave for work, so i am now starving while at work. For the practices all we do is do our part and then leave. I really don’t see the point, I have no clue what I am gaining for attending these practices; if they weren't mandatory I would only attend about half of them. Now they are wanting us to wear our outfits for the show for about three of these practices. This I really think is lame, I should only have to wear it once. Right now I don’t even have a clue what I am wearing and I have to wear it tomorrow. All I am doing is playing the violin, how should I dress up for that? I am indecisive on whether I should wear something fancy or wear something fun. I guess I will decide that later. I really don’t wanna be complaining, but I find most of these things to be completely unnecessary and more of a burden on me. Luckily I’m not working any 4-9 shifts otherwise I would have to miss some of the practices, which I think would disqualify me.

I think I Died...

Let me start off by saying I am a VERY PUNCTUAL person, if I am on time I feel late. I carry the motto that it is better to be an hour early than one minute late. I absolutely despise the feeling of being tardy. So last Tuesday was quite the shocker to me.

Monday night I went to bed at my usual time, around ten o'clock pm, not too late and not too early. Being the punctual self I am, I set about five alarms on my phone and one alarm on my alarm clock, just to be safe. I wake up around five forty five am every day I have school, so it's always pitch black when I wake up. So you can say I was quite surprised when I woke up the next morning and realized that it was way too bright in my room to be five forty five in the morning. Leaping out of bed I stared at my phone wondering what was happening. Maybe it was Monday today? I glanced at my phone. Nope. It definitely was Tuesday and did my clock say 11 o'clock!!!? Crap. I looked at all of my alarms and they were still set, so they had gone off and I must have in a dazed state turned them off. I still can't remember doing anything like that. I decided it wasn't worth going to school for only an hour, so I was able to enjoy a four day weekend, while it felt great, it also felt extremely weird to be home while everyone else was still at school. I couldn't stop thinking about how I didn't wake up, that never happens to me. I decided the only explanation for my odd behavior was that I must have died when I hit my pillow. How else could I have slept through all of my alarms and the bright sun?

All in the Name of Science!!

While reading my book for AP Biology, Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin, I learned that science can be kind of crazy. These scientists were doing the most insane experiments! The main focus on this book was how similar fish are to mammals and how mammals ultimately evolved from fish. They mainly did experiments on embryos, or more specifically shark embryos, even though they did experiment on others as well. They would inject these shark embryos with various chemicals to see if they could solve the mystery behind development and what purpose genes served in it. In doing so they were able to mutate these embryos to extract the reaction they desired. They discovered how one gene that forms a specific part of the body (such as a limb or fin) when moved around, would form a duplicate of what it would have originally formed. That means some of these sharks grew up having duplicate fins.

I have to say what horrified me the most is their experiments on fly's and mice. The pictures they put in my head seemed like something that could only be created out of a horror story. In this case they were working specifically on eyes, and what did they discover? Well, they found out that they can mess with the DNA or genes and form eyes whenever they wanted. Need an extra eye? They knew how to make that possible, even to the extent of making a fly eye appear in the place of a mouse's eye. That's right. Mice had fly eyes and fly's had mice eyes. Freaky, right? While this book is very interesting, I can say that it has scarred me a few times.

Thank You, Not THANKS

My job takes everything pretty seriously. They are very strict on having the customers being treated with the best care as if they are all our bosses. This makes it so there are a lot of rules and regulations based on customer care. The majority of these rules are pretty common, say "hello" and "goodbye" to every customer that walks in, even if they buy nothing, make small talk so the customer doesn't feel awkward, and of course ask if they need help and assist them if they do. One - and this one is a serious one - is something I never heard of until I started working. It is saying "thank you" instead of "thanks" to all of our customers, if we don't we can get in a lot of trouble if we are caught. If we say "thanks" to a secret shopper (people disguised as customers to grade how efficient their cashiers are working) our store leader will be fined $1,000. So yeah, he would probably be pissed if he learned that he got fined due to one of us saying "thanks". I think we could get fired for that. So now every time I hear someone say "thanks" or I say it myself I freak out. I think I am going to get in major trouble until I realize that I am just at school and freaked out for nothing. So my job is definitely improving my speech.

My Blog

Okay, my blog is doing strange things to me. I know I am weird, blogging about my blog but just go along with it. If you scroll through my blog posts I am sure you will be able to discover one of my issues. Some of my color fonts change. That’s because every time I tried to publish those posts they would only show a title and in order to reveal my actual post you had to highlight over the words with your mouse cursor, so i changed the color and font type and voilà! My post appeared, I don't know why it only does it to some of my posts. Why not all of them? The next thing it is doing is when I am writing a post and decide I want to make a correction, it will delete words as I’m typing new ones, so now I go on Google Docs and type up my post (as I am doing now), then I copy and paste it in so I can publish it. Lastly, it is underlining several of my words and turning them into links when I finally publish my post. I have yet to figure out why and how to fix it. So yeah, my blog is kinda crazy… It is making me try too hard to make a single post. I am curious though, am I the only one having this blogging problem? And why me then? I think my blog might be rebelling against me, I just don’t know why… yet.

Catching Up

I think I am finally starting to catch up on the life I took a vacation from for a week. I think I should be gracious that it seemed as if I missed a slow school week, but I still got a lot of work that I have to get done. Everyday I have been doing hours of homework and all I need to do now is finish a few essays for English, I don’t know where I am going to be able to find the time to do them since I won’t get home until like ten pm tonight, but I will have to try. I think the hardest thing about catching up is having more than going to school on my schedule everyday. I have to work and go do my extracurricular activities like FFA and play the violin, so it’s hard enough getting all my school work done even when I don’t miss an entire week. I just can not wait until I can give myself a sigh of relief when I am all caught up. I would like a day of free time and sleeping in, so I am soooo happy that we don’t go to school on Monday, even if I do work it will be nice to be able to sleep in and not have to worry about school. I hate the feeling of having missing work, so as soon as I can turn everything in I will be super happy and relieved.

Nationals

Okay, let me start off by saying that the National FFA Convention was a blast! I competed in Farm Business Management or FBM and got a bronze for individual and a bronze for the team activity. That was my first time even competing in FBM, so I would say that this trip was a success, especially since I was able to do a ton of touristy things while in Louisville, Kentucky. Not only was I competing in FBM, but also in the Hall of States, which is pretty much a booth set up by my partner and I that represents Nevada Agriculture. We didn't win that, but it gave our teacher a good idea on how it can be improved on for next year. Now the touristy things we were able to do included going to Churchill downs and seeing all the horses training, going to the Louisville Slugger Museum where we were able to take a tour of how the bats are made, going to a Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular, an arboretum and a haunted Corn Maze (which was the most terrifying thing of my life). Even when we were just at our Hotel it was fun, due to everyone hanging out in our Hotel room until practically Midnight every night. It was an awesome week if you don’t include how little sleep I got and how it was a bit humid there, let’s just say that my hair didn't like it when I straightened it, because it just wanted to get wavy.

Technicalities

Well, remember that blog post I made about one month ago about my future predictions on Hamlet? Well it turns out I wasn't completely off. Goooooo me! Okay, I will admit that I may have gotten a few of the details wrong, like how everyone dies, but at least I was right about everyone dying… well everyone except for Horatio. But lets see what I got right. Claudius, Gertrude and Hamlet die, there is a sword fight and poison involved. I think that is a pretty good considering that this is the only time i have read Hamlet. Now, I was wrong about how they died… except Claudius does get stabbed by Hamlet, just not exactly how I thought he would. I was also wrong about when in the play this would all take place, I thought it would happen during Hamlet’s reenactment play of his father’s death, but it happened when he was fencing with Laertes. Minor technicalities, right? I can say I was surprised that Ophelia, Laertes and Polonius were involved, I thought their characters would not play a serious role in Hamlet’s death, yet Laertes was the one who stabbed Hamlet to death due to Ophelia dying which ultimately was caused by Polonius’ death. Crazy how everything adds up, if Hamlet hadn't killed Polonius he could have never died… well maybe. He did have a hit placed on his head from Claudius, but that’s another minor technicality. Overall I really did enjoy Hamlet, especially compared to Shakespeare's other play *cough* Romeo and Juliet *cough*.

Now that I am alone...

I am feeling fantastic when it comes to Hamlet! I feel like I understand it when I really pay attention to the words. While there is always a few sentences or paragraphs that make no sense, being able to do class discussions really helps me comprehend Shakespeare's writing. When I just look at the words they end up getting all jumbled up in my mind and turn into useless mush. As long as my mind is present when I read Hamlet, I should have no problem following everything that happens.    

Now the part I am enjoying most is memorizing one of Hamlet's famous speeches, mine happens to be "Oh what a rogue and peasant slave am I...". I already have all of fifty-seven lines memorized, that's right, fifty-seven lines. I can thank my wonderful job for that, standing around all alone for hours gives me plenty of free time to memorize my lines. Though I have been caught talking to myself a few times by my customers and fellow co workers. I feel as if all I ever do at work is read over my lines.

I am definitely going to rock this assignment (knocks on wood). All I can hope is that my mind does not decide to go blank when I stand in front of the class whenever we present, or that I can at least recall twenty of the lines. Hopefully all those hours of practice will not end up being a waste of my time.