Emily Z's Blog

This week was a very productive week for my project. I succeeded in finishing my baby blanket at home, making my trifold, and writing my speech along with presenting after school. I did not struggle very much compared to my previous weeks, but I will say I struggled with my trifold at first, as a was just not very sure on where to begin. I overcame that by taking a minute to sit and plan it out and just see where it went from there, which eventually led to my finished product. I am pretty much done with this project at this point, except for presenting to the whole class in a couple days, which I still have to practice for. I am a bit sad to know that this project is over. Even though it was slightly stressful at times, it still taught me a lot and I enjoyed it.

This week was the best week so far for my 20% project. I accomplished learning how to make rows of stitches, which I did about eight of on my practice piece. I am now about half way through a baby blanket, which I mentioned I would start in my previous blog, and I intend to finish it in the next few days. I struggled when I was watching a video at first on which parts I was supposed to put my string through because I couldn’t quite tell on the video. I then went and got help from one of my peers who is doing crocheting for her 20% project as well, and she explained it to me very well. I was able to change what I was putting my string through to figure out the stitch. Next week I will follow my schedule by working on my speech and starting up on my trifold.

This year has been a great year filled with many memories, but I have three favorites. The first one has to be reading The Outsiders in Miss Moffat’s class. I liked being able to talk to my friends and share my opinions about the book since they knew what was happening, too. I also just enjoyed reacting to the plot with my friends, as we had many favorite characters. The second memory I am fond of is cooking in home ec. I especially enjoyed making popcorn for Christmas, as one of my best friends was in my kitchen group and we got to accomplish a lot, while still acting dumb and having fun together, also getting a treat out of it. The third memory in my top three is the many yearbook deadline parties. During those, we all bring food, and we eat all the snacks while talking and playing games. I always sit with all of the other seventh graders in the class. We have around nine people all crowded around a table intended to seat four, screaming and laughing over who gave who four extra cards in Uno and who we thought was cheating.

This month, I finished the book The Hidden Oracle by Rick Riordan. This book is about the god Apollo, who has been punished by his father, Zeus, and been turned into a teenage mortal named Lester Papadopoulos. Lester (Apollo) and his friend Meg McCaffrey must travel into the woods of Camp Half-Blood in order to help take back control over the Grove of Dodona, which is currently being held by the evil emperor Nero.

I really enjoyed this book because of the lessons the main character learned. As a god, Apollo was very cocky and callous. When he turned into a mortal, however, he experienced what it is like to be overlooked and disregarded by the gods and also got to know some mortals personally, making him therefore realize that they all care about him when he does not care back.

My favorite character in the book is Leo because he is selfless. A quote that proves this is, “Leo has rescued Calypso from her prison island. In doing so, Calypso had lost her powers. Leo felt responsible” (354). This shows that although he has done a good deed that put him in danger, he sees how it is causing someone else distress, not how good it made him sound. He also tries to help Calypso when she needs it because of her losing her powers.

My favorite quote from the book is, “Then it occurred to me how many times I had asked for sacrifices, how many heroes I had sent to their deaths…Yet I had felt no remorse when I sent them off on deadly tasks. I had used them and discarded them, laid waste to their lives to build my own glory” (297). I liked this quote because it was the moment Apollo finally realized that after describing the villain as such an evil person, him and the villain has many similarities. Because of Apollo’s realization, he has the space and knowledge to change himself for the better based on the examples the courageous heroes he had indirectly killed have set.

A woman that has had an impact on my life is my mom. My mom has always been there for me. She always puts me before herself and makes so many sacrifices for me and my siblings. Even if she is super busy with her teaching job and many other responsibilities like being on the board for our chapter’s National Charity League and my brother’s baseball program, she still makes time to hang out with us and take care of us. She also always listens to my stories and gossip, even when they get long and boring, and always helps me find a solution to any conflicts. I enjoy spending time with her by going to Disneyland together on Sunday mornings to go on rides, get breakfast, or people-watch. My favorite memories with her are from when I was little and my siblings were at school and we would go to Ruby’s together, just the two of us.

This week’s work time had a lot of ups and downs. At first, I tried doing a few stitches from a kit that showed you how to make an animal, but decided after some struggling that I needed some more practice with different stitches and changed up my plan a little bit. I started working on my chain again, and expanded to it. I learned to make bracelets with my chain stitch for my family members such as my mom and sister. Since the kits with animals have not worked out so well for me, I am going to change my plan a bit for next week and experiment elsewhere. I have met someone who showed me their crocheting projects, and I am planning on getting help from her and will try making more square like shapes with different, thicker yarns based on my prior knowledge of the chain stitch.

This week was a great week and I accomplished a whole crocheting chain. I watched videos and used a direction book to figure out the chain stitch and a slip knot, which were a bit hard at first, but ended up being pretty simple for me where I did not really have to think much about it. I had followed my plan, as I was supposed to just keep learning the stitches and keep crocheting. At first, I struggled with figuring out the slip knot, which is the knot you tie to start off your chain, but after asking my friend and teacher for help and watching a video of someone doing it online, I figured out what I was doing wrong and adjusted it to get it to work. Next week I will pick up by starting to make things with my crocheting work and hopefully follow my schedule.

This week, I started crocheting using materials from a kit and a video. The kit had come with the first six stitches already done to prepare you to start, but unfortunately, mine came undone. I struggled through getting started again, but despite my looking online, in the kit, and seeking help from my mentor, I could not find a solution in time. Before this had happened, I had accomplished a few stitches. And although they had gone undone in that anyway, I still learned and got valuable practice from doing them. This helped me better my understanding of beginning the process. Next week, I intend to continue solving my problem and hopefully get more done on my project. I am working on making a penguin, and I hope that with more time and effort, it will start to take shape turn out well once I develop a bit of a better understanding of the concept.

My favorite room in my house is my bedroom. One reason this is my favorite room is it is quiet. A lot of the time, my house is not the most quiet place. When I am in my room, however, I get the chance to relax with the doors closed to block out most of the noise. Another reason I like my room is because there are many places to just sit or relax. I have my comfy bed with my flower-print bedspread and a white cushioned chair. When I come home from a long day, I can always just crash in my room, where I know I will never be uncomfortable. One last reason is I get to decorate it however I like. I made the decision to put up every poster, painting, and trinket in there and most everything in there belongs to me.

For my 20% project, I am learning to crochet. This week went well for my first time working on this project. I did not start actually crocheting yet, but I started learning and preparing myself as I put in my plan. I read and watched many tutorials filled with many helpful tips as well as lessons and examples of projects and stitches. One of my accomplishments was building myself a slideshow filled with links to the previously mentioned videos and articles. I also added pictures of things people on the internet crocheted that I found cute, like a chicken and a strawberry. One of my struggles was finding things on the internet that were truly for beginners, but after a lot of searching and adjustments to what I was looking up, I had finally found some. All of this work will prepare me for my next work day on this project, where I will start actually crocheting, making beginner things like chains.