In early February, some of the DA Middle School went on the ski trip. Me and my friends, Aaron, Liam, Kareem, and Harris all got onto a Charter Bus at 4:45 in the morning. The 4-hour ride took us to Beech Mountain. First, we went to our Cabin, where we got our gear on. Finally, we got to the shop where we had to get our gear on. It took 2 hours just to be in line. Imagine this. About 50 people scrunched around you, talking to your friends, making bad jokes, being hungry, and living off energy drinks, and having to use the bathroom really bad, moving about 6 inches per 3 minutes, just to get ski gear. That’s it. Finally, I got my gear on, and waited for my beginner lesson to start. Me and my friends were all doing the beginner lesson too. First we learned how to put our skis on and do fundamental stuff like walk up a hill. You had to go sideways to go up. Then we learned how to stop. They say put your skis in a pizza shape. (Spoiler: IT DOESN’T WORK!) there’s another way, where you turn. (I’m bad at turning, so I can’t do that.) and then there’s the least efficient way, falling. So the way to stop, I fell. Finally, lessons ended and we got to go on the beginner course. The beginner course was at a hill, and we had to go up another one. It was about a football field away, but it took us like 30 minutes to get there. Finally, we went up this escalator thingy to get to the top. First, I skied down. I felt like I was going too fast, (I was probably going at 5 mph), and I fell. I was in the “snow”, and I was halfway down. I tried to get up, but its hard to do on skis. Finally I got up, and walked to the top. About 5 more times, I repaired this. I was in the middle, feeling hungry, cold and miserable. And I had to use the bathroom real bad. Finally, I got down and went to lunch. I used the bathroom, and got some chicken tenders and two waters, and hung out with the boys. Finally, I got back on the slope, and finally started to ski a little bit! I got better over the hours, and so did my friends. Liam and Kareem went to go ski on the next level. Aaron could stop efficiently. Harris was also really good. ‘Jonah (me) was going down at a trillion miles per hour, and then intentionally falling dangerously,’ joked Mr. Lantzy, the P.E. teacher. Finally it was time to go back. We got back to school on the four hour ride back, and got home to share the experience with my family. I had a great time and thank you to the teachers and adults who helped plan this great trip!
Today I will be talking about what we have been doing in theater class. We started off the year with some fun exercises, and acted in small, short stories. We kept on working on our skills to get ready for our final project. I felt really happy, because we got to choose our groups based on the type of performance we were doing. Me and my friends did a Murder Mystery of the NFL, called Field of Screams. We performed about this year’s insane NFL season’s playoffs. Here is a quick summary: We open up with Tyler Bass missing his game tying field goal. Then, in the locker room, talking with Josh Allen and Stefon Diggs, the lights go out and Tyler dies. They talk with the police about the mysterious event, and the police decide to let them go. Next, the Eagles lose on an embarrassing loss to the Buccaneers 9-33, in Jason Kelce’s last game. In the locker room, with De’Vonta Smith and Jalen Hurts, the lights go out and Jason dies. They recover a pink knife. The police take it in. Next Lamar Jackson dies after he makes a big fumble vs the Chiefs, and dies in the locker room with Zay Flowers and Odell Beckham Jr. While talking with the police, Josh Allen suspiciously walks by, and they talk to him, later arresting him. They look at the knife seeing it was signed by Taylor Swift. Next at the Super Bowl, Taylor Swift is arrested and sent to jail. She wakes up the next morning in jail seeing on the TV that the Chiefs lost. Travis tell Taylor in his postgame interview, that he wants to break up. Taylor ends the play by saying: “We are never getting back together.”
Not many basketball fans follow high school basketball, but right now, it’s pretty hard not to follow it, because there’s one man that stands out. And I’m talking about 6’9, 200 lb Small Forward from Newport, Maine…
Flagg is currently ranked 1st in recruiting, with a 97 scout grade. He is a McDonalds All-American, with 11 college offers, such as Duke, Bryant University, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Providence, U Albany, UCLA, UConn, and West Virginia. In late October, Flagg signed to the best school in the list, Duke. (Definitely not biased.)
Duke fans are looking forward to an exciting season next year.
In Language Arts, most of us have just finished our comic assignment. We all read most of the stories in a book called The Wisdom Tales. These tales are from many continents, countries, and religions. They always have a moral at the end, and a lesson to learn, that you can use in your daily life. Since we read most of the book, wrote a short summary, and learned the moral, it was time to put our knowledge to work. First, we had a visit from the graphic artist, Brittain Peck, who showed us how he makes his comics, and good tips for OUR COMICS THAT WE WOULD MAKE! Brittain is responsible for murals, pamphlets, and the logo of the Carolina Disco Turkeys baseball team. (I thought that was pretty cool.) After the great visit, we explored a couple apps to help us write our Wisdom Tale of choice. I picked the Red and Blue Coat, a tale from Africa. We worked on our comics for about a week, and then we were off for winter break. We came back, and had another week of work. At this point, most of us have finished. I would like to show you mine:
Today, I’m talking about Thanksgiving. In 1621 Pilgrims voyaged across the sea to America and met the Wampanoag tribe. They taught each other how to live, and they had a big feast that lasted for 3 days, which is now thanksgiving. Here are some things I’m thankful for: My friends, Basketball, Baseball, Soccer, Ted Lasso, My Family, My dog, the Absolutely Incredible Boston Celtics, Dortmund going into the Champions League, the Patriots tanking ALL THEIR DARN GAMES for a draft pick, Mac Jones (he tries, he tries,) Omada, Turkey, Sandwiches, Tacos, and…..
I am going to start this post off by saying it was inspired by my great friend, in basketball, and in just life. Aaron. You can visit his blog here: Aaron’s blog
Anyway, this was inspired by him, because he talked about his journey. So I wanna do that too. So thanks Aaron for inspiring me. So, I started out living in DC, 3 years old with my little brother as a little baby. (I don’t wanna get anything wrong, I am born in Boston, and am Boston till I die. I just lived in DC.) I had a big backyard, and my dad bought me a little plastic hoop. Sometimes, I would play on the little hoop.
Taken by my dad…or my mom.
Next, we moved to North Carolina, and the hoop came to. But, in my driveway, there was a big hoop screwed to the garage. I would try and score, but the hoop was like, 10 feet, and I was like, 3 or 4. So I stuck to playing on the little hoop. Living in this house, I played in my first basketball league at The Y! The coaches were nice, and made sure we all scored. I had great times at the Y. Next, we moved to a rental house before we moved into our house now. This house had a hoop in the driveway, and I would play every night after dinner. After that, we moved into our final, house which I live in now. We were living there for a while, and my dad surprised me with a basketball hoop for our driveway! (I still use this hoop) I would play a lot, and our neighbors had a hoop too, so I’d play with them a lot too. That summer, I started kindergarten at my new school, and there was a basketball hoop on the playground. I would go to extended day a lot, and shoot on the little hoop. I would sometimes play at recess with other kids. Around winter, my dad took me to my first game. It was Duke vs. some no name, and I think this is where I started to love basketball. This was 2017, and Duke had a great year. Duke won, and I loved it all. The scoring the running. The players. I loved everything, and after that game, I knew I was gonna start to love the game. Around Christmas, I played in a recreational YMCA league, and I loved it. I don’t mean to brag, but since I was tall, I kinda scored a lot. It was a great season, and I had my first friend through basketball…Stell. Stell was a kid a few inches shorter with me, and he really liked soccer. He would play on the same team with me in basketball, and I’d play soccer with him. We played in two leagues together and had a lot of fun. I played with him in first and second grade, and then he played soccer only. Anyway, in second grade, I played Woodcroft. Woodcroft was a tiny league, and I don’t mean to criticize, but it wasn’t very well put together. I was 7, and I was playing like, 11 year olds. They would always beat us, and I got mad sometimes. Anyway, the season ended, and COVID came. During quarantine, I spent a lot of time playing basketball in the hoop in my driveway. 3rd grade rolled around, and I was in the same class as my good friend Rohan. We both loved Duke basketball, and he thought it was awesome how my cousin played at the time.
Here he is! He now currently plays in Finland, and played basketball in the FIBA for Ivory Coast, where his dad is from. Me and Rohan would shoot around a lot, and constantly talk about Duke’s not-so-well season that year. We would play every day at recess, and we would have battles until Mrs. Baker blew the whistle. The most memorable game was “The Never-Ending Game,” which lasted four days. On day 1, right before the whistle, I hit a pull-up jump shot to equalize, 17-17. The next day, game ends 35-35. Day 3, 37-37. (We had a little disagreement) and finally, Day 4, I won holding the ball 50-52. Rohan put up a great fight though. These were great times, and Rohan is one of my best friends through basketball, and in general. In late May of 3rd grade, I tried out for my first AAU team. I was really nervous, because we were being recorded on a Zoom call. That night, I went to bed so nervous. I finally woke up on Monday to the words, “YOU MADE IT!” From my family. I was so happy and I went to school that day feeling like a KING. School was finally let out, and I went to a basketball camp sponsored by the AAU team. My coach was there, and he talked about the team. But after the first day, I came home to some good and bad news. The bad news was that there wasn’t enough players to make a 3rd grade team. But the good news was that the club thought I was good enough to play for the 6TH GRADE TEAM. AND I WAS IN 3RD. I was so happy! Anyway, me and my team played in our first tournament in Raleigh, and we got 2nd place. I had a great season with that team, but I went to a workout with the Durham Hurricanes. I wasn’t used to their style of play, and had to adapt a lot. But after 2 months of hard work, I made the team! I was playing PF, and if we tried to play small, I played center. I made some really good friends on that team. Aidan, Mac, Semaj, Meyer, Rohan, (again) and Harrison. In that whole season, we either got first or second in that tournament, and we were the runner-up for the state championship. I was really looking forward to another season with the ‘Canes, and I had a coach who would help me out to. His name was Fred, and he had a team called the Blue Flames. My cousin and Fred’s son both played for the Flames, and for their high school, Northwood’s Varsity basketball team. (I think Fred’s son, Fred Jr., will play for Ole Miss basketball.) Anyway, around January or February, the ‘Canes had many new players, and since playing time had to be equal, I would not get much. I had a big decision: stay with the ‘Canes and not have much playing time, or find another team. I picked out try out for another. I tried out for two teams, NC Wildcats, and Team Stacked. Fred also said he could make a team with me and my friends. I had made both NC Wildcats and Team Stacked, but I chose to play with Fred. So Far we have won 1 tournament, In which I had the winning block against our rivals, the Granville Elites in the Beast of the East Basketball Tournament.
Our ring. Taken by me.
I have made some great friends on my new team with Aaron W, Aaron P, Noah C, Big Josh, Silas, Noah, and Knox. Thank you for reading!
For Halloween this year I was Larry Bird. For those of you who don’t know, Larry Bird is a basketball player for the Boston Celtics, the best team ever. Im definitely not biased. It’s definitely not like I was born in Boston and while I’m writing this is around me:
(A quick video taken by me showing how big of a Celtics fan I am.) So anyway, basketball is my life, and I would tell you more, but you can wait until my next post. Any way so here is a picture of Larry:
Pretty similar huh? Anyway, Larry Bird was a funny and great trash talker, along with his great basketball ability, and the weirdest shooting form ever. Larry once walked up to the other team’s bench, and said, something like this, “Y’all are so bad I’m gonna play this game left handed on you.” And he did. 47 points, 14 assists. Anyway what made Larry Bird so great was great shooting ability, and great driving and in the post skill. Now that we’re talking about shooting, I could not finish this post without talking about Larry Bird’s form. This is how you’re supposed to shoot:
Big difference huh? Yeah. Larry cocks his arm back too much. But if you don’t like sports, the ‘boring’ part is over. If you like Halloween, I’ll be talking about the history now. A theory holds that Halloween celebrations were inspired by garden parties. Another theory says that Halloween began as a Christian holiday as the eve of All Hollows Day. It spread to the Americas, and according to Wikipedia, Lesly Bannayne and Cindy Ott said that Catholics colonists in Maryland started to observe All Hallows Eve. Puritans of New England, (BOSTON, BABY!) opposed All Hallows Eve. (Oh.) it wasn’t until Irish and Scottish immigrants came in the 18 and 19 hundreds that Halloween became a major holiday. And to this day, that’s why we celebrate Halloween. (Thank you, Irish! For Boston, and this great day!) So now, I’ll be talking about, costumes, and candy. I think the best costume I saw this year was either Big Bird or a Prime Bottle. (I love funny costumes.) The Prime bottle was funny because of Prime’s giant popularity rise this year, and I have big appreciation for people who made these because it looked hard. My favorite candy is probably Twix, because it’s chocolate and caramel. Trolli worms are good too. But anyway, that’s all. Stay tuned!
This summer, we read a book called Finding Someplace, by Denise Lewis Patrick. It’s about a girl in Hurricane Katrina. Her name is Reesie, and her birthday is coming up soon. But her birthday comes, and Hurricane Katrina hits. She is in her neighbor’s house with her boyfriend’s brother (André) and his wife, (Eritrea) and neighbor, Miss Martine. We had to write about who we thought the best character was, and what we would bring if we had to evacuate our houses on short notice. A bit about the backpack part: In the book, Reesie’s godparents plan to take her out of New Orleans, but all the highways in the town go one way: OUT. Parraine (godfather) is trying to find a way in, and over the phone (no idea how they had WiFi in the biggest Hurricane ever), tells her to pack up the most important things she had. This led to the idea of the backpack project: We had to pick things that we thought we would need if we needed to evacuate on short notice. Here is mine:
Taken by moi.
I packed some pretty crucial things, and I believe that would really help. Next we had to write about who we thought was the hero. Here is a picture of my paper:
Taken by me
I wrote that Dré was the hero because he helped everyone onto the boat to rescue them, punched a hole in the roof so the group could get to the roof, told a white lie that Miss Martine was his grandmother so she could get help, and he saved her life. Dré kept morale high by singing Stevie Wonder’s ‘Happy Birthday’ to Reesie. Dré is brave for surviving the world’s worst hurricane. That is all for today, and I hope you enjoyed!
Hello everyone, today I will be talking about the greatest rivalry German soccer has ever seen. This fierce rivalry involves the two clubs Borussia Dortmund and FC Schalke 04. This extremely fierce rivalry dates back to May 3rd, 1940 with a Schalke 04 win 4-2, won mostly by Schalke’s short quick passes. Schalke won all 3 matches until 1927. The two teams never met until the Gauliga was made (now Bundesliga, which means federation league.) in the next years in the Gauliga, 16 matches were played and Schalke won 14, drew 1, and lost 1. But finally, Dortmund came back and won Westphalia OVER SCHALKE. In the late 40’s to early 60’s, Dortmund dominated Schalke winning 9 of their 13 first meetings. In all from 1947-1963, Dortmund won 25 of the 32 matches. In 1963, the Bundesliga was created, and Dortmund continued their dominance winning 8 of their first 10 meetings with Schalke. Until the 2000s matches ping-ponged back and forth between Dortmund and Schalke. In the past 20 years Dortmund has been of dominance in the Bundesliga, and Schalke has been falling behind the ranks in the Bundesliga 2. In the best way a Dortmund fan like myself can put it, Bors In conclusion, Dortmund has developed tinier grudge rivalries with FC Bayern Munchen, located in Munich. Dortmund faces Bayern in ‘Der Klassiker’ (the Classic), but that rivalry is another post. But back to the rivalry, here are some stats.
