TedTalk

 

You may or may not have heard of Ted Talks but Ted Talks are a good way to learn about things you may not know about. Why am I talking about Ted Talks? Well, in my Language Arts class we were given a couple weeks to put together a five minutes or less Ted like Talk about something we were fascinated in.

 

Something I am fascinated with is acting and musical theater which is what my Ted like Talk is about. I gave examples of acting from my own life. I also gave tips and told stereotypes. Something I liked about presenting is that it feels like you are just getting stuff out of your mind because you’re finally done.

 

Stocks Project

The Westing Game is a book we read in language arts and in language arts we also did a project about stocks and saw who got the most money at the end. In The Westing Game a character named Turtle tries to win the game by using stocks to find clues to help her win the game which is how our stocks project relates to The Westing Game. In the stocks project I invested in Lululemon, Ulta Beauty, Amazon, and Chipotle, in the end I lost $333.09 even though Chipotle gave about 2k each time. The stock that failed me the most was Amazon because the stocks keep changing up and down.

 

Cuento

In my Language Arts class we read a book called The Last Cuentista. It’s about Halley’s Comet destroying Earth and having a spaceship protect them and fly them to another planet. For a project after reading this we made a short story about our perfect world and what it would be like. Then we made a book with our perfect world story and a story (cuento) we made. My world was called Aezorz.

La Cuidad de Durham

LA CIUDAD DE DURHAM



Hola ¿Cómo estás? Soy Lilah y tengo 12 años. Yo vivo en Durham Carolina del Norte y me gusta nadar,comer, y caminar. No me gusta correr. Voy a hablar sobre la ciudad de Durham. 

 

Primero en Durham puedes visitar el Campus Americano del Tabaco. En el Campus americano del Tabaco tú puedes comer,caminar, hablar con tus amigos o familia, y asimismo tú puedes comprar en las tiendas . ¿Con quién caminas? ¿Te gusta comprar?

Segundo tu puedes visitar el museo de la vida y la ciencia. Asimismo, tú puedes ver animales, caminar, comprar recuerdos,y jugar con tus amigos en el museo de la vida y la ciencia. ¿Te gustan los animales? ¿Con quién compras recuerdos?

 

Además, tú puedes visitar El Parque Estatal Eno River. Tú puedes nadar, comer, caminar, correr, y hablar con las personas en el Eno River. ¿Te gusta nadar? ¿Con quién  corres?

 

Finalmente, tu puedes visitar El Centro de Artes Escénicas. Tu puedes ver espectáculos, comer chucherías, escuchar música, y cantar. ¿Te gustan las chucherías? ¿Con quién cantas?

 

En mi opinión Durham es muy bonita, grande, divertida, y chévere . En Durham hay edificios y restaurantes. Finalmente, Durham tiene muchos colores y animales.

 

Gracias por tu atención.

 

Metamorphosis Drawing

Photo taken by: me/DA student

In art class at Durham Academy, me and the other students started working on a transition drawing where we would transform an object into an animal or the other way around. We started by drawing an animal (of our choice) and object (sort of our choice because we had a couple options) and then we would try to morph them into each other through 2-4 steps. This project was really fun because you would have really funny looking transitions and while drawing you could laugh and talk with friends. Me and one of my classmates finished early and she started to do things like do my hair or curl my hair which was easy because our teacher had a hair dryer. This project took about 3 classes for me and some are still shading or have been done for days. I would recommend this drawing style called metamorphosis drawings.

My Ideal World

We’ve finally arrived on Aezorz where the sky is a beautiful mix of cool colors. I see purples, pinks, blues, reds, and colors I haven’t seen. Before landing, we saw beautiful oceans of clear purple water, the purple is a reflection of part of the sky. The real color of the water is a tinted white. I also thought I saw a big red whale in the water. The other teammates claimed that I was going crazy and that there were no animals on this planet. About 13 minutes after that while still landing we found an animal. It looked like a cow but purple and had gemstones on it. I knew I wasn’t going crazy. Landing took about 15 minutes, but after we landed I walked straight to a baby “cow” that was blue and had vines on it.

I walked to a really big tree and wondered why it looked and sounded like there were people or animals in the hollowed out holes in the tree. Suddenly I saw a white animal that looked like a human but had long white hair and bumpy white skin rush past me. I started to climb the tree when I got to a hollowed out bit. I looked in and saw a little “boy” wearing white puffy shorts and a shirt that looked like a suit top. I took a picture to report it to my crew. I knocked on the tree, scared for my life, when their family came and started speaking Latin. Lucky for me I know Latin. The family asked me to come in and started telling me about the planet we were on.

Once the “sun” came up, a bunch of animals and “humans” came out and the weird sparkling dot and “string light stars” went away. My crew and I walked around taking notes on the animals. I’m about to name a bunch of animals. They all sound crazy though. One animal was a giant red whale which stayed by the shore, a bunch of cows that all varied to be different colors with different earthy things on them (like crystals, vines, flowers, etc), a giant bird that is see through and glowing all different colors, and a bunch of other animals. The little “boy” I met earlier told me that there is no such thing as genders. You are assigned a sex at birth which isn’t what you are referred to but it’s for medical reasons like medicine.

As a group of Kuswlers (the people) told us about their religions I swear I felt the ground move up and down like it was breathing and after it happened the Kuswlers said that it was Viwdiag (like a Mother Earth)  breathing. The religion was just about how they respected Viwdiag and gave her offerings every time the moon kvigash (kiv-ag-ash) turned red.

When I went to one of the restaurants I said I had nothing to trade and they gave me the food for free. The food looked like a black spiky egg cut in half with an orange soup with chunks of fruits and herbs sprinkled on it. Their food was mostly spicy and had loads of herbs on it or fruits.

Once it was night again we collected some of the weird glowy things that floated around and then went to swim and ended up finding a giant red whale that would swim us around. This is probably the best place I have ever been.

When we woke up the next morning we went to go meet the princess and queen but when we got there there was a note that said they were dropping off their son at school. The air smells amazing today. I have noticed that the days are super long and not much light but at night it’s short and a bit of light, not as much as day but I like night the best.

We have to leave soon but I want to take one more look around and say goodbye. I walk to the waterfall with the weird crystals in it, I say goodbye to the red whale, I say goodbye to the “cows”, and last I say goodbye to the “people”. I hope we come again soon.

Natural Science Museum in Raleigh Field Trip

Taken by Durham Academy teacher

Taken by Durham Academy teacher

Taken by Durham Academy teacher

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On January 27 2023 Durham Academy went on a field trip to the Natural Science Museum in Raleigh. The museum had a bunch of interesting places. One thing at this museum I really liked was the animals, they had a bunch of animals like snakes and turtles there was even an eel. One weird thing I think I will never forget was their railing on the stairs. It went from cold metal to warm metal and that was just very fascinating to me for some reason. Another thing I really liked was the escalators and not because they were fun (they were) but because it was cool to see the transition from floor to floor since each floor was completely different. The weather was really nice so lunch wasn’t as cold as expected. Since this museum had multiple floors it allowed space to hang (fake) whale bone body’s from the ceiling. There was a room full of dinosaur statues and in that room everyone was obsessing over one place where a YouTuber (Mr.Beast) sat. On the bus rides there was a lot of singing. I would really recommend going there with your friends and/or family.

Window or Mirror?

Image from Sora

I have been reading Out To Get You recently. It’s an amazing book by Josh Allen. It’s just a bunch of short horror stories and it’s really good. A window book is something you can’t relate to and a mirror is where you can relate to all or most things. I can’t decide if this book is a mirror or window because most of the stories are windows but every ONCE in a while I will find a mirror story in this book. One way it’s a window is my life is not filled with haunted things. Sometimes the characters are younger or older than me. Sometimes it’s a mirror because a character is my age. Another mirror example is there is a cat in one of the stories and it makes me think about my own cat. This is a really good book and I recommend you read it!

 

UNC Ropes Course

The zip lining tower

I’m the kid with half and half shirt

Me zip lining

Once again I’m the kid in the grey shorts and white shirt an blue helmet

People waiting to zipline

I’m the kid in the white shirt

At the beginning of the 2022-2023 school year Durham Academy went to UNC Ropes Course where we did a zip line, group games, and ate. That day it felt weird to go to school with only a water bottle and snack/lunch.

My group played walking tag first. My best friend Mica  and I teamed up. She tagged me but I couldn’t get her. My shoes got soaked. Next, we played some activity games like balance the boat where we tried to balance an oversized seesaw. We then took a break before lunch then had lunch. Lunch felt like the longest lunch of my life but I got to talk to some of my best friends like Zoe, Mica,and Elena. After lunch I got to go on the zipline. The zipline was very high up which is scary since i’m scared of heights. I thought about forfeiting but I didn’t and I’m so happy I did it. It was the best feeling ever.

I want to thank my school for all the amazing things they let us do. My school gives me opportunities to do new things and find what I like. I also want to thank Mica because she convinced me to go on the zipline. I love these new opportunities I have been able to do.