Thursdays

Alright, since I'm starting this blog in the middle of the year instead of the beginning like I should have I feel like I should explain what happens on Thursdays at my school. So, from what I hear, this is not all that common, but on Thursdays our classes are cut by 5 minutes and we get something we call "extended learning time" at the end of third period so we can do homework and stuff. In other words: study hall. Some of us use the time to get help in whatever class we're in and some of the other students use it to relax after learning. For me it depends how much homework I have.

Okay, now that you know how MY Thursdays are panned out, I'll just tell you about each class and again, this might differ from what you have done or are going to do because not all schools are the same and all teachers are definitely unique.



1st Period: I have French. We'll just call my teacher Mr. Frank (I'm not going to give real names of people I'm just going to give them pen names). He is a really cool teacher, one of those teachers who can crack a joke randomly and the class doesn't find it cheesy or corny - unless it really is cheesy or corny. We already learned about greeting people, describing people and ourselves and how to order from a cafe. Now we are learning about time and we did the most fun thing ever - feel free to advise this to your teacher if you ever learn about time. So first he got out a play clock and made some times and had us answer - he did something called cold call when you call out a random student for an answer. After picking on a few students, he let the students come up and cold call other students. It was hilarious!

"Can we pick on the same person over and over," Tommy had asked.
"No..." Mr. Frank answered, "But I will take that as you volunteering to come up here. Come on up."
Tommy makes a time and looks around for a second before calling out his three victims. "Samuel!" He called out.
"I knew it!" Samuel shouted.
The whole class laughed as he tried to decipher the confusing time.

After that we went on with our usual partner work and class ended before we could really finish.

2nd Period: Honors English
Now some of you may think that it's not possible to get into an honors class as a Freshmen. Well you're right. We are actually called English EXP - which I to this day still have no idea what it means - but the teacher short cuts it and calls it Honors English. In that class we must act like honors students and when selecting students for real Honors English in Sophomore Year we are first priority. Today we did something extremely fun called the Fish Bowl Discussion - some of you may or may not have done it.

Here's how it goes: Our seats are arranged in a circle. 1 inner, 1 outer. The students in the inner circle have a free flow discussion. The teacher sits back and takes notes as the students all talk amongst each other and debate their thoughts, while the outer circle takes notes in case they wanted to respond later on. After fifteen minutes, we change seats. Inner circle goes out to the outer circle and we exchange rolls. They can either start a new discussion of respond to the inner circles. Usually they expand, but in my class they did both. After their fifteen minutes the outer circle gets a chance to respond to the inner circle's response. Brian took up the whole five minutes.

What made it a little more interesting was our VP, we'll call her Mrs. Alligator, sat in and took notes on our discussion as well. Probably the evaluate our teacher, Mrs. Cat's, teaching methods. We ended the class with a very heated discussion, but that's how my class always ends it.

3rd Period: Geometry

This has to be one of the most interesting classes I have. The teacher, Mr. Ching, has different methods of teaching. He teaches us what he knows we have to know, there is no fluff in that class. If he learned it and found out the information was completely useless he doesn't emphasis it. Since the Academic Standards require him to teach it he does, but doesn't over emphasis it. What I love is that he is a very open teacher and he's just one of those cool laid back teachers where if you tell him a rumor he'd most likely go "Hell no! She said what now?" If we ever have free time, which we always do, he goes on to teach us a few LIFE lessons. Such as "How to turn a sensitive man into a grudge holding jerk". I'd tell you more, but I really can't.

4th Period: Physical Education

Alright, so for those of you who don't have PE everyday let me just start off with saying: It really isn't all that bad. I know that a lot of schools have different PE standards. Some have it every other day. Some don't really make you do much work. Instead of fitness jogging, you have fitness walking. PE is pretty consistent in High School though and you have two ways to get your PE credits.

First, there's the pretty easy way - at least from what I've seen - JROTC: where you learn discipline but from what I saw today don't really have to do things like run track laps or anything. Today they were doing drills and if they made you laugh you had to do either five push ups or run a small circle - didn't look that hard. Of course, it could be harsher in other schools.

Second, is just doing PE itself. I find it super fun and it's just like any other PE class from Middle School. Unlike some TV shows say, you don't run track and do impossible things all day. We play sports like normal and if we run we only run up to 3 laps at most, if he goes up to 4 that's the Mile. Right now we are learning Football and it's super fun!

Most PE teachers for Freshmen are super nice and let you build your endurance for the mile because they know that Middle School is different from High School running. In the beginning of the school year all we really had to do was run one lap around the track everyday, that's 1/4 of a mile and if you actually try you can get done in about four minutes, which is our time limit. Actually, a lot sooner than that if you don't decide to just be lazy and walk it. Now we have a pattern. My class is special because our schedule is affected by lunch so I'll tell you the usual pattern. Mondays they run one lap, Tuesdays they run two laps, Wednesdays (Sometimes called Mile Wednesday) they run three laps, Thursdays they run two laps, and on Fridays they run one lap. Pretty consistent right?

Now if you don't think you can really do that, just relax and remember: The only way to fail PE is to not try at all.

Lunch
Alright so I have lunch right after PE, pretty lucky right? Lunch is like any other school. You eat and hang out with your friends. Depending on what school you go to, you might be able to go off campus for food. Either you can walk down to a near by fast food place (if you have a car you can drive) or you run home. As long as you get back for fifth period, alls good. In most High Schools they let you have your phones out when you're out of class, but like I said some High Schools are much harsher.

If you join some kind of club, most likely this is the time they have their meetings. I joined three clubs: Key Club, Interact and Dance Club. Key Club and Interact are volunteer clubs, to help you get your volunteering hours done (Mostly you need 20 to graduate) and Dance Club is just for fun! If you join a club, try to invite your friends. Make it twice as fun and if they don't join, make new friends in the club! That's what clubs are for.

5th Period: Digital Citizenship a.k.a Computers
Alright so I'm only taking this class for one semester because a class that is back of it for the next semester is Current Life and that's a credit required to graduate - in case you don't know what credits are: they are just the classes you need to pass to graduate. One year of credits is I believe 20 credits and one semester is 10. I'm pretty sure, I'll have to get back to you on that. Anyways, right now I'm loving that class. Mrs. Caren is super cool! She's that one teacher that I personally trust and if I have a problem I go to her. Everyone has that teacher so don't think it's weird, most likely you've already have one and just didn't know it!

Right now we are working on Public Service Announcements (PSA) about something called Sexting. We have four options on how to make it: Google Presentations (Power Point), Video, Paper Slide Video (PSV: Video Slideshow), and Glogs (poster blogs). We choose how we do it and break up into groups and make a PSA for a specific age group. My group is doing PSVs for Middle Schoolers.

Period 6: Chemistry
Okay, so if anyone's in Middle School, in High School classes are only six periods instead or seven - or whatever number of classes you have. I know for my 8th grade year I had seven periods and surprisingly enough, class ends about 15 minutes sooner for High Schoolers than for Middle Schoolers.

Anyways, I think Chemistry is great! If you have a chance to take it, take it! It's recommended to get into college - because its a lab science class - and for me it's super fun! Our teacher, Mr. Worm, is a really tall, skinny guy - thus his pen name. He is really funny, but a serious teacher - does that make sense? He teaches us exactly what we need to know to do the homework easily and then gives us about fifteen to twenty minutes of class time to finish it - might differ with your teacher. He offers tutoring - much like other teachers in high school do - after school for anyone who really doesn't get the course.

So there, that's pretty much the average day for me. I explained a lot since you guys don't really know the teachers so this Post is probably going to be my longest. In all the classes I got homework, but like I said I had study hall so I got most of done. I better go now to finish my English EXP homework. Catch you guys later!