When I arrived back in the halls of Westridge I expected a year not too different from the last.
I couldn’t have been more wrong. Seventh grade turned out to be the craziest year I have ever experienced, and I’ve learned a lot other than just math, reading, science, and history.

School is so much more than sitting in classroom desks in seventh grade. In passing periods and at lunch I learned that people can be very odd. VERY odd. One day in October I opened my locker to find blood-covered notecards with symbols written all over them fall out. It was, of course, my friend Rory. But people other than my friends found it hilarious to act like complete hooligans all the time, like playing hot potato with a hard boiled egg in the track locker room and play find the toenail in each other’s lunches.

The only class where I could get a chance to rest was band, which to be honest without the class I would have gone insane by the second semester. After school was also the best part of the day because once all of my homework was finished I could hang out with my friends and have free time to myself. I have to admit that sometimes I was too tired after the school day to do anything productive, but the time to myself was also crucial to my mental well-being.

So to any incoming seventh graders, my advice to you is to make sure you always have something fun to do outside of school, because life would, I’m going to say it now, pretty much suck if school was it’s only aspect.

We’ve all been forced to read books in school before, and the teachers have always told us to think about the ‘hidden meanings’ the author supposedly put in the book. But did the author always really mean to put those meanings in the book? Or are the teachers just over analyzing it?

Why would the author put hidden meanings in a book? When he or she writes, the writer isn’t composing the book for an English class, but more for any reader that picks it up off a book store shelf. Chances are, when the owner of the book is reading it, they aren’t looking for hidden meanings, they’re just reading the book for fun. And of course the author knows that. So what’s the point of putting them in anyway?

All we know is that this is a case of our English teachers preparing us for high school, and we may never even know if the authors meant for these hidden meanings to be in their books.

The Little Detective and his Ghost Doctor

He was a usual boy with
a usual head
full of chemicals and knives
and bodies dead,
with murders as play scenes
and thumbs as his toys
he played all alone
’cause he hated the other boys;
except John Watson
his family doctor’s son,
who had died about a decade ago
but haunted Sherlock still, you…

(Source: imjohnlocked, via rachenbach)

About BBC’s Sherlock, a widely loved show in America and the UK.

Years ago, if there was one thing I couldn’t do without, it was my Nintendo DS. I could never find anything that would entertain me nearly as much as that handheld video game console.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXq1_TJVvns

I played it for years, with all of its different games, each one as fun as the next, until one day the DS broke. I could not get over it, and until I got a new one a week later, I was crushed.

 

But I learned that the DS really was a part of me, something I went to when I was sad. Of all the toys I ever played with in my life, none of them had more of an impact on me as the beloved DS of mine.

 

“…the only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”-Ralph Waldo Emerson, House and Garden Volume 163 (1925)

The most truthful quote in my eyes from RW Emerson. If you really want to become something great, you can become great if you really try hard enough. What guides your life are your hopes and ambitions, against all odds.

People who were dirt poor when they were young became successful and wealthy, but that can’t happen overnight, and it requires a lot of hard work; you really have to decide that you want to be something or someone to become it.

 

Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American poet among other things in the 19th century, and he had many great quotes about what he learned in his life.

RW Emerson’s bio:http://www.biography.com/people/ralph-waldo-emerson-9287153

I know Valentine’s Day is a day of love and feelings for your soul mate. But it really is kind of a limited holiday. In what way? Well, some of us don’t have anyone to give candy or hearts to. Valentine’s Day is truly depressing for some of us.

For one thing, I wouldn’t mind if hardly anyone else had a girlfriend or boyfriend, but the fact that they do sickens me. I see people in the halls holding hands, leaning in towards each other… Ugh. I really should be happy for them, but it would be a lot easier if I could identify with them. It just makes Valentine’s Day the most depressing 24 hours of February.

And then there’s the fact that I don’t have anything to do on Valentine’s day. Other people are going out to dinner and doing things with their girlfriend. My own 16 year old brother is going out to dinner with his girlfriend to make matters even worse. Where am I? On a hot date with my computer monitor. It just isn’t the same. Staying at home thinking about what I could be doing just adds to the depression of Valentine’s Day.

Yes, I can’t stand Valentine’s Day. But you know what? I can’t really mope around, because love may not be all it’s cracked up to be, ESPECIALLY in Middle School. Valentine’s Day may be depressing, but I can deal with that.