English 9 Celebration Essay

English 9 Celebration Essay                                         Seth
   

My grandpa, Virgil Schoolmeester, is a hard-working, diligent man. He is gentle and calm, but can get firm when he needs to. He and Grandma spoil the whole family on special holidays like Christmas.  He is a major role model in my life.

My grandpa has always been there for me; when I’m glad and when I’m sad. He always has a smile on his face; always greeting me with a hug and a smile. You can go talk with him about anything and he will help you in any way shape or form that he can; whether it’s about spiritual matters, or lifetime struggles and hardships.

He is a very busy person, but yet will take the time to talk with you and spend time with you. He is incredibly patient, but can get firm when he really needs to.  He is a very strong Christian and is the spiritual leader in our whole family. He is a very hard worker and has been farming his whole life. He is a very skilled farmer and knows everything about farming. He never went to college, but he is probably the one in the family with the most knowledge of us all. He is also very tough. He has gone through cancer and didn’t complain about the pain of radiation or therapy once. He also has diabetes, which I can imagine is a pain to have, but he never lets it get him down. He is always extremely thankful, even when the crops aren’t doing well from lack of rain or any other problems.

I remember him when I was young, he always let me ride in the combine during harvesting, and I would bring a sandwich and a pop out in a cooler for him and a second one for me. After a while we would both take a break and eat our snacks. He would also take me on fourwheeler and tractor rides just for fun. He took notice on how much I loved to drive his full size fourwheeler at an extremely young age, so for one Christmas, he bought a little youth fourwheeler just for me pretty much. I still ride that little fourhweeler at times just for fun, doing wheelies and a bunch of other silly things I probably shouldn’t do with it. I also remember staying over at their house for up to a week at a time during summer vacation and going along to the parts store with him.

We went on fourwheeler rides together with myself  driving the little fourwheeler with him on the big fourwheeler into the pasture where we would spray thistles. His pasture is huge and used to have cows in it and the whole family would ride in the back of pickups and on fourwheelers out to the pasture and walk around and wade in the creek and talk. I also loved going fishing with him and still do to this day, even though I was little and didn’t understand that throwing rocks into the pond would scare the fish away from where they were fishing! He still had enough patience to fish probably a good half hour longer to catch a single fish with me throwing rocks around than with calm waters. Back then we didn’t have a boat, so when I got a little bigger, this was one of my main times I really got to fish, because there aren’t very many good fishing spots in Iowa.
    Every Christmas my grandma and grandpa spoils the family. They spend tons of money buying several presents for each child and adult. Once and awhile they will spoil each family with a game console or handheld games. One year they bought each family a Nintendo Wii when it first came out. I found out early when I discovered a Wii in my parent’s closet and found out they were helping her buy them off Amazon and other places before Christmas so my parents could bring them over to their house to quickly wrap them up. Two years later, they bought each child a Nintendo DS. This was very fun to chat with 10 other cousins of mine on the DS’s.

Overall, he has made a major positive impact on my life and has shown his love for me and the rest of the family over the many amazing years that I am getting to spend time with him. I can’t wait until harvest season this year, so I can go sit in the combine, bring a sandwich and pop out for him, and talk for a couple hours.

English 9 Memoir

English 9 Memoir

Seth Vander Pol

    During December of 2010, my dad got a call from his friend Mr. Van Der Puy. They would call each other from time to time, and we’d visit them or they’d visit us. But this call was different. He was asking if my dad wanted the job as a fourth grade teacher. At first my parents weren’t sure, we just got done remodeling our house, had little pets, and lived in a pretty nice area.
    A couple nights after the call my dad and mom both called me to the living room after my siblings were sleeping.  My dad said, “Hey Seth, there’s something very important we need to ask you. What would you think of us moving up to Prinsburg, Minnesota?” We thought about it for a while, visited the school in December, then about a month later we made our final decision. We were going to move up to Prinsburg, Minnesota in late May and early June. I was going to go to Central Minnesota Christian School, instead of Unity or Western Christian down in Iowa.  We didn’t tell my siblings or the people in school for a while; we kept it a secret until about four weeks after school got out. Everyone was awestruck and for the next few weeks they were constantly asking many questions about the big move- what was going to happen and where we would live. Even though I didn’t really have any clue what my classmates were like and where we were going to live. So after school got out and we graduated from 8th grade, we had a class of sixteen in a pre-school through 8th grade school with the big graduation ceremony. More than three hundred and fifty people showed up for our graduation.

About three or four days later, we got everything all packed up in boxes. We called  the relatives and we rented the biggest U-Haul that you can get, about four relatives with pickups, one with a trailer for hauling our lawnmower, dirtbike, and fourwheeler and all of our lawn equipment, and loaded all of the boxes up into the giant U-Haul. We stacked everything inside front to back with some things that still wouldn’t fit, even though we stacked everything neatly and very compact. We had to put our valuables into a relative’s SUV to make sure they wouldn’t break on the bumpy ride.

We put our cat, Puddles into a cat carrier, loaded the fourwheeler, dirt-bike, and lawn equipment up on my grandpa’s trailer, and headed out. I rode in the U-haul truck with my dad, Spencer, and the cat. My uncle accidentally stacked a lot of the heavy boxes toward the ceiling of the truck, so corners were crazy, it felt like the truck could roll any second. And as for giant bumps, they were pretty awful too. The shocks on the back of the truck would spring up really high, (the rear tires felt like they were practically off the ground) then the back would thump down really hard, with the shocks bottoming out, with a big thud.

    After the long journey North to Minnesota, we rented a house by Bunde. This happened to be Ryan Brouwer’s old house. I loved living at this house. However, it was just one bedroom short and a little small for our family. Staying at the Bunde house all day was getting pretty boring without much to do so I rode my dirtbike about every day because there was no television, no wi-fi, and no fast internet. We just had slow broadband internet that we had limited use on. I could barely log onto Facebook because of the super slow internet!

I picked rock for Jeff Ruschen for a couple weeks to pass the time, which was okay because I had something to do and was able to make some good money instead of sitting around the house or riding dirt-bike all day. I also went to a party or two to get to know people beforehand. After about a month of all of this we finally found a pretty nice house on the edge of Clara City.

My dad talked to the police working around Clara City and asked if I could ride the dirt-bike to and from my house to out in the country. Then school started and I met many more people, but yet I still knew a few people from going to Kye Jouwstra’s party and going to the Fourth of July festival at school. I made a bunch of friends up here in so little time. Everyone is very nice and generous up here. Coming to Minnesota was one of the best things I could easily say I have ever done.

English 9 Motorcycle Essay (any topic essay)

English 9 Essay                                        Seth

    Ever since the motorcycle has been invented, people from all over the globe have been riding. There are motorcycles everywhere, they and are extremely fun, yet small, fast, and able to travel long distances without using very much gasoline.
    Motorcycles can pretty much ride in the majority of weather conditions. They can ride in the cool wet spring (as long as it’s not too cold), the hot summer sun, and the dry fall. They are fun to ride in all these conditions, but the main season that is pretty much impossible is during the winter. They are rear-wheel driven, and there are only two wheels, so it is really easy to spin out, and also easy to have the wheels slip out from underneath you.
    Motorcycles are generally very fast. Most of the street-legal motorcycles have at least a 125cc engine. There are two types of engines that there are in motorcycles, two stroke or four stroke engine. The two strokes have twice the power than four strokes, and I could explain why and how, but it would take way too long. Two stroke engines have more power, but need to have the engine rebuilt more often than a four stroke engine.
    There are many types of motorcycles. There are streetbikes, dirtbikes, enduro bikes, dual sport bikes, supermoto bikes, and leisure bikes like a Harley. Streetbikes are extremely fast  and light and can take corners with ease, but you are very vulnerable because an average streetbike can go over 140 miles per hour. Some can go around 185 to over 200 miles per hour! Some streetbikes have over 180 horsepower, with such little weight they can accelerate incredibly fast. I say dirtbikes are one of the most fun type of motorcycle (partly because I have one) because they can go about anywhere. There are all different sizes of engines you can get with dirtbikes, two stroke and four stroke engines too. The two stroke engines in dirtbikes range from 50cc youth bikes to 500cc monsters. In the four stroke categories they range from 50cc youth bikes to 450cc Bikes. They don’t really make two stroke motorcycles anymore, especially 500cc two strokes, because they were so fast and dangerous, so now one of the biggest two stroke dirtbike is a 250cc, which has about the same as a 450cc professional motocross racer uses. I have a 150cc dirtbike and it is plenty fast, and hits the rev limiter at around 55-60mph in 5th gear., which keeps the engine from running at too high of an RPM and keeps it from blowing up. Now imagine a high performance 450cc dirtbike and how fast it goes, now think about how fast a 1000cc streetbike is. They are making motorcycles faster and faster as time goes on! Usually older people ride leisure bikes like Harleys, which are big heavy motorcycles with a decent sized four stroke v-twin engine, which is an engine with two cylinders in a V shape. They are faster than the average car, but are slow compared to a sports car like a Corvette, or an average streetbike. A supermoto bike
is pretty much a dirtbike with street tires on it, so there's not much to talk about with them. An enduro bike and a dual-sport bike are pretty much the same, and both can go on-road and off-road with ease, but enduro bikes are usually made more for off-road use, while dual-sport bikes are more for on-road usage.
    If you are looking for a vehicle that can get you to point a to point b with ease without spending tons of money for the vehicle itself or lots of money for gasoline, a motorcycle would be a great summer vehicle.

English 9 Comparative essay

iPad VS. MacBook Pro

By: Seth Vander Pol

    iPads and MacBooks are both great electronic devices. They both have many uses and make schoolwork much more organized. However, MacBooks are better with taking notes, and organization, while iPads tend to be more useful for leisure web surfing and playing games, or watching movies or listening to music.
    MacBooks have an actual keyboard, which help you type notes and other things, like reports, a lot faster than using an iPad, which has just a little keyboard that you tap on that is on the screen.
    Unless you invest in a pretty tough cover for the iPad, you have a high chance of cracking the glass or chipping the screen, because the whole thing is pretty much a giant screen, while the MacBooks are more protected and are easier to hold on to, because iPads are so slender and can be hard to hold at times.
    The Mac OSX operating system on the MacBooks has far more things you can do with the computer compared to the firmware on the iPads. MacBooks have a better hard drive and can hold more files and keep them more organized, but iPads have it nice and easy getting to apps by just sliding your finger across the screen
    Even though iPads are better for entertaining, and playing games with, MacBooks are better for schoolwork. For schoolwork, students usually need things that will last a very long time with daily use.
    Our school has a wide variety of apple software that isn’t compatible on an iPad. I own an iPad, and I think it is a great electronic device for listening to music and playing games, but an iPad is just a nice little tablet for leisurely surfing the web and playing some games and listening to music. It is not a full fledged computer. An iPad would benefit us with entertainment, but a MacBook would benefit our education.
    If you need a computer for working daily buy a MacBook Pro, but also if you have enough money, you could get an iPad. The iPad is a well built device and it makes a great add-on to having the MacBook. If you are just planning to get something for entertainment purposes for family-use, an iPad would be the way to go.
    Overall, they are both outstanding devices, but a MacBook is made more for schoolwork or a person using it at work, day in and day out, but an iPad is great for being a portable and fun little “toy” around the house.

English 9 persuasive essay

English 9 Persuasive Essay                                      `                   Seth

Some schools don’t allow music players in study halls or breaks, some even confiscate them from students, but why would they if some students are able to concentrate on their work and benefit from personal music while working on homework?

    I personally like using my iPod for music while doing homework. I make sure the volume isn’t  too loud and I’m ready to go. If I listen to music while doing homework I find that time passes way faster and I work more efficiently as well. I also have more patience in doing homework and work on it longer in one sitting.

    Most students like listening to calming music while doing homework, so even if the schools would allow personal media players they shouldn't worry about inappropriate music being listened to. Also, students that are listening to music aren’t distracted by others talking around them. I am (along with many other students) distracted much more from doing homework  by an in depth conversation than everyone in the classroom quietly listening to music and diligently doing their work.

There are many facts on how listening to music can benefit academics work, and students are able to express themselves without being judged by the type of music they listen to. People who are more into music get involved in classes like choir and may even get some musical scholarships. Students would be less sick of school, and would try just as hard as they did the first half of the year, and the last half. Some students that get sick of school stop doing their homework just because they are sick of it and sick of how boring school is; iPods allowed in certain times of the day would make school less boring.

I can see why some schools have outlawed iPods for during breaks and during classes, so students talk to each other more and so teachers get full attention from students, but why do schools outlaw them in study hall?

Students should definately be allowed to have iPods or any other media player because it can benefit them in so many ways, compared to the minimal negative reasons why they shouldn’t be allowed. I think schools that have iPods outlawed should consider the positive facts instead of looking at the little negative reasons (which are very few) and think again whether they should be allowed or not.

   

Dogsong Bookreport

Dogsong Book Report
                        Seth
    In the story Dogsong, the main character, Russel Suskit, is a14 year old Inuit Native American that is living out in an Eskimo village and wants to get away from his life in the village and takes a dog sled team to get away from everyone and his modern life and to find his own song of himself.   

    He decided to go on this long journey after his father sent him to an old man’s house to learn something from him. His name was Oogruk, and he had to tell an old story of his to Russel.  

    In Oogruk’s story, he says that in the past the Inuit had a song, that the song was in them and that it was them; but the song is now gone forever. He told him how people came into their village and took their song away and told them about hell. First the villagers started laughing because they didn’t understand what hell was. Then they explained that they should stop their singing and dancing and their song because the “demons from hell would strip their meat off”. So they gave up their songs. This was Russel’s quest to find the songs again. He needs to travel North without a gun or snowmobile, and use a dog team that Oogruk let him borrow with a spear and bow and arrows as his weapons.

    The next day, Russel started practicing hunting the old way with bow and arrows for some birds, but it took time because he didn’t understand what he was doing wrong. He couldn’t get any birds, but later in the story  he found out he needed to use his mind. He needed to attack with his arrow at the birds heart.

    So he sets off North with some food, his bow and arrows, a spear, and his dogsled team. He starts getting the hang of hunting things, when he can find any. A while later while he was on his journey, they run very low on food, and he and his dogs get very tired and hungry so he has to hunt and try to get meat and fat from an animal for them to stay warm and for them to have energy.

    While on the journey, he starts having strange dreams. One of them has a woman in it, and an older man, who had a quest of killing a giant mammoth. Then the next day, he comes across a pregnant woman freezing to death on the ground. Whether he can save her from freezing to death and being able to feed her as well as him and his dogs, and whether Russel finds his song is up to you to find out, by reading the book.

Critique:   The book has a very good plot and setting and the story moves at a decent pace throughout the story, even though it does get kind of boring now and then; and confusing with the whole song thing and all of the Inuit details that they talk about. The book is pretty good, and I would recommend the book to people who have read Gary Paulsen’s other books and people who like the outdoors and like being outside. It would have been a little more exciting if there was an enemy of Russel’s out on his journey, along with the conflicts he had. Overall, this was a pretty good realistic fiction story by a great author, Gary Paulsen.

my fiction story

The Great Space Adventure

    The year is 2035 and a crew of astronauts are in the middle of space. Captain Jones and his crew are in a shuttle trying to study more about space and get farther than any other shuttle has reached, so they can collect far more data than they have so far. All was going well, until a co-pilot noticed a small dot on the radar, heading straight towards them. He then informed the Captain, who took little notice, because he was busy helping a new crew member collect data. All of a sudden a giant crash noise scared everyone to their feet. The shuttle shimmied and shook. The Captain immediately went up front to where the co-pilot was. He urgently asked,” What just happened?!”
    The co-Pilot, whose name was Frank Steven in an upset voice said  in an upset voice, “I told you there was a blip on the radar coming straight towards us, but you took no notice! Now there’s probably a giant hole straight through the ship!”
    Captain Jones glanced down and saw a  blinking red light. This was the low fuel warning light. The fuel gauge read almost empty and it was decreasing by the minute. They were about to run out of fuel .  Jones glanced up and saw a mysterious dark green planet that he had never seen before. They were about to crash. They radioed back to earth so the control room would be informed on what was going on.
    The astronauts got into this situation after they had collided with an asteroid flying very fast. The asteroid hit the most vulnerable part of the ship, the fuel tanks. Gases began spilling out and floating around in space in little blobs. At first the astronauts were unsure of what happened, because everything happened so fast. The captain figured out what the damage was after he checked the fuel tanks.
    Captian Jones gave a loud call out to all of the crew members.  He said “Hey guys, looks like were about to land on a planet I’ve never seen before; get ready to land!” Immediately the crew scrambled about trying to get everything ready to land the shuttle. They knew it was going to be pretty rough, and if they weren’t prepared there was no way they would make it. It was just then when the shuttle started making strange noises and the crew knew , that the landing or crash was coming soon, very soon. They began struggling to get strapped in after they had prepared everything else for landing.
    All of them were prepared, including the captain, except for Jake Earles, who was still struggling to clean up the lab he had set up while studying rocks from the moon, which they were looking for rescources they could use for on earth for fuels. He was still unstrapped when the ship began getting pulled into the atmosphere of the mysterious planet. They could tell that the gravity of this planet was far stronger than the gravity of earth’s, because they were falling at an extremely fast pace.  The Captain called out, “Impact in less than 10 seconds!” Jake started really struggling then.  At the last second,he managed to get one side of his straps buckled. The impact of the ship was very rough, so rough that Jake was swung side to side, and ran into a bar near his seat. He hit the bar so hard that he broke his arm on impact.    
    A while later, after they were all calm again after the landing, they decided to look around. This planet was like none other. Everything was different compared to other planets they have discovered. It had  wierd trees, and some thick black stuff in little holes here and there. They were astonished that it had plant life, and one pulled off a leaf off of one of these strange plants.
    “How weird, some black thick liquid is coming out of the stem where I pulled it off the plant!” The others gathered around and examined it. They were all shocked. One of them scooped up some liquid from the leaf, and smelled it. It smelled like a type of fuel! They then started walking around and kept finding little bits of sheet metal and such. Finally, they came upon a large space droid that NASA probably used for space exploration. You could tell that something malfunctioned, and they had no clue where the bot went. They took off some important  metal sheets that they could probably use to repair the shuttle tanks, all they needed was a powerful fuel source that could get the metal on the tanks welded together, and some fuel to run it too.    
    Then one of the crewmembers that smelled the black fluid remembered and exclaimed, “What if that black stuff that we found could help repair and power the ship?”
    The Captain replied,” That is a great idea, let’s go find out if the black fluid is flammable.”
    They grabbed another leaf and put a spark by it. The flame burst into flames and almost scalded the crewmember’s hand who was holding the leaf because it burned so quickly.
    Soon enough, they had the tanks full with black fluid and the tanks welded shut with some black fluid to take back to earth as a sample.  They tried starting the shuttle, it easily and instantly fired up, sounding better than ever. Since this is in the future, the shuttle hovered up and started flying to earth at a fast speed, so fast that the captain could hardly control the shuttle.
    Not too long later, they were all back at earth announcing that they had discovered a new planet and a new fuel source that was more powerful than anything that they had ever had before.  They showed scientists the fuel, and after a few months, they were back on their way to that same planet again to find more of the source.