Presidential Physical Fitness

Presidential Physical Fitness is a program that is meant to keep kids in shape in grade school by encouraging kids to get in shape so they can get a badge and letter "signed" by the president. I remember the first day we were told about it. Our PE teacher told us we could be part of the elite presidential physical club.

All you had to do was meet some guidelines based on your age. Personally I think i remember having to do more than 30 situps in a minute, 4 pull ups, run a mile under 7 minutes, and be able to pass my toes on sit and reach. All of these were fairly easy for a skinny 5th grade boy, the pull ups were the only thing that threatened me every year. Since then they've gotten easier while the sit and reach poses more of a problem. I can't exactly touch my toes.

I remember after you met all the guidelines the gym teacher would anounce it. You would then recieve a blue badge and certificate "signed" by Bill Clinton himself. It was an elite group of athletic specimen everyone wanted to be a part of. Actually, it wasn't that hard and i think all but 2 or 3 kids in my class made it. Still, at the time, many kids thought it cemented there place in professional sports once they were older.

Homework

Last night i sat down to do my homework at about 3 in the afternoon. I figured that it wouldn't take very long and that I could finish it quickly and get to bed early that night. I wasn't exactly sure what I had for homework so I opened up my folders one by one. Starting with first hour. When I opened up the ap lang folder my eyes met the research paper.. o crap. I sat down at the computer and began to do one final revision for the paper. I didn't think that it would take me long, but it sure did. Three revisions later and my dads revision led to a different paper. Then I had to go back and cite the sources by paragraph, which I hadn't done before.
Luckily after that paper my 2nd and 3rd hour classes didn't give any homework. But my fourth hour pre calc class had a big test monday.. So i sat down and studied that for about an hour. After that i didn't want to go on to the next class, which was spanish. We had a quiz over ser vs. estar coming up. After looking at that I was ready to throw my bag out the window, instead i went over my ap lang paper one more time then went to bed, great night.

UltraKeys

If there was one class I wish i payed more attention to in middle school it's typing. We used this program called UltraKeys. It was part of Computer Tech Ed. Everyday you would go through this computer program typing the same sentences over and over.

The senences would work on one row of keys at a time. You would start by typing just the letters, like asdfghjkl; asdfghjkl; asdfghjlk; the eventually switch to real words, as dad sad a sag dag jag jas fash. This was pretty boring, and for that reason i didn't do it everyday. Then when it came time for testing we would have to type for speed. I barely passed because i never got any better. I'd just type really slow on the pre-test so it looked like a improved.

The other reason for my present day typing handicap is the cardboard covers we would put over our hands as we typed. I'd always cheat by bending my wrists so the cover would slide up and I could see the keys. Today, I still can't type without looking, sorry UltraKeys. It's your fault for being so easy to cheat on.

Michael Ayers

The class have recently ended the eternal quest to find Ayers's blog. The simple answer was to just google, "Michael Ayers" UIowa Blog. His blog is panoptiblog.blogspot.com. The actual search for his blog was quite interesting. The name Michael Ayers in synonomous with many things we have found out, from potty mouth teenage girls, to British boxers.

• 
  Michael Ayers, age 50, is a ultra-distance in line skater. His famous quote, "If it ain't at least 30 miles, it ain't worth putting your skates on for." Titles his website, there were numerous photos of him finishing these skating marathons, and some of him and his granddaughter skating around also. Quite the athlete.

While on the topic of his athleticism one should note his boxing career. He was 31 and 5 with 28 knockouts while boxing in the UK. He's a lightweight from London and is now retired at 48.

One of the more discriptive accounts of Michael Ayers cam from a teenage girl. She seemed to be upset with him and in love with him at the same time. I think he said something to one of her friends about her and someone else, so she resorted to name calling i'm not going to repeat.

Show and Tell

The other comic we read was Show and Tell. It was basically an author introducing you to comics, and showing you how to read them. He was pretty helpful in his introduction. He showed how different pictures from different places in time can be put in sequence without anywords and still tell a story. This story was a little easier to read in my opinion, compared to 2 Questions. This was probably because his writing was trying to explain how to read comics, while hers was just free flowing ideas. Show and Tell also contained pictures like those in 2 Questions, but they were boxed off more clearly, and easier to read through in order.

2 Questions

The other day we read an animated type essay, called 2 Questions. It was pretty interesting. It was written in a unique style. It was way different than anything we had read in class yet.The comic book style of the essay got the message across very effectively without using many words. The drawings gave you a very clear idea of what was going on inside the authors head.

The whole essay was about the authors struggle with drawing. She drew pictures of her in her childhood drawing for fun, then pictures of her struggle to draw with no purpose once she was older. An octopus was drawn throughout it all, which represented her not caring about what people thought of her drawing

Summeritis

         The term "senioritis" doesn't appropriately diagnose what most students are going through at this time. "Summeritis" seems to be more accurate as it pertains to all grades. It doesn't have quite the strength in symptoms that senioritis may bring about. Us juniors aren't going anywhere next year, but we are leaving for several months during the summer. These months are able to divert the attention and focus of any unsuspecting student.

You have to be careful, however, not to get too careless. This spring trimester has the ability to bring down your overall gpa. I must admit, i'm often tempted with the question at home, "study, or take a nap/ eat/ watch youtube/ tv/ talk/ anything but school?". As Ayers warned us while jordan walked into class late with full breakfast in hand, be careful not to get lazy, we still have four weeks left.

I'm going to try to keep going, and keep the grades up. After all we're almost there.. Only half a trimester left. Which is actually quite a while so I better figure something out.