Nico’s Blog

In seventh grade of my middle I have made lots of memories, and had lots of fun times, but my favorite ones have to be the three I will share right now. The first moment was presenting my knight at the museum project and getting an A+ on it. My second favorite memory was working on my big people project, because I got to draw part of the body. My last favorite memory was having ice cream at indie game club at lunch, and was probably my favorite.

My mother is the most important woman in my life. This is for many reasons, a main one being because she helps me out in the morning, whether it’s waking up, having my backpack ready for when I leave, or sleeping. She makes me breakfast, lunch, and sometimes dinner, and without her I wouldn’t be living! I also like my mom because she watches movies with me, even though she falls asleep during them. My Mom is the most loving and important person in my life.

This week was so cool and fun and I liked it. I made an adjustment of making letters in braille on a paper, which was easier to feel than braille letters on a book. I made an accomplishment of writing rooster in braille, and luckily had no struggles while working. Next week there will be people interviewing, and I will keep trying to read braille for each week over and over again. I probably should have picked something else while I had the chance.

My favorite room in my house has to be the “Living Room.” The reason the Living Room is my favorite is because I spend most of my day there. In the room there is a computer that I use, and a T.V. I also like the amount of space in the room, as there is not too much and not too little. There are charging ports behind the reclinable couches where I can charge my apple devices. I eat in the room, drink in the room, do homework in the room, and workout in the room. In conclusion, this room has many different aspects of it that make it my favorite, and that’s why I love it.

While working on my 20% project on the first week, I proud that I was able to accomplish my goal of memorizing the braille alphabet. A video on YouTube helped me memorize it because it showed how you can memorize it easily with just the first ten letters by adding dots to the bottom. I did struggle on a few things, because the rule for adding dots after the first ten letters stops at the letter w and resumes afterwards. Another struggle I had was with the numbers, which are the same as the first ten letters except you add a number sign before them. I did not have to adjust anything this week luckily, and so far this project has been going well. Next week for the project, I will buy a book printed in braille, and guess what objects are based on what they feel like to help my sense of touch.

It was 8:00 a.m. in the morning, I woke up and almost fell down the stairs because I forgot I wasn’t in my house. I had rented out a house next to a lake and river, because I thought it would be cool to see the ecosystem there. I went downstairs to brush my teeth and make coffee for the morning. In the table where I was drinking coffee I saw an advertisement on my phone for home improvement, where people would help me reform my house. I opened the casement for some fresh air, and to my surprise, I saw a platypus! I stepped out of the house ran to the river. By the time I got there, the platypus was gone. I followed the river to explore, and I thought I was dreaming when I saw about fifteen platypuses in front of my eyes. I took a photograph, and was proud of myself for finding such a wonderful thing in nature.

If I could have any job in the world, it would be as an egg farmer. One reason why I would want to have this job is because it is easy to do. As an egg farmer, I would just have to go to each coop and grab a few eggs. The second reason is because I could work with chickens, and I love chickens. The third reason is because it isn’t dangerous. Lots of jobs involve getting hurt, but working with chickens doesn’t if you set up a farm in a safe place. Getting free eggs is nice too because the prices of eggs are very high. This concludes why I would love to be an egg farmer, it would be convenient, and keep me happy.

For the month of February, I read the book Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins.

Catching Fire is a sequel to The Hunger Games, a dystopian where rich people force the poor to fight to the death once a year for their entertainment. It takes place in a place called Panem. There are twelve districts, which was thirteen before the thirteenth was destroyed for rebelling. The main character’s sister gets chosen to participate in the hunger games in an event called a “reaping.” She volunteers to go instead of her sister. Two people are chosen for the games, one male, and one female. The main character, who is named Katniss, goes with a boy named Peeta. Katniss arrives at the Capitol, and is greeted by her mentor, named Haymitch. Haymitch is the only person who has beat the hunger games in district twelve. In an interview, Peeta talks about how him and Katniss are lovers, which Katniss does not appreciate because she has a lover at district twelve, who isn’t Peeta. The crowd enjoys it and Haymitch says it will attract sponsors and to keep it go. Once the games begin, Katniss doesn’t stay safe for long. People from different districts form alliances, and chase Katniss. Katniss climbs into a tree, and the people decide to wait for her to come down. Rue; a girl from district eleven, points at a nest of tracker jackets, a deadly species of wasps created by the game makers. Katniss cuts down the nest while getting stung, and it lands on the people under the tree. They run away and two of them die. Katniss tries to take a bow from one of the dead girls, but starts hallucinating from the venom. Peeta saves Katniss, and she later forms an alliance with Rue. Katniss finds Rue trapped in a net, and a boy from district one throws a spear in her abdomen. Katniss shoots the boy with the bow, and sings a gentle lullaby to Rue as she passes. Later, a girl from district two taunts Katniss about Rue’s death, and hearing this, the boy from district eleven kills her. Katniss later meets up with Peeta, and the two survive until only three are left. Katniss kills the other boy, and her and Peeta are the only ones left. They both threaten to eat poisonous berries unless they can both win. The two winners go on to live a luxury life with their mentor.

The second book starts off with Katniss living in district twelve with her mom and sister. Katniss prepares for the tour that the victors have to do while winning. Later, President Snow, the president of Panem, interviews Katniss. President snow informs her that her win started an uprising, and to tell the districts that it was only out of love. When Katniss arrives at district eleven in the tour, she talked about how the boy from district eleven saved her, and how Rue became her ally. District eleven does a traditional district twelve hand gesture to show thanks. Seeing this, President snow signals that they were not successful in showing their love, and Peeta does a fake proposal. Later, Katniss sees her real lover, Gale, getting whipped upon a pole in public, and tries to intervene. The person doing the whipping then hit Katniss, and Haymitch tells the person that Katniss has a photo shoot coming up as an excuse. Later, an announcement is made by President Snow that for the seventy-fifth hunger games, the winning tributes will be chosen again. Instead of being worried about herself, Katniss worries that Peeta will come with her again. Because there are only two boys, Peeta would have to be chosen, and Haymitch would have to volunteer. Haymitch is chosen, and Peeta volunteers to be with Katniss. In the training sessions, Katniss meets the tributes from district three. The male, Beetee, and the female, Wiress. Beetee shows Katniss how to spot a flaw in a forcefield. In the interviews, Cinna designs a mockingjay outfit for Katniss to wear. A Mockingjay is a combination of a aMockingbird, and a genetically created bird called a Jabberjay, it symbolizes rebellion against the Capitol. When Katniss is in the launch rooms; the place where they are transported, three people walk through and beat Cinna while Katniss watches in horror, trapped behind the glass. Once the games begin, Katniss and Peeta ally up with the two from district four. Finnick, the male tribute, carries Mags, the female tribute because she is very old. Later, an acid fog is used to make the games more entertaining. Peeta and Katniss run from the fog, but Finnick is slow because he is carrying Mags. Mags makes a sacrifice and walks into the acid so Finnick can live. The three later meet up with Wiress and Beetee again, and the female tribute from district seven, Johanna. Beetee makes a plan to attach a wire to a tree struck by lighting, and put the wire in the water at the start of the games, to electrocute anything there. While executing the plan, Wiress is attacked by a tribute and dies, but the plan was successful. The six are attacked by the tributes from district two, and Katniss sees Johanna stabbing her in the arm, and thinks it is a betrayal. Katniss puts the wire on her bow. She shoots it into a flaw in the forcefield in the arena, at the perfect time that lightning strikes the tree, and the arena is destroyed.

My favorite character was Katniss, because of how smart she is, and how she started a rebellion against the Capitol. Here is a quote from her.

“It must be fragile if a handful of berries can bring it down.” -Katniss Everdeen, Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins. This quote shows her bravery, as she was saying this to President snow, and shows how she has the strength to rebel upon people who are powerful.

My favorite quote from the book was on chapter twenty-seven.

“The bird, the pin, the song, the berries, the watch, the cracker, the dress that burst into flames. I am the mockingjay. The one who survived despite the Capitol’s plans. The symbol of the rebellion.” -Katniss Everdeen, Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins.

This quote is meaningful to me because it shows what Katniss has developed into over the past two books, and it feels cool every time I read it.

What I liked about the book was the brutality of the games, and I like dystopians a lot. I even watched the first and second movie. I most definitely recommend it.

My life on Chicken island is fantastic! The first time I came to this abandoned island I was scared and afraid. Without family and friends, I felt lonely. I was at a whale watching field trip for the YMCA®, when I slipped off of the stern after my friends dared me to stand on the fence. I quickly started swimming, I floated on my back until 3 hours, I arrived at land. My whole body was sore, I slowly crawled towards a bush with berries. I ate the berries, which gave me energy, but didn’t fill me up. I walked towards a cave and rested until the next day. I arose early in the morning, and drank water from a nearby river, when I saw a familiar creature drinking with me. It was a chicken! I brought the chicken to my cave and fed it the berries on the island. The chicken dust bathed in a dirt patch next to my cave, and I began working on an actual house. It has been three years, and now my house is fully developed, I have a fence where I keep twenty-two chickens, and I made clothes out of leaves and tree sap. I have an easy daily routine that I use each day. First thing I do is take an egg from my chicken coop, and cook it over a rock with a piece of glass and the sun. I eat the egg for protein. Next, I feed the chickens berries and corn, and refill their water, then i let them outside. After, I find worms with the chickens, to eat with extra protein, and gather berries to eat for lunch. Then, I make my sign for help as noticeable as possible. So far I have a large smoke pit and a clear sign with sand for letters, and dirt on the background. I then go home and eat corn and a mashed worm steak. Lastly, I go to sleep for another wonderful day at chicken island.

I woke up in my subterranean home like any other day, except it wasn’t like this before the apocalypse. I was in my twenties when it happened, scientists were working on a cure for cancer, when a scientist that posted his works on social media recorded himself using the cure on a worm. The influencer let the worm escape, and reproduced with another, which kept the chemicals. The new worm started to grow teeth on its body, and eyes, like a human has, It grew to 20 times its own length, and became five times as thick in diameter. The worms grew into the worst invasive species in the world, and seemed interest in human meat. The containment was far too difficult, and the world fell in to chaos.

I fumigated my home for the morning, I do it each day with a poison my body is immune to, but the worms aren’t, sort of like a pesticide, but meant to keep out other humans too.

I went outside for supplies, The landscape looked normal on the outside, but the horror began when you stepped on the dirt. I walked slowly to the farm I made, and picked carrots as a snack. I walked onto the cracked roads, and began heading to the junkyard. At about half way there, I stopped moving. There I saw pure horror in front of my eyes. I was perplexed seeing the giant worm. I picked up a piece of cut glass from my backpack, and charged at the creature! It jumped at me, but I cut it in half. I heard a noise from my backpack, and took out my radio, when I heard the words coming from someone saying, “It’s finally over. Every single one of them is dead.” I didn’t question anything, and for the first time in ten years, smiled.