Thursday December 20th

Yesterday in History we spent the class taking notes on the beginning of the civil war and the emancipation proclamation. I was really glad we had second lunch because taking notes for the entire class makes me want to sleep on the desk, no offence Mr.Boyle, your powerpoints are quite lovely.

Today in history we made a billboard about the battle of Vicksburg. It wasn't exactly pretty but it got done with no time to spare at the end of class. my group had attention span issues. Last period when its almost vacation getting work done is a struggle.

Who knows if this will be my last blog post because according to the psychotic population of the US the world ending tomorrow...ill believe it when i see it...

Tuesday December 18th

Yesterday in class we did a QR code scavenger hunt which I thought was really fun. My team split up to go downstairs and upstairs and we got it done rather efficiently and quickly.

Today in class we had a bit of a debate about habeas corpus. Last year I won a lot of arguments with mr Richards but mr Boyle puts up a good fight. Then we read a document about a man who was arrested and it reminded me a lot of something that would happen in Nazi Germany. I think debating was my favorite part of the class

Tuesday December 18th

Yesterday in class we did a QR code scavenger hunt which I thought was really fun. My team split up to go downstairs and upstairs and we got it done rather efficiently and quickly.

Today in class we had a bit of a debate about habeas corpus. Last year I won a lot of arguments with mr Richards but mr Boyle puts up a good fight. Then we read a document about a man who was arrested and it reminded me a lot of something that would happen in Nazi Germany. I think debating was my favorite part of the class

Friday, December 14th

Yesterday in class we did some more work with documents about slavery and how the constitution pertained to them now. One of the main focuses was on the south wanting to secede from the nation and wether or not that was okay.

Today in class we went to the computer lab which always makes for an interesting class. We divided up into groups and completed a powerpoint as a class that we can go back and reference later on for notes instead of having to sit in the class and take them which is nice. Hopefully this will remain on the wiki so we can always look at it especially with midterms coming up.

Tuesday December 11th

Yesterday we started off the new section by learning about president Lincoln and what happened after his election. Per usual we were given documents and answered question and then talked about them

Today in class we did something very similar to yesterday and read documents and answered questions about South Carolina. My group was me Sarah Ganzenmuller Matt nick and Sam. We actually got a lot done which was good.

Friday December 7th

I completely forgot to post this over the weekend with my show so here it goes haha

Thursday during class we took our test which was exact to the study guide and I thought was very straight forward and on friday we didn't have class because of the half day.

Wednesday, December 5th

Yesterday in class we looked at the different candidates for president in the 1860 election. We started off by looking at a picture in which the 4 candidates were showing their ideas of slavery and such metaphorically by either tearing down the picture, or trying to glue it back together. I thought this was interesting because parts of it was open to interpretation and some was very straight forward and there was also some humor built in with making fun of the height of one of the candidates. (short people are the bomb, just sayin'...sorry Boyle...)

Today we had an Ed Cafe on the people that we did our voice threads. I think it would have been much easier to have this closer to when they were due because I was rather rusty on the facts of my person but I think i did a fairly good job explaining myself. Daniel Webster wasn't all that important so I didn't have much to argue. I also wish we had some class time to ask some questions about the study guide for tomorrows test. I personally had some things to ask but since we weren't given time i stayed a little later to ask and I am very glad I did because the essay questions make a lot more sense now and I feel more comfortable knowing that I will have less surprises.

The 30 day challenge officially ended and I am kinda disappointed in myself for not committing better to it. With school and dance and Nutcracker rehearsals whenever I had a day off from dance the last thing I wanted to do was stretch. I should have picked something I could have done better. Oh well.
 Now to go study for the test tomorrow!

1850's Timeline

Friday, November 30th

On Thursday in class we learned about John Brown and Harpers Ferry. This was an even that happened on Oct. 16th 1859 and was led by John Brown and 18-21 other people that were supporting him in an effort to free the slaves. This didnt work and then John Brown was hung for murder and treason against Virginia. Then in the second half of class we looked at different testimonies of the case and their opinions. 

We did not have class on friday because of the PLAN testing.

As for my 30 day challenge, I did stretch when I got home on Friday and I had dance on Thursday. On Saturday I had nutcracker rehearsal for my show next weekend so in order to not injure myself, I obviously stretched out before rehearsal began.

Wednesday, November 28th

Yesterday in class we read the Dred Scott case and then had a discussion about it. We discussed whether or not you should be able to buy something legally and then move to somewhere where its illegal and then since its your property they cant take it away from you. The one argument point that was brought up was that if that was allowed then ultimately everywhere can be a slave state because you can go purchase your slave in Georgia and then move to your hometown where it may not be legal anymore, thus defeating the purpose of free states as a whole.

Today in class we watched the Lincoln-Douglas debate in black and white movie form. I liked being able to hear them say it because it always makes more sense to me than when I read it to myself. The way they speak reminded me a lot of MLKs I have a dream speech. Then we filled out a sheet based on other documents we were given about the issue. Lincoln was slightly confusing about his points because he was anti slavery yet he didnt believe that blacks and whites are equal. When you think about it, blacks and whites still arent really equal. Blacks are stereotyped as being the, "ghetto" and living in bad areas and not making as much money as a whit citizen. I guess those barriers are being broken more and more now that Obama is president. I wonder if there are any black people who voted against him. That would be interesting to see.

For my 30 day challenge I had dance yesterday and today so I managed to get my stretching in.

Monday, November 26

Wow its been a really long time so I cant remember most of what we did in class considering it was an entire week ago. Homecoming and dropping a class made it so we couldn't have class on Tuesday or Wednesday  The Sophomores didn't lose even though everything wasn't very good. Especially our decorations because no one listens to me when I tell them that tape wont stick to brick overnight...maybe someday they'll learn. anyways rant over.

So on Monday I believe we took a further look into Uncle Toms Cabin...or maybe we talked about something else? I literally have no idea to be honest. I'm sure Mr.Boyle gave us a paper, told us to read it, then we talked about it, he throws in some witty comments, Caleb says something either surprisingly intelligent or extremely strange and contradictory to whatever we are discussing. My friend Haley, in her PoliSci class talked about national spending and how war affects it. Shes in Mr.Richards class. I had him last year and it was pretty fun. Well anyways back to American Studies.

Today in class we talked about the Kansas Nebraska act and how they were given up to popular sovereignty to decide to be slave states or not. The north didn't like the idea of that and the South did basically because it was in the Souths favor and not the Norths. We also talked about "Bleeding Kansas" and hoe abolitionists led by John Brown attacked and killed 5 proslavery settlers and by the mid 1850's killed more that 200 people. We also talked about Charles Sumner and how he referred to Butler as "Hirelings picked from the drunken spew and vomit of an uneasy civilization." aka, throwup...

My 30 day challenge is failing miserably. I always sit down on my floor to stretch and then I feel how sore I am and decide to go eat icecream instead. I lack motivation extremely. This weekend we had 2 parades, the North Andover and Andover Santa Parades and it was so cold that its impossible to keep your muscles warm and we had to dance the whole parade so I am currently rather sore. I have dance tomorrow so that will force me to stretch.

Monday, November 19th

On Friday in class we received a story called "Uncle Toms Cabin" it was about a slave hunter Haley who hires a professional slave hunter to hunt down a slave named Eliza who is described as being, "handsome." I found it strange that the referred to women as being handsome back then because I know if someone were to call me handsome today I would be rather insulted

Today in class we discussed the story in more depth and then went on into a discussion about the fugitive slave law and what the consequences were if you directly or indirectly helped a slave escape. Even them sleeping on your lawn without you know was considered helping them and was punishable by law with a fine and many years in jail.

I am not going to lie and say that my 30 day challenge hasn't had its days that I have forgotten to do it. With homecoming around the corner I have been staying after school until around 5 every day to help decorate and then by the time I get home and do my immense amounts of homework, I'm falling asleep already. Hopefully with thanksgiving break ill be able to make up for some lost time and stretch more.

Thursday November 15th

Yesterday in class we took notes off a PowerPoint about manifest destiny and things of that sort. I like mr boyles notes because they really pick out the important pieces and as we're writing it down he talks about it more going farther in depth. At the end of class we watched a video and took a quiz at the end of it. I'm not quite sure how I did because although I wrote down 85% of what they said, there wasn't enough time to look through my notes for the answer.

Today in class we continued talking about different states becoming or not becoming free or slave states. At the end of class we discussed the compromise of 1850 and whether or not we agreed with it. Me and Sarah ganz were the only two in the class who thought it was correct. I think it had something to do with he fact that the person we both did our voice thread about agreed with it.

My 30 day challenge is still going strong. I've been stretching every day and also working on my turnout and and strength. Hopefully ill eventually see results

Daniel Webster Voicethred

Tuesday, November 13th

On Friday in class we were given different accounts on the underground railroad and could group up with different parteners to complete the sheet that went along with it. Me and Cara, as usual, worked together to answer the questions. We read all of the accounts first and then answered them. It was interesting to see that the different text books would include different details. I wonder if text books are given criteria on what they have to include and what to leave out or can they just put in whatever they want to? Writing a text book seems like a lot of work. Im glad I dont have to do that.

Today in class we went to the computer lab and went to a bitly link that was on the top of our paper. It brought us to the map of the Missouri compromise. Me and cara split up the questions and completed them. Im really glad Caras in the class or I probably wouldnt get as much done as we do. We work really well together. It started to seem a lot like a math class with all of the adding and averaging of the populations and things. Im in class writing you right now because I finished early

My 30 day challenege is still going strong. Because of my hip tendinitis my ballet teacher gave me exercises to do and  have continued to do them. I have class tonight so I will strertch and do exercises during that like always. I hope the strength in my hip and leg gets stronger so I can stop being in pain every class. Im really glad my teacher is also a physical therapist so she can always help me when I have a questions about muscles or strength.

Wednesday, November 7th

Yesterday in class we reunited with our groups from the day before and finished filling out our charts. As we were doing this we were each called into the hallway 1 by 1 to vote in the mock election for our school. Obama ended up winning which I wasn't too thrilled about, yet I wasn't surprised either, but that's a topic for another day. When we returned from lunch we looked at different amendments and tried to see how the supported slavery and did not support slavery. I found this to be rather interesting because it really made you look at some of the laws our country was formed upon. We were the assigned an essay due next Friday.

Today in class we took some classic Mr.Boyle power point notes about slavery and the cotton business and how it become much more efficient after a machine used to sort it was invented so rather than 20-50 slaves working, only 2 or 3 needed to. Then after we were  done with our notes we read a document and answered questions about it. Then we shared out answers with a partner that had a different document.

My 30 day challenge is still going strong. Yesterday I had a really long day of dance. I had classes from 4-9. I had Performance Team where we worked on our dances for the holiday showcase and for the Celtics game we are dancing at. Then I had jazz, where we do most of our stretching. We did our usual warmups with splits and extensions and then we did an ab workout. 5 leg lifts with your head off the ground and then 10 push-ups and we did that 5 times. Then we did flying v's and planks. Then in ballet we were working at the barre and my teacher, who is also a physical therapist told me that it's very possible that I have some tendinitis in my hips so she showed my some stretches I can use for that. Then today I had Performance team again and another Ballet class which we do lots of stretching in.

Monday, November 5th

On Friday in class we were handed documents as we entered class and divided up into groups based on them. My group looked at a boys journey on a ship traveling from Africa to be a slave. The stories really tug at your heard because you imagine what it would be like and i personally become a little more grateful for my life and what I have(going along with the theme of November and Thanksgiving) Then in our group we created a storyboard about what we read. I worked with Sarah G, Rachel and Jess. We managed to finish in class which was great.

Today in class we looked at the storyboards that the other groups had made and created a venn diagram about them. After that we split up into groups based on another document Mr.Boyle gave us. My group had Abraham Lincoln. We filled in the blanks to the questions on the sheet and then went into groups with people that had different documents and shared our information. We didn't get all the way through but we will finish tomorrow.

My 30 day challege has been going really well so far. Today I didn't have dance so after I finished my homework I replicated one of the warmups we do in classes and stretched for a while. Then I sat in my splits and did some English reading while I was stretching and finally, I put in my ipod and went over some pieces for Nutcracker for ballet tomorrow.

30 Day Challenge

I'm a dancer, and every dancer needs flexibility and strength. So for my 30 day challenge I want to stretch to get all of my splits for at least 10 minutes. I also want to strengthen my feet for pointe and my legs for my extension and technique. Hopefully by doing this for 30 days I will start to see an improvement in my dancing.

Thursday, October 25th

Yesterday in history we watched an extremely lengthy power-point presentation about artwork during the time of the Revolution. I found it to be rather interesting but after a few paintings I started to space out. I took notes as best I could but it was very fast paced. I understand why because there was quite a lot of information to be put in it. I think if you were to do something like this again having a sort of subtitle to go along with it would be extremely helpful. But in the end it was cool to see how you can really dissect different artworks and see what thought was actually put into them

Today in history we took our Declaration Of Independence memorization quiz. The night before i found myself to struggle greatly with memorizing because I tried to do it in sections and once I had one section down and would do the next I would forget the section before and have to start all over. But then come the morning I seemed to have remembered it all so I did fine and got a 9.5/10. I used one incorrect word and that was it so I was rather proud of myself. Then we had the rest of the class to begin studying for tomorrows test which i am not too worried about. I understand the material and knowing that the questions are either 2/3 or 7/10 is comforting so I know I can have a couple to blow off. We'll see how it goes tomorrow!

American Revolution Timeline

Voicethread. Moderation and Honor

Tuesday, October 23

Yesterday in class we talked more about the ending of the battles of the revolution with Mr. Boyles snazzy presentation. I think I mentioned this in my last post but I liked the use of the PowerPoint in a sense that you can see the strategy instead of just saying who fought who and where. It makes it seem real. At the end of class we talked about the essay and wether or not 2012 is a time that tries men's souls. My favorite part about history class is the discussions and debates. That's why I can't wait to take polisci my senior year.

Today in history we did a QR code scavenger hunt. I worked with nick delay and we went around and found then all and scanned them and took screen shots of what came up. Then we went back to the class and wrote then down and answered the questions with the help of the Internet and nicks notes. Then mr Boyle summed up the rest of the week for us. I can't wait for it to be over.

Thursday, October 8th

Yesterday in class we talked about what we learned the day before about the Declaration of Independence  We grouped up and shared our findings with the rest of the group. Sometimes sharing this way frustrates me because people talk so fast and you cant write down everything they're saying. I guess i should learn to write faster. After that we discussed what our word is worth. This was interesting to me. I often found myself wondering what is more effective. a signature? or a handshake? If you have a signature you have proof, but it could be forged. If you handshake you have verbal agreement with the person, but they can go back on their word. I enjoyed being able to have a class discussion and voice your opinion.

Today in class Mr.Boyle was not there which made me very sad. I am not a fan of substitutes because they don't know what they're talking about and never give us the right information. The assignment was on the board so I was expecting her to give brief instructions, hand out the document and let us have the period to do the essay. However, that did not happen. She spent the first 30 minutes talking about what we were supposed to do and telling us how much she loved the document and that if we are true Americans we will love it too. While I appreciated her thorough instructions there was not nearly enough time to get anything done. We got going but every 10 minutes or so would chime in with something else. I am the type of person that needs to focus on what I'm doing and not stop or I lose my train of thought. Before I knew it I had ten minutes left and had just finished reading and analyzing the document. I wrote down what I could but I really did not have any sort of essay so I am praying those aren't being graded. Everyone else got it done so fast and I simply don't know how. I think I'm just slow. I'm not sure. Well atleast it was last period so we went home after.

My apologies for the vent. have a nice day!

Tuesday, October 16th

Yesterday in class we presented our projects on the people from the american revolution we were assigned. i did not mind the information part of the project like the voice thread and the presentations and actually quite enjoyed listening to some of the presentations and different people i did not know about. However, i personally think having to draw a person was completely unnecessary  I am in no way an artistic person. i never will be and that's just the facts. i spent more time drawing the person then on the factual part of the project. but in the end, everyone had to do it. Students do as teachers say, and that's how to cookie crumbles.

Today in class we were paired by the definitions we were handed upon entering the class and learned about the Declaration of Independence. Each group got a section to summarize and then create a fake twitter post. after you made the twitter post you then had to take everyone else and put them into a single website to make one url for 6 websites. there was so much room for technical error in today's lesson that I feel as though we spend much more time dealing with technology than the actual project. I didn't mind it since it was last period and I was much looking forward to going home, but it was cool to see the different ways you can use technology. I wonder where Mr.Boyle finds all of his websites. does he make them? who knows. hes just to tech savvy for all of us.

Fake Twitter

http://krunchd.com/3ab8d

Samuel Adams Voice Thread

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Friday, October 12th

Thursday during class we learned about the battles of Lexington and Concord and the Battle of Bunker Hill. Mr.Boyle used an animated slideshow to show the movements of the events that took place. I thought it was very interesting to see it visually rather than in a textbook. You also got to see the strategies and advantages the colonists had like knowing the land and things like that. I like that Mr. Boyle doesnt teach out of the text book. the textbooks are very wordy and a lot of the information you dont even need.

Friday in class we were handed documents and grouped into people with the same document. we analyzed them to see which side they were taking. whether they supported the British or the colonies. My group had "Common Sense" which was basically saying that America would be better off without Britain. Then we grouped with people with different documents and shared our information with the group. While we were sharing i figured out that my document was different from everyones in that mine was directly quoting and everyone elses summarized and analyzed it for them which made mine more difficult. but in the end we figured it out and had a good Friday class.

Tuesday, October 9th

Last class (friday), we went over the events that we were supposed to have learned about the class before during the Ed cafe but that didn't go so well so mr. Boyle went over them for us which was very helpful. Then mr. Boyle read us the Paul Revere poem and assigned us the revolutionary replica assignment which I can already tell I am going to have the most difficult time drawing because I can't draw. At all. 

Today in class we walked in and as usual we got handed a piece if paper with a document and we grouped up using that. Then we watched a video of a guy talking about how witnesses aren't always right. Then we filled out a grid using our documents talking about things like if they were American or British, how long ago it was, and whether or not it is a reliable account. Then we were assigned another writing assignment that we have to choose a side as to who fired the first shot of the revolution that's due on the 19th. 

Thursday, October 4th

Well, we've made it through the first months of Mr.Boyles history class! :)

Yesterday in class we went to the media lab. We split up into our groups for the Ed Cafe and made a presentation on Google Docs. Our group was working on the Continental Congress. I thought it was really cool that you could all work on a presentation together. That's definitely going to help in other classes with projects and other things. That's what I like about this class. Yes, the projects can be a pain but the tools we're learning to use are going to be very helpful. The only thing that was a problem with our presentation was the constant refreshing of the page. we had to type everything in Word and then paste it into the presentation.

Today in class we did another Ed cafe. I didn't like this one quite as much as the other. Since everyone didn't have as much knowledge about the subjects that were being discussed it was hard to keep a conversation of argument going. I liked the other ed cafe better because you were allowed to be much more opinionated instead of fact based. There was a lot to write down with this one too which was hard depending on how fast the person was talking. But i liked it better than being lectured. Overall, decent class!

Tuesday, October 2nd 2012

Yesterday (Monday), in history we looked at the original 13 colonies of the United States.  We looked at the packet that had been assigned over the weekend with some multiple choice questions about traits of the three different sections if the colonies. The three different sections are New England, the middle colonies and the south. We talked about their characteristics like how New England has a lot of cities such as Boston, MA. Then we took some time to make a voice recording summarizing the colonies. Then mr Boyle explained to us that you are supposed to fight at 2:15 at the  flagpole. Quality advice mr b.

Today in class we looked at a picture of a "mysterious" character. In my opinion it was quite obvious that it was George Washington but Caleb insisted he was some other nationality. Then mr. Boyle helped us summarize the reading that was quite confusing and I think gave everyone a headache considering the extremely small font and the amount of content on each page. But once Mr.Boyle explained it it made a lot of sense which was good. I liked the class. I felt like I got a lot out of it.

Scott Brown and Initiative

http://share.pdfonline.com/ff94b11beb4e413eb461bbed77151774/Scott brown to the rescue.htm

Senator John Kerry and Respect

Senator John Kerry by sarahlauren22

Thursday, September 27th 2012

Yesterday in class we had an Ed Cafe about the freedoms of the 1st amendment. I was in charge of discussing the freedom of assembly. I really enjoyed this exercise because the groups that I was in ended up in some good discussions. We were talking about freedom of speech and we were very intrigued by the fact that freedom of speech not only allows you to speak your mind but also to not speak at all. I think I learned as much as I would have from you teaching us but it was a more interactive and enjoyable experience and the preparation did not take long at all

Today in class we took our first "quest". I found the short answers to be the easiest and actually the fill in the blanks in the beginning to be the most difficult simply because most of the things that were questions I didn't think to study so I was taken by surprise. everything else was rather straight forward.

Constitution Timeline

Tuesday, September 25th 2012

Yesterday in History we looked at an article called "The Bill Of Rock And Roll Rights" this of course was a hypothetical case. It was about a party on a private property with a musical performance by Madonna. The Police ended up busting the party by arresting Madonna and all other party goers for violating the Blue Laws which prohibit non puritan activities on Sundays. It then went on to describe the process of their trials and we had to decide among our group which Amendment was being violated.

Today in History we discussed the first party systems of the US including the democratic republicans and the federalists. We underlined what we thought was important in the two articles we were given and then Mr. Boyle helped us to put them into an organized chart on the projector. Some things we included were that the federalists wanted a physically and militarily strong nation and the democratic republicans wanted the power to be with the people through the government that is closest to them or more simply, at the state level.

Friday, September 21st 2012

Yesterday in class (Thursday) we were divided into federalists and no federalists when we walked into class. Then we found a partner with the same view. With them we completed a worksheet based on a document we were also given. After that the federalists and non federalists were given numbers that paired them with someone who has the opposite view. Cam Armand and I shared our information and then when we got back from lunch we created a magazine cover selling our point of anti- federalism. Our magazine was called Anti-Federalists Weekly.

Friday was a half day so sadly, we did not have class.

Spreaker Podcast

Three Branches Of Government

Tuesday, September 18th 2012

Yesterday in history class we were handed a document as we entered class. Then in the groups we chose to sit in we looked through a document discussing whether we should have one president or three. The three different sections were he Virginia Plan, the New Jersey Plan and the Hamilton Plan were the three different sections included in the document. In the documents we looked for things like how they were to be elected, how long their terms would be and if they were able to run for re-election.

Today in history we looked at how a bill becomes a law and the three different branches of the government. The three branches are the legislative, judicial, and the executive branch. Then we took out our devices and were going to crate a presentation online but it didn't work quite as well as we would have liked. Using the iPad to try to do it didn't work very well so we just wrote it out instead. That's the only thing about the BYOD program. You never know what can go wrong. Like if it dies or the Internet goes out or something. But besides that I think it's a really great program.

Friday, September 14th 2012

Yesterday in class we discussed different documents we were given the day before in our groups. Each group shared with others what they found out in order for us to create a filled in grid of all the information. Then with the help of Mr.Boyle we put it on the board and took some notes to see how it all played out. We talked about issues such as uni or bicameral, people or states voting, and equal or proportional representation. It was interesting to see the opinions different people had and their reasoning.

Today in class we had more of a class to clear everything. I found it very helpful because we went through the syllabus which looking at it all at once without explanation can be very overwhelming. Mr Boyle did a really good job showing us that he's human too and understands our stress and isn't here to do that to us, no matter how much we think he, and other teachers are. He is here to see us succeed with our technology and get us ready for the future which I really appreciate.

Wednesday September 12th 2012

Yesterday, (September 11th) we discussed the preamble in class. we sat in groups like always and did a similar activity to what we did with the civic values. We went around to each line of the preamble and wrote about it. We wrote things like what it means to us and how we think its either working or not working in the US today. My favorite line in the preamble is "Secure the blessings of our liberty, to ourselves and our posterity" Posterity means "future generations" so its saying that we have to be thinking of our children and theirs because someday they will be living like we are today, but only if we "secure the blessings of our liberty" like it says. It was interesting to really look at what the Preamble was saying.

Today in class we were in groups again but we were separated by what article we had on the paper we were handed as we entered the class. My group was me, Sarah G, Camille, and Jess S. We were discussing an article on whether we should have one or two houses. There were three peoples opinions in the article. two said we should have two houses and one person said we should only have one. William Patterson said there should only be one house because the states already check up on each other so why do they need more supervision? James Wilson said that we should have two because "in order to control the Legislative authority, you must divide it" George Mason also said that we should have two houses because as people in the US we value our possessions and liberty so much that we never would trust just one house with it and we need two houses to look over it. It was sort of difficult to pick out what they were really saying sometimes, but once you understood, the proved some good points.

Twitter

http://cheezburger.com/6580459008

My Family and Civic Values

My Photo Essay, click here!

What Are Three Artifacts That Describe Me?

          In 100 years, if a historian was looking for information on high school students from 2012 I would give them three artifacts to describe myself. I would give them a dance shoe, a picture of me and my best friend, and the key to my house.

          The reason I would give them a dance shoe is simple. Dance is my "thing" shall we say. I've been dancing since the age of three when I took my first tap class at Kathy's Tumbleweeds in Salisbury. My dance career took off from then. Ever since I was three the amount of classes I take has exploded. I began to add classes such as Jazz, Ballet, Tumbling, Lyrical, Contemporary and Pointe as I got older, and every time my mom would ask me what class I would give up to add another I would have an answer. I loved them all too much. Then this past year as a Freshmen I decided to break out of my one studio and I joined Center For The Performing Arts in North Andover. I signed up for the ballet intensive program which has a history of sending students to the Joffrey Ballet School in NYC. I also took Jazz and joined the Performance Team. Last year the performance team performed at a Celtics game and it was by far my favorite experience. Last year I also performed my first solo. As we get older a lot of students don't know what they want to do when the grow up. but even from kindergarten when I said I wanted to dance mine has never changed. Dance has always given me something to strive for. Its given me goals, discipline, and has built me as a person.

          Why would I give the historian a picture of me and my best friend you ask? well, without her, freshmen year, and my high school career would be much different. Haley Crowley, a senior at Triton and I met in 6th grade when we did a show at the Firehouse in Newburyport together. After the show we talked a little but basically parted ways. Last year during auditions for the fall play, we immediately picked up where we left off and became really close. Anytime someone would ask where she is, most people would answer "I don't know.  Probably with Sarah" She certainly helped me adjust to high school better than anyone. she showed me how to deal with studies, difficult teachers, auditions, schoolwork, and always gave me someone to talk to. When I doubted my abilities as a dancer and struggled with the ideas of my future she was always there to pick me up and remind me to keep striving. I can absolutely thank her for one of the most amazing summers ever, and for telling me to "be quiet and calm down" when I started worrying about sophomore year. Once she graduates I know my life here will be a lot different, but I know I have her to thank for my experiences at Triton. 

          I would never be the person I am today without my family and that's why I would give the historian my house key, which represents home. Home is where you make memories, eat at the kitchen table, open presents at Christmas, and always run to. At home I have my mom Sue, my dad Mike, and two siblings. My sisters name is Erin. She's 27. she graduated from Triton in Mr. Colby s class actually! She went to college at Northeastern and is now a nurse at Elliot Hospital in Manchester New Hampshire. My brother Mike is 24. He went to high school at Pingree, and graduated with a business degree from University of Richmond in 2011. He lives in Manhattan in NY and works at Credit Suisse as a financial analyst. I have absolutely no idea what that means. Having siblings that are so much older than me helped me to grow up a lot faster than most kids my age. The idea of college was introduced to me much younger than most students my age. I've always been thinking about it. This year when teachers ask what my plans are for the future im proud to know that I have an idea of what I want to do and I have my siblings to thank for that. Having parents that have already gone through high school and college with two kids is always reassuring too because they know what they're doing especially with college. my dad is always on my case about getting good grades but hey, it pushes me to be better all the time and I wouldn't be the student I am without him. My mom has always supported my dancing whether it be by giving me a ride to class, taking me to buy new pointe shoes or sitting in the audience through my shows. She knows its my dream and is always helping me to achieve it. My family's the reason for me being who I am today, and I believe that my home represents my family.

          Well, now that I have written a blog post that is way long than it ever should have been, there is is! my three items. these three items would give the historian a good idea of who I was in high school in 100 years.