new years! - 2010

Like most, I celebrate New Year’s by going to parties! I was invited to three different parties this year and we decided to go to my mom’s friend’s party! We eat, play games, have fun, and watch the ball drop in New York! You can’t help but remember all the ups and downs of the past year like big accomplishments. Some I remember are my eighth grade awards night, my first day of high school and my Confirmation. All these were amazing moments in my life that I will remember forever. I look forward to the coming year, not only for our skating show we have at my ice rink but for a big step in any teenager’s life, starting to drive. Fourteen and nine months I will start driving. I cannot wait, this is something I will take with me the rest of my life and I get to start in 2010!
Along with remembering the old and new I also make new years resolutions! To me the definition of resolutions, is a promise I will try to keep to help improve my life in this coming year. This year my plan includes eating better or healthier. Make my portions healthier and the food I eat. I am going to try not to eat junk food or fattening foods like I normally do. Another thing I need to start doing is exercising like running or working out. I am in bad shape and I need to get in better shape. It would be healthier and a better life choice.
One more thing I need to work on is my study skills for school. Normally on school days I hang out with friends after school instead of concentrating on studying for tests or quizzes I have which in turn makes my test scores low and then makes my grade in the class lower. I need to not do anything on school days and concentrate on school and studying then save plans for the weekend. I cannot wait for this New Year and hope it will be a great one!

a christmas under the sun!

When I think about past Christmases that I have had, I always think of my favorite Christmas as everyone would, when I went somewhere completely out of tradition of what we normally do. Normally we have a Christmas at home where we go over my grandmas and open presents in the morning after breakfast but that year, we went to Puerto Rico with my Aunt, Uncle, and Cousin. Yes, for one glorious year we traded in the freezing snowy winters of Michigan for the warm tropics of the Atlantic Ocean. Sun, and beaches galore. It was amazing.
That Christmas, it was different. My cousin and her family are Jewish and celebrate Hanukah but they were very happy to help us keep our tradition of going to church. We usually go to mass of Christmas Eve but we went on Christmas day. We had breakfast, got dressed up in sun-dresses and went to a mass at a small catholic church near our resort. The church was tiny compared to ours and the Priest announced to the clergy that he had a cold and wanted to speed up the mass. The mass instead of being and hour was quickened by the ill priest to a little more then half an hour!
After, we went to lunch in the near-by small town at Wendy’s. This was an obvious change from our Christmas dinner. We had French fries and burgers instead of ham and other traditional food. We then “celebrated” by swimming in the ocean and pools and relaxing. We had gotten our presents before we left and got gift cards as a presents that day. It was a fun and different way to spend Christmas and I want to go back some day to spend another Christmas under the sun!

the power of one!

The film “The Power of One” that we saw in class was so touching and inspiring. This movie reminded me greatly of “Hotel Rwanda” not only because that was inspiring as well but that they were both about a single person trying to change there own country. Both were going against the law for what they believed in. I would have to say that before this, I never knew anything about the apartheid in South Africa; honestly I didn’t have the slightest idea of what apartheid even is. I knew that South Africa wasn’t the best place but I never knew about this side of it. Never would I have imagined Dutch or British or white people in that manner to be living in South Africa.
I was a little confused on whether or not guards and white people were that cruel to the blacks of South Africa. Was killing a normal scene in those times? And also what was up about the two different black African tribes which had some ethnic conflicts going on. What I thought was inspiring was how P.K. betrayed what was right and risked going to prison to simply teach uneducated Africans about reading. His love, Marria was accidentally killed as a result of this when the authorities invaded, if that wasn’t enough. Even after all of the heartbreak and numerous beatings he still pushes forward and gets right back up for what is right. But P.K. was right to do what he did because him teaching would start a chain reaction as we saw. The adults he had taught were teaching there children which would continue on for generations to come. Truly inspiring.