Mr. Nance - An exercise in Antonyms and Comma Splicing

The Quack

The Quack is the easiest teacher here;yet by far the most challenging.
He is extremely sarcastic; however, he is deadly serious.
He is quiet, while he is talkative.
He is mature, but he is childish.
He is all knowing; similarly, he is ignorant.
He is ancient, even though he is youthful.
He is black, and he is white.
Although he is a hard worker, he is slothful.

In short, the challenges are easy, the attitudes are tides of change, and the silent mouth longs to utter. 
He is an infant, even so, he is arriving at the midpoint of life.
His brain longs to consume information.
He is wise; however, he is young in appearance.
He is mixed in race, with black hair and dark eyes with white skin.

That is all for now!
DINGBAT OUT!!

The Snow Day

          Finally, for the first time this year, we get a snow day and I don't have to go to school.  The sad thing is, we only got 3 inches or less and they closed the schools down because nobody in New Mexico knows how to drive.  Flower was on the internet on Facebook and found that the Quack had posted on his Facebook saying, "You know you are in New Mexico when the maintenance men in your apartment complex go outside and start clearing the snow on the sidewalks with leaf blowers.  LOL, that is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.  

          In Utah people are smart.  They put salt water on their roads before the storm, which is super, super smart because the roads will not freeze.  The salt decreases the freezing point of the ice.  My sister, Flower, told me that apparently all the teachers, Sewards Rat, Shimmy Dude, the Barbour, and the Quack, were on Facebook on the snow day.  (And, by the way, I am changing Flower's nickname to Midget.  Blame the Quack, he refers to her as the Midget.)

          Ben, my brother, went out and shoveled snow.  Not for very long, because he came in exhausted.  He is more a brainiac than an athletic kid.  He is a nerd too.  He takes after me!  The Quack likes my brother Ben.  There was one funny time, when I was talking to Shimmy Dude on Skype, and my brother came up to the camera and I told him to get out of the way.  Shimmy Dude said, "Hi, Sarah's brother.  My name is Nerd."  It was funny.  The only bad part of the snow day is that I could not take my teachers Klejnar (klinah).  That is a Danish cookie that is made in Danish homes during the Holiday season to offer to visitors and neighbors as they drop in on each other’s homes.  If you do not know what Klejnar is, you were born in a cave (hahaha the Quack).

That’s a Wrap!

DINGBAT OUT!!

The Mysterious Ticking Noise

I had always known about the "Snape, Snape, Severus Snape" song, but I had never seen it, or even known what it was called.  In Anatomy and Physiology class, my friend, Sara played it on her laptop and I laughed so hard I cried!  The Piercing Spear made us turn it off, but she was being a hypocrite because around the same time she was watching little kids sing.  Her excuse was, "It's little 6-year-olds singing.  They're adorable!"  It was just a study day so it didn't seem like it mattered much that we were watching it; it wasn't like she was teaching or anything.  

I became immediately obsessed with this video and looked it up later on Youtube, only to find that it was called "The Mysterious Ticking Noise," and had over 715 million hits!  I thought it was awesome, so I watched it at least ten more times and learned it.  I also watched Wizard Swears made by the same people.  The funniest stuff I've seen in a really long time!  I showed it to my brother and he thought it was absolutely hilarious!  He especially liked the Dumbledore part.  "Dumbledore!!" high-pitched.  I liked Snape's and Harry's part the best.  I showed it to my parents and they thought it was the stupidest thing they'd ever seen, but that's just because the video was made for teenage ears and eyes.  Not adults.  So anyway, I'm going to go around and show it to my teachers, the Quack and the Shimmy Dude.  They will probably love it.  My brother and I plan on performing it sometime soon.  I absolutely love it.  I'm going to post the video on here for you to see.

Well, that’s all for now,

DINGBAT OUT!

The Strength of the LDS Youth

Where do the youth of the church get their strength from?  Where do they receive the courage and will to push through all the crud of the world, and repel the fiery darts of Satan?  How do they do it? Where does this extreme amount of spiritual strength, commitment, and courage come from?  For young women, it comes through the personal progress program.  The personal progress program is a part of the young women's program, in fact, it is the structure.  The personal progress program strengthens us and our testimonies by providing hundreds of experiences that bring us closer to Heavenly Father.  The Personal Progress Program consists of 8 values.  They are faith, divine nature, individual worth, knowledge, choice and accountability, good works, integrity, and virtue.  For each value experience there is a project that needs ten hours at the VERY LEAST!  The Personal Progress Program takes at least 180 hours to complete if you do it fast.  It usually takes at least 300-600 hours. The Personal Progress program is the equivalent of an Eagle Scout project for a young man.  These activities increase our relationship with God, and this increases our strength in the Gospel so much. Through our strength, we can be strong enough to resist all temptation.  For example, sex before marriage, drugs, smoking, drinking, etc.  These things are an abomination in my sight. 

Another thing that helps us be strong is a pamphlet released by the church titled For The Strength Of Youth. This book lists many of our values and lists why it is important to stay strong and steadfast to these principals. We are instructed to carry it with us at all times.

That's What I'm Talkin' 'bout!!! 

Then there's stuff for the strength of young men, like duty to God. I don't know very much at all about the Young Men Program, so I'll just put some pictures in:

DINGBAT OUT!!!!

Flutes, Flutes The Magical Sound!!!!

I brought my flutes to school today so that I could play them at lunch.  (If you don't know already, I LLLLOOOOVVVVVEEEEE NATIVE AMERICAN FLUTES!)  I brought my flutes to school on Friday because it's not a school day.  I showed up early so I could play for The Shimmy Dude before his meetings started.  He loves to hear people play the Native American flute.  Unfortunately, he doesn't own any, and I don't think he can play, but the Short Man's wife plays, and so does the Quack, and his wife too I think.  Anyway, I showed it to him, and he loved it and asked me if I would walk around at events such as the COL (Celebration Of Learning) and play to set the mood with music.  I brought them again today to show the Quack, and it's amazing, because anything he picks up, he can play, literally.  He's a prodigy.  Anyway, he was super interested, and asked me to play each one for him.  I own three, so I played them all.  Then, and this is so cool, he picked one up, wiped it off, and started playing it. That was cool; to see my teacher play MY flutes right in front of me.  Neato!  Then, in math class, it's funny because The Shimmy Dude plays Native American flute music on his computer, and I just kind of sink when I hear it.  I relax immediately.  But today I didn't notice it.  He loves it when I do that, and I think that's why he plays it.  He was like, "oh, come on!  Sarah."  Then he got my attention, smiled and turned the music up.  Then I was like "ah," and slumped down.  He laughed softly and lovingly.  I love The Shimmy Dude.  We have a special friend relationship and we talk about religion a lot too.  I will post my persuasive essay that I wrote in parts, so you can read it.  It’s based on religion. 

Anyway, this was a great day.  Of course every day is great, but this was a GREAT day!  I love my teachers, and my school!  The only thing is I didn't get to play my flutes at lunch because I forgot I had other requirements, boohoo, but I will play tomorrow.

So long,

DINGBAT OUT!!!!

I Went to the Cadaver Lab at UNM (Cont'd)

Guess who fainted out of all of us?   I never would have guessed in a million years that she would have fainted because she's such a tomboy?  My best Friend, Briana.  It was scary. When she fell, she was shaking, and her eyes were glassed over.  We thought she was seizing. Turns out it was just a freeze chill, because all the blood went to her organs.  When we came out she said, "Oh man I can't believe I missed the brains!"  She is so tomboy!  The only reason she passed out in the first place was because she locked her knees because she was so interested in what was going on.  Bryah's mom was watching, so she was able to catch her.  Then Briana's next response was, "I wish I could have hit my head and got a concussion, then the story would be much more dramatic to tell the engineering kids."  She is a dork, but of course I probably would have said the same thing.  

So anyway, we went to lunch at the Sub, and I got a Calzone with Mushrooms which was delicious, but the mushrooms looked like smoker's lungs which we saw there.  I was like "hey guys, what does this look like?" And they said, "a smoker's lung," and then I stuffed it in my mouth.  YUMMY!  The Piercing Spear rolled her eyes, saying her husband says stuff like that all the time, and we laughed.  I love my friends.  So anyway, we went back and back to class. Yeah (not)!

WOW, THAT'S LONG!  (Just for you Shimmy Dude),
DINGBAT OUT!!!!!

I went to the Cadaver Lab at UNM

            Today I went to the Cadaver Lab at UNM and my best friends Jakey, Briana, and Sam went with me.  Just to see if I can, I am going to name all the Anatomy and Physiology students who came with us.  There was Bernice, Johnny, Reno, Alexis, Bryah, Sydney, Chris, Cheyenne, Isaiah, Asa, Sara, Mary, Steven, Niquelle, Meghan, and I can't remember any others.  The Piercing Spear, The Robot Lady and our principal came too.  I remember we got there and were waiting, and there was this couch that had waves.  Seven of us were sitting on it and it goes up and down because it is shaped like a wave.  I was sitting on the upward part and the gravity was pushing me onto The Robot Lady.  I'm going into a lot of detail now because I don't want to go into too much detail about what we saw when we were in to the Cadaver Lab, because then I'll start smelling Formaldehyde! 

 

We walked up the stairs and we saw this doctor with a big bushy white mustache and two white tufts of hair on either side (LOL).  He looked a lot like Einstein at first glance, at least to me.  There was also a young pretty woman with reddish/brownish hair and blue eyes.  They were both in lab coats. When we first went in, I was fine.  I was pretty excited.  We were asking questions, and it was great. Then the white haired doctor opened up the body bag.  I couldn't breathe, the Formaldehyde smelled so strong.  It seemed with every breath my stomach lurched upward, and my gag reflexes triggered.  I thought I was going to puke.  The whole thing was SUPER COOL, but I just could not have handled the smell; it engulfed me.  I almost puked a total of 3 times, and almost passed out the same amount.  The whole thing was really cool, because we got to see all the organs, and touch them, and feel how thick the skin was.  The one thing that really got me grossed out about feeling the organs and body parts was the moisture and coldness of the organs.  (I'm already getting nauseated again; knew I couldn't refrain from the details.)  We wore gloves so the organs and such were not touching our skin, but the moisture and coldness of the organs is what we felt through our gloves, and we felt the cold and the wet for a while after touching it.  That was the worst thing, other than the smell. We could feel the temperature and wetness of the skin and organs. Oh, and the texture. The coolest parts were when we got to hold the brains, and hearts, and lungs, and livers; but the hearts and brains especially.

TO BE CONTINUED.....,

DINGBAT OUT!!!!!

School: What's Happening?

School is pretty awesome, and there's a lot going on.  I'm finally squared away on my master project, and Flower and I are on top of it now.  The Barbour wants me labeling and mapping all the nerves and nerve endings in the thumb, on all sides.  Flower and I are trying to get it done but it's a lot of work.  Today was a good day in school and I got a lot of my work done in class.  I love school so much, but very sadly I didn't get to see my favorite teacher (The Quack) today : .(.  Other than that, it was a really good day.  I understood my math in class and had it finished, so I got to help the other kids in my class understand and do it.  That was probably the funnest (YES, FUNNEST IS A WORD IN MY VOCABULARY!) class today.  Shimmy Dude was so pleased that I helped that he asked me personally to come back, but I told him I couldn't skip the Short Man's class, (unfortunately) but he knows.  I hope that he knows I would always be more than willing to help if I could. 


Different topic altogether, but guess what??!!??  The Sewards Rat had her Baby, Nico on Friday at 3 in the afternoon!  He's so CUTE, I"M GONNA DIE!  Also, my World History teacher's wife had their Baby also, Michael!  I haven't seen a picture of him yet, but it's so exciting!  Even though it's exciting neither of them are here right now so we have to deal with Subs, uck, but I know it's all good, and they'll be back before we know it.  


Oh and guess what?  WE'RE GOING TO THE CADAVER LAB ON WEDNESDAY!!!!!! I'M SO EXCITED!


Dingbat Out!

Jakey became a skeleton!!

My best friends Briana, Sam and I painted my other best friend Jake's (everyone calls him Momo, but I call him Jakey) face.  We used face paint.  It was in Anatomy and Physiology class because we have a test tomorrow and we have to know the bones.  The Piercing Spear brought in a white T-shirt that our principal gave her.  Jakey volunteered to wear the shirt and be labeled.  It was awesome.  Sam, Briana and I put glittery face paint on his face to label the bones in the skull.  I painted the Frontal yellow.  I also drew his ribs on his shirt, and his clavicle.  We even put lip gloss on his lips, (to his strong opposition) to label the muscle in his lip.  I forgot to mention that when I was drawing his ribs, he complained a lot because he, The Quack, Flower, Kevin, Austin, J.D., and Nick just got back from a caving trip in Carlsbad Caverns, and his ribs are bruised, poor guy.  I love Jakey.  We also put hair-ties in his hair.  He looked like a chick, LOL!  The Piercing Spear drew the vertebrae on his back and front, and Sam and Briana labeled and drew his arm bones. Then we were done.  PICTURE TIME!  I took three pictures with my phone and I'll put them on here.  The faces he makes are hilarious.  He was totally up for it too.  He said, "This is the only day of the year that my mom will let me get away with this."  Then after we were done we went to show him to our Principal.  The Barbour and The Short man were in there.  Then we went and showed him to The Robot Lady.  We tried to show him to the Quack but he did not look happy that we were disturbing his class, so we left and went back upstairs and showed him to the Sewards Rat.  Then we showed him to Shimmy Dude.  Here are the hilarious pictures of Jakey:

DINGBAT OUT!

Bwahahaha, I got to take the Barbour's stitches out!!!!!

In Anatomy and Physiology class we had an opportunity to take The Barbour's stitches out.  He had had a cancer on his face so they had to cut it out and stitched him up.  He only had one stitch on his face, so he told the Piercing Spear that he would let one of us take his stitches out.  The Spear asked who would be interested and me, Sara, Sam, Briana, and a couple other people raised our hands, and The Spear put our names on pieces of paper and then we had a drawing.  I had a hunch I would get picked because I have really good luck, so I left to go the bathroom, and when I came back, I was told that I had won.  I screamed like a Banshee, I was so excited.  The Sewards Rat came in and so did the Barbour.  We sat him on a chair and I took the sanitized scissors, but I was so nervous that I grabbed them wrong.  I would not in any case make a good surgeon, because I tend to freeze up right before, and then I cannot to save my life remember how to do anything, not even hold scissors.  I went for his stitches with the tweezers in my left hand and the scissors in my right.  I know no one noticed, but my hands were shaking wildly.  I grabbed the knot in the stitches, pulled gently, and snipped the knot and pulled it through. It was short and sweet.  Sara was like, "That's it? That’s lame!" The Barbour's response was "I let you guys do it because it's easy.  What did you expect?" I was still shaking and shocked but I think I did a pretty good job. 

That's a Wrap,

DINGBAT OUT!

"CRIPPLE"

Ok, so I love sports.  I mean I absolutely love them. My favorite sport of all is basketball.  I love playing with the boys because I can show them that I'm not weak.  I'm not a girly girl in any respect.  But, being boys they can naturally be very mean to girls.  A lot of times they push me down, or trip me without knowing they did, or knowing they did, but being too rude to care.  A lot of the time, they make fun of me for falling down, which only makes me push myself harder.  A lot of the time, I'm too competitive for my own britches!!  Sometimes I push a little too hard and end up getting hurt, like today when I sprained my ankle by twisting it.  I limped in to the Quack's room to rest it so I wouldn't damage it more, and it started getting worse and worse.  I mean, come on!  I already sprained that ankle by playing ultimate Frisbee.  I didn't cry, but then again, when do I cry about receiving injuries?  I mean they don't hurt me at least.  So, the Quack gave me his "roley" chair so I could get to the front office to tell them what had happened.  Ms. Vicki took me upstairs to the nurse and she iced my ankle and put me in a wheel chair!  That was fun!  People were like "hey, I want to be in a wheel chair!!"  It was a little annoying though because everyone was like, "what happened?"  That got annoying, and then everyone was trying to help me.  That’s a no-no usually because I am extremely independent.  It was really fun though.  I popped wheelies!  My friends are really nice and caring to me.  One of them, Momo, who is very sarcastic and dorky kept calling me cripple every time he saw me.  That made me laugh because I know he meant it as a term of endearment. 

Well, that's a wrap,
DINGBAT OUT!!!!!

Master Project!!!!

Okay, so every other Tuesday we have a master project day at my school, meaning we have a short schedule so we are able to work on master project for two hours.  My sponsor is the Barbour, and he is so dang brilliant!  I tell him my ideas once, and they're pretty complex, and he is able to get it immediately and draw a very well thought out picture.  He is able to think it out more in 5 minutes than I am in weeks.  His idea for this particular thing was different, but impressive.  Wait wait wait, hold up.  Maybe I should tell you what my master project is.  My master project is to design a prosthetic limb that is anatomically correct and hooks up to the brain.  It will have millions of robotic bionic microscopic nerve endings and nerves that will be programmed to sense pressure, heat, pain, all sensations.  It will be like spider web of wires as Mr. Barbour pointed out.  At the end of each finger there will be a hub, which is the single controller and modifier and maintainer of all those nerves.  Then all 5 of those hubs controlling the nerves in each finger will be connected to another hub, which will hold all of the arm nerves as well, and this hub connecting all the nerves together will be connected to the mother controller which will be connected to the brain.  Complex huh?  Yeah, I think so too, but that's why I want to do it.  I love it when I accomplish things well beyond my years of complexity.  It builds my character, my confidence, how I feel about myself, and in turn, how I treat others, and it helps me be grateful and appreciative that I have teachers that cheer me on, and believe in me, and genuinely care for me.  All the teachers in my school mean so much to me and are amazing, but there are a select few who mean an aweful lot to me; namely The Quack, Shimmy Dude, The Barbour, The Short Man, The Sewards Rat and the Piercing Spear.  Also, the Dragon Lady.  I didn't like her at first but now I LOVE HER!!!

Well, that's a wrap!

DINGBAT OUT!

A Children's Story about Density

August 17, 2011
Blog Entry No. 5

Once upon a time there was a feather small and fine, floating on the water of a pond.  “I am so light,” said he, “oh te ha he, my density is low degree, lower than the water which lies under me.  That is why I can float so free.”  Along swims a big, fat catfish, fins swish swishing in the pond.  He falls upon the floating feather, wondering how it stayed on top the water, and swam to ask it how it did it, this single floating feather.  “Hello,” said the feather to the catfish.  “How might you do today?”  “Just fine,” said the catfish, “but I have one wish.”  “And what shall this one wish be,” asked the feather.  The catfish said, “my wish is to know how a single feather small and slow, can stay on the surface while I fall below.”  “Well,” said the feather, “te ha he, my density is low degree, lower than the water which lies beneath me.”  “As for you, unfortunately, your density is of high degree, higher than the water in which you swim free.”  “If the density is higher than you can be, you float on top, fancy free.  If the density is lower than you can be, you reside below, and swim so free.”  That is density!

Life at ASK

This Blog is for August 10, 2011
Blog Entry No. 1

For this blog I am going to talk about my school life last year and this year.  Well, this year is just begun, so naturally I am going to start with last year.  Last year I was a freshman at the ASK Academy Charter School in Rio Rancho, NM.  I can proudly call myself one of the 120-40 students who participated in the first year of the ASK Academy’s existence.  It is a great school!!  The teachers are among the best in the State, especially my Math Teacher, Mr. Barbour and my Physics Teacher, Mr. Nance.  They are both brilliant, and my Math Teacher from last year, Mr. Barbour, is one of the three founding fathers of the school.  My Physics Teacher, Mr. Nance, is a super nice guy and is always open to helping others.  He is one of my favorites because he is super musical!  He plays the saxophone, he sings, and he kind of plays the piano, guitar and native american flute.  Oh, and he acts too!  I think that is so cool because I sing, play piano and the native american flute too!  I look up to him so much!  He is a really good example and I know he will always support me in my academics; so it makes me really sad that I do not have him as a teacher this year.  But you got to face the truth:  Bio Nerds are better than Engineering Nerds (sorry Mr. Nance but we rock!Too bad you had to turn over to the dark side this year!  He he he….).  So anyway, in these blogs I am going to do a lot of praising of my teachers because they are awesome and I think the world of them.  I also enjoy all of my friends.  For the first time in my life, I have best friends in school; seven of them.  We all try to strive for academic excellence and compete to see who gets the best grades.  I like that we improve one another.