Who to thank...

This is a hard blog to write, but I'm gonna try. I'm not really thankful for anyone particularly, but I really like having Jenna and I guess Karol in class. Umm...I guess maybe working in groups with them is..fun? It's only fun working in groups when you're with smart people who know all the answers. I really have nothing to write cuz I never think about stuff like this. I mean maybe if they did a big favor for me or something, but I guess them just being there is pretty awesome. Happy Thanksgiving guys!

John Proctor...a smart idiot.

I always thought John Proctor to be the stupidest person ever since he was part of the cause of so many innocent people dying. He refused to admit that he had committed adultery until the very end when it was too late to save anyone and Abigail was the mastermind behind all of this. Proctor knew it, but as Abigail wanted, he remained silent about the affair. On the contrary, Proctor bettered himself at the end of the book. He refused to allow Danforth to present the document to the public because he knew that if he allowed it, then Rebecca Nurse and the others would have died all because of a lie. They would be looked down on upon because they refused to "confess". So in a way, Proctor was an idiot with wits.

Direction?

I don't think the class needs anything to be changed, but honestly, I don't like the whole idea of studying all this witchcraft stuff. It seems like back then people were pretty stupid and gullible. I would actually like to study maybe Asian literature. Okay, I know that sounds stereotypical since I AM in fact Asian, but I've never had the chance to study that stuff before. So yeah, that's the direction I would like the class to go.

House of...what?

House of seven gables...interesting name. You would think that it'd be called the Pyncheon House or -something, but I guess they thought the name was sooo cursed that they named it the House of Seven Gables. Maule's nephew was brilliant. The house itself is so unique. It's like there are seven mini houses morphed into one. I guess that's how castles are. Castles have so many rooms and corridors that it's easy for someone to just keep to themselves in a castle full of people. I bet the house would be a great place to play hide-and-seek!

Ms. Hepzibah probably gets extremely lonely. I wonder how long she has lived alone. Waking up everyday to loneliness would make me depressed. She's a strong person and I guess she's become even stronger with Phoebe around. Phoebe is like an angel of love showering her love dust on everyone. She totally upgrades the name 'Pyncheon'. This house holds alot of interesting people. Where each of them have completely different personalities. Overall, I think this house is cool.

Sinners in the Hands of God

Jonathan Edwards seemed to be a very powerful speaker--so powerful that he resigned over doctrinal differences in which many people were offended by his way of preaching and its content. I think that Edwards had a very startling way of making his points across in the sermon. He must have been very brave and shameless to be out of the ordinary especially since he was accusing everyone left and right. I also found it interesting how he used so many metaphors in which were very vivid. Since he resigned over doctrinal differences, I feel like those who outrageously disagreed with his preachings were very ignorant and close-minded people. They did not accept his originality maybe because they refused to admit their own sins.

Arrivals? There Goes the Neighborhood

I remember back in 6th grade, I transferred out of a private school to Ogden. I was pretty scared that I wouldn't know how to use my locker or buy school lunch since I was a newbie at all of this. I was entering into the pre-IB there for 6th-8th graders.

I actually didn't make it into the program just like that. I did pretty well on the test and was invited for the interview. I told the interviewer Ms. Dawn that I was a pretty independent person--which I am. I never ask my parents for help on homework or anything. I could tell that Ms. Dawn was pretty impressed since I was only a 6th grader and I didn't need any help from my parents. Then she questioned me if I was going to go straight to Lincoln Park for the actual IB program. I said I wasn't sure which threw everything off. My parents told me that I should've said that "I would consider". I received a letter saying that I didn't make it in which made me cry. I don't know why I cried. It wasn't a program that I was looking forward to, but I could tell that my mom was disappointed.

A couple weeks later, they sent another letter saying that I was accepted into the program. I was pretty excited going to a new school. On the first day, my mom dropped me off in front of the school. It was line up at the playground and I lined up with kids my age who were also new to the school. I felt kind of lonely since the girl in front of me had her mom with her.

We entered the school and it turned out to be a pretty nice school. The library was stocked with all kinds of books and one half was dedicated to nice computers. My first class was homeroom with Ms. Slavens. She was woman only about 5 foot 5 with pinkish tannish skin. Her face had unusual wrinkles. I don't know her age so maybe she was pretty old to be having wrinkles. She had black sunglasses on her forehead that matched her raven hair and dark eyes. She seemed kind of strict at first, but I could tell that she loved to laugh.

My next class was with Ms. Hueberman. If any of you guys know Ms. Heesemann, I'll tell you that they're similiar. However, Hueberman was way more sympathetic. She was a nice lady who explained the pre-algebra to us pretty well. However, I don't consider her as a good of a teacher as Mr. Calderon. He was my social studies teacher at Ogden who up to this point, is my favorite teacher. Mr. Calderon always wore dress shirts tucked in with the kind of pointy shoes that stars in Mexican movies would wear. He was a very cool teacher.

There was another person who worked in the school that was...interesting. HEr name was Miss Hogan. She was by far the scariest security guard EVER. Yes, even scarier than Mr. Engstrom. Throughout the year, she would turn up at school with her hair every color from blonde to purple. She was nice to the good kids and mean to the troublemakers, but I was always afraid that one day she would suddenly yell at me for doing something. Like many of my teachers, she was strict, but she would smile occasionally. Let's just say she was a very respected woman.

Before Ogden, I went to a Christian private school. Back then, I was VERY innocent until I went to Ogden. I didn't know who Rihanna or Fergie or even Chris Brown was. All of my friends at Ogden exposed me to this kind of stuff. At Ogden, I also LOVED how we had off-campus lunch. State street was filled with places like Subway and everything. My absolute favorite place would be Go Roma. It had the best pizza and 'potato sticks'.

Overall, I enjoyed my year at Ogden. However, when I came to Whitney for the academic center, I kind of lost touch with my friends and now some of them are here. I rarely talk to them or even say hi to them because now they're preppy and showoffs, but I'm happy here at Whitney Young.

Intro of myself

Hi guys!

I'm Hannah and I'm a freshman. Truthfully, American Lit is my favorite class. I have a sister and a brother who also came here--Grace and Riley. My hobbies are biking, reading, volleyball, cooking, and some other stuff. I also play instruments: the piano and the cello. I'm ABC (American Born Chinese) and I love it. I actually learn all my Chinese from watching Chinese soap operas with my mom.

One thing that my family loves to do is travel. I've never had a regular boring summer ever since 4th grade. I've gone all over Europe. I went to France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, and so on. We even got a cuckoo clock from Germany (it always got really annoying so it's just a wall decoration now). I've been to Alaska--which has probably been my most favorite trip ever. We flew to Anchorage, Alaska and pretty much explored. We went to Denali National Park and saw all sorts of animals. I saw a couple bears and elk, but what I really liked about the park was that the plants and vegetation there were so colorful. There were red ferns and purple trees and such. One time my dad took us to a "Christmas in July" dinner sort of thing. We went to kind of a log cabin and ate a Christmas dinner with other people we had never met before (most of them were old people). The employees put on a show and I think I remember it was kind of weird.

I also went to the Bahamas, Jamaica, and the Grand Cayman Islands. On that trip, I kissed a string ray and a dolphin. Pretty cool, eh? (It's not that big of a deal.) When we went to Jamaica, we climbed a waterfall. It was the scariest thing ever! Everyone held hands and basically walked up the waterfall, but it was really hard going against the water. The Jamaicans there were like professionals. I saw some of them hop up the waterfall. I've also been around China. Hong Kong is my absolute favorite since my parents were born there, but I also loved going Guilum. There, we went to a cave in the mountainside with pretty cool stalagmites and stalactites. One group of stalactites resembled a lion and some stalagmites resembled the city of Shanghai. We also took a boat trip down the Yangtze River where the tour guide showed us some cracks on the side of the canyons. People were actually buried inside the rocks (a long, long time ago, it was normal for people to be buried there)!

I hope someday that I can go to Japan, South Korea, Australia, and maybe even Iceland. I'm a person who likes to experience things by actually going to the places rather than just looking at pictures which is why I love nature and science. My dream job is to work for National Geographic as a writer or a scientist. That's a little bit about me..hope you enjoyed my post!