Summer Break Analysis

Well, here we are. The last year of middle school. To some this may be exciting. For there a being given a chance to spread their wings and move on to more challenging and new experiences. But to some this may just be another inevitable step towards reality, and all the hardships that may come with it. Regardless of that, I want to congratulate all of the students, teachers, and faculty for the fact that they put up with all of us for about 288 days, and that you may enjoy the how many days we have of summer break. Also, I would like to thank all the parents and families that came to this celebration today, and that I wish you have an amazing summer break too.
Well, first of all I wanted to talk about all the awesome memories we have had this year! The first one being in Mrs. Stacy’s class. If you don’t know Mrs. Stacy then you’re missing out on all the amazing lessons she teaches. She is always coming up with interesting labs for us to

do, so that we can get a new angle on what we are learning.

One of the labs I remember is the one involving inertia and gravity. I don’t distinctly remember the name, but in the lab you had to drop several different objects with varying masses one meter from the air. But while doing that you had to time how fast the object fell, and then write a report about how the mass of the object affects how fast the object fell. But you see, I was gone for the whole week prior, so everyone had already finished the lab, so it would of been awkward to ask any of my classmates to help, for you need two people to perform the lab; one person dropping the object, and another person timing it. But, without me even having to ask her, me and Mrs. Stacy did it. Which was much to my relief. Though it may of not met much to her, it did mean a lot to me, so thank you Mrs. Stacy for helping me out with that lab : ). Also, Mrs. Stacy is renowned for owning the 8th grade snack store, which is probably not the actual title, but anyways, she sold water, chips, Cheez-Its, and

a bunch of other tasty snacks for decently low prices. Though, the most favored among all the snacks was the wonderful, spectacular, astounding Pop-tarts. It was the most frequently sold snack at the shop and it came in two flavors: cinnamon and strawberry. It was so popular that even the other teachers went to buy some occasionally! I remember, at one time Mrs. Stacy was being bombarded with buyers asking for the glorious Pop-tarts, and that she had to supply the high demand. But eventually she ran out, and told us that she would buy some more later on in the afternoon, or in her own time, which was a very noble sacrifice for a bunch of Pop-Tart craving kids. But that action only shows her dedication and loyalty to her students, which is something you don’t find in your average middle school. But then again, no way is this an average middle school! (XD)
The next teacher was Mrs. Tousley, my incredible math teacher. Now, Mrs. Tousley took math class to another level! In fact she is so devoted to math that she dressed up as Pythagoras to teach us about the Pythagorean theorem (and if you don’t know the Pythagorean theorem I bet Mrs. Tousley would have the pleasure of teaching you XD)! And Mrs. Tousley went all out, wearing a robe, a fake beard and all. Though, it may be just a theory that Mrs. Tousley was pretending to be Pythagoras, some other people say that it could of been the real Pythagoras! But, that is something we 8th graders may never know. Another fun activity Mrs. Tousley had was Pie Day, which was a day where you had to remember as many digits of Pi that you can. And the one with the most correct digits one the delicious prize, which was your own pie! The person in first place had a full sized pie and the person in second place had a slightly smaller pie. Not only that, but you got to choose the flavor of the pie, and if I remember correctly, the winner chose banana cream pie, and the second place winner chose a Boston cream pie, which are both awesome flavors. Also, I remember both of the winners sharing both of their pies with their friends, which was very nice of them. Oh! And not let's forget about all the funny videos Mrs. Tousley showed us. The one I loved the most was the slope video, which involved a skier skiing up and down a mountain. The skier would say “Puff Puff Positive” as he skied up the mountain, and when he went down the mountain he would say “Nice Negative, Nice Negative” and when he was skiing on flat terrain he would say “This is Zero Fun, This is Zero Fun” and finally when the skier heads towards the edge, the skier didn’t notice that it was a cliff, so when he fell he said “UNDEFINED!”. It was really funny because the terms were so wacky and creative, but they proved to be effective, for I still remember that whole video! And we learned all about sloped near the beginning of the year!! But in the end that video only shows how devoted and innovative Mrs. Tousley really is.
Next up we have Mr. Perigny, which has to be one of the coolest teachers I have ever known. In his class we often take notes, though to some it was a strain, I have always enjoyed taking notes. And while his class is taking notes Mr. Perigny would always add stuff to the notes we were taking, such as explaining what a word actually meant, like the word ironic. In class one day he had a whole mini lesson on what the word ironic actually meant and how people almost always mix it up with the word coincidence. In fact, he showed us a the song “Ironic” by Alanis Morissette and told us that every phrase she used in that song isn’t actually irony (“the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning”). Phrases such as “An old man turned ninety-eight. He won the lottery and died the next day” were included in that song, but aren’t actually ironies and more like really unfortunate coincidences. Mr. Perigny has showed us many interesting, funny videos, one of the first being Renaissance Man which is a parody of the great song “Blister in the Sun” by the Violent Flames. This song had a very catchy tune and I remember having that song stuck in my head for at least a week. In the song they talk about many Renaissance men such as Dante, Leonardo de Vinci, Michelangelo, and Shakespeare. Mr. Perigny also showed us a lot of interesting movies too, one of them being the Amistad. The movie Amistad talks about a group of slaves that take over a boat and by doing so they killed all of their capturers. But, the real question in this movie was if the slaves were free or still enslaved? There becomes a huge court case that goes to the Supreme Court. I would tell you more about the movie, but I don’t want to spoil it for you if you possibly wanted to watch such an intense and intriguing movie. Besides all the notes and videos we did a lot of projects in his class. One of them being the Monument project. In this project we either had to redesign a monument or create an entirely new one about a new topic. This project was intertwined with the Washington trip. A lot of people went on that trip, (with me being one of the exceptions) and said it was fun and exciting and that they got to eat a lot of awesome food and see a lot of fascinating museums and monuments. Anyways, back to the project. In this project you had to draw a monument with all the measurements and shading/coloring. We also did another project about Andrew Jackson, and by picking a card you either with or against Andrew Jackson. You then had to write an essay about how Andrew Jackson was a good/bad president. I found this essay one of the more difficult projects Mr. Perigny had assigned to us. But, Mr Perigny always helped out his class, and always tried to make it a tad easier on us by playing games occasionally, my favorite being Pictonairy. Overall, Mr. Perigny is a funny and awesome teacher and I bet all the future 7th graders will like him too.
Now, Mrs. Johnson is one of the most determined teachers I have ever known. Unlike the other teachers she expected a lot out of you, and always made sure you would step out of your comfort zone. One of these things was reading in class, to some it may of been easy peasy, but I have always been afraid of public speaking, so I got more and more worrisome the closer it got to my turn. But, sometimes you have to get out of your comfort zone to actually learn something. But usually after each book we finished we got to watch a movie that corresponded with it. After reading the Lord of the Flies by William Golding and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain we got to watch the movies. Both of them served to be great movies, though the Adventures of Tom Sawyer one differed from the book tremendously. Besides reading, we did many assignments on a virtual program called Studysync. Though most of the time we answered questions about a short story or a poem, one time we got to write our own short horror story! I have always been fond of writing stories, and find it a fun past time. But, when everyone else wrote at least 2 pages I wrote about 8. I just find it hard to stop writing whenever I start. The story I wrote was about Mark Fisher and Neversean, who are both stuck in an psychotic doctor’s laboratory. That assignment had to be one of best assignments I have ever done, and I did it not because I had to do, I did it because it because it was fun and I loved doing it, which is rarely seen in any assignment that requires actual work. We also did other fun projects like the Argumentative essay and the most recent one being the the Soundtrack of the Year, which is a project that required you to find a bunch of songs that reflected your year. That project was pretty fun, but it sure doesn't beat the short story. And between all of these projects and papers Mrs. Johnson made sure we had a little break to recoup. Mrs. Johnson had a lot of games such as Chess and Monopoly, but the most popular had to be Uno. In my RTI a group of my classmates always played it whenever they had the chance. They always laughed and talked and had a good time. While most of the eighth grade was off in Washington I played Uno with my friends too, and I can understand why my classmates loved it so much. And Mrs. Johnson has always been one to encourage her students to follow her dreams, though they may seem to be out of your reach. In fact, Mrs. Johnson really helped me out with one of my dreams, to be part of the Executive Board. I was thinking about joining but I wasn’t sure I would do well, but then Mrs. Johnson out of the blue said I should join. So, aiding her word I joined, and here I am now, reading a speech to you all! So, thank you Mrs. Johnson. Mrs. Johnson is just one of the amazing teachers we have at the school.
And, that's mostly it, I hope you enjoyed it and that I didn’t stutter too much. I also want to wish you a great summer, and I hope to see all of my eighth grade friends and acquaintances in the high school! Cheers to this year and may the next be the very best!!