My math program's problems

Today, after school, me and two of my friends interviewed a school board member for a merit badge. The requirement is to find a problem in your community, find out who is responsible for it, and ask them what you can do to change it. None of us three liked our school's math curriculum, and we knew somebody who turned out to be able to help change it, so we interviewed her about it. We learned that with the current curriculum, most people will have to take summer school to even get into a good college! Even worse, if the math curriculum doesn't get re-made by September (which is almost impossible), then it will be to late for my grade. It is to late to re-write the curriculum, but there is a way. No teacher is allowed to teach something they haven't been trained to teach, but most of them have been trained to teach the old math program, along with our current one. If the principal of our school knows about the problem, she can have every one teach the old program. At the moment, though, she doesn't think there is a problem. So me and my friends are starting an underground petition at our school. This may seem like a bad idea, but this seems like the perfect way to have fun for some one like me.

My uncle can run farther than your uncle

My uncle, Neil Olsen, is literally one of the best runners in America. He used to run marathons with his daughter, my cousin, but lately he has been doing a lot longer races than that. A few months ago( I think), he ran a fifty mile race, and won for his age group. After that, he signed up for a race that was over 60 miles!!! Now heres the sad part. He had wanted to beat the previous champion who had done the race several times. He was ahead and he would of won, but some dodo switched a sign so it pointed the wrong way! He and several other people got lost and ended up traveling about 70 miles, and many people just gave up. Neil kept going, though and ended up passing several people that had gone the right way. Even so, he broke his streak of never walking across the finish line.

Short summaries of some books

Some people asked for descriptions of the books, and I guess two requests is enough to respond.

• Star Girl-A totally weird, crazy girl moves into town, and at first the main character acts like every one else. That stops, though, when he falls in love with her and she shows him her world.
• Code Orange-A New York kid is looking for a contagious disease to do his science report on, when he finds some scabs from a Variola Major epidemic. He soon learns a more commen name for the virus he has handled. Smallpox.
• Uglies-In a futuristic world, every one waits for their 16th birthday so they can get the wonderful operation that will make them freakishly beautiful and join in on the non stop fun of "New Pretty Town". When a girl that has grown up being taught that she was ugly and that evolution and biology demand she be perfected to look good is only weeks away, though, she meets a friend that changes her outlook completely.
• The Lightning Thief-Takes place in a modern-day world were the Greek gods still exist. The main character is Poisiden's son, and when he realizes who he is, he is sent to Camp Half-Blood, a summer camp that trains demi-gods how to use their powers and protect them selfs.
• Kite Rider-A young Chinese boy lives in a time when it is custom for boats to fly a manned kite to see if the journey will be prosperous. But he his surprised one day to see his own father on the kite! When the kite comes down, his father is dead. One thing leads to another, and he finds himself on a kite making money for a circus.
• Touching Spirit Bear-A criminal kid always gets out of trouble because his dead is rich. But he gets in real deep trouble when almost kills a classmate. He has given a choice between jail or temporary banishment. He ends up on an uninhabited Alaskan island doing morning exersizes to "heal his soul".
• Among the Hidden-In this world, being a third child is punishable by death. That is exactly what the main character is. He was okay for a while, but then his large forest of a backyard was cut down and developed. Now he is stuck inside his house 24/7. That changed when he made a new friend who showed him a new way of living.
  

Battle of the Books BOOKS

Here is a list of the battle books(see last post). The green ones are those that I have read, and they are rated 1-5(if I have read them). (sorry about the color mistakes, such as purple dots)

• Airborne by Kenneth Oppel
  
• Cages by Peg Kehret * * *
  
• Code Orange by Caroline B. Cooney * * * * *
  
• Code Talker by Joseph Bruchac
  
• Criss Cross by Lynne Rae Perkins * * *
  
• Eleanor's Story Eleanor Ramrath Garner
  
• Flush by Carl Hiaasen
  
• Kite Rider by Geraldine McCaughrean * * * *
  
• The Lightning Thief by Rick Riodan * * * * *
  
• Princess Academy by Shannon Hale * * * *
  
• Shadow Spinner by Susan Fletcher * * * * *
  
• Star Girl by Jerry Spinelli * * * *
  
• Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen * * * *
  
• Uglies by Scott Westerfeild * * * * *
  
• Under the Blood Red Sun by Graham Salisbury * * * *
  
• Among the Hidden by Margaret Petersen Hadix * * * *
  

Battle of the Books

At my old elementary school they had a competition called "battle of the books." It consisted of teams of four trying to answer questions about a list of preassigned books before the opposing team could. Only forth and fifth graders could enter, and I did both years. My team won both years, in our school and a rival school. I was surprised that my new middle school did it my sixth grade year, but I got a team together in time and we won! I was even more surprised, though that my seventh grade language arts teacher was willing to support battle of the books for the whole school just for me and my friend. This time it was my friend that organized a team and turned the papers in on time. Things were looking great until I realized that for one, I didn't have a list of the books yet, two, the battles were only two months away, and three, I had two days to get the list from someone if I wanted to make any progress over winter break! I ended up having to call someone to get the list, and by then I only had about a month to read as many of the books as possible. My mom figured out that I had to read two books a week to finish them in time, and these are some pretty decent sized books. It is six days later and I'm about 20 hours ahead of schedule, so I'm off to a good start. I'll keep you posted on how the battles go, but that's going to be in February, so I'll think of something else to write about in the mean time.

Twilight Series

I think that anyone who hasn't yet and doesn't have plans to read the Twilight series needs to hire a therapist and re-think their life. I'm exited for Breaking Dawn (book 4), but my honest opinion is hurry it up and turn Bella into a vampire already, Stephenie! I am looking forward to the Twilight movie, but I also think that it could totally kill the book and be horrible. I recently found out that the actor for Cedric Diggory from Harry Potter will play Edward!!! Me, my Mom, and Stephanie Meyer are all thrilled!! You can learn more about the books and movie at the author's website.

Free Rice for the Hungry

I accidentally found my mom's blog a little while ago and read it. I liked it, so I'm gunna take a stab at it. I recently found out about a website called freerice.com that has me totally addicted with its vocabulary questions. Every time you get a question right, they donate 20 grains of rice to starving people in Africa. Thats about all for now, but I'll come back soon.

Let me know if you like it!