I would love to be principal for the day. There are many things that I would change. One of these things would be the school lunches. While the principal doesn’t have complete control over the lunch menu, I would suggest to the superintendent that they serve better quality food. These meals would taste much better as well as being a lot healthier. Another thing that I would do is have live music on Fridays. Instead of playing the same few songs on a speaker, I would instead have popular bands playing on the outdoor stage. Every week, kids would be able to vote on which band they would like to hear play. I would make it so that on Fridays, teachers were not allowed to assign mandatory homework and they were only able to give optional work that would be counted as extra credit. This would lower stress over the weekend, and give students the opportunity to raise their grade if they wanted to. I would make a rule that says if a teacher was caught or found guilty of being unfair to a student, the student would be given the ability to hit the teacher in the face with whipped cream in front of everyone in the quad at lunch. The last thing that I would change would be the PE units. I would add American football as one of the units instead of either circus, frisbee golf, or track. I think that this would be a fun unit to have and it would be more popular among the students.

Mack was a young mudskipper that could jump the highest and farthest of anyone in his pond, Muckpool. Fellow mudskippers would watch in astonishment as Mack showed off his special talent to local crowds. This continued to go on for a couple of months until Martha showed up. Martha was a mudskipper who had recently moved from Mudton. Around eleven o’clock, while Mack was preforming, he noticed that no one was paying attention and they were instead looking the other way. “What’s going on?” Mack asked one of the spectators. “We’re just watching the new girl,” he replied. “She can jump really high. Even higher than you.” “We’ll see about that!” Mack snarled as he went up to where Martha was jumping. “Excuse me new girl, but this is my pond!” Mack proceeded to do a front flip as if to show her up. “Not for long!” Martha snapped back while she did a backflip. The crowed watched intently as the two mudskippers battled over who was the better jumper. After a few minutes of fighting, they both turned to where the crowd used to be. No one was there. They then realized that it was wrong of them to fight with one another since they were both really good. Mack started to apologize when all of a sudden he heard a screech. Almost instantly, a seagull dove into the mud, snatching Martha in its beak. It swiftly gobbled her up and flew away as if nothing ever happened. “Who’s the highest jumper now,” Mack muttered before continuing to show off.

In November, I read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. The Alchemist is a fictional book about a boy named Santiago, a shepherd who searches for the meaning of life. After having a reoccurring dream of finding treasure by the pyramids, he decides follow his heart and head to Africa. He meets a lot of interesting people such as a wise old man who claims to be the king of Salem and a man who owns a crystal shop in Arabia. He continues to see omens which lead him one step closer to his treasure, which is what Santiago thinks is his personal legend. However, after meeting a girl named Fatima he starts to question whether finding the buried treasure really is his goal in life.

I really enjoyed this book because of how interesting the plot was. The author was incredible at adding deeper meanings to somewhat ordinary things. While the book is short, it is difficult because the reader is left to interpret the true meaning of the story. I loved it, but there are certain parts in the book that leave me confused.

The mysterious alchemist was my favorite character because of his wisdom. On page 136 the text states, “The boy watched the exchange with fascination. ‘You dominated those horsemen with the way you looked at them,’ he said. ‘Your eyes show the strength of your soul,’ answered the alchemist.” This shows that he is wise because throughout his life experiences, the alchemist has learned things that can’t be taught.

My favorite quote is on page 166, “Then he remembered that he had to get to Tarifa so he could give one-tenth of his treasure to the Gypsy woman, as he had promised.” I like this quote because it shows how honest Santiago really is. In the story, it had been nearly a year since he had made this promise and he was still going to follow up on it to give the gypsy her reward.