thanks, anita;) I like your insight on accepting your emotions. There is a quote that says “Accept and acknowledge the dark parts of yourself, then can you only bring light and heal the those parts within you.” I think I need to work on accepting the doubts that I have of myself and make peace with them so I can let them go and heal. Although Apocalypto is a bit of a violent film, it portrays the Aztecs and the Mayans quite well. The mayans value strength and bravery and it is quite amazing how one with nature in the rainforest they can be. in the movie, the protagonist Jaguar Paw faces many obstacles such as his family ridiculing him for not being able to have a child with his wife. he survives the aztec takeover of his territory and also manages to escape the aztec human sacrifice at tenochtitlan after the aztecs believe a solar eclipse was the sign that the gods were satisfied. he had hidden his wife and their child in a cistern and he promised them that he would come back. his love for her managed to get him through all the trials and tribulations of the aztecs. he watched his father chief get killed by aztec warrior, watched his wife get beaten by the aztecs (before he hid her in the cistern), had to walk barefoot on rocky, eroded terrain to tenochtitlan (enduring the sight of emaciated poor people on the outskirts) and when he was spared from the sacrifice. he and some other mayan men were taken to a field to play lacrosse where the captives were to run and the aztec warriors used them as target practice. although, he was wounded by an arrow to his side, he managed to kill the aztec warrior’s son and run to the corn fields. he managed to evade the aztecs by hiding in a tree and out of luck since the tree was occupied by a jaguar which chased him toward the aztecs, but upon coming upon the aztecs, the jaguar turned on the aztec warrior and the other aztec men had to kill the jaguar. the aztecs thought it was a bad omen because they respected the jaguar, but the chief warrior said to continue the chase because he wanted revenge for his son. anyway, the aztecs continued the chase and the closer they got to mayan territory, the more Jaguar Paw was at an advantage. he knew the animal traps he built and he was able to use the rainforest to his advantage. he used a huge leaf sack to capture wasp to let out on the aztecs. he hid himself in the long grasses in the rainforest and used a bamboo shooter and wooden poison darts (poison obtained through a poison dart frog) to defend against the aztecs. one aztec leader was bitten by a snake and passed. Jaguar Paw went into quicksand and when he got out, he looked like a jaguar. the aztecs were shocked by his appearance, but they continued to chase him.
Jaguar Paw gets to the lake with rapids and waterfall and he tries to cross it but it’s hard, the Aztecs see him and think it’s the end for him. however, Jaguar Paw yells to them “It’s not over!” and he swims back to the shore and tells the Aztecs and he has confidence, he tells them “This is my forest. My father, Flint Sky hunted before me and when i’m gone my sons will hunt here. I am a hunter.” The aztec chief decided that they would all jump into the water and take their chances. one aztec warrior hit his head on a stone and some others drowned. Jaguar Paw managed to swim to shore with the chief chasing him when the aztec chief shot an arrow (wooden shaft, stone head) at him, it went barely missing his left aorta, but Jaguar Paw stood up and broke the arrow out and he stood facing the aztec warrior. the aztec chief came with his stone bladed knife at him, but was speared by a net made of vines and animal bone. the other aztecs looked at their leader, but still continued to chase him. he gets to the territory where he sees his wife in a cistern and it is raining; he is worried about her drowning, but he can’t stop and help her because the aztecs are chasing him, however seeing her gives him strength and happiness. there are now three surviving aztecs chasing him. one of him and they have a fight, Jaguar Paw gets hit in the forehead with a aztec wooden club, but he he uses the blow to his advantage since he slides down the soil to a wooden club which he grips and he comes upon the aztec who is unaware and hits him on the head and Jaguar Paw manages to kill the aztec warrior. there are still two aztec warriors chasing him, but they stop when the spanish fleet comes and the two aztecs go to meet them, while Jaguar Paw and his wife, child and new baby go to the mountains. i think this movie is great because it is about persistence and using all you’ve got in life to survive. i admire Jaguar Paw how everyone had ridiculed him and also he had felt fearful of leading his father’s tribe one day to becoming a survivor and a true leader. when Jaguar Paw gets conquered by the Aztecs, the aztec chief warrior tells him his name is Almost, telling him that he only achieves his goals in life halfway, that he is weak and at first he is submissive, but when he sees the aztecs and all the horrors, he uses them as fuel for strength and also his love for his wife and promise made him want to stay alive. i feel this movie is about perseverance and trying your hardest in life, even if times get tough, to build strength and keep going. i might have gotten the events in mixed up order, but i think i summarized the movie’s themes okay. Jaguar Paw ran at least fifty miles in two days while he was injured. also while in the cistern, his wife tried to climb out by using vines tied to a log which she tried to hook onto a ledge to climb out while she was in labor, but the log ended falling. yet the strength, bravery and tenacity of the mayans as well as the aztecs (although i think they were portrayed as violent warriors and most of my class liked the mayans better) is amazing. i was at first stressed because i had sats tomorrow and read 60 pages in nickel and dimed for ap english test thursday, 24 pages for ap world history for tuesday’s ch.14 test and the physics honors test on projectile motion was moved to monday. i also had a mock ap exam in ap english which took an hour today and the first passage was hard, but the rest were easy, but the length of the exam was grueling. i also have to type up a six- paragraph essay for ap world history by monday. after watching the movie, i think about how much Jaguar Paw suffered and realize that he had so much more trauma than I did and he used it to become a more resourceful and stronger person, so I managed to think that whenever I feel stressed, I can think back to Jaguar Paw and how he lived through so much and know that I can be just as strong and get through it all. The whole time our class was watching the movie, we were all cheering for Jaguar Paw and hoping he would stay safe, there were times when we worried about him=, but when he got to his territory and started believing in himself and asking the gods of nature to give him strength, i realized that he was going to make it. i feel like i have a connection with Jaguar Paw because i enjoy nature and being strong and at times i may doubt myself, but i also have to take the doubt and use it to motivate me to go out there and try.

you’re welcome, anita;) glad you enjoyed it and you are a star, one’s light and compassion that transcends and spreads to provide healing for the world. I did well on my ap world history and i am sad that i got a 90 on my pre-calc quiz which i was expecting an 100, but the reason is because the stress of four (physics honors teacher usually gives a test day after lab, though there would be one) tests made me strained and there was also a time limit to the test, but i think i did pretty well. for ap english i got at least an 85 and the physics honors quiz was moved to tomorrow. my lunch buddy is great, he is helping me learn shortcuts to calculating polynomial functions and also figuring out how to time manage without stress in my schedule. senior year schedule planning was today and he and i were discussing our classes and we were both encouraging each other to do well in math and science. he told me that i didn’t have to be great at mechanical and electronics, survival like my other friend in ap english, but i could learn them and that i shouldn’t rush myself or compare myself to him since he has had more time to study that material and i am still working on it. i am currently learning a lot about first aid and survival and also am understanding more about mechanical gears from taking physics honors and i find that my friend in ap english isn’t so high up in intelligence that i can’t be similar like him. yet, i’m still not knowledgeable about graphing calculators or radios ( i think i’m going to do some research on graphing calculators and mechanical gears first since i feel like i am using that in my life right now or might need it in my career for gene therapy), but i think i can learn. i have learned lots about gears, pulleys, computers, pre-calc, genetics and first aid (mostly from the two ap english friends, since my lunch buddy isn’t much of a science person) from my three friends. for another friend in ap english who is great at english and computers (much like the other friend in ap english) is also helping me build up my self-confidence, literature skills and computer skills. all three of them are entertaining, laidback and quite knowledgeable with math and science and i feel glad to have them. there are times when my two ap english friends team up and compete against me, so then i have to ally with my lunch buddy to also learn skills to compete. my lunch buddy is very encouraging and told me that since my unweighted gpa is at least 93 and my weighted (extra credits from ap classes) is 98.7 (he helped me come up with a way calculate it quickly). my math and science gpa unweighted is a 91 and weighted is at least 92, so he said i would do well in ap calculus next year. the guy who is great with electronics said that if you do well in pre-calc (preferably honors, however i have looked at my lunch buddies notes in pre-calc honors and they seem comprehensible) , you should do well in ap calculus. my other ap english friend who is also in physics honors with me told me that i would do well in ap calc since i was doing okay in physics honors. it is great to have encouraging friends. also all three of us are helping each other pick our classes and preparing for college and career since we all share interests in computers, science and math. i feel bad for my special friend because it seems like as a i gravitate toward math and science and he likes english and history, we often just exchange a brief hi when we see each other because we are both busy on our separate paths. also he seems jealous that i have found new friends who have higher gpas than he does and that i spend most of my time thinking about math and science more. i wish i could tell him that i still care about him, but my three guy friends are pulling me in the math and science direction and it’s hard for me to pursue what i care about and also lookout for him at the same time. there are times when i doubt myself, but my lunch buddy is always there encouraging me telling me that i can learn the things i need to in life and my two ap english friends (when they are not competing against me) are very encouraging.

thanks anita;) i find that in physics honors i tend to understand one chapter then don’t understand the next and then understand the following after, it’s like a pattern. i like physics honors and pre-calc a lot this year. my pre-calc teacher has taught me many ways to approach a polynomial problem and there are times when i can look at a polynomial and spot it’s standard form and graph right away just by using y-int. and end behavior and some mental foiling. the physics honors teacher is quite encouraging even though he goes fast and he isn’t as laidback. i like both physics honors and pre-calc since we solve real world problems such as calculating interest and also distance of a car, we also do experiments with probability and also physics labs. today’s lab on projectile motion (motion of objects in 2D) was fun. my group of three people (including me) had to maneuver a steel ball on an incline ramp to hit a petri dish a set distance away. i was enjoying discussing pre-calc with my lunch buddy today he is in pre-calc honors and he learned about asymptotes first (he let me look at his notes and i learned them), but now we are both learning about writing polynomials with degrees and certain number of integer zeroes and we are both enjoying our class. i am currently struggling with analyzing and inferencing events in ap world history, sometimes you have to look at a document or a source and infer who the author or the point of view is and it can be hard for some documents for document based essay that only give minor information, it’s like you have to work with the documents and arrive at a conclusion. also there is only 15 minutes to read and analyze twelve documents on the ap exam which is may 12 and 40 minutes to write the essay. for ap english, i wish the class wouldn’t get sidetracked at times and i wish the teacher would get to more of the basis of how to write a good essay rather than focus on other written works and looking for rhetorical terms. i think have four quizzes tomorrow: one in pre-calc, one in physics honors, one in ap english and one in ap world history. it is great to have my lunch buddy around because currently we are both helping each other do well in math and science. he is also encouraging me to do well and be more laidback. i think for ap world history i will have a test on friday on ch. 14 which has a comparative essay on it and also will probably have to type another comparative essay over the weekend (i hope not). i have to read 20 pages for ap english by next thurs in nickel and dimed. anyway sats are this saturday. every customer who comes to my restaurant asks me about my sats and it really annoys me, i think sat scores should be entirely confidential and also i have so much other stuff in school with my grades that i really don’t want customers asking me about sats and college. it’s like my parents and the customers are trying to rush me through life. i just want to focus on keeping my grades up and also doing some studying for the sats. my lunch buddy is great b/c he helps me review my notes and when we help each other review terms from math and english courses, i find that i memorize it better. he came up with the analogy that when i felt pressured by people like my parents, i could imagine myself as a bird flying high towards the sky and tell myself that i am strong, healthy and smart.

Also SATs are this saturday and my parents have become more demanding about my education. they ragged about my grades and if i fail a test in 2 subjects they never stop ragging me. i think i had three test all on the same day: ap world history, ap english and pre-calc, i received a 68 on ap world history, 60 on ap english and 97 on my pre-calc. it was stressful trying to prepare for three tests all at once and have to focus on keeping my grades in physics honors that it just made me quite stressed. these days my friends tend to drift away and some become closer. i am glad to have three loyal friends in ap world history and also my lunch friend. sometimes when people talk behind my back, my lunch friend tells me to ignore them. i also have a friend who is a girl that i’ve known since freshman year and she and i share a lot of the same stresses about college, grades and classes. it’s good to have these four people and also to know you, anita are always here for me. thanks for being so encouraging;) when i felt like my head was spinning, my lunch buddy and the girl helped me to study for physics honors. i am glad i am learning about projectile motion now because the equations are relatively easy and there is no calculating trigonometric functions using vector diagrams. i appreciate my four friends’ ability to be laidback and also to keep things simple. the girl i’m friends with is more like me since she tries really hard and she and i have both entered a period in which we are just going to try to let things happen instead of driving ourselves crazy with worry over school grades. we still work hard, but we try to not be too hard on ourselves and laugh at ourselves when we make a mistake. it can be hard for both of us at times, but we’re both encouraging each other. she told me today that sometimes she just doesn’t care anymore and she hates the competition and how she feels like she is all alone and i realize i feel that way sometimes. i told her that i felt the same way sometimes and that we should try to help each other, she and i both felt better after that. anyway my lunch buddy was listening to both us talking (we share the same lunch) and he told both me and my friend that the important thing is to enjoy life, keep things simple (i always envy the way he takes notes in such a simple, yet easy understand manner) and not to worry about every little grade you get, just let it go if you do bad on a test, know that you can do better next time. one of my friends in ap world history is like this, he is always laidback and he says the best thing in life when you are stressed is to take a nap, workout or just hang with friends, just live your life as if you didn’t have that stress and when you are ready to face whatever cause your stress imagine yourself running through the obstacle and your feet developing wings carrying you past to the finish line (he’s a track runner, so he always comes up with these analogies), he is encouraging me to try for track as well. anita, i’m glad you also have an daily exercise routine, that’s great;) I think i need more ideas on how to work my core muscles, do you have any ideas? i usually do yoga for flexibility, but sometimes my muscles are tight from running, yet i can do a split.

Thanks anita for the insight;) You are a very motivational person;) thanks for saying i am wise;) I like the turtle analogy, the turtles that are born close to the water are like the turtles who are born wealthy and seem to have the least obstacles while the turtles who aren’t are the ones who face obstacles throughout life. i agree that we have to play and accept the circumstances we are dealt. There are some people I know who are like the ‘untouchables’ in India’s caste system and my heart goes out to them. i read an article about an untouchable whose parents were construction miners decide to run for president. i think it goes to show that no matter how bad the situation is, there is still hope for the better, it all matters on your attitude. there are people at my school who are ridiculed because of their appearance (weight, race, acne) and it makes me more compassionate towards them. there is a girl with downs syndrome that people constantly make fun of the way she talks and even though people laugh at me for asking her to come sit with me and my friends, i don’t care. i agree that your environment often affects you as a person. i think everyone wishes they were rich and had many material things, but i am more concerned about just having health and happiness. i agree that money is important, but sometimes our society focuses too much on money that they lose sight of the true meaning of life. i agree that part of my distress comes from the fact that my parents are always busy as compared to my friends’ parents who seem to have easier jobs at eight hours instead of usual twelve hours my parents and me (i help them) have to work. thanks for saying, i am good at both the tangible and intangible:) i find that i don’t take some of the things most people take for granted such as being able to afford a trip to disneyland because with the restaurant taking up all the time, i am mostly just grateful for having friends and having an education. if i could pick anywhere to go in the world, it would be to a buddhist monastery to meditate and be more aware in life, hiking in nature or up a mountain or working out at a gym. i never liked tv, video games , anime or manga or taking a trip somewhere with so much glamour. i am more of a person who wants to spend some time near a lake fishing or out camping looking up at the stars. when people complain about what they don’t have or how they will never get to where the wealthy and intelligent are, i tune them out, i try to be grateful for being alive and be hopeful in life. in I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak, ed kennedy loses his father at a young age. his father was always a loving person who encouraged ed, now his mother takes out her sadness on ed by saying he is not good enough, always saying he is useless compared to all his other brothers. ed ends up being a cab driver with no sense of direction in life, yet he loves this girl audrey. however, he believes his friend marv is better for her because he has a business and a secure future and marc is a professional gambler. his life changes at nineteen when he stops a bank robbery and soon messages written on aces began arriving in the mail asking him to help with places where people who have lost someone, are in poverty or just need encouragement. ed doesn’t believe he is a hero, but he realizes that he is obligated to do it since he was threatened by two men. he goes to help a girl at her track meet named sophie, pretends to be jimmy for an widow who lost her husband in the military, teaches two warring brothers to unite and helps brighten some poor people and more. when ed feels like he is done with the aces in the card stack, he is relieved, yet he realizes the experience has made him feel like he has some worth in society. ed is shocked when there is a last card, the joker and it states his mother’s address, audrey’s address, marv’s address and also ritchie’s ( a friend of ed’s who is an orphan and doesn’t do much except play with radios and gamble). he realizes that he has to face his mother’s criticism, state his love for audrey (successful) and find out why marv is so stingy with money (turns out marv wanted to keep his money to give to the poor and also to make sure he had enough to live by) and ritchie is a loner and just needs comfort. after completing the last card, ed is greeted by the two men who threatened him and the person who started this and they congratulate him, they tell him that they wanted to make him feel more worthy and also that it was up to him to continue the story. ed meets the released bank robber who he discovers purposefully robbed the bank and set this in store for ed. the bank robber says this to ed ‘I told you before that you were a dead man. are you still a dead man?” the bankrobber knew that ed kennedy didn’t have a future in life and he got arrested just so he could plan a way to help ed and also the robbery brought some news to ed. anyway, ed answers that he isn’t a dead man anymore. the bankrobber says “good, then my work is done.” ed can’t believe that the bankrobber went to jail for all those people ed helped and he realizes he may never see the bank robber or those two men again, but he is going to start living his life, maybe going back to college and studying science (his passion) before his father died and he didn’t feel like life was much anyway. i think it is great that ed was able relive his life again and also be successful with audrey (whom her challenge was that she never let herself love someone because she had been betrayed so many times). anyway, i have been busy toning my body and i am limiting junk food like cookies, donuts and chocolate and eating healthier foods such as kale, brown rice (i’ve been eating rice since i was seven and i love it). i haven’t eaten fast food or pizza for two years and also haven’t drank soda or eaten chips in three years. i limit myself to three cookies per week than i skip three weeks and i usually eat oatmeal raisin or cinnamon with less sugar. i haven’t had a donut in 6 months, but sometimes if i do eat one, i make sure it is plain and also only eat one in a month than for five months, i don’t eat it. i only drink coffee once every three months and i haven’t eaten a bagel (200 calories)in since months. i hate it when some of my friends send me holiday packages with cakes, candies and also cookies and other unhealthy stuff because i don’t want to eat it. it annoys me when they think i’m too skinny, but i want to be healthy and i am currently 115 pounds and 5’ 5”. some of my friends are overweight or they complain about pain in their joints. if i do eat something unhealthy even if it is very moderate, i always have a workout to cut the calories. some of my friends think because i work out, i can eat this stuff and they think i’m too skinny which really annoys me. i want to be healthy and eat well. after my workouts, i typically refuel on protein and vegetables and healthy carbohydrates not junk food. i don’t want to be like them. this is why i appreciate my friends who enjoy working out, having education and also community service more. also when rush hour comes at my restaurant my parents think they burn calories, but it really isn’t the best way to tone. toning requires stretching, endurance, strength training, agility and cardio which i spend an hour each day working out. i did track for two years in high school and think i will try out again. sprints and heavy endurance burn more calories, but toning requires a more moderate workout. i think i will be a thrower, sprinter and distance runner. i have SATs february 20th, but i’m not worried about them because i have good teachers who help by telling me what may be on the SATs. i wish my parents would stop ragging me about my education because i haven’t gotten anything less than an 82 overall average in my life. they think i should drop my extracurriculars of community service and working out to focus all on education, but i strive for balance. next year, my senior year i will join mock trial (learn how to debate, lawyer, learn public speaking) and also the math team. i currently have community service in voices and also paranormal society and garden club on thursdays. i want to join art club, but it conflicts with my time on tuesdays, but i like the idea of doing murals especially to repay back the high school that has given me so much. rush hour is straining on my parents, but i try to laugh at just be grateful i’m alive in life. a lot of the customers don’t like me because i’m a buddhist wiccan and after meditation my aura radiates a fierce positive energy and they seem to think it is uncomfortable to be around me. i’m glad i have friends who don’t care about my religion and when i radiate fierce positive energy and send it to others who need healing, they enjoy it and i find that they are attracted to it. my two friends, one who is great at english and the other who is good at electronics find me quite inspirational at times when i radiate fierce soul energy. it also comes when i have dreams of angels or buddha. i think most of my dreams have meaning, last night i had a terrible dream that i walked into a dark abandoned house for the winter because i was poor. it turned out to be the den of a gang and i got picked up and thrown out and my head got a bump from where it hit the snow mountain. i wonder what it means.

Thanks anita. i like your advice that not everyone who appears self-assured is all self-assured. it reminds me of illusion vs. reality in the great gatsby of how people sometimes hide their insecurities behind wealth. i feel bad for gatsby because did so many things in acquiring wealth for daisy, dedicating everything he had to that dream that he lost focus in everything else and when he couldn’t have daisy, he was devastated. i felt like gatsby spent all his time in an illusionary dream that he couldn’t have and when his reality was given to him, he realized he wasted all his life in a pursuit of something he couldn’t have. he was never happy without daisy and didn’t want to move forward and kept focusing on the past. i like the buddha quote: “live in the present because you can’t change the past and it only makes you sad, looking to the future makes you anxious, so live in the present and enjoy every moment of it since how you live now is how you go about creating your future day to day.” although, i do think some people are more self-assured in life than others. if and when i have children, i hope that my child/children will learn the values of hard work, chasing their dreams and also to be self-assured of themselves. pre-calc is becoming more and more fun, most of the students are shy and hardworking and they are compassionate and help each other, i wish all my classes were like this. the teacher explains things in great detail and simplifies things such as when solving complex fractions with variables, you don’t have to multiply by the reciprocal and drive yourself crazy foiling, you can just multiply the numerator and denominator by the common denominator and work from there. also i never understood end behavior of polynomials or pascal’s triangle in algebra 2 honors very well because the teacher just gave us the formulas and just told us the patterns and we were expected to memorize them, my pre-calc teacher goes in-depth with the process and she explains why the end behavior of a polynomial may go in opposite directions with the arrows with odd leading exponent, to positive or negative infinity or go in same directions with even exponent. she also explained multiplicity better than my algebra 2 honors teacher. i liked both teachers, but my algebra 2 honors teacher was more strict while my pre-calc teacher is more laidback. i am currently trying to wrap my head around vector motion and projectile motion and using trigonometric functions to calculate the direction of a car that is traveling in physics honors. we have to draw diagrams using vectors that describe the path of the car as it travels in a distance of different cardinal directions at different angles on a coordinate plane. it can be confusing where to place the angels in the diagram or which distance is the vertical and which is the horizontal at times and in physics honors most of the students just are independent and work individually so if you don’t understand something you have to learn it yourself or hope the teacher explains it well, but the teacher usually explains it quickly and doesn’t go into specifics so it can still be unclear. i have an 84 in that class right now because i received a 71 on a quiz, i think i have a test on tuesday on vectors and i hope i do well on it. in ap english, everyone is quite sociable and i enjoy being around my friends, but they are too sociable at times and sometimes i don’t feel like i’m receiving the education i need. I feel like everyone has tangible talents such as good at english, good at electronics or good at math. however i feel like i am good at the intangible things like comforting people, science (experiments and exploring the world) and things like health and spiritual matters. sometimes i feel lesser because the people who have tangible talents can demonstrate them while i’m more vast and broad. i am more adventurous than logical and sometimes it makes me feel like i don’t have anything tangible to offer to the world. however my friend who is great at english told me today that sometimes the intangible things like love matter more in life than the tangible things because they create lasting memories, can be given to anyone, anywhere and also last forever. i am still working on becoming quicker thinking in problem solving and probability and stats, learning more about electricity and computers, but i truly enjoy science and helping people the most. i want the job i take to help the most people as possible whether it is gene therapy for cancer, reiki or military/police force. one of my friends whom i was sitting at lunch today told me that learning takes time and that it was great that i enjoyed pre-calc (he’s in honors, but i also understand his notes b/c pre-calc involves mostly algebra which i’m good at) and that i was good at science. he isn’t much of a science person, but he does like physics since it is mostly math. he and i share the same view that english and history are easy, but not very interesting and math and science are better. he encourages me not to be so stressed out over my grades because things always work out in the end. he is a good student, but he is quite laid-back and it is great to have someone who just doesn’t care what others think and enjoys learning just for the sake of learning. i need to be more like him. he often laughs at himself if he fails a test and resolves to study again, he doesn’t freak out like i do and start thinking that all the other tests will end up being bad as well. he keeps his notes simple so he doesn’t need to go crazy trying to memorize so many things, while i take extensive notes b/c i’m afraid i will miss something important. he is very simplistic and enjoys learning about lots of things but i think he and i are similar in the idea that we both are learning how to live in a competitive high school. he doesn’t seem to notice the competition though (it’s probably b/c he has mostly honors and college prep while i have ap and honors) or if he sees it he doesn’t let it affect him. he accepts that some people are more knowledgeable on some things than he is, but he doesn’t seem to mind. he is just focused on what he is interested in which also is computer programming (me too) and math. i often find myself wishing i could be more like one of my friends in ap english who seems to have everything: he knows how to communicate self-assuredly, he is athletic and healthy, he knows about electronics (graphing calculator which i wish i knew more about), computers (of which i and my lunch buddy are going to study in jave next year). both me and my friend at lunch know mostly math, share interest in reading especially in our free time, working out and community service. i also enjoy first aid and survival which the guy in ap english and i are on equal terms on. i just hope i do well in physics honors this year and ap world history which i have a 79 in b/c sometimes i’m not sure how to analyze the changes and continuities in a civilization or the similarities and differences. i’m more worried about physics honors though because i like the class, although it is challenging at times.

Thanks anita;) I realized that yesterday, I also lost one of my goals of joining the military because my parents didn’t think I was strong enough, but I’m thinking of building up my health and immune system and reapplying after college. i’m struggling in ap world history because i find that i need time to think about what i write first and provide a good analysis why this event happened as result of this and it can be hard trying to provide evidence and reasons for similarities and differences between political, economic or religious structures of countries (planning is only 15 minutes and the essay is 40 minutes). i often have to lay things out in detail before i see things it takes me time to go over my notes to process things. there are students in my physics honors class that can memorize a concept and apply it five seconds after they have heard the lecture and i feel so incompetent to them because i have to take another 15 minutes to completely look over and process everything. i often find myself feeling dumb because a lot of my friends are better, quicker thinkers at math than i am, but i think it’s because they have been practicing longer than i have. i have just discovered my interest in math and science and working my way to becoming better. my pre-calc teacher is great, she explains things quite simplistically that it’s not hard, i know how to quickly solve rational functions and it is cool and fun instead of the tedious long equations that i had in former math classes. my pre-calc teacher has shortcuts and simpler ways to do things. i am learning lots in physics honors such as calculating distance and speed of cars and using trigonometric functions to figure out the angles (find the direction) or magnitude (distance covered), it can be challenging at times because it can be a lot to process at first, but after i review my notes, i realize it isn’t too bad. these days however there are times when i feel so inadequate compared to my friends. i have a friend who knows computer programming, electronics (especially graphing calculators and radios). he is always experimenting with ways to draw a diagram on a graphing calculator or how to rewire a transistor radio, or how to manipulate a website. i am good with first aid, nature and i know basic survival like he does, but some of the things he knows are so cool that i wish i was him at times. i am still working on how to make my mind think faster and calculate faster, which it has made some progress, yet sometimes compared to him i feel so inadequate. i wish i knew the things he knew. i’m thinking of taking a java, electronics class and calculus class next year so i can learn some things and get a start and maybe try to experiment on my own. i just wish i knew where to start and how to stay motivated because high school has become more competitive and even friends are competing with friends now. he and another one of guys who is also my friend and his, yet they are teaming up to help each other in english and math and i feel left out. yet i also have some other friends who can also help me with school and we are often together planning ways to advance in the competition while those two guys (mentioned above as my friends work together to compete against me).i enjoy reading to relax, but he enjoys playing with electronics and discovering new things. i think my special friend and i are drifting away because we have new friends and it is always awkward when we run into each other, we just smile friendly smile at each other or sometimes don’t even look at each other. i currently have many friends in track, paranormal society and also friends who share my interests. the two guys i am competing with are quite intelligent and one is really good at english and the other is good at math and i feel like i have lots to do to keep up with them together. there are times when i don’t know where to start or how i ‘m going to catch up with them or i think i’m so inadequate. i know for sure that i want to learn how to process and calculate things really quickly and also work with computers and electronics.