Book Review #8 ~ The Outsiders

Hello everybody!
Yes, I'm back with another great review about another great book~!
So this one is called 'The Outsiders' by S.E. Hinton. Surprisingly, as I was reading the front of the book, it says the novel was written when the author was 16. Which is absolutely amazing, because this is one of the 100 best books of ALL TIME. Also, of all the books she has written, this is one of the most popular and best-selling. (I think if it's popular, it's probably best-selling.) AUGH JUMPING AROUND SUBJECTS AGAIN >.<
Alright so to the story.

Our protagonist is a 14-year-old boy named Ponyboy. -stifles laugh- Yes, I know, Ponyboy. But he's no wimp. He's part of a gang. The reason? Alright, so after his parents passed away, his loyalties have been completely to his two brothers, Soda and Darry, plus his gang. He didn't care so much for his gang before, but since he has no one else to depend on, he puts his trust in his friends. The gang is made up of a bunch of tough, rough, and rowdy boys who all came from the wrong side of the tracks. They have all been in fistfights, still participate in "Rumbles," and come from pretty sad homes. So Ponyboy is closest with a boy in the gang named Johnny. Johnny and Ponyboy are in the park one night and the rival gang from a higher class town comes and starts to taunt them and torture them. Being the youngest members of their own gang and probably the rival gang too, it makes it hard to fight against them. They fight with everything that they've got and by accident, Johnny kills one of the gang members. The gangfight breaks up after Johnny murders him, and from then on, a nightmare of violence begins and envelops Ponyboy in a turbulent chain of events.

I thought this was a very capturing book, and I honestly had trouble prying my eyes off of the page. It was really that good. I recommend this to everyone, boys and girls. People who have a bit of an adventurous sense will like it even more than I did, probably.
Anyways, happy reading to all of you!

Frustrating... + New computer!

Don't you just hate it when you leave ALL of your math homework at school because you're excited to get outta' school because it's the beginning of a long weekend...?

Well, as you've probably guessed, that happened to me. *sobs* But I only had maybe 10 Qs left (I think...) so I'm thinking I'll go to school early, finish some then, then stay in for recess (only if needed) and finish the rest. Gosh, I'm still really stressed out... I'm scared I might not finish the work in time...

                        Anyway, moving on to the computer!

Good news! Our old computer crashed (for good) after suffering from a virus (no, not that kind of virus. A computer virus.). Well, that's not very good news. But this is the good part: Because the old computer died, (poor old, slow, bad, not good, good-for-nothing computer.) we got to get a new one! It was second-hand, but who really cares. It works really well, and it had Windows 7 installed!! (It's much better than the Windows 5 we had before...) YAY

Well, happy weekend everyone!  (do people say that at all anymore...? or did they ever?)

News4Youth

Hello everybody! I have come back with exciting news! My writing has been posted on a website called News4Youth! (If you think I'm lying, type News4youth on google, click the first thing that comes up, then click "what in the world", then click  'view submissions.' Scroll down and you'll see my writing.)
I don't think I've ever been posted on the website, so this is a pretty big deal for me. The question was: "What advice would you give smokers to stop smoking?" Okay it wasn't really worded like that, but it was something like that. So you pretty much have to answer the question in your best possible writing. Then someone judges whether your writing is good enough to post on the site. You are free to congratulate me now that I am done my post.
Have a nice evening~!
(be sure to check out my writing anyway, even if you do believe me. ^^)

Piano Exam-RESULTS!!

YAY! 
I passed the exam, people! Yes, yes, yes!!! I'm so glad I did. I got 80/100, and you need 60 and over to pass. It was a nervewrecking experience, but I'm glad that I got the chance to do it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it was fun, just that I'm glad I have a memory of what an exam is like for future purposes.
Thank you everyone for cheering me on, you really helped me to not get nervous during the exam. This post is going to be a little short because I really have no more to say than YAY, I PASSED THE EXAM. So, see you next post! Have a good day!

Piano Exam

Hi everyone! Okay, so I had a piano exam today, as I told you about a few days ago. My exam was at 11:20, so I had to leave school a little early. I was nervous all morning, and I kept willing the clock to go a little bit slower. But of course, there was my mom, standing in front of the classroom, ready to take me to my exam. I felt like slinking away so she couldn't see me. Then all my classmates started to say, "Sherryn your mom's outside!" and I was thinking to myself, oh gosh darn it, you guys are blowing my cover! Of course then I realized I had no cover. So I started to put things away as everyone kept telling me that my mom was outside. Then Ms. McCleary, our teacher, told the whole class to wish me good luck for my exam. That really touched me. As I got up to leave, the whole room was filled with encouraging words. "Knock 'em dead, Sherryn!" "Show 'em what you got!!" "Go get 'em!" "Good luck!" I really appreciated it.

I thought about all my classmates cheering for me as I took my exam. Whenever I was nervous, I would think of them. BUT, I hope there will never be another time when I would be so nervous that I need 27 people to create a pep rally for me. Not that I didn't appreciate it or anything. I really liked having that many people care about me. I've never had that many people encourage me at once.

So you're probably wondering how the exam went, right? Well, it went... great. I didn't make a single mistake on any of my pieces. Before I played a piece I would look down at the keys and blank out. Then I would hit what I think is the right note, and the rest of the piece would just fall in place. I wish I could see the results right now, but I have to check them online a week later when they're posted. So I will blog about my results!

Thank you for sticking around, readers!

Happy Wednesday (or what's left of it, anyway...)!

Kira-Kira ~ Book Review #7

Hello, I hope you're enjoying my blog so far!

Anyway, I have come to give you another great book review about another great book. (on a sidenote; I only review the books that really deserve a review.)

So this book is called Kira-Kira, as mentioned in the title.
So this  book has a really good but sad story. But everyone needs a little bit of sad in their life, don't they?
So the main character of this story is Katie Takeshinma (yes, she is Japanese.). 
Katie Takeshima's sister, Lynn, describes everything as kira-kira (glittering.) The sky, the sea, and people's eyes are all kira-kira. But struggling to make ends meet after their small oriental foods store closes, they move from a small Japanese community in Iowa to the Deep South of Georgia. They move because their uncle offered their parents a job at a factory. Their parents work from 4 A.M to 11 P.M. So they never get to spend time with their children. But the parents are not the only ones struggling. Being the only two Japanese girls in the whole school, it is hard for them to adjust and for others around them to adjust. They are excluded from almost everything. But despite all this hardship, Lynn, with her special way of viewing the world, continues to teach Katie to see everything as kira-kira, and to look beyond tomorrow. But when Lynn becomes desperately ill, the whole family starts to fall apart and it is up to Katie to remind them that there is something glittering -- kira-kira -- in the future.

So that is my summary of the book. Do you want a spoiler? Well too bad, you don't get one. ^^
I thought it was a very good book. It is really touching. I cried a few times in the book. Honest. I recommend this to people that like realistic fiction, not really fantasy. Well, actually, I really like fantasy and I thought this book was really good so...
I'll just recommend it to EVERYONE. Yes. It's that good.
So be sure to put it on your "Books to read" list!
Thanks for reading!

Piano Exam!

Okay, so maybe you might be a little bored with all this piano stuff. But it's really important to me, so you have no say in this (hee hee!).

I had the piano festival/competition in, what was it, November? Yes. November. But the thing is, that piano festival/competition was just to help me prepare for the exam. Which is this Wednesday. Yes. The day after tomorrow. I have been practicing 5 songs for 1 whole year. Nothing but those 5 songs. Sounds kinda' boring, doesn't it? I thought so too. But I had no choice but to practice, and practice, and practice. And practice. etc. And so it all comes down to this. All that practicing and practicing and practicing. All that practicing so I can be officially prepared for the piano exam.

......

Oh gosh, I'm making myself nervous.

But anyway, I started this post, so I'll just keep talking. (writing, typing, whatever.) So not only do I have to do the pieces (perfectly) I have to do the scales (perfectly).

EVERYTHING MUST BE PERFECT!

And plus, exams cost money, and money doesn't grow on trees. So therefore, if I fail the exam (which is 60% and lower) all that $106.30 *plus tax will go TO WASTE. *echos on the WASTE*

But no pressure, right? Heh heh...

WISH ME LUCK!

Oh, and sorry I didn't post for a few weeks... I was... umm... uh...busy.

Have a good rest of the week!