Something New

My road to school always had a surprise, and one time I met a DJ. This day started as usual but quickly turned very different and I learned how a person can change your day.

When I was 17 years old, I rode the bus to go high school. It was a small bus. Manuel, The driver of the bus, was my neighbor and my friend I knew him since I was a child.  In Panama, people like loud music and big speakers. In the bus, Manuel had a custom radio. The problem is, this was a school bus. If the police had seen his big speakers they may have given him a ticket. We always listened to the radio station called La Mega.

Manuel was friends with the DJs of the most popular radio station. He spent a lot of time at the station and they gave him a lot of music. The DJ "Mosquito" had a dedication program in the morning where you could call and ask for songs or leave a message for your friends. Manuel wanted me to go to the radio station and meet Mosquito. When we met he asked me a lot of questions about my age, my school, and if I was single. He said I was beautiful but I told him I had a boyfriend. He was funny but I wasn't interested.

After we left the radio station Manuel drove me to school on the bus. We listened to Mosquito's program and he gave me a dedication and he said crazy things. It was a little embarrassing. This was a new experience for me. I have many friends of different ages and this day all of them were listening to the program. They all knew it was me because my name is uncommon. Mosquito did dedications every morning for a week and every day Manuel made fun of me. We went to the stations many times after this, but I stayed on the bus.

When you are a teenager you can be embarrased by a lot of things and as the time passes you realize that it is not important now. I think is great to receive a dedication from someone you love. but if you don't love this person it can be uncomfortable.

Hero

When I was a little kid I would pretend that I was a hero. I remember having an old navy blue sweater that I'd tie around my neck and pretend it was a cape. I can't remember where I got the worn and slightly smelly sweater, but I didn't mind. To me, it was the best darn cape any kid could ever have and that was good enough.

 Instead of having super powers like most heroes, I wanted to be more like Batman or the Green-hornet and have awesome gadgets and gizmos. So one day, I went to the dollar store to buy a toy squirt-gun. Despite it being fairly cheap, it lasted me for few good years. I still remember what it looked like. It had a pink trigger and yellow lines on the handle. It also had some hints of green on the stock. Overall, it looked ridiculous.

Villains, in my eyes, were those over the top guys who could have gotten the job done had they not tempted fate and explained what they were going to do right before they killed the hero. To me, that didn't seem like fun. So instead, I just pretended there was a bunch of robbers. To an onlooker, a majority of my time playing was just me squirting water at all the plants in the garden. My mother seemed pretty happy about this for some reason. But after thinking about it a little more, mom was probably just happy that she didn't have to water the plants.

It seems the closer I get to actually growing up and becoming an adult, the more I look back on my life and think. Could I actually do anything significant in my lifetime or am I doomed to walk the earth and never have any effect on the world? It's times like those that make me think of my old navy blue sweater and my oddly colored squirt gun and remember when I was a hero.

Barron's Painless Vocabulary

Here are the vocabulary words we have been studying this week:

extraordinary
ardent
scrutinize
regale
procure
devour
ponder
endure
elicit
cater
adorn
abate
former
enthrall

Check out this set of vocabulary cards to study on Quizlet!

Welcome

Welcome to the new blog! Let's work together to discover all the ways we can use this to learn.

We'll practice writing, typing, reading, listening, vocabulary, collaboration, and editing.

You can use the blog to share news, stories, favorite websites, and games.

We can report on class events and field trips.

What else can you think of?

Jane