Outdoor Ed

Have you ever left your family for 2 1/2 days to stick around friends to learn about the great outdoors? At MCPS (Montgomery County Public Schools) you are required to pay around $93 to go somewhere for 2 1/2 days and experience the outdoors with no electronics. You got to do five different events which include the confidence course, nature hike, stream study, predator and prey and geo-caching. Also they had a mini buffet with a salad bar for every meal of the day. During the night you slept in cabins with other classmates but sometimes it could get pretty chaotic.

The first thing the whole 6th grade did was have to hike around the whole entire Outdoor Ed campus. This campus was shared with other people at different times so we saw a bunch of things that we weren't going to use. It was a hard hike, we climbed hills, jumped into mud and learned about that this site was part of the Civil War. Eventually we were all starving because we haven't eaten lunch yet so we wanted to finish the hike. When we were about to go inside and eat, our instructor told us we just hiked all that for nothing and the bus stop was right over there. Everyone got really mad but we were too hungry to argue we just went inside to eat.

We each were assigned groups according to last names. You stuck with your group for whatever you did. The first activity we did was called the confidence course. This is where you do a bunch of challenges that involve trust with others. Some things we did were swing on a rope, walk on planks and climbing a net. It was fun but then two hours were finished we had to go back.

Activity #2 was Predator and Prey. There you could either be a omnivore, a herbivore, a carnivore, the rabies or the medic. The herbivore run from everyone trying to survive and getting food and water stamps hidden around the forest. The omnivores hide from the carnivores but eat the herbivores. Carnivores eat herbivores and omnivores while avoiding the rabies. Rabies kill everyone and the medic can revive people. If you died three times you were out and there was a hour and half time limit to survive. I was a carnivore and thankfully survived.

My group's third activity was stream study. It was really boring because people already destroyed the equipment we were supposed to use. So we just sat there talking or going into the mud and using broken nets to fish out things. In total people caught two crayfishes that they had to return. The hike back to the campus was long because the stream was downhill and the hill was very steep.

After that activity we had to go and hike some more because we had the nature hike. Everyone was already tired at that point so no one wanted to hike anymore. We had to hike onto the Appalachian mountains so we could get even more tired. But when we hiked up we got to see someone shoot a gun, we got to go into the first completed Washington Monument and we got to learn more about the Civil War.

The last activity was geo-caching. This is where we roam around the forests in groups to do experiments. Some of the experiments were broken so we couldn't do them while others didn't have all the equipment. It got boring so me and me friends just started marching around. When we were done we got to go home.

Overall Outdoor Ed was a good experience but I eventually had to leave.

A Day in a Hospital

One morning I woke up and I found out that there was no school! Great! So I went to eat breakfast and ate some nuts as well. The nuts were all mixed into one container and I could eat most of them. While I was munching on some cashews I saw this almond that looked longer and smoother than the regular kind. I ate it because I was curious and then I started to grow bumps all over my entire body, I was itching like crazy, and my throat was swelling all because of that one nut.

Luckily my dad was home but he was in a meeting so I had to wait until he was finished. When I was waiting it was a horrible time, all I did was itch myself and hope that I wouldn't die. Soon when my dad saw me, he rushed me to the pediatrics to see what they could do. I took some medicine and some steroids (only for medical uses) to get better. But when I stepped outside, I was BLIND!!!

Being blind felt weird. Everything was but you could see faint outlines of somethings. I was dizzy because I couldn't see where I was going even when I was leaning on my dad. I felt like I was going to die again so my dad sent me back into the pediatrics and I took some more medicine.

A little while after, I went inside and saw a ambulance to come and pick me up to go into the hospital. In the hospital I regained my sight and took some more medicine. Eventually I got better but I still had to stay in the hospital for a few hours to be sure that I was ready. At the end I found out that what I ate was a Brazil Nut, and I should stay away from nuts. Remember, curiosity kills.

My Sister, a Thief

Have you ever had the urge to purchase something using real money when playing on a online game? Well that's what my sister had when playing a game called Fantage. It allows you to purchase in-game money with real money. Out of the three currencies in the game, my sister purchased the two more valuable currencies, E-coins and gold. She bought 70,00 of each of the currencies and that costs $100 dollars in total. But the money she used to buy the in-game money with, was with my mom's credit card.

My sister did this when my mom, dad and I were getting a haircut so there was no one to supervise her. When she used my mom's credit card, we were all upstairs so we had no idea this happened. By the time we came downstairs, she already bought the money. At first I thought she hacked into the game so I started calling her "hacker". But, she keeps on telling me that she didn't know what happened.

After a few days, I found out what she really did. I have to force her to tell me that she stole the credit card from our mom and used it. I told her I wouldn't tell our mom but she would have to do the right thing and tell our mom herself. Soon I got impatient because it had been a week since she told me. I gave her a deadline to tell my mom and if she didn't reach that deadline, I would have to tell her.

On the last day of the deadline, she said she wrote a sticky note to our mom. I found the sticky note and saw that all it said was " I'm sorry I used your credit card and if you get mad, punch something that is not living." It was not very detailed of what she did so I wrote another note to replace hers with more information.

As a result, she lost $100, got grounded and got the internet taken away from her. So as a result, the moral is to not steal things that aren't yours!