Runaway Part II

Aside from the name I’m not the most perfect looking person either. My dark brown-reddish hair has this tendency to be frizzy and poufy and Is extremely hard to tame. I’m also one of those people who don’t tan, so my skin is very pale. One thing that always catches people about my face, though, is my brighter-than-emerald green eyes. In a way I think they kind of scare people because the color is so bright and piercing. I’m thirteen now, and I’ve been at Dwindley’s for eleven years. In all these years I've never even gotten a second look from an adopter. You know, it just gets really old and thats why I am going to escape.

Stay tuned…..

Runaway

I looked at myself in the mirror. My face was beet red and beads of sweat were formed at my temples, that’s what running half a mile does to me. You see, at Dwindley’s orphanage they’ve just introduced the “Get Fit!” program. What this program is supposed to do, I think, is turn all us orphans into these fit, skinny, and “sporty” kids that anyone will love to adopt. There are just so many kids here at Dwindley’s, at least 60, and I know all the headmistresses and headmasters just want to get rid of us. That is not an easy task, though. I mean, Dwindley’s is this small, unheard of orphanage a few hundred miles from New York City. Only one or two kids get adopted per month usually (much to the discontent of the heads). Thus, whatever the heads can do to make us more “adoptable,” they will do.

Out of every kid in this orphanage the only ones who ever get adopted are those cutesy, smiley toddlers. Every once in a while you may get the occasional 6, 7, 8 year old adopted, but that’s real rare. Never does someone like me get chosen to be part of a big, happy family.

First of all, there’s my name, Leenor, it’s just such an unusual name. Seems I can almost see the confusion in an adopter’s face when I tell them my name. Some ask, “Did you say Eleanor?” and I always respond with, “No it is Lee-nor.” Nobody understands that the first part of my name, the “leen” part, is said actually like the word lean. People always try to turn it into some type of regular name, which it definitely isn’t.

To be continued….

Claymation & Reflection Essay

Claymation: a word that I have become very familiar with over these past weeks working on this project. When I think about the word claymation it brings a lot of other words to my head: fun, difficult, complicated, and extensive. Overall, though, the claymation taught me so much about using cameras, computers, and programs.

To get any fulfilment out of a project I have to have some fun whiile working on it. Even though the claymation project was not even close to a piece of cake, it still had plenty of fun aspects. The part of the claymation that I enjoyed the most was making the clay people, background, etc. for each of the scenes in our claymation. I liked working the clay in my hands then trying to envision what I wanted the person or background to look like. Once I finally finished a clay figure/ person, I loved to see how it turned it out because usually I could get it pretty close to how I envisioned it to be. Even though making the clay figures was fun, it was also challenging because you have to make sure the figures can actually stand up by themselves while still looking good. Challenges and difficulty can be a good thing, though, so I didn’t mind.

When the going gets tough, the tough get tougher, that is a good saying to describe the difficult parts of this claymation. Since whenever there was a hard part in our claymation I think it only made our claymation better and made my partner and I tougher. The hardest part of this claymation, in my opinion, was the audio. The audio was very difficult because you have to make sure that you say what you want to say not too loud or too quiet, or else the audio sounds bad. Also, you have to make sure that every piece of audio that you do is matched up with the scene you want it to be matched up with. It seemed to take forever to make the audio because there was just so much to do. No matter how grueling the audio process is, after you finally get it perfect, your claymation automatically goes from O.K. to amazing.

I learned so much from this project about Apple computers and programs. Especially iPhoto and iMovie. I learned how to use special effects in movies and create titles for each scene. The main thing I learned, though, from this project is how to make a high quality claymation. How to use 400+ pictures and turn them into one fast moving slideshow that tells the story of an explorer. I learned that to make your acclamation as nice as possible you must keep your camera stable so the pictures will not bounce around . I learned how to keeps organized and make figure out of clay. Overall, this was an immense learning experience for me.

This claymation project was one of my favorite projects I have ever done. No matter how hard it was. Fun, difficult, and amazing, that is what it was. It was one of those projects you put all your heart into and when you are done you are very happy with the final product.

Coodles and Doodles Part 3 (read parts 1 & 2 first!)

"No, you don't seem to understand that is MY DATA ANALYZER!" Coodles shouted just slightly impatiently. Doodles looked up from munching on the analyzer.
" What is it?"
" A data analyzer!"
" Hmph. Don't know what that is. You can have it back, though, it doesn't taste so good."
"Thank you," Coodles said exasperatedly.

I know this entry was short but stay tuned.....

Coodles and Doodles Part 2

Coodles knew Eugene’s analyzer was smashed last week so he attempted to hide it by placing it behind him. “What ya tryin’ to hide from us, Coodely- Woodely?” Sniffle said in a very mocking tone as he went to look behind Coodles back. “Nothing,” Coodles replied, knowing his data analyzer was about to be smashed into a thousand pieces, “There’s nothing back here, guys! “ Sniffle said to Pulverizer and T.J., “ Where’d you put that thing you were messin’ with?” asked T.J. “We saw you put it behind your back!” said Sniffle. Coodles replied “ I don’t know where it is, I promise,” and truth be told he didn’t. He figured the red fox running away in the distance had something to do with it, though. You realize, Coodles really liked that data analyzer so he ran as fast as he could after that fox.
Coodles had completely forgotten about the bears that may have been following him, all he cared about was keeping his eye on that fox. He followed that fox into the forest and realized the bears were not following him. The fox was only 10 feet ahead of him and it had just stopped for a break anyways. Coodles ran up to the fox, so elated form knowing he had dodged getting hurt by the bears, he barely noticed that the fox was trying to eat his analyzer! “STOP!” He shouted at the fox, “STOP. That is mine!” The fox looked up and said, “Huh? This is my food, not yours. Mine. Mine.”

Coodles and Doodles

Coodles the bear and Doodles the fox were very interesting characters. Well, you see, theyt were opposites in many ways. Coodles was a smart, imaginative, scientific, awe-inspiring bear with many great ideas for his life. Doodles, on the other hand, was not the sharpest tool in the shed. he was a good friend, though, to Coodles and always tried to help Coodles with his many scientific "projects." Coodles and Doodles had been best friends since that one day when Coodles was 2 and Doodles was 2 1/2.
When Coodles was 2 he was much smaller than the other bears, the bears allways tormented him because of his big glasses and his size. They would call him Nerdimus, Coodely- Woodely, Baby, and many other mean names. One day when he was conducting an experiment on a rose plant to find out even more information on photosyntheseis. The experiment he was doing complex involved the complex data analyzer his mother had given hi for his 1st birthday. As he was entering data into the analyzer from a rose plant he had been studying, he heard and saw the largest bears of his pack trudging up behind him threatingly. Their names were T.J., Sniffle, and Pulverizer. T.J. was a large black bear with brown feet, and he seemed to always have a crazy look in his eye. Sniffle was known for making smaller bears cry and sniffle, which is how he got his name. Now, Pulverizer was the scariest bear of all he was the strongest, largest, and most intimidating bear of all. The worst thing was all those bears were coming after him.
T.J. was the first to talk, " What' cha workin' on today, Nerdimus?" Coodles, trying not to them mad, replied, "Oh, not much, right now." Coodles did not want to aggravate them, he didn't want his data analyzer smashed.


Who knows what can happen next? Stay tuned....

Fishing In Chelan

The boat was finally on the water. The launch had went amazingly smoothly and I was ready to reel in a fish! That morning was a perfect time for fishing, it wasn’t very hot and the waters were calm as they get. My dad was looking and driving around trying to find the perfect fishing spot.

We passed under a small bridge and we thought where we were looked like a great spot to drop our lines. I saw plenty of fish jumping so I was starting to think we might actually catch some fish. We slowed the boat until it was at trolling speed. All lines had been dropped, except for mine. I finally was ready to drop mine after my dad put a “wedding ring,” which is a lure, on my pole. Now, we were ready to catch some serious fish.

For thirty minutes we trolled back and forth, and had caught nothing, zip, zilch. Not even a bite! The big highlight of these thirty minutes was feeding the ducks that were following our boat our leftover bagel from breakfast. Which I thought was awesome because I love to feed ducks! Anyways, back to fishing, we went back out under the bridge to exit the completely dead fishing spot. We stopped our boat just about ten to twenty feet past these white buoys, that were on either side of the lake, that had the words “No Wake,” painted on them. We trolled out a bit from where we originally stopped, then we trolled back in towards the buoys. Right when we were only feet away from passing the buoys BAM! My dad’s pole had a fish on!! I had called the first fish, so my dad handed the pole to me. I reeled and I reeled the fish in (which wasn’t too hard) When I got it up to the boat my dad netted it. Turns out it was a small-medium size smallmouth bass, about .3-.5 lbs. Yes, the first fish of the trip!

We finally figured out where “the perfect spot” was, it was right where we had caught the first fish. Every time we trolled past there we caught a fish. The second time we trolled past my dad’s pole had a fish on, again! Since it was my brother’s turn he reeled it in. This fish was a big smallmouth bass around .7 or .8 lbs (big for a smallmouth bass)! As the day rolled on we caught two more smallmouth bass, both around .5-.6 lbs. We had caught just enough for dinner.

That night, our last night in Chelan, we had the fish for dinner. With a little bit of spice it was the perfect dinner, a dinner we caught ourselves.

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