Wow, I can't believe that this is my last blog post of the semester! This year has already gone by so fast. Computer class has been so much fun! Thank you to Mrs. Brown for being our teacher, and showing us all of the fun projects that we can do on the computer. My favorite project was the "This is my Life" project. It was pretty much an imovie project about our life. It was really fun! Hopefully, I will be able to post it on my blog sometime soon. I think that making this blog was so much fun! 

I posted on Maggie Clark's final blog

I love everything about the winter season. I love the snow and of course, Christmas! Not a lot of people enjoy the cold weather, but I like it. I love seeing snow falling down on the ground. I also love snowball fights, sledding, and seeing everyone's Christmas lights up. My family always puts up our Christmas tree the week after Thanksgiving. I love seeing the tree every time I walk into our family room. I also love the food of the holiday season. My family always makes the best comfort food on a cold winter day. I love winter!!

Over the past few weeks, I have been working on another podcast project. I am in a group with Kelly Rice and Madisen Manning. We did a newscast about the holiday of Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. It is a holiday similar to Halloween and All Souls Day. It is celebrated in Mexico, and it is when families honor their loved ones who have died. To do this project, we recorded a video on photo booth, with a background of a Day of the Dead altar. I think it looks really good, and I hope we get a good grade on it.

I posted on Kelly Rice's blog

There are so many things that I am thankful for, that there are almost too many to count. I am thankful for my loving and supporting family. They are always there for me and I love them very much. I am also very thankful for my great friends. Since I have come to Notre Dame High School, I have made so many friends. We are always there for one another and we have a lot of fun together. Now that Thanksgiving is right around the corner, I have had time to think about all the things I am thankful for.

When I was looking for political cartoons, there were several that caught my eye. I was a very strong McCain/Palin supporter, and I am pretty sad to see Obama elected president. I just hope the next four years go by quickly. Here are some political cartoons that I thought were funny and portrayed Obama well. Enjoy!

I think this was a pretty good cartoon. It kind of shows that Obama really doesn't have anything of substance in his speeches.

I liked this cartoon because it reflects on the questionable people Obama has associated himself with. 

I like this cartoon because it shows that this election was a lot more like American Idol than a presidential election. I think a lot of people still don't know what Obama really stands for.

If I could make my own invention, it would be a vaccination that can cure any type of cancer. Someday, when I become a doctor, I would like to invent this vaccination. So many people are affected each year by cancer, and there are so many kinds of it. If I could invent it, no one would ever have to suffer with any type cancer any more. I would definitely share my invention everyone in the world. 

I commented on Kate Carroll's blog

Jesus of Rio de Janeiro above the clouds

This past week I have been working on a podcast about my favorite scary movie. The movie I chose for my scary movie was Signs. This is the movie with Mel Gibson and the aliens. I did the podcast about the scariest part of that movie, which I thought was the scene in the basement. The aliens were breaking into the house, so the whole family went into the basement. You could hear the aliens working their way down from the attic. It was pitch black in the basement, so the only light came from a flashlight. When the light was shone on the little boy, an alien's hand grabbed him. I thought that was definitely the scariest part of the movie. I had a lot of fun working on this podcast project.

This week I posted on Kate Carroll's blog

I learned a very valuable lesson about a year ago when my grandpa had a heart attack. It was September 2007, I came home from school, and my mom got a phone call from my uncle. My grandparents (I call them Nana and Nanu- it's Italian for grandma and grandpa) just got off a plane in Milwaukee from Las Vegas. When they were claiming their baggage, my grandpa collapsed and went into cardiac arrest. Amazingly, a doctor was standing right next to him and started performing CPR right away. There was also a defibrillator close by, and they brought him back to life. Those first few nights, we weren't sure if he was going to make it. My dad and I drove to Milwaukee almost every weekend to see him in the hospital until he got better. It's a year later now, and my Nanu is doing better than ever. He's lost over 50 pounds, he exercises every day, and he eats really heathy now. When I look back now, I know that God definitely was watching over him.  I learned that you should never take someone you love for granted, and that miracles happen.

(I posted on Kelly Rice's blog)

My podcast scene

My podcast video

Wow! I can't believe that one-forth of the school year is already over! That means report card time. This quarter, I feel pretty good about my grades- A's and B's. I'll hopefully be getting mostly A's this quarter. I know that if I work harder I can eventually get all A's. That is one of my goals for this year. I'll really need to work hard and improve my study skills, but it's a good goal to have. If I set my mind to it, I can accomplish this goal.

This week I commented on Madisen Manning's blog

16 things i want to do in my lifetime:

• skydive
• scuba dive
• take an art course in Italy
• see the Pieta, Mona Lisa, the David, and a lot of other great pieces of art
• visit every continent
• see abortion outlawed
• visit the Vatican
• see a whale
• become either a doctor or an artist, I haven't really decided yet
• learn to speak Italian fluently
• get married
• have children
• meet the Pope
• graduate from a good college
• help the Earth :)
• make a difference

This week we were supposed to vote on our favorite logo for the city of Peoria. I chose the pictured logo because I think it is the most creative. I like all of the different colors in the design. I also like that the artist incorporated the different parts of Peoria, the city, rural areas, and the river. I think it's very eye-catching. If you want to vote for the next logo, go to www.logopeoria.com.

Mrs. Brown- this week I commented on Kelly Rice's blog

Oh my gosh! I can't believe halloween time again. The only time of the year when you have the excuse to eat enough candy in one night to make you sick for the whole week. Luckily, it's on a Friday, so I'll have the whole weekend to recover. I always looked forward to dressing up. My favorite costume I've ever gone trick-or-treating in is a washing machine. Me and some of my friends all decided to go as a washing machine, dryer, and box of laundry detergent. We had so much fun making the costumes out of cardboard boxes and spray paint. We looked so stupid but it was great. That's definitely a halloween I'll never forget.

The new project we're working on now is on the iphoto application. We're supposed to find pictures that look like letters. Then arrange the letters to look like our name. I haven't started yet, but it sounds really fun. I'll make more posts about it as I work on it.

Right now my project progress is looking pretty good. I am finally done with the homecoming newsletter, and I think it looks really good. I am also finished with all of my other past assignments and am looking forward to the next one. I have really been enjoying these projects, they are a lot of fun. 

Let's get physical! Haha! This year I hope to get in better shape. I'm not really much of a runner, but I'll try to start running in my neighborhood for some exercise. I'm not in any sports currently so I have to bring it upon myself to work out. I know when it comes to either watching TV and working out,  I'd probably choose TV. That's probably not a good thing. I've also been eating a lot of fast food lately. That has to change too. So I'll make a "middle of the year" resolution to work out more and eat healthy foods.

This year I plan to nurture my intellectual development by studying hard and setting goals for myself. I want to be on the high honor role each quarter. To do this, I will need to study really hard. I know I really need to improve my study habits to complete this goal. If I work hard to nurture my intellectual development, I know that I can achieve my goals.

This week the class has been working on a newsletter project. We have to write I'm in a group with kelly and madisen. The project is really fun and I think ours looks pretty cool. The themes of our newsletters are the dress themes of the week, the activities, the pep rally and the dance. I'm doing the activities article. We're also taking pictures and downloading them onto the newsletter. I think these projects are getting easier as I get used to the software. 

This week we've been working on a powerpoint. We all chose a saint to use as the theme of the slideshow. I had used Microsoft Powerpoint a lot before, so this was a pretty easy assignment for me. The saint that I chose was St. Cecilia. I chose her because she is the patron saint of music. And as you probably know if you read my profile, I absolutely love music. I also play a lot of different musical instruments. St. Cecilia is also a very big inspiration to me because she was  martyred for her faith. She never backed down from what she believed in. I think all of us can take from that example. I know that we all want to "fit in", and do whatever everyone else is doing. But we need to keep sight of what really matters, even if it's not what everyone else thinks. We need to stand up for what we know is right, and never back down.

As teens, we encounter a lot of stress in our lives. From stuff like sports, extra curricular activities, friends, relationships, and most of all school. When you think about it, most of our stress comes from school: homework, tests and grades being just a few. This year, I'm going to try my best to manage my stress. I know I'm definitely not the most organized person in the world, and most of my stress probably comes from that. This year, I will try to be more organized. Hopefully, that will help get rid of some of that stress.

This week's blogging assignment was to post a goal for this year that will nurture my spiritual growth at school. I will teach the Catholic faith and lead students to be Disciples of Christ. I'll do this by joining Teens for Life. I am a very pro-life person and I want to show teens the sanctity of human life by joining this club. I hope that if more people join Teens for Life, it will send a message to others that all life is sacred. I believe that everyone deserves to live, and that no one should ever be able to take an unborn child's life, no matter what the circumstances are. I believe that if I do this, I will hopefully lead students to be Disciples of Christ.

Story Board Project

This week my class has been working on a new project on Keynote. Its a story board that's set to a song. I chose Jordin Spark's "One Step at a Time". So then we added pictures that went with the song, and wrote the lyrics too. I thought it was really fun. I love doing creative things like that. But sometimes I get so carried away, that I spend like the whole period on one slide. But I finally got it done, and it didn't turn out too bad. 

Hi again! I'm going to try something new with my blog. Every week I'll post a poll. You can send me comments to tell me what you think. I hope it works! I'm excited to see what you think.

Technology Applications Class

Hi! Welcome to my blog! My first blog is about how my technology applications class is going. Its been pretty good so far. We use macs at school, and i'm a mac user, so it isn't that hard. Some projects are kind of confusing, but over all i've been doing ok. The class is moving along pretty fast, and sometimes i can fall behind a little. Personally, i like mac computers and their applications. I think they are very user friendly and easy to understand. I think i will enjoy computer class this semester