And I haven't written anything today yet! I really should, but I've been so busy with tennis and speech co-op... now that is another story. I didn't have my expository speech ready yet this morning, and when I tried to draw an evolutionary tree as my visual (my topic was on convergent evolution), it just didn't work out. So instead of stressing out over my visual, I just wrote a whole new speech!
(And this was like two hours before I had to give it, too.) So I did my expository on CDs instead -- how they work. I was very pleased with the way it turned out, especially since I didn't have a whole lot of preparation on it!My next speech has to be a humorous interpretation. *dies*
And tennis... it's been great for only day three! Today I took Betsy to the courts for about an hour. She is improving, too. It's fun when other people come to use the courts while we're there -- then I can watch them from a distance and try to imitate their serves. And I only hit the ball over the tennis court fence once this time. Much better than yesterday when I hit like five over the fence (at least). That got to be a pain.
Um wait... this was supposed to be about NaNoWriMo. But my life this week has been more than just NaNo.
I'll leave you with an excerpt from my (still unnamed) novel. I like this scene, even though I was feeling a little goofy when I wrote it. lol.
At the same time that Joel was getting his fishing lesson, William's spirits were sinking lower and lower as he participated in the classes for the handful of children on the island. This was even more dull than school back in Canada!Please excuse any improper grammar, punctuation, or spelling. NaNo is about writing, not editing. I'm stomping all over my inner editor, and it's great! *grins*
The teacher was an old man named Thomas who had no hair, and no teeth (which made him very hard to understand). He never smiled, but he didn't raise his voice, either. In fact, he spoke in a monotone. A toothless monotone. If one of the children misbehaved, he would walk over to them and knock sharply on their head for a good two minutes while the class continued.
The children varried in ages from three to fourteen, and Thomas believed in teaching them all at once. As a result of this way of thinking, the older ones had to review the learning material for the three-year-olds every day. The day started out with a pledge to the island, the ocean, and the sun and moon that William found very disturbing. Of course, he did not know the words yet, so he was not expected to participate, but as he listened to the chant of the other children, he knew he could never join in with them. Growing up in Canada, the idea of saying a pledge was completely foreign to him.
Next, they said the ABC's together. Then they counted to 100. After that, Thomas called the students up to the front of the class one at a time and had them spell simple, three-letter words. William was bored to death with all of this.
After this came Science. This was the worst class of the session, William was sure. Thomas gave the class a lecture on some scientific topic (at least William guessed it was scientific, but he couldn't tell at all what the man was teaching them about). Then he asked each of the students questions which they could not understand because of his missing teeth. When they did not know the answers, he calmly walked over to them and started knocking on the child's head.
This man is crazy, William thought, as Thomas was painfully knocking on his head. Why is he allowed to be our teacher? We aren't learning anything here. At least I'm not. I'm not even keeping up on my multiplucation tables!
"Neh we wih do hiftoree," Thomas said in his usual monotone.
William payed close attention. This was his absolutely favorite subject. Hopefully Thomas would not make it as miserable for him as he had the other subjects so far. But "history" turned out to be nothing more than the children saying a chant that went like this:
China, Japan, Russia, and India. These are the countries of Asia. The men of China built a wall around their country to keep out intruders.William found this exercise very dull, very uninformative, and very silly. Of course it wasn't true that nothing happened in South America, Australia, or Africa. And there were a lot more countries in the world than those mentioned in that silly chant. He started to raise his hand to say so, and then thought better of it. No sense in saying something that would cause Thomas to come over and start knocking on his head again. One time in Science class was painful enough.
England, France, Switzerland, and Germany. These are the countries of Europe. Long ago, some people rebelled against England and started a new country in North America.
Canada, Mexico, and the United States. These are the countries of North America. The United States is made up of that group of people who rebelled against England.
Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, and Argentina. These are the countries of South America. These countries are not important; nothing ever happens down there.
Egypt, Swaziland, Tanzania, and Kenya. These are the countries of Africa. The ancient Egyptians built giant pyramids and a strange looking statue called the sphynx, but other than that, nothing much happens here anymore.
Australia. This is a country that gets a whole continent to itself. No one is really sure what goes on here.
Antarctica. There are no countries here. It is cold and snowy, and no one lives here.
Oh, and I finished Algebra II this week!!!! We're having cake and ice cream tonight to celebrate.
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