Reflecting On The 2011 NJ ASK

     This month, my sixth grade level has completed the NJ ASK (New Jersey Assessment of Skills and Knowledge) about a week ago. Looking back on taking the NJ ASK, I remember being worried when the test packets were handed out, but I was disappointed when I saw that most of the questions in the math section and some in the English section were way too easy for me and most of my classmates. The questions were the type of questions we would find somewhere between easy and hard in fifth grade, noting that the NJ ASK hardness had not increased by much. However, recent studies show that the academic achievement level of teenage kids, especially middle schoolers are decreasing, so there may be a cause for this sudden easy drop. This year, we mostly did review work in math, and the math NJ ASK seemed even more easy than in fifth grade. In English, we did work that was sghlightly advanced, but the English NJ ASK was very different in some areas: the multiple choice questions were easy, I wanted more room for the open-ended response, but it was hard to fill up the many pages of the long responses.

The Ticket Dilema

    "Come on, Daniel!" his sister Amy shouted "We're going to miss the bus!"
    "I dropped my lunch box!" he cried in exasperation. Finally, he found his lunch box behind a tall eighth grader and ran onto the bus.
    "You've got to be less clumsy." Amy told Daniel, sitting on the leathery bus seat.
    whatever... Do you know that it's his birthday today?"
    "Tomorrow!?", Amy asked. "But then we wont be able to get dad a great gift in time!"
    "Sure we can." Daniel answered. "How about a fishing trip?"
    "Nah, dad will get bored after half an hour and leave. We need to do something he likes." Amy stated.
    "How about we go to the movie theater?" Daniel asked. "Dad will love the new Indiana Jones Movie."
    "That's perfect!" Amy cried out. "Now all we need to do is get the movie tickets."
    As soon as Daniel and Amy got off the bus, they ran home, took of their book bags and quickly grabbed all of their money. Because they saw they had $60- just enough for four tickets, they got on their bikes and pedaled to the movie theater.
    "Indiana Jones...No!" Amy cried. "They're all out of tickets"
    "Now there's only one place to go." Daniel said, trying to sound triumphant.
    "Where?" Amy asked him.
    "To Biff Jenkins." Daniel answered.
    Amy shuddered- Biff Jenkins was a movie ticket collector, but he was quite creepy. And worst of all, you had to pay him a week of doing his chores for him: Biff was the laziest boy on Earth.
    "All right, but you have to do two thirds of the chores since it was your idea." Amy told him.
    "Fine." Dan answered. "Lets just get this over with."
   They quickly pedaled to Biff's house. The Halloween  decorations were still up, like always. They found Biff at the front door and asked him their offer.
    "Hey Biff, can you just give us any chores except for raking the leaves? I hate raking the leaves." Daniel asked Biff with a twinkle in his eye.
   Amy smiled. Daniel could be sly as a fox when he needed to. Raking the leaves was actually their favorite chore. The neighborhod kids were lucky that Biff was only about seven years old and very gullible.
    "Sorry, but this week, you'll have to rake the leaves." Biff answered. "No refunds."
    "Come on, Daniel." Amy  told him. "We have to go home now.", she told Biff, leading Daniel back to their bikes, a smile on her face.
    They quickly rode towards home, but they suddenly spotted a road block on their usual road.
    "Oh no..." Amy frightfully muttered. "We're going to have to go through Whirley street."
    Whirley street was known for being dark and scary, and for its bullies.
    "Come on, Amy." Daniel reassured her. "I have a plan."
  So, the only thing noticed on Whirley street was an extremely fat lady, who looked as if she had wheels under her skirt. This of course was Amy and Daniel, riding their bikes in Amy's nightgown, with Amy's head with a hat on it poking out the top. They slowly rode past Whirley street, and managed to get to their house after dark.
    "We made it!" they both yelled, as they could see their house in the distance.
    They ran into the house, just as their mom was bringing out the birthday cake.
    "Wait!" Amy yelled. "We have a last- minute birthday gift!"
    Daniel quickly took out the tickets and handed them to his dad.
   "But I though that there were no ore tickets. How much trouble did you have to go through to get these?" he asked. "Anyway, this is incredible!"
    And Daniel and Amy just looked at each other, their eyes twinkling like stars.

Quote Explanatory

   Many people stress the importance of resillience: "Fall seven times, stand up eight." (Japanese proverb) If everyone gave up on doing something if they didn't do well the first time, the world would be full of losers, people who have never accomplished anything. The only reason the world is full of people with great accomplishments is because they learned from their mistakes and moved on: our world depends on resilience.
     Even after surviving terrible hardships, people still managed to emerge victorious. George Washington and his troops had to survive many hardships the winter before the Delaware river crossing: t they had to find ways to keep warm, they had to ration food down to the smallest portions, and many of the men died from the bitter cold. Although they ould have given up and gone back the way they came, towards food and shelter, the soldiers did not surrender: they kept on tolerating the cold, until the opportunity to cross the Delaware river arose. The soldiers immediately took it, and they soon saw the better side of staying in the cold camp and waiting for so lond: they were avle to launch a successfull surprise attack upon the British.
    When I started my table tennis lessons, I was horrible: I couldn't even bounce the ball on the paddle five times! But even though I was completely terrible at table tennis, I kept practicing, and I started getting better and better. Every time I dropped the ball, I would just pick it up and start again. Eventually, I could rally (hit the ball back and forth on the table) with an older player about fourty times if I tried really hard. From this expirience, I learned that trying hard and getting back on your feet to try again is the only way to learn or get good at something.
    Resilience is the only thing that keeps human beings in a constant path of progress: if we didn't keep trying after we fail, nobody would be able to accomplish or learn anything. Truly, standing up after falling in many ways is the key to progress and learning.

Should Students Be Issued School Laptops?

     Many schools issue their children special "school laptops". However, this is not the case at Herbert Hoover Middle School. Giving out laptops to children would have many advantages: children could do their homework on the go, parents wouldn't have to buy their child a computer, and it would be possible to buy costly computer programs with less hassle.
    Many middle schoolers go on vacations with their family in fall, winter, and spring break.But even though traveling is exiting, it does not give children many opportunities to do over-the-weekend homework. Many families have desktop computers, which have a longer guarantee but are not very portable. If the child had a laptop, they could bring it with them on vacation and finish any typed/group work. The opposition's standing point may be that children may have problems with wireless servers in a hotel room, but most hotels actually offer free wireless internet.
     Computers can be costly: A good computer and monitor can cost about $        . If students are given laptops, their parents will not have to worry about buying a computer for their child. In fact, some poor families might benefit from getting a laptop more than they ever imagined. Some people might state that most families have 2 computers already, but those families have two computers because the parent's jobs require them to be using computers. If both parents are using the two computers, the child will not geta chance to finish his or her homwork.
     Nowadays, computer programs are easier to buy, but they still are pretty expensive: the disk for the Microsoft Word program costs just about $300! An average school has just about that number of sixth graders, so if everyone chips in, each child's family will only have to pay about a dollar to buy the disk for the school, so the software could be downloaded to every computer. Better yet, with the help of the seventh and Eight graders, the school could buy software that is even more expensive. People might say that downloading the software minto each computer would take a long time, but if all grades paid about five dollars each, the school would be able to but about five or six copies of the program, making the downloading go faster.
     Issuing Herbert Hoover Middle School students laptops would have many benefits. It would help students do homework while on vacation, and it would save families a lot of money on computers and computer programs. Issuing Herbert Hoover Middle School Students Laptops is the right choice!

Uniforms Persuasive Essay

FCA’s                                                                Alisa Lytvyn
1. Supporting details                                            March 16, 2009
2. Parallel structure                                              English 6-1
3. Sophisticated vocabulary                                 School Uniforms

Dear Superintendent DiMuzio:
    “When we lose the right to be different, we lose the right to be free.” (Charles Evan Hughes, US Supreme Court Justice, 1925) Schools around the United States often have problems over what their students should wear, because clothing can become a distraction from education. More and more schools are deciding to enforce dress codes to lower behaviour problems. However, in trying to solve one problem, uniforms create new problems, like disgruntlement among students. Uniforms are not a great decision, because they limit children’s shining creativity, they often cost more than regular clothes, and they will not improve, and even possibly worsen the behaviour of students.
   In a school, creativity is prized just as much as intelligence: art class, music class, and projects are places at least a little bit of creativity is required. Uniforms suppress the creativity of students by not letting them choose out outfits. Many children really like having their own sense of fashion, their own sense of style. Children also have pride in themselves if they have the newest pair of stylish boots, or a T-Shirt that shows a little bit of who they are on the outside. Many teachers say that fancy clothing can provide distractions, but distractions can also be open windows, pictures, or any thing around the classroom: children with wandering minds can find a distraction anywhere.
    “Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.” (Henry David Thoreau) Uniforms are likely to be costly, since many are specially designed. If you look at any designer clothing store, you will see that the prices of the clothing are sky-high compared to buying regular clothing at your average store. Even if you only have to buy two to three uniforms, you will also need to buy ten to fifteen sets of clothing to wear after school, instead of just buying ten to fifteen outfits to wear everywhere.
  Many people believe that uniforms will reduce bullying. But “If fifty million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.” (Anatole France) Even if uniforms are enforced, bullies will find other reasons to torment people. Actually, bullying about clothing isn’t the main type of bullying right now: cyber bullying is, and cyber bullying happens because of bigger reasons, like religion or ethnics.
Some people argue that studies have been done about bullying, and that they showed that schools with uniforms had a reduced rate of bullying. However, this “reduced rate” was later proved to a minuscule difference.
    Enforcing uniforms is not very wise, since they limit creativity of students, and they cost more than regular clothing. Some people say that making children wear uniforms can reduce bullying, but that is not necessarily true. Uniforms go completely against the American beliefs: “America has believed in differentiation, not uniformity, lies the path of progress. It acted on this belief, it has advanced human happiness, and it has prospered.” (Louis D. Brandeis)

Boardroom Persuasive Essay

     Parents often don’t allow their child to keep a pet, and simply because the child is too young. Even if the kid cries and begs and pleads, some parents just say “You’re not responsible enough to take care of a pet.” But that isn’t a problem with Amazing Pet Chubs! Pet chubs are cute and funny, and they are also easy to take care of, so they will appeal to both children and their parents. Chubs are completely child safe, and they will make any kid laugh after a hard day. Amazing Pet Chubs are the type of pet that will please everyone!
    Chubs are easy to take care of, because they only need to be fed once a week. If their owner still forgets to feed them, they will make little “meep meep” sounds to remind them that they have pets to feed. About 50 percent of all pets are obese. Pet chubs do not get obese, because they only eat as much as they need to stay healthy. Chubs also do not require their  their habitat to be cleaned, because they do not extrude waste. These easy things a child has to do to care for pet chubs will start them on a path of responsibility. Other pets might prove too challenging, and the child may stop taking care of the pet, leaving their parents with the long-term commitment of caring for a pet.    Many parents worry about their child’s safety when buying a pet, but this won’t be a problem with Amazing Pet Chubs! Pet chubs will not try to get under a child’s clothing or inside their ears or nose, like some nose-licking dogs, because they prefer to ride around on a child’s shoulder, where they feel most safe. If a child squeezes their pet chub too hard, they won’t cause any harm to the chub, like with other small pets like hamsters or birds. If an accident happens and a pet chub is swallowed, the pet chub will not cause any internal harm to the child, because chubs will be broken down into normal waste material once they enter the stomach and are digested.    But pet chub’s most alluring quality is that they can make any child happy after a rough day. Pet chubs naturally give off a sweet-smelling scent which will relax a person’s mind when they walk into the room. When they notice the person walk in, the chubs will softly “coo, coo”, drawing the person closer. Then, they will suddenly unfurl their acrobatic talents and do all kinds of tricks until the person is laughing so hard that the tank walls are shaking. Pet chubs have the ability to cheer up everyone, even a person who has had an extra-unhappy day.    Chubs are easy to take care of, they are child safe, and their hilarious antics will cheer anyone up: what else could a pet owner to be ask for? The Amazing Pet Chubs will appeal to both children and their parents. The only people who don’t like chubs are the type of people who do not like cute little pets: and who doesn’t like cute small pets?

Looking Back On My Commercial

   Recently, I had to work in  group to create and act out a commercial in my English class. After I reflected on the commercial, I noticed a lot of things.
   I did a commercial for Iphones with Wamia and Hadia, and the first thing I noticed was that we were all a little shaky and nervous. The commercial didn't flow as good as we wanted it to, because we improvising most of the script. Wamia had written a script, but when we acted it out, it turned out to be very long, so the script was dropped. I wish we had enough time to edit the script in class, because then we would have learned our lines and known what to say and when to say it.
    I also would want to change the place we acted it out. We recorded the commercial in the hallway, and when we were finished with our first try, we had just started our second take before the bell rang and cut us off. I was unhappy that we wouldn,t get a second chance, because the first try was a little shaky, but on the second try we could improve.
   One thing that I liked about the commercial was that everyone got an equal part, nobody spoke more than somebody else. I think that Wamia got the smallest part, but that was balanced because Wamia worked on the script more than Hadia and I did. I also liked that we found a way to combine all of our products into one. Hadia and Wamia were doing the Smartphone and Iphone, so we combined them to make the Ismart phone, and we made the company Reunited Dumplings, because that was the company I used  to advertise Pet Chubs.
 Overall, I thought our phone commercial was good, and I was happy that a little bit of comedy was added (after I "saw the Iphone for the first time", Hadia and I resorted to a tug of war match with the phone while Wamia was talking about how great the Ismart phone was in the foregreound). I just hope I get to make comercials for English class in the future, because I had a lot of fun making the phone commercial.

Why My Pet Chubs Commercial Should Be On T.V.

     There is a new fad in town: Chubs! The Amazing Pet Chubs  kits have been selling left and right, and all thanks to one ad in the newspaper. But now, the Amazing Pet Chubs advertisements are getting amped up: Reunited Dumplings Co. is looking for spots on T.V. commercial schedules to air the new commercial.
     Nickolodeon, Disney and Cartoon Network: we want you to  air the ad on your television channels. We want a channel that attracts children, because Amazing Pet Chubs are specially made for children who want a pet and want to try something new and interesting, and your channels are the most watched by children of ages 4-10. Reunited Dumplings Co. will pay 10% of the profit made (while the commercial is on the air) to the channel which signs the contract first,  and 5% and 3% to the third and second channels. Don't wait, get the Amazing Pet Chubs commercial on air now by calling 732-287-0847.

A Girl From Earth Translations Notice

     Well, the A Girl From Earth translations are finally on my new blog, but I did have some problems with translating:

• In Russian, there are no quotations, so I only put them in when they were necessary to seperate narrated words from dialouge.
• Some of the words might be spelled weird, because theyre translated from Russian. The words are spelled weird because in Russian, everything is written almost exactly how it's spoken, and that's the way I wrote the translations of names and places, like Martian Boose and Shoosha.

     The address of the new blog is pasted here: http://agirlfromearthtranslation.blogspot.com/
If there are any problems or suggestions about the new blog and the translations, you can Email me at metherat@gmail.com
                                    I hope you enjoy the translations!

New Posts, New Blog

     Today, I have decided to create a new blog. I have recently started translating a Russian science fiction book to English, and I decided to make a whole new blog for it because i mostly only do my homework on this blog.
     The (translated) name of the Russian science fiction is A Girl From Earth, and it is set in the end of the twenty-first century. In the book, Earth is peacefull,  people can already go to planets beyond the Solar System to visit visit their alien  friends, and have nearly discovered the secret of traveling at light speed.
The book was written for third grade level (It is the first book I ever translated, If you dont count my miserabule failure at translating The Velveteen Rabbit from English to Russian),  and it is about a six year old girl going to outer space with her father, to search for animals for Earth's Cosmozoo. I really liked this book when I was a little kid, and I hope you enjoy it too.
     I already have the translations of the prolouge and half of the frist chapter written down, so as soon as I create the new blog, I'll type and post the prolouge and the first chapter. I'll post the location of my new blog on this blog soon, so keep an eye out for new posts! I hope to get the new blog up in a day or two.

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School Plus Sunday School

     I go to a Russian Sunday school, called School Plus Sunday School, and I think that School Plus is a very special school. School Plus offers many interesting courses, such as Art, Math, and Russian (language).


     One thing I really like about School Plus is the locations: School Plus Sunday School has been held in two different buildings. On weekdays, the buildings are used by Rutghers University, but on Sundays, children of all ages come there to learn and to just have fun. Both the interior and the exterior of both buildings is appealing; both have clean hallways and a rest hall filled with chairs. couches, and a few vending machines. Many students at School Plus call this area "the hall". The exterior of both buildings is surrounded by sidewalks, trees, grass, bushes and even flowers planted by the Rutgers students.
    
     What I think is really special about School Plus are the classes. I take Art and Math, and I wanted to describe why I like both my classes so much.


     My Art class is taught by Ivan Bratko, who specialises in sculpting magnificent imitations of human beings.
With Ivan, we learn painting techniques, how to sculpt simple sculptures, and even how to properly carve stone! We are currently finishing up our still life unit, and we will start our stone sculptures on the 12th of March.


     My math class is taught by Mary Marvin, and all the students call her Miss Mary. Miss Mary is a rather nice teacher, and she always explains things and makes sure everyone understands problems we had trouble with. Miss Mary also offers summer enrichment programs if a student is doing particularly well, to get them into a higher class where they will be able to learn things that are more harder.  You have work hard to skip a class, but it helps you a lot in your normall school.


     My little brother also takes math and art, but he also takes chess, another class offered by School plus. His chess class is taught by Nonna Karakashyan, or Nonna Meehalovna by her Russian speaking students. Chess is a great strategy game which improves a person's critical thinking skills and teaches them to think before making a decision.


     Another great opportunity for School Plus students is School Plus Camp, a morning-afternoon camp that can keep kids fit and help them not lose their knoledge over the summer. A typical day at School Plus Camp starts with all of the kids playing and exersizing in Highland Park, and then we all take a short walk to thethe building camp is held in. Then, we have classes like math or Russian or Art or Chess, and we go to a Rutgers pool  nearby to swim in the nice, relaxing water before going back to the building for lunch. After lunch, we have more classes, and we either practice our annual play, or watch a Russian movie.


     School Plus is a great school for both Russian speaking children, and children who do not know a  single word of Russian, because every adult in the building can speak both Russian and English. It is a great school for people who want enrichment beyond their normal school, or people who are behind in their school and want some extra help. School Plu is a sunday school that offers grat opportunities!

What I learned During The Career Unit

     In my middle school English class, we are finishing up our Career Unit, a unit about how to plan ahead to get the job you want in the future. To complete the unit, Mrs. Patalano has aksed us to blog about the mot important thing weve learned in the time of the Career Unit.
     The most important thing I learned in the career unit is that planning can really help you. I already do minor planning, like writing down my homework in my planner so I can remember what ot do, but I learned that If I want to get to get into a good university after high school, Im going to have to work hard and plan ahead. On one of our worksheets from the career unit, we had to plan our high school classes.
I was pretty dissapointed that we coulndt have a second elective in our high school years, because then I'd have to choose between band and some other class that I'm interested in, like pottery. But I was interested in the math classes, because I saw that if I got into honors math next year, it could lead to me being one or two years ahead of the other kids in high school, or even get me into college or university early. In all of the videos we watched and the times we talked with Mrs. Patalano, we were always reminded that we need to start thinking about high school and college while we were still in middle school. I agree with this, because when I don't plan on how Im getting my homework done, It turns out to be as comlpete mess. I don want to have any more "messes", so Im going to try to plan ahead from now on.

College Essay

     I had many barriers in my life that I had to cross, but I remember one above all others: my first real challenge. Like many other people I know, was bullied in my elementary school. It all started in kindergarten.
     Many people have many embarrasing events happen to them in their early childhood, like falling in a mud puddle and getting all dirty, getting toilet paper stuck to your foot and not noticing it...
One of the most embarrasing events in my life was this: I accidentally swallowed a quarter in kindergarten, just another little kid in an embarrasing situation. Most people have something embarrasing happen to them, people laugh about it, and then the memory fades away.The only reason the memory didnt fade away for me was that a little boy (I dont want to tell anyone his name) had noticed. And this little boy was the talkative type. He quickly told all of his friends, who told their friends, and thats how the story usually spread throughout the class. In first grade, the little boy and his friends started teasing me: they spread nasty rumors, they would walk up to me and say "Hey, it's the girl who swallowed a quarter!". I didn't know what to do.
    With every year the teasing got worse and worse, and I was really glum about the whole situation. But in third grade, I was a lot smarter than I had been before: I knew I had to take action if I wanted the bullies to stop.
     I went to the office and told the counselor of my problems with the bullies, and nobody was bothering me the next day. I couldn't believe how easy it had been to get rid of my big problem! My expirience with bullies in elementary school taught me a lot: It taught me that you have to be brave and take action to make your life better.

Tecnology..Or Not?

In your average day, you probably use at least one piece of technology in at least one way: texting on your phone, watching T.V., listening to music on a radio, or Ipod....The list goes on forever. But how is all of this new technology affecting us? Very few people use technology for educational purposes, even though we use it every day, so it cant be making us a lot smarter...The only option left is that technology can be affecting how hard we really work.
   The movie Wall-E depicts what might be our future: we might end up totally dependant on technology from birth and throughought our lives, unable to imagine the past, a world where humans worked hard to survive, and when there were no robots to bring them food and water, and a person who just sat around all day doing nothing was considered lazy. There are hints right now that we will have a similar future: we are already building robots and "smart" appliances to either distract us from doing work or do the work for us. This can also lead to technology distracting us from learning or working(to admit, I often play a few games of pinball while Im "blogging"). But here is a little loop: we have to work very hard to make technology that will do the work for us? It is kind of a never ending circle, cince the technology we can make cannot make technology that is more sophisticated that itsself, we have to keep working to make new technology, but since the technology cannot be smarter than its creators, and if it keeps getting more sophisticated, doesnt that mean that we are getting smarter? To sum it all up, technology can make its MAKERS smarter, but its users..well...if they advance or not is something they have to decide. SO...will you stay ahead of technology...or will a robot someday be smarter than you?

What Mrs.Carol Should Know About Me

My name is Alisa, and I came from Lincoln School (another name for heaven on earth, when compared to thehectic system in middle school). In my free time, I really like to read ( the really suspensful and interesting books), but I HATE writing essays , unless its a persuasive essay about animal rights or how some animals are treated really unfairly (like my favorites, rats). I am really good at reading books or arcticles quickly, and at answering questions about books, but I am bad at public speacking, remembering prefixes and suffixes, and sitting COMPLETELY quiet when we have free time (why cant we do something more interesting, like trading pen parts?). Another few things you should know about me is that I am a very big "save the polar bears and any other endangered animals" enthusiast, and have some very unusual pets: Laura( the tiny and cute and exitable one) and Kysa(the old and fat one), my pet rats, my family's pet cat, Chucha, who eats pizza (believe it or not), and our family dog, Lotta, who is big, black with brown paws, muzzle, ears and tail, crazy and lovable in every single way.

   What I dont like about Herbert Hoover is that we have only four minutes of passing, because we have to gab so many things for English, and I often make it into class just before the bell rings. What I like about English is the start of a new vocabulary unit, because we get to play a game on the Smartboard where we put together words using the new units prefixes, suffixes, and roots. For me, English class can get boring, but I like when we use technology, like the computers or clickers, and I like doing the last part of the grammar sheet in the beginning of class, because it comes to me easily.I hope that now, you have enough information to understand me and my feelings about English.

Why I Want to Be an Oceonagrapher

   It is important to choose a good career to put your education towards, so you can make plans about what kind of courses you'll need to take in High School and College. I have started making these desisions, and Ive decided that I want to be an oceonagrapher.
     Many oceonagraphers study the ocean and weather. However, I want to become a completely different type of oceonagrapher: the type that studies the habits of large and potentially endangered animals and fish. I have always loved the sea, and have been fascinated by all of the creatures living there. I have read about the job, and I found out that the main thing my type of oceanographers do is tracking dolphins, whales, and other endangered species, and I was really curious about the animal or fish migration paths. Haven't you ever seen a gaggle of geese up in the sky and wondered where they were going or what kind of places they'd see? I was also interested in what kinds of tracking technology I'd use if I got the job.I've seen some kind of radarish things like that on TV, but I wonder if it is all as large and complicated as  CT scanner. I could probably ask about a million questions about what it is like to be an oceonagrapher.

     I believe that the life of a oceonagrapher will help me answer my questions, and to learn even more about any living creatures of the sea that are out there in the open waters.I hope that in the future, I can get the job of my life.

My New Years Resolution

A new year gives you a chance to improve the way you live your daily life. I have decided that in the year 2011, my New Year’s resolution will be to clean my room.  At the end of 2010, my mom was really annoyed when she saw the state of my room as she attempted to vacuum it, so I have decided to try to lessen the load of work she has to do. My plan is to give my room a small clean every day, so junk or books don’t pile up and eventually turn into a huge mess. I just hope that I will be able to remember that I need to clean my room every day.

Rats: Pets...Or Pests?...

 Many people simply do not like the idea of rats as pets because they think that rats are dirty, sick creatures. This widely believed rumor is actually false! I  have observed my pet rats, and I have seen them washing themselves with their tounges multiple times a day. In a recent survey, 44.44 percent of a few middle school students said that they didnt like rats because “they are dirty and smelly. This rumor probably started with people noticing rats at trash dumps, but I am talking about how store bought, breeder bought, or shelter rats can make great pets. Even with my love of rats, I wouldn’t approach a rat that has crawled out of a Dumpster.
    One of the main reasons people have a lot of prejudice towards rats is because of The Black Death.The Black Death, or Bubonic Plague was a massive deadly disease in the middle ages. It was believed to be caused by rats, since in the Middle Ages, people killed off cats, because they were believed to have relationships with witches, and no cats meant that rats thrived, on account of a lack of predators, and because people of the Middle Ages threw all their garbage and leftovers out the window, leaving a bounty of rat food. But just because there was a high population of rats in that time period, it didn’t mean that the rats were causing the plague! It was actually the fleas on the rats which carried the disease: the fleas infected the rats, and then looked for another victim, either another rat or, you guessed it: a human! Because the rats carried the fleas, many people think that this another reason to blame the rats, but actually, more rats died from the disease than humans.
    Some people don’t  want pet rats because they say that rats are rodents, and they say rodents chew and destroy objects, and that they are very hard to train. Actually, you can train a rat to use a litter box to minimalise the time you take to clean its cage, and only by spooning the poo pellets into a corner or little plastic box inside the cage. And if youre worried about the rat destroying you clothing and things with its teeth, dont let it out in places where you leave your possessions (or just move them out of reach for the rat), and get your rat something to chew on, like a store-bought chew toy, or just a stick you picked up outside (in the case of the stick, try not to pick up a dirty or bad-smelling stick, chewing on these could give your rat an upset stomach). Many bad behaviours in a rat have very simple ways to stop them.
    Some of the reasons that people have given rats a low popularity rating are that people believe that rats are filthy, dirty creatures that caused the Black Death, and that they are virtually untrainable rodents. But if you look at the pleading little rat in the pet store with an open mind, and an open heart, you might be able to see the cute and loving little pet that  will follow you to the end of the world if you just give it a bit of love.