Overall, I thought that J1 was a fun, but challenging class. I used to really struggle with the Current Events quizzes because I did not know where to find the right news.

I enjoy writing in general, so the stories were always fun assignments. In addition, I learned a lot about journalistic writing. Newspaper formats are very different from regular English essays.

I also learned how to be more outgoing, when I had to go interview people. Before this class, I tended to be shy, and didn’t go up to people I didn’t know.

In addition, I got more comfortable with public speaking because of the weekly Poynters.

What I found most valuable was that I became more aware of the news and the media. Because of our weekly current events quizzes, I looked at the news everyday.

This helped me learn a lot more about our world and the political events going on in our country.

One suggestion that I would make for next year’s class is to review the news in class every day, or every week. This will help students prepare for the current events quizzes.

This would have helped me a lot, as I would know what to review for the test each Friday.

This week, I spent a lot of time cooking. Since last Sunday was mother’s day, I cooked dinner for my family.

For mother’s day, I cooked my family homemade hummus and pita bread. Although I have made hummus before, this was my first time making pita bread.

To make the pita bread, I started off by making the dough and letting it rest overnight. The next morning, I rolled it out and baked it.

The first batch came out a little bit too hard. However, after a few modifications, the second batch came out very nice.

I made the hummus by blending tahini sauce, garlic, chickpeas, and olive oil. The result was excellent.

The next day, I made cake pops. Cake pops are a fun dessert made out of cake and frosting. First, I baked a cake. I then crushed it up and mixed a spoonful of frosting in to it. I then shaped the cake mixture into balls.

After they were shaped, I put sticks into them and dipped them in chocolate.

I particularly like this recipe because cake pops are very expensive if you want to buy them, but they are very cheap to make.

I also baked cookies. For these, I used a new recipe I had never tried before.

The recipe included brown sugar, peanut butter, greek yogurt, baking soda, and chocolate chips.

I was very surprised at how well these turned out, as the recipe did not call for any flour.

This week, I had found myself getting used to distance learning.

I can now say that I am comfortable with all of the online platforms my teachers are using.

If the pandemic is still going on by the time school starts next year, I would be prepared for distance learning.

I heard on the news that New Jersey state was going to have schools shut down for the next school year.

This would mean that their schools would have to implement distance learning for at least another semester.

Given the uncertainty of the current situation, it would probably be best to make sure that all students know how to use the online resources given to them, in case school is unable to reopen for the fall semester.

Whether California will reach that point, however, is a little bit unlikely. So far, our state has relatively low corona virus numbers.

However, if the big cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco are not doing well, schools are unlikely to reopen.

Another risk for Californians are beach protests. I have seen videos of crowded beaches, in which beach goers are protesting the closed beaches, without maintaining social distancing or wearing masks.

If this continues, it might pose a giant health hazard to the state of California.

As we all know, WVUSD has recently implemented Distance Learning in order to combat the spread of the corona virus.

Given the current circumstances, I think it is a great idea to keep students on track for next year. However, there are pros and cons with this as with any other new program.

Most high schoolers have decent technical skills, so for that age group the program is most effective. However, from time to time there are technical difficulties that we cannot control.

For example, my WiFi unexpectedly went down last Friday, and I had a math assignment due. Things like this are harder to deal with all alone.

Especially for me, since both my parents are essential workers, I must either deal with technical problems alone, or wait until they get home.

Other than that, I find online school to be fairly straightforward and convenient.

I like that we can complete our schoolwork at our own pace, and I find the video lessons some of my teachers give to be very useful.

My math teacher has been recording several video lessons a week, and I find the quality is as good as it would be during the school year.

Overall, I find Distance Learning to be a very effective program given the circumstances.

This quarantine has been very difficult for everybody, but I have been trying my best to be productive during this extended period of time.

Beginning the first day school was out, I have been doing 2-3 hours of SAT prep per day. I try to take full length practice tests every week.

My club swim coach has been sending us workouts to do every day. I first complete them, then supplement them with more specific exercises catering to certain muscle groups.

I have also been working on programming a game on Roblox. Roblox is a gaming platform in which users can create their own games and share them.

The game I have been working on is a “Murder Mystery” type game. One of the players is randomly killed, and the other players must figure out who the murderer is.

However, what will set my game apart from other games is that the murderer will not be decided by unanimous vote; everyone’s vote directly affects them.

If the player guesses who the murder is correctly, they receive a reward and stay in the game. If they guess incorrectly, they are out.

Although I am spending upwards of 4 hours doing this each day, I am nowhere near completion. My game is still a work in progress, but I am very excited to see the end result.

Overall, I am making good use of my time during this extended school closure. Since online school has started, it is comforting to know that we will be keeping up academically.

Unfortunately, I cannot say the same about sports. Nothing I do can match 2 hours of swim practice every day. I worry that I will be extremely out of shape when swim reopens, but I am doing everything in my power to combat that.

This past week has been very eventful, mostly because of the coronavirus.

All week long, I noticed that the virus was taking up more and more space in the news. By Wednesday, I was worried that it would affect our school.

Thursday and Friday were filled with the anxiety of not knowing what was going to happen next.

All Friday, people were speculating about whether school would be shut down or not.

After school, it was announced that the entire WVUSD would be shutting down for 5 weeks.

In addition, I was notified that swim season would be put on pause during the school closure.

My club swimming team was also cancelled due to COVID-19. Unfortunately, all swim teams that I know of in the surrounding area were cancelled as well.

I have also heard that baseball season was cancelled and track is postponed.

This leaves us athletes with nowhere to practice. Since we are quarantined for most of the day, it is going to be very hard to stay in shape.

My swim coach told me that while we are out of the water we may not get practice swimming, but we should try to keep in shape with dry land exercises.

I am really sad about the fact that I will not get to compete in any upcoming high school meets. I was really looking forward to swim season, and especially CIFs.

All of my club swim meets were cancelled as well.

However, I am going to try to make the best out of this situation, and just make sure I stay healthy.

As we are turning in schedules for next year, I have planned accordingly.

I will be taking AP European history, AP Calculus AB, Spanish 2 honors, Swim and Waterpolo, Chemistry Honors, and English 2 Honors.

In addition, I will take Journalism 2 if I am accepted into the Bull’s Eye. If that happens, then I will have to take a 0 period.

In other news, I had my 15th birthday last week. My family threw me a small party at night, but I spent the rest of the day with my best friends.

I am very excited to start driving, as I can now apply for a learners permit.

My parents told me that they were looking for a car to get me for my 15th birthday, but they have yet to find a good fit.

They are looking for a small sedan or SUV that is reliable and comfortable, yet not overly high-end. In addition, they are thinking of buying a new car for themselves.

The cars that my parents are driving right now are around 20 years old. One of them is a Toyota Camry, which is in excellent condition.

However, the other car is beginning to have engine trouble, so my parents are trying to replace it.

The car they are looking for is a 5-7 seater, optimized for commute driving.

Yesterday I attended my friend’s fifteenth birthday party.

Originally, the plan was to have a beach party at Venice Beach, but plans were changed due to bad weather and rain, in addition to being cold.

The party ended up being a pool party hosted at one of the birthday girl’s mom’s friends house. They had lots of food, and plenty of activities.

The house had a pool, a trampoline, and a play set, which ensured that no kids were bored no matter their age.

There were kids as young as 4 and as old as adults attending.

In addition, the hostess kindly offered plenty of food for all of her guests. When we arrived, there was a large table brimming with snacks.

There were 12 bowls of chips set out, 3 being tortilla, 3 potato, 3 barbecue, and 3 ruffles. There was also garlic dip, plain dip, and salsa.

2 boxes of cookies were set out. They tasted very good, as they were purchased from a local higher-end bakery.

For lunch, the hostess served hamburgers. She cooked the meat on her outdoor grill, and then left it on a tray with veggies for the guests to help themselves.

After eating lunch, we went to go play on the trampoline. Since the birthday girl is a gymnast, many of her friends were as well, and they showed us lots of cool tricks on the trampoline.

It was wonderful to see all these kids do back flips or front handsprings at a moments notice.

Soon, it was time to cut the cake and open the presents. Since the cakes were small, the hostess bought several of them. In addition, they were serving ice cream with toppings.

After singing “Happy Birthday,” we ate the cake and ice cream. Then, we watched her unwrap her birthday presents.

Afterwards, the party was over, and her mom kindly offered to drive us home.

Overall, it was a really fun party, and it was the first birthday party I had been to for a while.

Yesterday, I competed at my first high school swim meet. Overall, it was a positive experience.

First, I swam the 50 yard butterfly. This event consists of 2 laps of butterfly, with a touch turn in between.

Compared to my previous time, I swam 4 seconds faster. Next I swam the 50 yard backstroke. Since I have always been good at backstroke, my time plateaued, which I am ok with.

Then, I swam the 50 yard breaststroke. Breaststroke is my best stroke, so I was excited for this event.

I did excellent in my heat, which was comprised of all seniors except me, placing 3rd.

Lastly, I swam the 50 yard freestyle. I dropped a second after so many years, so I felt proud of my achievement.

Considering that I had only attended two days of swim practice before this meet, and that I am considerably out of shape, I did well.

The coach handed out the CIF time standards to us, and I was pleased to see that I already qualify for all the breaststroke events.

In order to qualify in freestyle, I need to drop one more second in my 50 free, and 2 seconds in my hundred free.

My hundred backstroke is qualified, but I need to drop considerable time in my 200 back stroke.

Lastly, I don’t have a good sense of what my 100 fly is right now, but the qualifications state that I need to shave around 4 seconds from my 12- year old time.

This Monday, I will be attending an internship workshop at my father’s work place.

Since there is no school due to President’s Day, I will be spending my day with an alternate use of the time.

My father took the liberty of procuring admission to an annual internship workshop for my brother and I. Since it will take place at his usual work place, it will be convenient for all.

I am excited because I have never done this before, and they are going to give us a tour of his lab and cover basic industry standards.

My dad is a biochemist who specializes in polymers. His division of the company works on formulating products to sell to other companies.

For instance, they make glue that airplane companies such as Boeing put in the windows of their planes. Being at such a high altitude, it is important that glues work properly, or air pressure will be lost and many people will lose their lives.

Tomorrow, I will get to walk around the lab and see what exactly goes into these processes. In addition, I will see what kind of regulations they follow in order for the products to be safe.

While I don’t want to follow the same profession as my father when I grow up, I still want to work in the sciences. For that reason, it will be beneficial to see an environment like this.