This school year is coming to end, freshman year is almost complete. The testing begins, and the nerves kick in. At Carroll High School, the seniors are gone, grades 9-11 are still in.

I think this school year was a good one. The classes I took were hard, but not to hard. Walking around the high school and taking classes here for the first year felt pretty good actually. At first, I was pretty scared quite frankly, but when I started talking to upperclassmen, it wasn't so bad. Computer Literature and General Business were about the only classes that I took that had upperclassmen in them. Honestly, it doesn't bother me taking classes with upperclassmen because then you get to hear all the gossip and drama from not only your grade, but the grades above you, and that's always a nice thing. It's something you just have to get used to, and if not, it's something you have you'll have to deal with throughout high school.
      My favorite class this year easily had to be geography. Mr. Tigges can by far make a class seem much more enjoying, and especially not as long. He's a pretty laid back guy who really communicates and enjoys talking with his students. The conversations my class had over the semester were quite hilarious. Having Khalil Brooks in our class made it twice as much fun having to deal with his quite annoying laugh that just about gets everyone. We usually had a quiz on Fridays over the things that we learned and discussed in class during the week. We studied the world by continents. We started with North America and ended in Africa. Not only did I  learn new things, but I learned things that I really care about and actually take to heart. For example, in the Middle East, our country has dealt with a terrorist group called Al-Qaeda that's based out of Pakistan for last 30 years now. So many good topics, so many good memories, and a really good teacher made geography my most enjoyable class this year.
      Next year will be kind of hard at first since I won't see the Class of 2012 around anymore, but it hopefully will go by as fast as this year did. We start a week, so hopefully it pays off! I'm not exactly sure on the classes I'll be taking, but I hope to have classes with some of the people I enjoy learning with!

The NBA playoffs have been currently under action the past three weeks, and it's been nothing, but excitement. The best 1st. round match up in the playoffs had to be the sixth seeded Denver Nuggets against the third seeded Los Angeles Lakers. The Lakers were picked to win the series, but they had troubles doing that. The Denver Nuggets took Los Angeles to what no one was expecting, a game 7.  The Lakers, under the direction of Kobe Bryant who placed second in the season scoring, took a 3-0 lead in the series. The first two games were played in LA's favor, at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles. In game one, the Nuggets got down early and played catch up the whole second half. In game two, it was much closer than game one. The Denver Nugget's front office felt like they needed to make a move for the future, so they did. They completed the trade with 30 games left in the regular season. They traded their 7 year center Nene Hilario for a raw, young, and powerful center Javalee Magee. Javalee Magee was the key factor in game two for the Nuggets. Although the Denver Nuggets played some of their worst basketball, they only managed to lose by six. The series switched to Denver, the Mile High City. The Nuggets just pounded the Los Angeles Lakers in both games at the Pepsi Center in downtown Denver. Ty Lawson, Denver's point guard, scored just about 50 points total in the two games, scoring 32 in the first. Los Angeles got the first game in Denver, but the Nuggets came back and stole the second. Denver then stole another in Los Angeles, which was a tight game all the way until the final seconds of the fourth quarter. The series went back to Denver for game six. Denver's knew they had to play a perfect game in order to force a game 7, and they did exactly that. They blew out the Lakers by 27. Although the Nuggets were playing great basketball, the Lakers took the series in game 7 in Los Angeles, ruining a great run that Denver gave. The Los Angeles Lakers are now in the second round of the playoffs battling the mighty young and tough team from Oklahoma City, the Thunder.  They are behind in the series 2-0.

Al-Qaeda's newest leader that is now killed

Just last week, the United State's drone was on a mission, and completed it's mission by killing Al-Qaeda's newest leader. The day that this occurred, I congratulated the my country for a job well done, and thought none of it. Well, I was wrong. Ten minutes after I had posted "another victory for our country today! united state's drone killed Al-Qaeda's newest leader!", a kid from Carroll High, not saying any names commented on it. After reading his first few comments, I started to wonder what he actually thinks about our county. Many of my Facebook friends, that had a chance to look at the post and comment were wondering the same thing I was. I never thought that my status would cause eruption, dis-agreement, disappointment, or even slur. There was a total of 45 comments on that one post by the time I couldn't finally couldn't handle the things this kid had to say about the country I live in, fight for, and try to make better day in, day out. His opinions not only shook my head with disappointment, but it shook the head's of every single other Facebook viewer that saw this post. He started talking about how the the leader of Al-Qaeda was just like every single other person. He went on saying that this leader had a brother, sister, dad, aunt uncle, and that he was loved by many. And that he was told to do this, he didn't chose to do this. Many people started reacting to these first few comments of his, saying that he killed 47 innocent, hard-working Americans, since the he planned the USS Cole Bombings in 2000 in port in Aden, Yemen. This student went on saying that President Barrack Obama has been our best president our country's ever had, using the unemployment term quite often. Unemployment rate? Really, Obama's increased the unemployment rate so high that many of ,us, Americans have lost the statistic in the last few years. One of Obama's key points in running for election was to create jobs? Were not creating jobs in America, were shutting down businesses, taking jobs away from capable-of-working Americans, and raising our country's debt ceiling. This kid plans on moving out of the country in a few years, and plans to live in New Zealand.

Before; I picked this photo because I still remember to this day watching Arron Afflalo make this shot to beat Dallas in a critical showdown in Denver, Colorado, at the Pepsi Center.

After;

Before; I picked this picture because I love being around rivers, cricks, and lakes. The atmosphere is always good.

After;