Fog is an eerie shroud of mist

closing in around you.

Fog is a thick blanket,

covering the morning dew

Fog is a silent predator,

Carefully stalking its prey.

Fog isolates you,

Makes you alone,

And before long you are swept away.

~HSJO~

Birds chirp, a wake up call

To a world bathed in sunshine

A perfect day, buzzing with excitement.

The grass is green, trees swaying in the breeze,

Then the fog comes in.

Creeping slowly, not making a sound

Slowly, little by little, all goes quiet.

Birds cease to talk, and all of a sudden, the fog has arrived,

Without anyone noticing.

But the eerie silence, in a way, is just as beautiful as before

~HSJO~

Jimmy Bo-Billybob was curious guy. Perhaps too curious. Wait, never mind, scratch that. You can never be too curious. Think about it. Without those people who ponder everything from the meaning of life to why ketchup doesn't go well with ice-cream, the world wouldn't be what it is today. Anyway, as you might guess, Jimmy was on of those people, and little did he know, he would change history forever. It all began earlier that morning, when he was in his bedroom, in a little house about half a mile away from Cookachuggamonga. Jimmy sat on his bed reading, “The Whimsical Adventures of Fatman and Blubber Boy Book 3: The Return of the Big Cheese!”, his half-broken fan was whirring by his bed, doing little to relieve him from the hot, humid air. As Jimmy read through chapter four, his shirt began to stick to his skin, and beads of sweat trickled down his face. Jimmy decided that he couldn't concentrate anymore. He closed his book and chucked it out the window. Jimmy could see Fatman and Blubber boy disappear over the neighbors' fence and the last thing he heard from it was an earsplitting screech from the neighbors' cat, Cuddles. Jimmy's mind, as it always when he wasn't occupied, began to wonder. He daydreamed about various things: robot chicken space monkeys, hotdogs taking over the world, chicken wings, etc. Eventually he came up with a decision that he would walk down to Lake Cookachuggamonga.

The sun was beating down on Jimmy's neck, he could feel himself getting a sunburn as he walked down the old dirt road, on which cars seldom drove on. Dust kicked up into his shoes with every step. Jimmy looked at the landscape around him. It was all relatively dull and boring, just hills and hills of dry, brown grass. The occasional withered up tree here and there, and the one thing that actually added some beauty to the scene were the tall, majestic mountains in the distance. It was the hottest time of the year, July, and Jimmy didn't know what he would do without Lake Cookachuggamonga, it was his sanctuary, pretty much the only thing to do around here. Suddenly, around the corner, there it was. Lake Cookachuggamonga. Its brilliant blue waters, birds chirping in the trees, the grass emerald green, and suddenly Jimmy didn't feel as hot anymore. He walked down to the edge of the glistening lake, and felt the water. It was utterly divine. Jimmy picked up a rock and threw it, breaking the untouched surface of the water. He watched as the water splashed up, waves of ripples coming out and then suddenly the water returned to its normal state. As Jimmy watched the ripples, he wondered how big the ripples would be if a gigantic rock was dropped out of the sky and onto the lake. “That would be pretty cool,” Jimmy thought. “If you got a big slab of wood, you could probably ride on it”. Suddenly a light bulb went of in his mind.

Jimmy walked into Wayne's World, the closest supermarket around for 50 miles. As he opened the door, bells jingled and a plump, rather rounded man came to the counter.

“Can I help you?” he asked, with a deep, gruff voice.

“Yes, do you have any C-4 plastic explosives?” Jimmy replied.

“Oh yes, they're in the back, next to the laundry detergent”.

“Thanks.”

Jimmy pushed his shopping cart over and grabbed a box of Kaboom! Explosive Fun for the Whole Family! He walked back up the aisle, snatched a couple of slimjims, and brought his rather unusual assortment of items to the checkout.

“That'll be 5 bucks,” the checkout man said.

Jimmy gave him $6.00, and let him keep the change. He grabbed his load and clumsily staggered out the door. “Hmmm.. nice kid, the man thought, “but I wonder what he's doing with ten pounds of C-4. That's rather suspicious. Oh nah... he's just having some fun.”

Jimmy put the loot in the back of his truck and headed to Lake Cookachuggamonga. He drove up next to the dock his family owned and lugged the crates of explosives onto their speedboat. Jimmy revved up the engine and sped to the middle of the lake. When he reached what he estimated to be the dead center of the lake, he threw the C-4 overboard. After checking that it hadn't caught on the side of the boat, Jimmy headed back to shore. On the way back he thought about how he would construct the board that he would use for riding the ripples. As the boat approached the dock, he slowed it down and gently parked the boat next to the dock. After tying up the boat, he remembered finding an old washed up piece of plywood on the shore a couple days ago. He scanned the beach around him, and sure enough, there it was just up ahead of him. He walked over and tested it's weight and durability. It seemed okay. He went back to his house to use his table saw.

The first thing Jimmy had to do was create a design for the board. He got a piece of paper and came up with a teardrop shaped outline. Then he sketched it onto the plywood. The final step was to cut out the wood. He turned on the table saw and got to work. The sound of the saw cutting the wood made Jimmy cringe. When he finally finished, Jimmy turned off the table saw and he finally got some peace and quiet. It was time to get back to the lake.

When he got there, Jimmy grabbed his crudely cut wooden board and sprinted to the boat. He jumped in, turned on the engine and was off. Jimmy raced to the spot where he threw in the bomb, and he began to get more and more nervous. By the time he was slowing the boat down as he arrived at his final destination, Jimmy's heart was hammering like a raging bull trying to break out of his chest. He turned the engine off and tried to calm himself down. He sat there for a good 15 minutes, gathering his thoughts. It was time. Jimmy threw his board in and jumped after it grabbing the detonator as he went. The water hit him hard, but not unpleasantly. It was cool and refreshing, the perfect temperature. Jimmy straddled his board, bobbing up and down in the water. It was a perfect day, the sun was shining, reflecting of the water like a million diamonds. Birds chirped in the trees, and other than that and the boat floating on the water, making a sloshing sound, all was quiet. It was time to alter the course of destiny, to change fate forever. Jimmy raised the detonator and pressed it.

It didn't work. Jimmy was incinerated in the blast, spreading pieces of his body across the lake. The water around where he was just floating turned a sickly crimson. The waves sent out were a magnificent sight. It was a pity, really, for last Wednesday, Mythbusters was on at 9.00pm. And the myth they tested was if you could use dynamite to create artificial waves. They busted it. If you were close enough to the blast to actually “catch” a wave you would be blown up (like poor Jimmy), and if you were far enough away to be safe from the explosion, it would be too late to catch a wave. But Jimmy didn't die completely in vain. Remember, this is a myth with gods and stuff, and as Poseidon, the sea and horses and ponies and things god, saw what happened he was greatly amused by Jimmy's epic fail. So amused in fact, that he filmed it and posted it on failblog. But, Poseidon is somewhat of a nice guy and he felt he should repay Jimmy for making his day worthwhile. So, Poseidon decided to create waves in the ocean and from there the first form of surfing was invented in Hawaii.

Sometimes school can feel like a prison. Stuck inside 6 hours a day with only 7-15 minutes of treasured recess time. That's only 35- 75 minutes of recess each week out of 2520 minutes of school each week. We need more than just 15 minutes a day. I mean, we do have two gym classes a week, but that's still not enough on the three other days we don't have gym. Schools in Chicago get gym class every day of the week by law. With the amount of recess we currently have, the school day can sometimes be grueling to get through. If we go in at first call for lunch then we don't have enough recess, and if we go in at second call we have a little more recess, but still not enough, and we don't have enough lunch time. If we had more recess, students would be more focused in class, and the school day would be way easier.

Extending recess would have a lot of benefits, for students as well as teachers. First of all, researchers at the Albert Einstein College of the Yeshiva University in New York did a test on whether or not less recess affects students in the classroom. They found that students who had more recess were better behaved and more likely to learn more. I'm talking about science dudes who scientifically proved that more recess improves behavior and learning abilities. That would make life a lot easier on teachers. Even if classes were shorter to allow more recess time we would still learn more. All we need is 5 minutes off 3 classes in the day to allow for 15 more minutes added on to recess.

Another benefit of extended recess is that fresh air would help stimulate our brains, so we would be more focused and ready to take tests. I know from personal experience that when I take a test I do much better after recess than before recess because I was able to get the exercise. And, if you do better on tests then grades will start to improve. So indirectly, extended recess improves grades. Plus, play has been scientifically proven to be good for your brain.

The final benefit of a longer recess is that it would improve life at home. That includes homework. If we had more time to let our energy out at school, then when we came home we would be more likely to get an early on our homework, therefor we're not staying up late trying to finish our work. We would get to bed earlier and be less tired in the morning. More exercise at school means healthier kids and healthier kids means happier parents. Not only would more recess make school-life better, it would make life at home better.

So I hope, that you, reader, agree with me that school would be a lot better with more recess. Behavior would improve, grades would improve, school would be more fun, life at home would improve, basically everything would be better with more recess. Why wouldn't we extend recess? It benefits everyone.

               My Rye History Project was about the schools in Rye, comparing and contrasting those in the olden days to now. The top four pictures are of schools in the past, and the bottom two are of our school today.

Cooliocious Docius picture I made on myoats!

This past week in science class we learned a lot about space. Our Solar System, called Sol, is part of the our galaxy called the Milky Way, and the Milky Way is part of a bunch of galaxies which form our local cluster, and our local cluster is part of a bunch of clusters that form our local super cluster, and it goes on and on and on and on and on and on some more, a few more ons, several more ons, and on. So, Earth is pretty darn small when you put it in perspective! It's just too mind-boggling! If I think about it any more my brain's going to explode, and that won't be pretty because it'll make a big gooey mess on the floor. Okay my brain didn't explode so now I'll tell you about astronomical units, or au's. Au's are a unit of measurement that astronomers developed to help them tell the planets' distance from the sun. One au = distance from earth to sun. So, earth is one au, Neptune is 30 au's, Jupiter is 5.2 au's, etc. Now, lets talk a little about Earth. How did people know the Earth was round? Well, there are several different ways, but I'll tell you a very simple way. First of all, CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS DID NOT DICOVER THE EARTH WAS ROUND=http://=http://=http://! I KNOW, ITS HARD TO BELIEVE BUT HE WAS FULL OF.... OF..... OF.... WELL HE WAS WRONG!!! People first knew the earth was round when watching ships sail out to sea. The would see as the ships slowly disappeared, the bottom of the ship going first and the mast last. Well, they figured out that they were watching as the ships went over the curve of the earth. Now, would you believe that a simple librarian figured out almost the exact size of the earth in B.C. Times?=http://! Well he did, and here's how: One day, a dude called Erastothenes walked down to the localwell. He noticed how the sun shone straight down into the well. Erastothenes then walked to a nearby town and looked into the well there. The sunlight didn't go straight down, it hit the side of the well! He now knew the earth was round. Next, he hired a guy to count the steps in between the two towns, and figured out some mathematical equations (probably involving pi), and got a very close number to the circumference of the earth. Wow! He's a nerd! That's just a small snippet of what we learned this week.