Supplement

Write about your connection to Community

A pancake breakfast at the local community center is the tastiest way to start off a Saturday morning. But one Saturday was a little different; my Boy Scout troop cooked a pancake breakfast with all of the proceeds going to the Trevor Fund, a local charity promoting suicide awareness in the LGBT community. I could see it bring our small town together through in depth conversation while I was serving pancakes and refilling orange juices. 

Not only did it help our small town come together, but it also made a statement to stand up for the rights of other people. Recently the Boy Scouts have come under fire for refusing to allow gay men and boys to participate in scouting; but by participating in the breakfast my troop welcomed everyone to join Boy Scouts. Hopefully in years to come, our small pancake breakfast will give someone the courage to join scouting and feel included.

Best Time of the Year

Some people believe Christmas is the best time of the year.  Others think that it is New years.  The really crazy people believe that it is 4th of July.  All of these people are wrong though.  There is one true holiday that is by far superior than all the others.  It is Thanksgiving.  This is undoubtedly the best holiday, and the best time of the year for people.  Some may try to argue with me, but I have the facts to back it up.
One of the biggest factors that lead to this being the best time of the year is the sports that are going on.  The World Series has just occurred and people are still enjoying the baseball season.  It is also the middle of the football season causing the arguments among friends and families to develop and get intense.  Also, the football games are always interesting and fun to watch, whether or not your favorite team is playing on Thanksgiving.  Basketball has also started which makes the sports world complete.  Watching all the sports, and trash talking with family and friends leads to great times and enjoyable banter.
The food is also a huge factor into this amazing holiday.  Throughout most of the year, eating food is enjoyed, but not nearly as much as on thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving is one of the few times that people are ok with you eating as much as possible.  No one judges the amount you eat, unless it is too little. It is a great holiday for people like me who love to eat a lot of delicious food.  It is always enjoyable for me.
Also, it is a time where you get to see family members that you have not seen in some time.  Though seeing family isn't always great, during this time of the year, almost everyone is in a good mood and is looking forward to enjoying the holiday.  Also, watching family members going at it, isn't the worst thing for the observers, it can be quite funny.
There are so many reasons that Thanksgiving is the best time of the year, I could continue to write, about the parade they have throughout the day, and the Black Friday shopping that most people try to do.  Even without these things, I think I have showed that Thanksgiving is easily one of the most underrated holidays around.

ROT: A Gift or a Curse?

In freshman year, many people learned of the harsh and terrifying ROT (random oral testing). These tests have haunted me through high school, up until senior year. These tests are the things of nightmares, the beginning of which goes like: “I found myself in the middle of a classroom. I look around me and see other students frantically* scribbling words down on the piece of paper in front of them. I look down at my paper to see a litany* of words sprawled* across the page. I quickly became distraught* as I became cognizant* of the inexorable* slaughter that is imminent*.

‘Alright kiddies, time’s up!’ Mr Heahnal exclaims as his face beams from excitement.

‘Daniel, portend*’

I look up in shock. Why must I be the first one to go? The room undulates* around me as I realize that I have no idea. John unremittingly* hits his pencil on the desk besides me, and with each stroke I feel time slowing. Hours seem to fly by as I try and think of the answer, but nothing comes. I finally consign* my grade to Mr Haehnal and say: ‘Bananas’. In an instant I could feel myself turning from the student who always studies into the class pariah*. Pejorative* words flow through my fellow classmates minds as the nightmare starts to kick in.”

At this point most people would wake up in a cold sweat and realize that there is a ROT the next day and that they need to study beforehand.

In all seriousness, ROT has two sides to it. For people who can look at a list of words twice and have every word memorized, ROT is a walk in the park. But for people like me, it take hours upon hours to remember just 20 words. The night before, and day of a ROT I might spend 3-4 hours beforehand trying to memorize the newest 20 words and refresh myself on the previous 200 words. For people like me, memorizing ROT is an inordinate* task.

There is one good thing that comes out of ROT, you never really forget all of the words. Out of all 243 words that we “learned” in Comp II, I might be able to utilize* ¼ of the words we were supposed to learn, and understand most of the words. Throughout this post I have starred words that I was able to utilize* correctly that were in the ROT that I learned last year. This means that there is the irrefutable fact that ROT has allowed me to learn new words.

So overall, even though ROT is not really worth the pain that must be endured in the form that it is used in class today, if it were reformed to a friendlier, less cut-throat quiz, with less words, ROT might be almost bearable.

Where I feel at home...

·             The question was, “Preference and Approval are two forms used for this event and some areas use the first past the post method for-”

“Elections,” I interrupted the quizmaster.

        This is the sort of question I get correct at quizbowl competitions. While there are questions on all sorts of topics, I excel at questions about history, math, geography, and chemistry. I leave other questions to my three teammates.

Last year our lineup consisted of Felix, Kevin, Gerret, and I. We were one of the strongest teams coming from our school in recent years. Unlike some teams, our team was not dominated by any one person because we all made notable contributions to the squad. We had Felix with the moose hat, listening to the Cubs on the way to tournaments. There’s Kevin who always carried a small backpack and can name any senator from the past 150 years. Finally, there’s eccentric Gerret who loves to argue over pronouncing words like “archipelago!” While we have little in common besides a love of quizbowl (except for Felix and I being Cubs fans), I always felt at home when competing with them. These memories will always be some of my fondest memories.

November

I don't want to be a downer, but as it is the first of November, I feel like I should comment on the month as a whole. November is my least favorite month for one primary reason: weather. It's cloudy almost every day, there is frost in the morning that I am forced to get off of my car, and there is school. There is even snow every now and then, and the temperature rarely get above 60. There are no leaves on the trees and the grass loses its green glow. If it wasn't for the weather, however, November would be a fantastic month. There is football on Sundays, and one of the greatest holidays of all, Thanksgiving. If someone told me that they would like to get rid of November as a month altogether, I would not protest as long as Thanksgiving was still around.

Scream Fortress VIII

Well the Halloween update for TF2 finally came out. They basically just copied what they did last year and added a few skins, maps, and taunts. But man was it broken when it first came out. On Mac the game would crash and you couldn't even load maps. Which makes me wonder if the TF2 team even tested the update on Mac before releasing it. That means either they don't care or they aren't given many resources for testing the game. Either way, I'm very disappointed. On PC, you could load Halloween maps just fine, but the Merasmissions didn't work for most people. And for those who did, they used it to their advantage. The community market price for the creepy crawly cases shot up to about $15 per case. That price does not make sense for an item that everyone in the community should have access to. But because of the low supply and the high demand, the price shot up.
They finally fixed the bugs with the Merasmissions not working, but four or five days after the update was released. It took them long enough. At least they're now going to extended the length of the event to try to compensate for their mistakes. I know they're probably currently working on the pyro update and Smissma, but they need to be more careful with their updates and fixing them in the future. I'm starting to worry if Valve cares about TF2 anymore. Hopefully the next update is better.

Generic Fantasy Football

Rainier

Today I am going to write about fantasy football. I apologize because I know it is boring, so you don't have to read it if you don't want to. It is going to be average at best. Anyways my fantasy football team is pretty trash because everyone got injured. So i'm taking a ton of L's. But I am on the up as I have won the past two weeks. Even though I scored barely any points. But anyways I just hope I don't come in last so I avoid the punishment. Anyways I'm just going to write a little more so this blog post looks long. I think writing a letter is more efficient because you can write less but since I am such a dedicated student I am doing a blog post. My time here is almost done I hope you had fun I hope this blog post is long enough or else its gonna be rough.