The woodworking teacher told us a very sad story for D.A.R.E. week (Drug Awareness Resistance Education). It was about two kids, Bradley and Connor. They were born four days apart in the same city in Oregon. They grew up to be great friends. They played sports together, went to school together and had fun. Then Bradley moved away to New York. Connor started hanging out with other kids. They would stay up very late at night, so he would have to sneak back into bed in the morning before his mom found out. It was hard for him to get through the day, so his friends started giving him drugs to stay awake for school. It got really bad. When his parents found out, he went to rehab and he is still in rehab. Connor still acts like he is 13. He didn't get to graduate from high school. Bradley, meanwhile, was a great student, loved sports and got into many top optometry colleges. This is a story about how drugs changed their lives forever, even though Bradley and Connor started out so similar. The woodworking teacher said one of the boys was his son. We were really quiet when he told the story, because it was true. Which one was his son? Our woodworking teacher's son is in optometry school.
My New Rochelle middle school, Isaac Leonard, is divided into three houses -- "Paine House", "Davenport House" and "Pell House" (even though the Pell family sold the city for a cow and moved away). Paine House, the one I am in, gets too much work. Last week I had six big projects to do on top of all my homework. For science, I had to boil water in four pots for three trials to see does the size of the pot make the water boil faster (SPOILER -- it turns out bigger pots boil faster), charts, tables, typed, serious. For Language Arts, I had to make a poster board about a book -- setting, characters, plot, conflict, recommendation, draw pictures, glue sticks, title. Also, for Language Arts I had to make a paper bag person with real hair. For Social Studies, I had to make a 24 page atlas by hand, with latitudes and longitudes bound in a book. For math, I had to do a QOW. For those of you that don't know, a QOW is a "Question of the Week"(Pronounced COW) and if you get one, be prepared to write three pages to explain the math steps. Finally, for the Model Congress, I had to write a one page typed paper with a bibliography about the United Kingdom's position on the situation in Iran. What am I in college??? I am 10 years old!!! Meanwhile, the Davenport House has YouTube Fridays and Wednesdays and the Pell House has ice cream socials and homework free Tuesday, Thursdays and Fridays.
Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. This Halloween was going pretty good until my brother Robert Steks decided to dress up as a ghost. You know the Charlie Brown costume with the sheet and the eye holes. It was dark and he could not hold his costume and candy bag at the same time, he said. So I ended up, like a good little sister, taking his pillowcase along with my pillowcase door to door asking me to give a second serving of candy to my brother because "he has no arms" and "he is a ghost". As the night went on I added that "he needs a loan". He stood on the sidewalk and waved as I was on the front porches in the doorways pointing back to him to the person giving out candy. They were always confused. My cousins were usually one house ahead of us because I had to give so many explanations. The bags got really heavy, my back started to hurt and my feet were sore. It was great! Regarding my costume, all I will say is that my cousins and my aunt put a lot of really red lipstick and eye liner on me. It took days of washing my face for all that to go away. I ended up giving a lot of candy to my grandmother, uncles, cousins and the troops. The things I do for my family!
