This week, I accomplished learning how to write my alphabet without the worksheets. My goal was to finish writing my alphabet for my trifold without the workbook underneath with tracing paper. This piece of work will be on display at my presentation. Additionally, I had time to practice learning how to link my letters to make words which is next week’s goal. Week three was a great week and I have no struggles to share. Since nothing went wrong, I have no adjustments to make. But, since this week went wonderful, I will start looking for signs and envelopes to write on for my upcoming presentation. It would be great if I could start writing on them to tape or glue on my trifold. I would like my presentation to show different ways people can use calligraphy in real life. Next week, I will continue learning to connect my letters to make words and start writing on signs for my trifold.

My favorite room in my home is my bedroom. My bedroom is decorated with gold dots, on the white walls and has more gold accents throughout the room including my gold body-length mirror, hanging picture display frame, pencil holder, and lamp. My bed has a light teal frame, white comforter with teal bedsheets, and a gray accent pillow and blanket hanging off my bed. My desk is a light wood and I have a white desk chair. One of the reasons I love my bedroom is my bed. It’s so comfy and I love getting a good night’s sleep in it. I also love the way my bed looks with the teals, whites, and grays. Another reason my bedroom is my favorite room in my house is my closet. I love my closet because it holds all my clothes and books. I love figuring out my outfits in the morning with all my clothes and organizing my clothes by color and type. Lastly, I love my bedroom because of my books and bean bag chair. I love taking time to read in my room in my bean bag chair in any sparred time! As you can see, my bedroom is my favorite room in the house for these three reasons!

While working on my twenty percent project this week, my goal was to finish learning how to write the calligraphy letters M through Z in uppercase and lowercase form. Some successes I experienced this week were finishing learning how to letters M through Z in calligraphy in lowercase form. I practiced on tracing paper multiple times to get my letters fluid and correct. Over the week, I also found some brush markers to make my letters look more like authentic calligraphy. My main struggle was that at the end of twenty percent project time in class, I found out that I am not on track with my project. I found that the two different kinds of letters I was learning were both lowercase so I never accomplished learning the uppercase calligraphy letters. The last two weeks I have only accomplished writing the whole alphabet in lowercase. Because I didn’t get to write my calligraphy letters in uppercase, I had to make changes and learned how to write the uppercase calligraphy letters over the week before my next work time in class. Next week, I will be working on learning how to write the whole alphabet on my own without the outlines within the worksheets.

In the last weekend of February, I had my second dance competition of the season. At this competition, I competed my solo and two group routines. I’ve visited to this competition for the last five years and it is so fun! But, this time was extra exciting because I won first overall for my solo over twenty other soloists! I was ecstatic that I won and it was the best feeling because the hard work paid off. It was definitely the highlight of my competition season so far. I loved walking up to the front of the stage receiving my trophy and representing my dance studio. I especially enjoy my solo this year over last year’s solo, because it has so much personality and I enjoy the lighthearted music. I wear a light purple, knee-length dress with bows on my costume, and dance with a tissue box. The tissue box fits my dance because the dance is named “Cry To Me”. I love my solo and am so happy and grateful that I won first overall!

There are so many people I would want to invite to dinner, but these are my top three: SZA, Sabrina Carpenter, and Olivia Rodrigo. SZA, Sabrina Carpenter, and Olivia Rodrigo are all famous, female, music artists. First, I would want to invite SZA to dinner because I love her music and she seems like a kind, well-rounded person in real life. Next, I would want to invite Sabrina Carpenter to dinner because I would want to ask her about her one of her newer albums, “Emails I Can’t Send” that I enjoy listening to. Lastly, I would invite Olivia Rodrigo because she’s one of my favorite singers and I would want to ask her about her tour going on right now. Together, we would eat at a fancy, Italian restaurant, and I would order spaghetti. As you can see, I would bring SZA, Sabrina Carpenter, and Olivia Rodrigo t o dinner with me.

Hi, my name is Mia and for my 20% project I have chosen to learn about calligraphy. This week, my goal was to learn the capital and lowercase letters of A through L. I accomplished this goal, and learned how to write some words with those letters including chalk, bad, glad, and back. I used a calligraphy work book to learn my letters and words today. I struggled seeing the difference between the way the capital and lowercase letters looked from the style that was shown through the workbook and wish I have bought a real calligraphy pen before this so it would be easier to write. Because I couldn’t see the difference between the uppercase and lowercase letters, I will adjust next week to find letters with more significance between each other on YouTube. Before next Friday, I will also find and buy a calligraphy fountain pen on Amazon. My plan for what I need to complete next week, is to finish learning how to write letters M through Z in uppercase and lowercase. I am so happy I chose calligraphy as my 20% project because I think it would be a great skill I could use in real life situations. Thank you for reading!

This month, I read The Upside of Falling by Alex Light. This book is about two high school seniors with their own different problems told between two different perspectives. Becca has no friends at school and head is always in a romance novel, liking to experience love in books instead of real life after her parents divorced. While on the other hand, Brett Wells is captain of the football team, has a perfect and wealthy family, looks up to his father as an idol, and is one of the most popular boys at school. But, when Becca’s ex best friend makes fun of her in class for never having a boyfriend, Becca wants to try to prove her wrong. So, Brett overhears the conversation between Becca and her ex best friend, Jenny and he steps in to the rescue and pretends to Becca’s boyfriend. Now, Becca and Brett are trying to hold up their fake relationship to show Jenny that Becca can have a boyfriend and for Brett to impress his dad idol that he can get a girlfriend. But, when Becca grieves with her past parents divorce and Brett’s pitch perfect family starts to fall apart, they find they have more in common than they think they do. Will their feelings and love for each other become real or stay fake?

I enjoyed this book because it was told from multiple perspectives, a cute romance, and had some hardships making it feel like someone’s real life. I liked that it was from Brett and Becca’s perspectives because I got to see what it was like in each of their personal lives and what they were feeling without the other character there. It was a cute romance because I liked how Brett flirted with Becca making her blush, paying for her if she wanted something, and took her on mysteriously fun dates. There were also hardships making it feel more real like financial problems, divorces, and loneliness. Overall, I liked this story for its two perspectives, rom-com feel, and lifelikeness.

My favorite character from The Upside of Falling was Becca Hart. I liked her character because she is a book lover, caring, and intelligent. Mostly all of her time is focused on reading, Becca always reads her romance novels during lunch and after school. She was caring to Brett as she would do anything for him and would always take time to help out at her mom’s bakery. Becca Hart is also intelligent because she works very hard in school and has straight A’s. A quote from the book is, “These books were safe. Like an alternate, paper world where anything was possible. And after my parents’ divorce, I gave up on love. I never wanted to fall into it or feel it because what was the point? These books let me feel it through other people. That way, I didn’t have to worry about being hurt. It sounds dumb, but they helped. They helped me when nothing else could.” This shows that Becca Hart is not a risk taker because she doesn’t want to fall in love like her parents did and have to deal with the chance of their being heartbreak. So, she decided to read romance novels and so she could experience love through the books without having to deal with the consequences in real life. As you can see, my favorite character is Becca because she is intelligent, a book lover, and caring to others

My favorite quote from the book is, “ Life didn’t have to fit into a four-sided box that was neat and tidy. It was okay if the box had three sides or the fourth one was hanging on with duct tape. It was okay if the corners were dented and if there was a big red FRAGILE sticker on top. It was all okay.” This quote was meaningful to me because I have learned that it’s okay if you’re not perfect and that you never can be. Sometimes you are sad or there is something gone on in your life that you’re struggling to push through but it’s all fine and everyone will make it out of it.

If I could have any job in the entire world, it would be to be a college cheerleader/dancer. First, it would be so fun to see the football games! I would love to be able to cheer the football players on as they play and this could help me learn a lot more about the game of football. Second, it would be fun for me to get all dressed up in costumes/outfits and have my hair and makeup all done. It would be also be a chance for me to work on and learn new techniques for my makeup and hair skills! Lastly, I would love to pursue my love for dance as a college cheerleader! It would be fun to still be able to dance and work on my technique as my job! After college, I would love to become an NFL (National Football League) cheerleader/dancer! These would be my dream jobs and I hope it will happen one day too!

This month, I read See You Yesterday by Rachel Lynn Solomon. This story is about a young woman named Barrett Bloom starting her first day of college. On September 21st, she has the worst day ever! Barrett gets annoyed by the genius boy next to her in physics class, does terrible in her interview for a position in the college paper, and sneaks into a party where she sets the fraternity house on fire by a fallen down tiki torch! When she sadly reaches her dorm, Barrett finds her roommate locked her out and that now forces her to fall asleep on the common room couch. But when Barrett wakes up the next morning, she finds it is September 21st AGAIN and she’s back in her own bed! While her repeat day starts, she finds the genius boy from physics has been stuck in this crazy time loop too for months! As the two start to fall in love in their mysterious time loop, they find one another asking themselves what it will be like if they make it September 22nd? Would they still have the same connection they share now?

I loved this book because I enjoyed the time loop aspect to it. I have never read a book with time travel in it so I enjoyed reading that in this book. The experience of them repeating the same day never got boring for me because they experienced something different everyday together, showing each other their lives! It was also cool to see the two characters fall in love and learn to work together as then went from enemies to lovers. In the beginning, Miles annoyed Barrett so much, ratting Barrett out to their physics teacher in class. But as the story progressed, they learned to love each other’s uniqueness and love each other for who they are. I adored reading See You Yesterday for the time travel and romance and I hope you want to read it too!

My favorite character from this novel is Barrett Bloom. I love her character because she is a risk taker, as she isn’t afraid to do things even if there is consequences. A quote from the story to describe this is, “I’ve allowed myself to want things unashamedly, to put that out in the world and let the world respond. A risk I’m learning is okay to take.” This quote shows Barrett Bloom’s confidence because it tells that she’s fine sharing to everyone even if she’ll get embarrassed or regrets her decision. She’s confident in who she is and that confidence inspires me to share my ideas like her!

My favorite quote from See You Yesterday is, “I could wake up on the same day a thousand times, and every single one would be different because of you. Every single one would be life-changing. Because of you.” This quote was meaningful to me because it shows that the people around you can change your emotions so quickly. It connected to me because from my experiences, the things people said to me that day could have really made my day and made it memorable or it could make me feel hurt and upset for the rest of the day. Words can change everything and that’s why I loved this quote from the novel!

In February, I read The Summer of Broken Rules by K. L. Walter. This book centers around a teenage girl named Meredith who lost her older sister, Claire, eighteen months ago. This summer, she will try not to shut everybody out by joining her whole family on their yearly trip to Martha’s Vineyard. As this vacation will be extra special, with her cousin’s marriage, Meredith has just been dumped and will be dateless for the wedding! But when Meredith meets a handsome groomsmen, she makes an alliance with him for the family’s traditional game of assassin. With the fun game being Claire’s favorite part of the summer, this year Meredith will try to win it for her to honor her sister’s legacy. But, what will she do when she’s hopelessly falling for her cute groomsmen and trying to focusing on the game at stake?

I recommend this book because it has a cute romance, Taylor Swift references, and hard-core assassin game. The cute romance of Meredith slowly falling for Wit is adorable. It’s so fun to see all the adventures they explore together as they only get to see each other for one week! Next, the Fox family’s assassin game is so fun to picture with the whole family and wedding party using water guns to tag each other out. It makes me wish I was playing too! Also, if you’re a Swiftie there are some Taylor Swift references in the book because Meredith and her sister Claire would love to listen to her together! So, if you’re a Swiftie, love rom-coms, or enjoy watching exciting family games, you should definitely read The Summer of Broken Rules!

My favorite character was Meredith Fox from this novel. I love her character because she is so involved in her family and follows her heart. Meredith is so involved in her family as she takes full participation in their family game of assassin and doesn’t mind spending her time to hang out with her whole family or parts of it. I love that she follows her heart as she takes a risk to spend time with Wit and at then of the book, SPOILER ALERT, she leaves with him to travel and will take a year off of college to explore the world with him. Meredith is a joyous character who lives in the moment. A quote to describe this is, “And I did smile—a smile so filled with happiness, happiness I hadn’t been sure I’d ever be able to feel again.” This describes that she lives in the moment because she catches on to the little things and cherishes these things while they last. After her older sister, Claire died, she feels like she needs to hold onto everything else when they’re still there. I love that Meredith focuses on the now instead of the past or future. As you can see, Meredith Fox is my favorite character.

My favorite quote from the novel was, “ It’s one of those special places where you feel like time doesn’t exist. Where it will always be summer, where I’ll always wake up with you.” This quote was meaningful to me because it showed how depending on who you are with it could feel like time is passing so slowly or you could breeze through it. This quote also made me think how you should always put yourself around good people so you can feel like the moment Meredith is describing.

The possibilities are endless when you are invisible for twenty-four hours! If I was invisible I would steal as many credit cards as I can, trick everyone I know, and visit the world. Firstly, I would steal as many credit cards as I can because then I could spend all of them after that day to have loads of money to shop, provide for my family and friends, and donate to organizations of my choice. I would only steal one of their credit cards if they had multiple though to not steal all of their money. Next, I would trick everyone I knew to surprise them with my “appearance” because it would be fun to see their reactions. I would love to see what they would think if I started to talk to my friends and family as I would stroll into school for a couple of hours jumping through classrooms. Lastly, I would travel the world. I would ride a flight with many seats left to go for free as I would only have to pay for the way back! I want to travel to Paris, France so if there is an open fight I would love to jump on with no price. It would be even more enjoyable if I got to bring a friend too! As you can see, it would be very fun to be invisible for twenty-four hours!