MY LIFE

This week we've been working no a project called My Life. I make an imovie presentation including some of the things I do in my life. It includes my family, hobbies, sports I play, and everything else in my life. It is a hard project, and we only get a week to work on it. Luckily, I have used my time semi-wisely and I think i might get it done in time. I hope I get an A+, so I can maintain my current A+ average. I am worried for others, though, that are not using their time wisely. I do not believe that they will finish their project. I am scared for my fellow classmates. I wish them the best of luck.

The Holiday Season

I like the holiday season because people tend to be more jolly in their day to day activities. Maybe it's because Christmas day is coming up. Christmas means seeing your family and possibly giving and receiving gifts. The downside to the holiday season is that it's so freaking cold. Everywhere I go means me wearing tons of layers and my face and ears and fingers are COLD. Besides from that, I enjoy the holiday season more than other seasons, well maybe it's tied with summer. Oh well.

I am thankful for...

I am thankful for my family, my friends, God, food, drink, shelter, air, earth, ground, light, dark, school, and a lot of things. I am very fortunate for all my belongings and all that my parents have provided me with. I feel luck to be where I am, and I hope to use my luck to be a good person. I will use all my gifts to help me in the future in whatever field I plan to advance in. 

Newscast Project Experience

My Newscast experience has been weird. It has been hard working with my partners and putting everything on one computer and fritzing around gettin information. I like groups of 2 better because there are 2 computers to a desk, and it works better to not have to move around. Also, I have been sick a lot of the time that we have had to work on this rojct in class. Overall, The project has been hard and maybe group projects will get easier as time presses on.

Political Humor

First of all, I'd like to say that this cartoon, in my eyes, is not picking at Muslim people at all, but is drawn to show how the world is. It's humorous because it shows that people ignore the big picture, and the main point of news, and point out the tiny thing that they find offensive. They look past the world's problems and get frustrated because of a silly mishap. The man in the cartoon is outraged by the misrepresentation of his God or leader, but totally ignores the bigger problems on the front of the newspaper.

Invention

If I could create an invention, I would create a device that would be used to listen to all my notes in my sleep, and memorize information. It would play as I'm sleeping, not disrupting me, and I'd review all my notes from that day, without active consciousness. I'd wake up the next day all reviewed and up to date on all of yesturday's information.
My invention would look like an ipod, and blend in so that no one would notice anything out of the ordinary.
I would keep it to myself because I wouldn't want everyone else getting smart as fast as I am. I wouldn't want it falling into the wrong hands, and being used for non-peaceful purposes.

This picture is very inspirational to me. It reminds me of the saying, "One man's trash is another man's treasure." It applies to today's world because all of the people around the world are so different. We all have such unique tastes and ambitions. Somethings that might mean a lot to us, might mean nothing to one of our friends. Something someone might have thrown away (like in this picture) might be something someone else has been looking for their whole life. This picture is inspiration to me because it inspires me to look for things, even in the trash! To strive for answers!

Podcast

In the last few weeks, we were assigned to make a podcast for our favorite horror movie. I chose "Quarantine" because it had me up all night. The movie went from one action scene to the next. The movie never stopped with it's fast pace horror and suspense. I tried to involve sounds in my podcast that would fit the movie. It was very fun browsing through all of the sounds to find which one i thought best represented the movie "Quarantine".

Parts from "Quarantine"

Changed my life

High School really changed my life. Before high school, I didn't care for a lot of things. I just blew off middle school, and never really gave it any effort. Now that I am in high school, I care for much more of my school work. I put more effort and time into assignments, and in return, I get better grades. Also, my grades in high school will help me get into a better collage. A better collage will get me a better job that pays more, so all in all, high school is very important to me.

Report card

The report cards for this Quarter of my Sophomore year are being sent on Tuesday this upcoming week. This has probably been one of the best, if not the best, quarter I've had yet in high school. I am anxious to see what the grades are that I will be receiving. It is always a great feeling when you have put effort into something and it comes out well or better than you have expected.

15 things to do before I die

1. Learn 5 different languages fluently
2. Play Stairway to heaven on guitar
3. See one of my favorite bands live in concert
4. Have many children
5. To be able to Count cards
6. Get to state in tennis and perform well
7. Hike the Appalachian trail
8. Live in Prague
9. Play poker at the World Series of Poker, and be on TV!
10. Be on the cover of Rolling Stones
11. Discover a cure to an incurable cancer
12. Do something unrealistically heroic to save many lives
13. Meet Marilyn Manson, Rise Against, and Radiohead, and get a picture with them all (separately)
14. Run a marathon
15. Get all A+'s on a report card

Peoria's new logos

I went to peorialogo.com and liked all of the choices but I picked the logos with the physical water showing on them. Well, first I picked the one that looked like PEOR!A because Peoria is a happenin' place. then i chose the sunny one with the water because we Peorians should be proud of the river going through out town and a lot of people sail and have fun at the river and I don't think every city has a river flowing through it.

My favorite Halloween costume

My favorite Halloween costume would have to be The Joker from the recent Batman movie. I have seen the mask at some stores and think it'd make the best costume this year because Batman was a huge movie and I think just about everyone in the world went to see it. Although I may not wear it, I hope many other people do because I think its the best idea instead of going with the ordinary themes that are out every year.

This upcoming weekend

This upcoming weekend is a 4 day weekend. We have Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday off. It is a much needed break from our rigorous homework and school work. It has been a hard beginning of school for many people and I feel that this break will get people happy and back on track for their school work. It will also give the faculty a rest and more time to plan more activities for us students. Overall I think this 4 day weekend is a BIG plus. It is a Win-win-win situation :]

Ping Pong!

On October 7th, Peoria Notre Dame had a ping pong tournament. I won my first two matches with ease defeating freshmen Drake Green and Nick somethingoranother. Either way, after cruising past them two, I had a tough match against some older kid whose name I cannot come up with at the moment. He beat me pretty easily causing me to be in the 3rd and 4th place match. I then beat Mike Unice's brother and scored 3rd place. The best thing about it was that my name was announced on the morning announcements the following day.

iPhoto Project Progress

I, here in Arizona, have read the iPhoto assignment and am looking forward to working on it when I get back to class on Tuesday. i think it will be hard finding things that resemble my name, but is the challenge of it, and I am glad to accept the challenge. Also I am looking forward to finding pictures that reflect who I am. I don't know what I'll look for, but I have a lot of time to think about it considering I won't be back until Tuesday.

Our progress so far in the Newsletter Project!

My group and I (Sebastian and Johnny) have had a lot of ups and down and changes in our plans. Today we had a lot of mini-arguments over who was doing what and how many pages, etc. By the end of class today, it seemed that we worked it all out and were happy again. I like working in group projects. I think we should do more of them because we barely ever get to do group projects anymore in high school. I think aslong as people trust eachother in their group and are willing to put time into it, that the groups work very efficiently. I think our Newsletter will be very good, and can count on my group members. We are almost done. Tomorrow is my last day in class, so I'll be sure to be working hard!

Physical Development

On the 9th page of the Notre Dame hand book, the mission statement is written: "The purpose of Peoria Notre Dame High School is to nurture the spiritual, emotional, intellectual, and physical development of (the students)."
Since I have already wrote about emotionally and spiritually developing this year, I thought I would also add my plans for physical development this year. This year I have let go a bit at working out and being as physical as I have in the past. I figured that if i worked out, or if i didn't, it really didn't affect who I am, which is true... BUT physical development is important, and even though I have never been "fat", I should not take for granted my physical status.
I believe that one should be strong physically and mentally, and I believe that in a way being physically strong makes you more confident, which makes a person more mentally strong.
I plan on running occasionally, perhaps when I have nothing to do. I do play tennis 3 times a week, but I guess i could do a little more.
If anyone has any ideas of which to help me, you can comment me.

Pages Newsletter group assignment

So far, it has been pretty fun. I like writing about topics that i actually care about. My group members are Sebastian Von Zerneck and Johnny Ho. I think these are group members, and that we will get a good grade. I chose to write about Twin day. Twin day was on Thursday of Homecoming Week. I chose it because out of all the days that we got to wear special stuff, it was the most fun and exciting. I enjoyed seeing other people dress up and what they chose.

Emotional Development

This year i plan to develop myself spiritually, but also emotionally.
I will try to be a happy person for most everything, and not let anything get me down. I plan to be optimistic about everything that i possibly can. I will look at the glass half full.
I also plan to try and help my classmates think the same way. I will try and help my classmates think as i hope to do. If we all are happy, the school will be a happier school.

PowerPoint Sant Assignment

This week in class I've been working on Researching a specific saint, and putting it into a PowerPoint. I picked Saint Matthew. I haven't got much started, but i hope to learn a lot about St. Matthew and what he did to become a saint. I hope to find out what his day to day life was and if he was martyred, or not.
I will also hopefully get to look at other people's PowerPoints, and see what saints they picked. I think most people will pick a saint with the same first name as them. I would have too, but Saint Dominic wasn't very interesting and I didn't think that i could find enough information on him.

Notre Dame Mission Statement

The Peoria Notre Dame High School mission statements says:

"Peoria Notre Dame High School, a Roman Catholic High School under the Bishop of Peoria, provides a Catholic Secondary education for the young men and women of the Peoria area.
The purpose of Peoria Notre Dame High School is to nurture the spiritual, emotional, intellectual, and physical development of our students by:
Teaching the Catholic faith and leading students to be Disciples of
Christ
Teaching the arts and sciences in a climate of academic inquiry"


I feel blessed at the fact that I am able to attend a school that puts God first as i do myself. Not every school gets the chance to pray at the beginning of class and have an all school mass every month. I feel very lucky. It will help me be a better person and a better follower of Chirst, and be a respectable member in my community. I am very thankful of the priorities Notre Dame sets for all of us.

First reaction to ITA with Mrs. Brown

At first, I was a little bit disappointed with the Technology class. I did not feel like I was being challenged. Now that we are a little further in class, I feel as though the class is getting better and better. We use different software for every project, and I'm almost starting to like the Macintosh... I will probably never like it, but at least if I have to use one, I will know how to.

StoryBoard Assignments Thoughts

I like the storyboard assignment a lot. I never knew that a Mac could actually contain something worthwhile. It shocked me in a good way. I can't wait to complete my Storyboard of "You've Got a Friend in Me". Also, I can't wait to see what everyone else has picked as their song selection. I hope i can use this information in the future to further explore Keynote.

My Spiritual Development

This year to further develop my spirituality, I plan to pay attention more at mass. I want to listen to the priest, and think of all of what he's saying. I have had trouble in the past because i could never stay concentrated. I'm hoping for that to change this year. I hope that with the help of my Church History class this year with Mr. Mahoney, that i can learn more about the church. I believe that if I know more about the church, that it will result in helping me stay more focused while I'm at mass.

Will Roger Federer win the U.S. Open? I think so

I think Roger Federer will win the 2008 U.S. Open.

Not only is Roger Federer one of the greatest tennis players who has ever played the game, but he has also won the U.S. Open for the last 4 consecutive years. This will be his 5th year. I think Roger will have difficulties when facing Andy Roddick or Novak Djokovic in the semifinals. I think he will win in 5 sets in the semifinal. When Roger faces Rafael Nadal in the final, assuming Nadal even makes it to the final, Nadal will be out of luck this time. Nadal took The French Open, and Wimbledon from Roger this year. To think that Nadal will also take The U.S. Open from Roger is absurb. Nadal will never win a hardcourt grandslam while Roger Federer is still playing tennis.