Final Reflection Blog

The three most important things I learned this year are, respect, behavior, and actual studies. I learned to respect people so that they will treat me the same way (this is my This I Believe thing too). I also have learned to behave better, so that I don't get any Falcon Fouls. They are really annoying so I am trying my best to avoid them. And learning actual things as well, because I am learning new things everyday that I may use in my future life.

Something I think that I will remember for the rest of my life is the To Kill a Mockingbird feast, and how Carter forgot to bring crackers. But then months later he finally brings crackers. I dont think anyone will forget that, considering we made fun of him for so long. The nicest thing somebody did for for me in this class is Vince. He literally shared his Google Doc with me to help, and also helped with other stuff outside of class. I don't think I really taught anyone anything.

I am proud of what I was able to learn this year. Many other people won't learn this until next year, things like Socratic Seminars, going to the Holocaust museum. And we did some fun things in the class as well, like the To Kill a Mockingbird feast. I am proud to be in this class. I think the most challenging part of the year was the beginning of it. When I didn't know that much, and when I was being exposed to these new things. But as the year progressed I got used to it, and it wasn't as hard as it was in the beginning.

I think my best piece of writing was the Poe story we had to make up. I enjoyed that one the most, and I got to get creative with it. It was fun to write that one, and I also got a 3 on that one. My favorite book was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows because it was so different from the rest of the series and showed a lot of stuff about Snape, and the best ending ever. Some advice I have for next years students is to do your work, give it your best effort, and have fun learning new things.


This I Believe speech - Respect is Something Everyone Deserves

I believe that we should show respect to one another. You may think that this is pretty obvious, but if you look around you, you can see many people being uncaring and disrespectful. Being like this can make people feel bad, and much more serious things can happen because of these feelings. This may have happened to you before, and you probably didn’t like it. Maybe you were the one saying these unpleasant things. But if everyone treated each other like they would like to be treated, nobody would not feel good about themselves, and maybe even regard you as a friend.

I feel that this is important because people sometimes called me Ravi, that kid from Jessie. I sort of felt bad when they called me by that name, although it was just because they told me I looked like him. Soon after they started to call me that just to make fun of me. Now I just shrug it off, but then I realized how other people might feel if I called them names. I was disrespectful and tried to call other people names. Maybe it was just a joke, but people may still feel bad about that. So I decided to stop calling people names, because I didn't want them to feel bad. Respect is something everyone deserves, no matter what they’ve done.  I know a few people who are hard to be respectful towards, but I still try my best.


Many people in this school don't care at all how you feel, and will not hesitate to call you much worse things. I see it all the time, and lots of times they are doing that to amuse themselves and their friends.  Some are even bold enough to talk to teachers like people they despise. But not all people are like this, a lot of the students don't say mean things, and are really nice. If you're feeling down they will come and cheer you up, and I think that all of us should be like that. They have set the perfect example to make other people feel good. And instead of being accepted by our friends and discarding others, we should accept everyone.

Saying nice things can make people happy, so don’t be afraid to make someone’s day.

Morrie Aphorisms Project

My aphorism was, "once you learn how to die, you learn how to live". Morrie wrote this aphorism because before he was diagnosed with ALS, he viewed little fe like any other person. He didn't value it that much until he was faced with death. Are faced with death, it reminds you how important you life is. How you only get one chance. So when Morrie found out he had ALS, he started to live his life as best he could. He now valued his life more than anything, and saw how precious he was. So he spent his time doing things that were important to him, things he was capable of doing. Like sharing his aphorisms, spending time with loved ones, and continuing to teach his one remaining student every Tuesday.

Just like Morrie, people who know their death is soon and imminent want to spend the rest of their lives doing things that are important to them, and things they always wanted to do. There is a story I found online where a woman diagnosed with terminal bowel cancer has just months to live. So her final wish in her last few month of her life was to go on a family vacation with her husband and children to Disney World. As you can see by this, with only a few months to live, this must be very important to this woman to do in the final stages of her life, so she is doing it. Just like Morrie, doing worthwhile things in his final months.

I definitely agree with this aphorism because, after reading a real life account of a person spending the remainder of his life doing things that are important to him, it is impossible to disagree. I can understand, if I don't have much time left to live, I would want to do as many things I find important as possible. Like a bucket list, or even spending time with family and friends. When you don't know when you will die, you don't love your life to the fullest, but when your time is short, you will do everything you can to make it worthwhile.

Life isn't always fair.

Socratic Seminar Blog

For the first three seminars I really had no goal, and for the first one I was completely unprepared. I would usually share just 2 times, either because that was all I had to share, what I was trying to share was not on topic, or someone kept cutting me off. But for the fourth seminar, I had made a goal to share at least three times. And this seminar was my best one yet, because I shared three times. I know it is just one number bigger than two, but it is a better thing for me. And the question I shared was pretty good, so that was also part of it. And now, thanks to all these seminars, I have experience for more Socratic Seminars.

The opening question was usually a topic that we talked about for a while. After that, there was a transition to go to the next topic was completely unnoticed, but in some way it was related to the first topic. But a problem was other people cutting people off. If I wanted to say something, for example, someone would cut me off. And I'm not a person to keep continuing what I am saying to make the other person stop, so I had to wait. This, I am sure, happened with other people too. But we put a little rule to wait before you share so other people can have a chance to speak, and if you shared a lot already, let someone else share. This sort of worked, and made it easier to share, but there was still a chance to get cut off. Nevertheless, the Socratic Seminars were interesting, and a new experience for me. I am looking forward to another one.

My Perfect Day

First my perfect day would begin with me and my parents going to a restaurant called George's Family Diner, and I would eat blueberry pancakes for breakfast. Then I would go to Best Buy and get a game that I always wanted, then go home and play it for a while. Then I would eat lunch at Portillo's, and go to my friend's house. We would go to Proksa Park and have fun. And finally, my cousins would come to my house and we eat cake and ice cream and we would talk about fun stuff and play the new game I got. After that they would all go home late in the night, and we would go to sleep. That would be a very perfect day for me.