Club Penguin

I've been playing Club Penguin for about a year and a half now. If you don't know what it is, then I'll tell you. It's a website where you can be your own penguin. You can waddle around in a little world called Club penguin. You can talk to people, make friends, play games to earn coins, and tons of other stuff. You can also dress up, which is my favorite part.
A while ago, I was just a regular penguin. I was relatively new, and I had a few clothing items, colors (yes, did I mention your penguin could be any color you want?), and player card backrounds. I wished I had more clothes, but I didn't know how to get them. Then I discovered a little thing called the giftshop, where you can use your coins to buy shirts, hats, shoes, jewelry, and even wigs. I immediatly started saving up to buy everything I wanted, which was practically everything. After all that was done, I waddled back to the giftshop only to learn that I was unable to spend my coins on all those wonderful items. Why? There was something called "membership". Then it hit me: you could pay money to be a member on club penguin and be able to get all those awesome items. I spent the rest of the day sulking, and I also learned that members could buy special igloos, instead of just having the teeny, plain white one that everyone got for free when they signed up. They could also buy awesome furniture in the furniture catalog, and I saw some other stuff that was just as cool as the clothes in the gift shop. I started begging my parents to ge me that membership, and after a few months, they finally let me and my sister have it, who wanted it just as much as I did. We were sooo happy. But after, like, a year, the whole thing started to get old. We cancelled our membership because we never played it anymore.
A few months later, my sister started playing on it again, but as a non-member. I eventually joined her, and soon enough, we were craving membership again. Now, it's early/mid-October. Our report cards come out on Halloween. My parents said that if we get straight A's, they would strongly think about it.
Now i'm trying extra hard in school so I can be a member again. It's the circle of....well, club pengiun. I hope it never repeats again.

Mark Groves/Carols By Candlelight

He's our new music minister! We've been without one for 18 months now. Our old music minister was awesome, and he and his family were so nice. But then God started speaking to him, and he felt God was telling him to take a job at a church in South Carolina. So he and his family moved there, and since then, we haven't had a permanent music minister. We've had a few interims, like Mrs. Susan Reed, Mr. Bruce Pafford, and Mr. Mark O'Conner. My dad even helped out a lot-he helped cnduct choir rehearsals numerous times, and even led church quite a few sundays. But recently, at the beginning of September, our new minister of music was put into office. I don't really know him that much, but he seemes like a nice man, and I've been able to hear our music ministry improve just in the short time that he's been here.
I've been asking my mom recently if I could sing in Carols By Candlelight-an annual program at our church where the choir and orchestra preform together at Christmas. It's really a special time for everyone. I was asking my mom to do this because I am unable to sing in youth choir (math tutoring), and I'm not exctly allowed to sing in the adult choir full-time, but I did come to a few of their practices during the summer (when youth choir had annually been put on hold), and I even sang with them in church one sunday. I loved coming to those practices because i haven't sang with an ensemble since sixth grade, and everyone there is sooo nice, and they all said they were sohappy to have me joining them. But, my mother has neglected to ask him time after time, and now she says that I can just come (without an invitation-i'm sure it will be fine). Tonight was supposed to be my first night, and I hope it will be, because my parents won't be there (meeting). Ihope I enjoy the time, because I've been looking forward to it all week. And I hope that mr. Groves will welcome me just as all the choir members did.

New School Year

It has started up again! I'm in 8th grade, yay! The oldest kids in the school! True, we got delayed a couple days because of hurricane fay, but now we're back, and I glad...mostly. I just really hate getting up so early (6:25 am!!!!!!!!!) Anyway, I really like all my teachers. I also like my scuedule. Here's how it is:
First period: Language arts with Mrs. Giangaspro (I just call her Mrs. G.) She's really nice and we get along real well. She was the same teacher that i had last year, but she moved up. Kind of like looping, i guess. She's also my homeroom teacher. I hope I have fun in her class.
Second period: Science with Mrs. Ishee. It's started out pretty good so far, even though it's not my favorite class. I also hope I have a lot of fun in that class, too.
Third period: U.S. History with Ms. Burke. So far, Ms. Burke has to be one of my favorite teachers. She's extremely nice, never yells at us, and even let us work together as a class to come up with our own social contract on how we want to be treated by her, and how she wants to be treated by us. She's really small (5'1), but very pretty. She wears high heels often, and I can't understand how she can wear them all day. When I first had her class, her hair was curly (like little ringlets) and pretty auburn color, and her eyes were sort of green. I LOVED her hair (by now you should know that I'm a fan of red hair), but last weekend she got it dyed dark, dark brown. I was sort of mad, but I'm pretty much over it. Anyway, I really like her and her class, and I hope I enjoy myself in the class for the rest of the year.
Fourth period: Band with Mr. Rankin. He's my other favorite teacher. I go to lunch at the beginning of this period, but when we come back, it's all music, music music. Now that I'm in 8th grade and not a beginner, we got to start playing our instruments on the 3rd day of school. I was even selected for Wind Ensemble, where all the students were handpicked by Mr. Rankin, and we're the best band group in the school. I play alto saxophone, but I really wish I had chosen flute, but oh well. This Friday, we're taking an afterschool field trip to Nease high school to play at a football game with their band. It's going to be so fun! I also really like Mr. Rankin. He's funny, nice, and cares about all his students.
Fifth period: Term elective/exploratory wheel. What this means is that each nine week I change to a different elective class. 1st term I have Intro to computers w/ Mrs. McLaughlin (also pretty, and nice most of the time), 2nd term i have art w/ Ms. DiMeo (yay for art!), 3rd term I have pre-engineering w/ Mrs. McLaughlin (her again-i had this last year too), and 4th term I have team leadership w/ Ms. Cooper. Yes, I actually have Ms. Cooper!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) I was happy with the electives I got, and I'm sooooo glad i don't have to do P.E.
Sixth period: Pre-Algebra with Mr. Stubbs. I had Mr. Stubbs last year. He's a funny guy who's always trying to make us laugh, and using funny math videos in the middle of his notes (along with weird sound effects like boom!, crash!, and zap! in his notes). He has a round belly and enjoys wearing the colors purple, orange, green, pink, and anything else that's spunky and bright. I had him last year, and even though I hate math, he makes it a little bit more fun. Just a little.
So, that's my squedule. I hope I have a great school year, make new friends, be outgoing and fun, and just be myself.

Star Wars

In 1977, a new movie came out called "Star Wars: A New Hope". Many people went to see it, having seen the advertisements and thinking that the film would be good. They were wrong. Way wrong. It wasn't good. IT WAS AMAZING. The computerized characters scenes, battles, and almost everything in the movie were spectacular-no one had seen anything like it before, since computers were just coming out. My mom went to see it when it came out, and she was about 16 years old. She said that "the whole idea of being in space was just unbelievable". Soon after, all kinds of action figures, movie posters, and even bedspreads came out with Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader printed all across them. Young, beautiful Princess Leia became the new crush of every fourth grade boy, and they didn't even care that her real name was Carrie Fisher. Even now, these movies are still popular, and my mom and I have been in the process of watching every one of them in order. I had never seen them before, and I think they're fabulous movies. They have great stories, plots, characters, computer animation, battles, and even romance. And after this movie first came out, new ideas began to form, and the next movies came out. The first half of the saga came out after the second half, which is weird, and sort of confusing. Other ideas sprang up for new types of movies, and I think that without Star Wars, we wouldn't have movies like Narnia, Harry Potter, WALL:E (and any Pixar movie, for that matter), Bridge to Terabithia, and all those others that are just ordinary movies to us today. But way back when, these movies would have been great, but not as great as the saga of Star Wars, which still lives on today, and hopefully forever.

Hurricane Fay

A catergory 1 hurricane is approaching Florida, and the city of Jacksonville. It's been named Fay-sort of a unusual name, but also sort of pretty-sounding. Anyway, the hurricane should effect us, but nothing more than lots of rain, wind, and general harsh storming. Even so, they've delayed the start of St. Johns county public schools until Monday the 25th. School was originally supposed to start the friday before. The open houses for St. Johns school have been postponed also-until Friday.
We went to the grocery store today, even though we already had dinner for the night. Mom said that we should get some for tomorrow, since we wouldn't want to come out in the bad weather. The store was more crowded than usual-I guess people were stocking up as well. We bought sausages to grill in case the power goes out and we wouldn't be able to cook with the oven (we do have a gas stove, though). My dad went to blockbuster (we got The King of California, the Great Debators, and Star Wars 5) and said it was packed. He said that there were about twenty people in line! That's unusual for the store near us. I guess people were stocking up on movies they could watch while they waited out the storm. Anyway, what I'm saying is: Hurricane Fay shouldn't cause any really serious problems, but losing power is a possibility. The nearby school district is also being careful in letting children come to school. It's not anything Florida hasn't experienced before. Trust me.

The Next Food Network Star is.....

Aaron McCargo Jr.! I was happy for Aaron when I watched the finale a few Sundays ago, even though I really wanted Lisa to win. He deserved it as well because he worked really hard and his family, well, sort of needed it. They're not the richest of folks, and Aaron's son Josh ran away from home recently before he went on the show. It was really sad. I'm also sad that the whole thing is over because I LOVE that show! It won't come on again until next year. Anyway, congragulations Aaron. His new show, "Big Daddy's House" airs at 1:30 pm eastern time. Go to http://www.foodnetwork.com/ for more info about Aaron and the whole Next Food Network Star experience that recently ended for this year.

I finished!

I'm so excited that I finally finished my story, "Silver Sea"!! I think it turned out really well and would be a great read for anyone interested in mysteries, ghosts, Ireland, or just a good short read. I finished typing it as well and it is a total of 50 pages. For me, and for any student, I think, that is pretty impressive. Writing is just something I'm good at and an art that I love to practice. I'm already cooking up ideas for my next story, more of a fantasy type. Keep tuning in to find out more!!!