-- Blogmeister

Columbus Day has always been a day off from school on the Second monday of October that people take for granted. Everyone always just thinks that Columbus discovered the New World, blah blah blah. The truth is, that's not really the case here. He wasn't really as heroic as everyone thinks.

Don't get me wrong. He was the one who discovered the Americas and made it clear to everyone in Spain and Europe. If it wasn't for him, none of us would be here right now. He also established the Columbian Exchange, that helped all of Europe. He also spread Christianity all over America. These are all great acheivements. But I truly think that he did many more bad things than good things. First of all, all of the good things that he did had a bad side to them. He forced and threatened the Natives to learn Christianity. The Columbian exchange brought back thousands of slaves to Europe. The slaves were awful in Europe, because they caught diseases and weren't used to the enviroment, so most of them died anyway. Columbus never actually set foot on either of the Americas and brought death and destruction to the Native Americans living there. He didn't even know what he discovered before he died. Spain figured out what he really discovered fifty years later!

In my mind, Columbus is no real hero at all and the fact that he has a holiday named after him his pathetic. All in all, I really don't understand why we're celebrating Columbus Day.

My Summer Reading List

The Merchant of Death by D.J. Machale- Sci-Fi
Lockdown:Escape from Furnace by Alexander Gordon Smith- Fiction
Unwind by Neal Shusterman- Futuristic Fiction
The Lightning Theif by Rick Riordan- Fantasy
Crocodile Tears by Anthony Horowitz- Adventure/Mystery

Bridge Jumping

Bridge Jumping is fun
In the afternoon sun
It's always scary the first one
After you jump once you want to do it a ton
You feel like bullets from a gun
Until you're outdone
Even though it feels like you just begun

My Stock Project Write-up

The companies that I chose for my stock project were: Apple, Google, and Pepsico. I chose Apple because they make good products, and they invented the Ipad which increased their stock cost a lot. They also have good advertizing, and that always helps with stocks. They are a well-run company and are very successful, and pretty much everyone has on of their Ipods. I chose Google because they are a successful company that makes useful products. They came out with a new phone which I thought would be a good thing, and their graph looked very good (it costed lower than usual and was getting higher. I also chose Pepsico., because I personally love their products and I love to drink Pepsi more so than any drink. It also looked like they were making money and their graph looked like exactly what you would want it to look like. All in all, I thought I chose the right stocks
After a few weeks of watching my stocks, I wanted to make a few changes. I wanted to buy lots more Apple and drop Google, because Google was dropping like a rock and Apple was rocketing up. In the end, I made a ton on Apple and lost just about as much on Google. I think Google was definitely the wrong choice. I also advise that you should buy stocks on a low, because Google was up and it dropped. The opposite happened to Apple. You never know what to expect with stocks.
You should research a lot about companies before you buy them. If you just glance at the graph, that's never enough. Pay attention if the company is coming out with a good new product, and if they have good advertizing. If the company you wanted to buy is coming out with a well-known new item, it helps the stock out a lot. For example, when Apple came out with the Ipad, their stock skyrocketed. You also want to buy stocks that have good advertizing. This usually helps the stock out a lot too. The one thing that you don't want to do is to put a ton of money into one stock. If the stock goes down, you can lose an awful lot of money. Plan and research well before buying stocks.

For Earth Day, everyone in our grade brought in a disposable item that we use once and throw away. For example: plastic bags, plastic bottles, gum wrappers, etc. We talked and discussed everyone's items, and then we talked about the reusable alternative. I brought in one of those plastic bags you use for keeping things fresh in the refrigerator and in the kitchen. Our class thought about it and figured that you could use a tupperware instead, and you wouldn't have to throw it out. That would be much more green. We did this for everyone and now we can remember to use the greener, non-disposable version of each item.

We did a class project on medieval books. I read Crispin, and we had to do a write up and create "artifacts" on it. The picture above is my artifacts.

This is a picture of a spreadsheet that we've been working on as a math class almost all year. At the beginning of the year, we all chose three stocks. We then kept track of them and watched how much money we were making or losing. It has been a fun unit.

I did a speech in LA class about jumping off of the sagamore bridge in 3rd grade.