7th Grade Reflection

When I first arrived in August, I expected 7th grade to be a little harder than 6th grade.

I soon realized that 7th grade was a huge transition! I had to adjust to my classes, the new lunch time, and the most painful, the amount of homework. Homework was devastating. I had homework every day in almost every single class. The amount of time I spent on my math homework was about and hour or so. I spent so much of my free time on homework. Three hours per day, and many more hours over the weekends.

Although, by October I was back in the groove. I adapted to where my classes were and the lunch time, but I had not adapted to the large amounts of homework. I still had hours and hours of homework and I would always stay up until 10:30 to 11:15 (and yes I know for some people this isn’t late). I had adapted to everything except homework.

Eventually, I learned I had to be a diligent worker and part of that was turning my work in on time. I also learned I have to put my name on all of my papers or face consequences. Now, the school year is coming to a close and I have learned a lot.

In seventh grade, I’ve learned to conjugate Spanish verbs and solve equations with negative exponents.

Piano Competition

I walk into the piano store, not knowing what to expect. I see only a few other kids standing in line. I sit on one of the several piano seats in the store. A man comes up to my mom and I asking for our music. I give him my sheets of music and he says, “I’m sorry, but you can’t compete in the competition. You must have a book, not sheets. The judges are very strict about this. It’s not your fault, your teacher should’ve known this.” Of course I don’t blame my teacher. In fact I probably forgot what my teacher said about the competition. I still got to play in front of a judge and that made me happy.

As I sat on the small piano bench, I listened to all of the other people play. They were all 1 million times better than me. My mom said that they practice for 5 hours a day. You see, I only practice for 30 minutes and only on the weekends. In a way I’m lucky my mom doesn’t make me practice for 5 hours a day.

Finally, after the longest and most complicated piano song I’ve ever heard was over, it was my turn. I headed into the room. The room was fairly vacant. There were only a few chairs and at the end of a the room sat a piano in front of a sky back-round. I gave my judge my 3 sheets of music and shakily climbed up the very few steps. I sat at the piano hoping for nothing but a good performance and let my fingers fall onto the keys.

I played throughout my first song and hit accurate notes. There were only a few mistakes. Then came the next song. Still a little shaky from my first song, I played. Yet again I only made a few mistakes. I climbed down the stairs and my judge said, “That was short and sweet.”

That was it. That’s all he said. No advice or critiquing. I’m still not sure if that was a good sign or a bad sign, but all I know is that I did ok. I hope I get to be as advanced as the kids who played before me.

The Boa Constrictor by Shel Silverstein

I’m being swallered by a Boa Constrictor
a Boa Constrictor, a Boa Constrictor
I’m being swallered by a Boa Constrictor
and I don’t – like snakes – one bit!
Oh no, he swallered my toe.
Oh gee, he swallered my knee.
Oh fiddle, he swallered my middle.
Oh what a pest, he swallered my chest.
Oh heck, he swallered my neck.
Oh, dread, he swallered my – (BURP)

I remember sitting in my room with my brother, listening to the CD. I remember just lying in my bed for hours listening to these poems. I really like the narrator’s voice and the way he says all of the words. All of his poems have a certain kind of rhythm. All of his poems rhyme. I love all of his poems.

My Favorite Movie

When I was little, I loved the movie Starwars. It was full of lasers, fighting, and explosions. It was the most action packed movie ever!

My favorite character by far was Luke Skywalker. I thought he was the best Jedi in the movie. No matter what situation Luke was in, I always knew he would overcome the complication. While I was watching the movie, I was always one the edge of my seat, even though I knew what was going to happen. I memorized most of the planets in Starwars. For example, Tattoine or Dagaba. I also knew the characters and what their role was in the movie. Without it, I could never picture myself inside of the movie and what I could do in Starwars.

I loved, and still love the movie Starwars

Solo and Ensamble

Today was the day. After months if practicing, I can finally perform my Ensamble and my 4 mallet solo for band. My percussion section and I were the first to play in front of judge 7. My role in the Ensamble was to play the bongos. The music for the bongos was not difficult at all, in fact it was very easy. The first note was a great one, as well as the rest of the notes we played. The rating we got was an excellent, the best rating you can get. Judge 7 had very good advice. We played better than I expected. Actually, it was the best we’ve played.

Next was my 4 mallet solo. The song was incredibly difficult and it was almost impossible to hit all of the right notes. I worked many hours on this solo, trying to get down the complicated parts and hitting the notes accurately. I had the same judge, judge 7. Fear gripped my heart as I played the first notes. I was doing quite well until I got to the second half of the piece. My heart dropped, as I hit wrong notes, each one following another. Nerves and dread took control of my body. I kept playing wrong notes. I was absolutely terrified.

I finished the song, shaking. My judge had very reasonable advice. For example, if I practice to fast, I’m basically setting up myself to inaccuracy. I came out of the room, disturbed about my performance. I told my friends I did terrible. I was very worried about my results. Finally, after what seemed like hours, I got my results. I got a good, the second best rating. Although I didn’t get a bad rating, I felt disappointed in my perfomance.

Mandolas, My Favorite Resturaunt

Mandolas has the best Italian food ever. Even the bread is delicious. Mandolas is by far my favorite Italian restaurant.

The dull roar of the many people at the numbered, wooden tables. The soda machine in the back of the first room. The service is incredibly fast. Five minutes after you order at the counter, you get your juicy, delicious food.

The menu has all kinds of pizza, pasta, and sandwiches.The food that’s amazing, comes out steaming and flavorful. I usually order a spaghetti bowl than contains some vegetables and is covered in a bolognaise sauce. After you savor your food, there is gelato. Gelato is basically ice cream accept almost as good. There are about 10 flavors. Chocolate, Cinnamon, Vanilla, and 7 more other awesome flavors. My personal favorite gelato to order is Cinnamon. The flavor is sweet with a soft consistency.

The food is amazing, the service is fast, and the gelato is delicious. Mandolas is my favorite Italian Restaurant.

Pre-UIL performance.

My first note was a good one as was the band’s. Another great note followed and another one. I nailed all of my notes, well for the first song at least. We played 3 songs that were all preformed very well. We hit most of our notes and I hoped we impressed the audience. I had a very good performance, but then came sight reading. I hate playing on mallets, it’s my least talented instrument. My band teacher assigned us instruments and my heart sank when she told me mallets. We practiced the song 2 times, but I was still unsure about how I would do. It was time to play and I knew I was going to mess up. I hit wrong notes throughout the song. My heart was gripped with fear as I hit each wrong note. Although I did terrible, the band did fairly well. I was terrified to hear what the judge would say. I was surprised to hear him say we had very nice sounds and we would do very well at UIL. So overall we had a good band performance.

Why Grocery Stores Are Annoying.

“Nick would you like to go to the grocery store with me?” My dad says. “Uhh…” Is my usual response. “No thank you.” I say. I think to myself, I don’t want to do anything today. My dad usually goes by himself, but sometimes I have no choice. Grocery stores are annoying.

I think grocery stores are annoying because it feels like getting the stuff on the 500 paged list is impossible. All of the people taking as long as they can to push their carts and pick what kind of foods they’re going to have for the week. Every time I think we finally found all 1 million things on the list, we remember the toilet paper.

Another thing that happens often is my mom adds something to the list. For instance, “Can you get oatmeal raisin cookies?” Then we have to walk behind the mass of slow people. After we’re done getting the load of stuff, we have to wait in a HUGE line. After a couple of minutes (what feels like hours), we look at the damage. Usually the cost of all of our groceries are about 200 dollars.

Grocery stores really irritate me. Unfortunately, getting food from the grocery stores is important, but why do I have to go?

Why Summer Time is Enjoyable

No homework, nothing to worry about, and I can always have friends over. Well, almost always. Summer time is enjoyable.

One of my favorite things to do is go on vacations. I have gone to New York, Canada,The Galapagos Islands, Panama, Vermont, and Maine. There are always a ton of activities to do. For example: fishing, swimming in an ice cold lake (in Maine), hiking, and play video games in the hotel. I also see family that I only get to visit on special occasions. I see 2nd cousins, grandparents, great uncles and aunts and the other 50 people that I have never met before.

My other reason why summer time is enjoyable is I get to hang out with my friends more often than when I’m in school. There’s pretty much no limit to how many friends I can invite over. We swim in my pool, pass around the football, and play video games. I have a lot of fun when my friends come over.

There are tons of reasons why summer time is enjoyable. The reasons that I stated are just a small portion of all the reasons why summer time is amazing. I think most people would agree with me when I say summer time is fun.

My Favorite Mistake

“Letter I to the playing chair letter J to the ready chair.” This is it. I’ve played already, but why am I shaking? I get up to the marimba, send a worried smile to my friends, take a deep breath, and play. I had practiced for months so, I should do well.

It got towards the end of the song and I was excited to be done. A little too excited. My stomach plummeted as I realized I hit a wrong note. I was absolutely horrified when I hit a second and a third wrong note but, kept going and I think that was the best thing I could’ve done.

When I finished the song, I went back to my seat palms sweaty and quivering all over. My friend smiled at me to make me feel good about my performance. She wrote a note that said you did really well, but I was kind of disappointed about my performance. I was too excited to be done with my piece. I told her I messed up badly, but hopefully I could do a lot better on the snare drum etude and the tympani etude.

She did really well on the marimba etude, better than I did. I hope we made the same region band. There are 2 region bands. One is concert, which is the worst, but the people in it are really good and then there is symphonic, which is the best and has the top people who advanced from region in it. Everyone in the room advanced from district. We all played the same pieces in district but there were different cuts in the music. These cuts were longer and harder to play.

The next 2 pieces we were going to play were the tympani and the snare drum etudes. It felt so long because people played both of the etudes. The other people were very good but I was confident I could beat them. “Letter I to the playing chair letter J to the ready chair.” I didn’t feel as nervous as before, but I was still shaky. I did a lot better than the first etude, in fact I nailed it. Absolutely no mistakes! I was very happy and anxious to see what the results were. My friend did really well also. So we were both excited to see the results.

The results came out and everyone crowded the percussion paper. I saw people smile and people who looked disappointed. There were mixed faces so I had no idea what was coming. Some of the other people in my band made it to the percussion results before I did. They yelled, “Nick you got seventh chair and made symphonic band!” I didn’t believe them, so I went to see it myself. They were right! I made symphonic! I broke out in a smile. I ran to my band teacher and my mom and said I made region and got seventh chair! Everyone congratulated me and I felt really happy. My percussion friend also did well. She made concert and was tenth chair. She was happy also. I went home feeling relieved and happy.

I had accomplished something big, something that I will always remember. I learned that no matter what happens, you have to keep going and that’s how I made symphonic band.