Weekly Blog 3-4 (57): IT’S RAINING BALLS!

 Hello ‘Ilima

Hello everyone! This week of school felt very long. So long, in fact, I don’t even know where I can begin. The biggest thing from this week would probably be the massive amount of rain that flooded streets all around Hawaii on Thursday. I was told that rain was expected, but I was never told how much rain there was going to be. Picture this, I am in Computer Science just doing some work. From outside, I can hear so much rain. When some kids decided to take a look outside, it looked like a full tornado was going on. It was absolutely insane just how hard it was raining. The aftermath of all of the rain resulted in many deep puddles and bugs. It was very interesting to see all of the flooded parts of the campus, but my shoes were absolutely soaked. Moving on, a new intramural in Soccer Shootout started up. The objective was to hit the soccer ball into the net from different distances. The actual game itself was pretty boring because it was just people kicking the ball, but the intramural got fun once everyone left. A couple of us leadership students decided to kick the ball around and I thought it would be funny to pretend to be overly obsessive over soccer. Inspired by anime called Blue Lock, I had the performance of a life time which resulted in many laughs and many exasperated breaths from me. I may have traumatized some of my friends, but they were having fun which is the best part. One of the best parts of this week was that this was the last week of the science sub. But to get back to normal science, we would have to endure those last couple days of the science sub. And she was leaving her best for last. Let’s set the scene. It’s Wednesday and I have Science for the second period of the day. In the beginning of class, we are given a writing prompt. In order to finish this writing prompt, we need a packet from the previous class. So we ask the substitute for the packet, but she tells us that we don’t need it. We are trying to explain to her why we need the packet, but she just doesn’t listen and now we are stuck in between a rock and hard place. Now when I’ve been saying “we”, I’ve been talking about the class as a whole because I actually remembered the information for the packet. But the packet would have still been nice for me, yet we didn’t get the packet. While the rest of the class kept on trying to communicate with the sub, I finished the packet and moved on to the science model. This was the third class of working on the model. The first class was when we first learned about the project and realized how ridiculous it was. The second class I had made a model that wasn’t fully accurate, but still showed how far the planets arc, and entering the third class I believed that this was good enough. But then she told us to make a fully accurate model with all of the crazy measurements. And at this point, I fully lost my mind and decided to actually try and make an accurate model. I decided to work on the project outside, so that I could have a lot of room, and I began to cut paper. As I am cutting up pieces of paper, my mind begins to realize how stupid my plan is. But I abandon reasoning and continue on cutting. Eventually, the rest of my group is able to finish their work and they come outside to help me. So for the rest of class, we are cutting, measuring, and taping until we finally reached Neptune, the last planet in the solar system. It was a moment of triumph for my group and I when we finally realized that we were done, a mix of relief and euphoria flowed through all of us as we were finally done with the stupid solar system project. Reflecting on the time with the substitute, it was one of pain and misery. There was always a constant sense of dread in the classroom and learning what minimized with the substitute. But from this experience, I have a new found appreciation for Mr. Heloca. He wasn't the best teacher, but he at least was a teacher. So all of 8-3 welcomes Mr. Heloca back and it's great that we will never have to see the substitute again. This ends the list of things from school, but I do have one more experience from this week to talk about. On Saturday, my mom needed to deliver some packages and I was brought along. As we drove around, I began to get hungry and I started searching for food places. After a bit of searching, I found a place called Pit Stop Tacos Burgers & Sliders. From the title of the restaurant, you can tell that they served burgers and tacos which sounded really good. I looked for directions and it was in Waikiki, where we were near. We started driving towards Waikiki, but my mom began to be concerned about parking. The concern kept on continuing until we arrived and my mom found a huge building for parking. Parking our car on the fifth floor, we waited for an elevator down and began walking to the place. Along the way, I got to see just how huge Waikiki was. There were so many people walking the streets and a lot of huge buildings. But the best sight of them all was a huge mall, the International Market Place. It was a massive mall that looked jam packed full of shops and restaurants. And when the Pit Stop Taco place looked very ghetto, we decided we were going to explore the mall. The first part of our exploration was finding food. There were two places for food in the mall. The downstairs food hall and the top floor restaurants. We first explored the food hall and there was a couple good looking places. But they weren't sit down which was what we were looking for which made us head up to the restaurants. Upstairs was around 6 restaurants that served a variety of places. But majority of the places were closed so we were down to a fancy place and a local place. We originally decided on the fancy place, but we arrived at a time where there would be no service until a hour. So we changed plans and went to the local place. Once we were seated, I got a good look at the menu and it was nice. A lot of things you normally see at a local place, but I was hungry so I didn't complain. I was stuck between ordering a teriyaki burger or a loco moco, but I ended up getting the burger. When the food arrived, it looked really good but looks can sometimes deceive. The burger was pretty dry and I had to add ketchup for some needed moisture. But the fries were really good and I ate most of those. The food was overall fine, but I would have ordered something different. So after eating food, we started to explore the different shops. The first place we stopped was like a Hawaiian version of Ross. There were clothes, tableware, keychains, and perfumes all over the store. My mom was searching for tea cups because she was supposed to have a work tea party, but we had not seen any. But as we were about to leave, I noticed a section full of cups. In this section, my mom was able to find what she wanted and we were able to leave with what she needed. The next place was a VR place called Odyssey VR. We only walked in to look around, but there were a couple of machines in the back of the building which caught by eye. They were Japanese Capsule Vending Machines and they were so many of them. I decided to spend some money on some of the machines and I got four capsules in total. The last full stop was to a jewelry store where you can make your own things. My mom and I were enamored with all of the different options, but we needed a scheduled appointment if we wanted to make some. Despite this disappointing end, we still had a lot of fun and we were able to get a lot of stuff. Overall, this was a pretty good week. 

Picture from the Storm

Zoom Out Picture of Solar System Model

Soccer Gameplay

Cool Capsule Machines

The first highlight of the week was the International Market Place. I know I just spoke a lot about it, but there was so much I didn't get to mention. That was my first time being in this mall and my first time walking down Waikiki. My mom didn't believe me when I first told her that I never walked down Waikiki but I told her that I only walked down the beach side. So with this being my first time, I was able to see so many beautiful buildings and places. Even the Target looked nice! It was just an overall great day and I had a great time. The next highlight of the week was Computer Science. For most of the week, I just got to relax because I had finished all of the work. I played a lot of games with my friends and I got to sit in a really comfortable chair. The last highlight from this week is Forsaken. Forsaken is a game on Roblox that plays similarly to Dead by Daylight. My friends introduced me to the game and I haven't been able to stop playing it. It has so many awesome details and it is very chaotic. The only lowlight from the week would be the stupid science project. I was actually going insane with the constant cutting and taping of paper. So much running back and forth, all for a useless project. And with how much paper we used, we probably cut down a whole forest of trees.   

The lesson that I learned from this week was that pain can help you be grateful for the good. This comes from reflecting on the time with the science sub. There was so much pain that came with being subbed by that teacher, but I have become grateful for Mr. Heloca and his ability to teach. And this lesson can be used in a lot of other ways. When you taste something bad, it makes you grateful for what taste good. When you feel something bad like a sore leg or a sad moment, then you are reminded how good it is to feel happy or healthy. And with these examples, I can always remember that there is something good waiting, even when there is a lot of bad. 

For this week’s top magic notes, there was no debate on the winner from this week. In fact, the gap was so huge that this magic note stands alone as the only person to get points this week. This special winner was…..Riselle! A lengthy, two sided magic note full of heartwarming detail and comedy. When I first read the note, I was taken about with how much was written and all the details from the week. Like a conversation about hair or about old lists that was made, it was just super awesome and deserved a spotlight. So Riselle takes a lead in this race and we will see if anyone will catch up. But with that said, this concludes my blog. I hope you have a great week. Cheers to another day!

Leaderboard:

Riselle: 2

Cheyanne: 1

Gledys: 1

Sienna: 1

Meygan: 1

Ariya: 0.5

Anela: 0.5