Graduation Speech

Graduation Speech

Cristian Castro

Welcome friends, families, and my fellow graduates. I hope you are having a great day, and maybe this speech can make it even better. It is a pleasure to have this opportunity to speak out in front of everybody tonight and be able to address my feelings, memories, and great moments with you all.

For 4 years I have attended Golf Middle School, I have been surrounded by many great friends, teachers, and staff. These people have shaped my  personality, character, and by overall making me the person that you see before you. I have not just been surrounded by great people I have been loved by them and been cared for by them. My education, knowledge, and understanding of the world has grown so much more by being a proud cardinal and learning from my teachers. These teachers however did not just teach us what us graduates know today, they took us on eventful field trips that we will never forget. Field trips such as Camp MacLean and The Holocaust Museum. The staff even put together yearly masquerade dances in october with a DJ and haunted house (built by the staff themselves by the way). This great faculty at Golf Middle School did all of this for us the 8th graders, these are gifts that I will never be able to repay. I say thank you to all of the teachers and staff of Golf Middle School for giving me moments and memories that I will always be able to look back upon and think to myself, “Man, I wish I could relive those great moments and days when I was a 8th grader at Golf Middle School.”

My advice and words of wisdom for future graduates of Golf Middle School is to never give up. There were times in the years of me being at Golf Middle School when I thought to myself that I wasn’t going to do well on this upcoming test, I wasn’t going to be able to finish and turn in this project on time, I wasn’t going to be able to finish my reading on time, I even thought at times I wasn’t going to pass this class. But then I told myself to never give up, so I studied hard for those tests, I worked hard on those projects, I pushed my reading limits to the next level, and I turned in all the work and gave 100% effort in those classes. And after all of that the outcome of it all wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. So this just shows that if you work hard, stay strong, and keep believing, positive things will happen.

I would like to thank all of my teachers, administrators, parents, staff, and my fellow students for giving me 4 great years of my life that I will never forget and be able to look back upon whenever I would like. Please give yourselves a round of applause.

People would always ask me what are you gonna do in life and I would say play soccer, then they would ask me, yeah but really what are you gonna do later on when you need a job, and I would be like yeah play soccer. Somebody would come up to me and say stop dreaming and face reality, you know what I would say back? I wouldn’t say something rude or physically hurt that person. I would say to them, “Well, I’m gonna keep on dreaming and make that dream a reality.” This is my philosophy and moral code that I live by, just keep on dreaming and show people that if you pursue your dreams you can achieve them.

My hopes for the future are to become a professional soccer player and play for Barcelona and graduate college.  

A poem to tie all of my thoughts together,

“Graduation, A celebration… A time for looking back on lessons learned, adventures shared, and bright moments filled with special meaning. A farewell… A time for saying goodbye to old friends, to good times you’ve known… a time for packing away memories, treasures for tomorrow. A beginning… A time for looking forward, a time to set new goals, to dream new dreams, to try your wings and see what lies beyond.” by-Tammy Sackmann.

And now a famous quote by a famous actor we should all know, Dr.Seuss,

“You have brains in your head, You have feet on your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. You're the guy who will decide where to go.”

Once again, I would like to give one last round of applause to the whole community of this great school, Golf Middle School that has nurtured all of these amazing students by my side to the people we are today.

Thank you for listening and have a goodnight.

Tips on How to Cheat on a Test

Hello everybody, today I'm going tell you on how to cheat. Yes you heard me right how to cheat on a test! Now, I have a lot of great tactics on how to cheat, just know right now that if you get caught I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR YOU GETTING IN TROUBLE! Now let's get to work, there are a couple different ways of cheating in school on a test. Freestyle cheating, cheating by looking at somebody's paper, and Note cheating, cheating while looking at a paper under a desk or on you body. 1st rule of freestyle cheating, never look up from your paper if your freestyle cheating because if a teacher catches your eyes looking around the room. ABORT! MISSION! You have no reason to look up on a test in the 1st place unless your looking for answers around the room so, that shows the teacher that something is up, and the teacher will keep a close eye on you for the rest of the test. Peek at neighbor's test only when teacher is either facing away or at desk looking at their computer. I am not that experienced with note cheating because I don't do note cheating, but I do have a couple tips for notes cheating. Always keep all notes and papers under desk and in folders that are tinted but not completely tinted so that you are still able to see the cheating paper inside. DON'T USE A COMPLETELY SEE THROUGH FOLDER because it is way to obvious if a teacher sees a see through folder under a desk. That's pretty much it for how to best cheat on a test. Now remember, cheating is only a last resort if needed to go there on a test and you think you have no hope in the world to succeed on the test. Just remember though cheating isn't good at all, and the consequences if you get caught can be very severe including getting a "F" on the test, detention, maybe even getting kicked out of the school if you are in college. Be safe, be sneaky, and the number 1 rule! Don't get caught! Have a good day. :)     

Goals for the end of the school year

My goals for the end of my 8th grade school year is to still be who I am as a person. By that I mean that I want to make sure my grades don't take a nose dive downwards because a lot of kids tend to start thinking about graduation and summer break, this usually leads to kids forgetting about their academics before the school year is even over. It's not though, and I don't wanna be one of those kids whose grades go down because I was to excited for summer. Another goal I would like to reach by the end of my 8th grade school year is to eat healthier because I have lately been addicted to eating junk food like Cheetos, Kit Kats, drinking more soda then I usually do, and adding more sugar to my Saturday morning cheerios. I don't want my 8th grade school year to end with me looking more overweight then I usually am so one of my goals to to stop eating junk food and work out my body more so that doesn't happen. I think my final goal I would like to achieve at the end of my 8th grade school year is to be a better person and not get into as much trouble as I do right now and as I did before because being a good person and being nice to people makes people happy, and when I make somebody happy it makes me happy because I am bringing that person joy. I wanna be that person by the end of my 8th grade year because it will be a great skill for me to take with me in high school and for the rest of my life. Those are my goals for the end of my 8th grade year, have a good day!         

Field Trip to Camp MacLean

In 7th grade towards the end of the year, I'd say around late April the whole 7th grade took a field trip to a Camp in Rockland called Camp MacLean. A few teachers came along as well to monitor us (obviously) and it was a field trip when you stay over for the night at the camp, basically like a sleepover field trip at a camp. You would sleep in a cabin with all boys if you were a boy and you would sleep with all girls if you were a girl. We stayed over only 1 night and each teacher was sleeping and monitoring their cabin at night. During the days we were there we would travel along with a group mixed boys and girls, a teacher, and a director/instructor to show us around the camp. You would do team building activities, rock climbing, fishing, archery, play sports, and a game of capture the flag at night after you ate dinner. For the game of capture the flag the teachers gave us orange and yellow face paint to have 2 separate teams, it was a lot of fun but unfortunately my team lost.  I enjoyed the food they served us. They served us breakfast lunch and dinner. Then when it was time to go to sleep everybody brushed their teeth and went to sleep. When it was time to go everybody was sad because camp MacLean was so much fun and nobody wanted to leave, but all great things come to a end. We packed and loaded our stuff onto the bus and we were off back to school. This had to be the best field trip I had ever gone on in my entire life. Let me know, what was your favorite field trip you've ever taken with your school?       

Historical Diary Entry During the Holocaust

Dec. 17, 1937

Dear Diary, 

Hello diary, today is my birthday, but I'm not feeling joy or getting presents like every other normal non Jewish kid. I'm still stuck up in a one room apartment with my father, mother, and 2 younger sisters Ariella and Aliza in my Lodz ghetto.We have to share the one room as best as we can and divide spaces in the one room as our "own personal spaces". It is mid December and it is very cold outside and in our apartment, this doesn't surprise me because those stubborn Germans don't give us any heaters in our apartments anyways.

Today in the morning my whole family sang me happy birthday and offered to sacrifice their hunger and offered me their rations of bread for the day. I refused to take it because even though it is my birthday I still want my family to remain healthy and eat their food because I love them. My cousin Abel invited me outside to have a playful snowball fight with some of his friends from his apartment, I said yes and and asked if I could bring some of my friends and my sisters from my apartment. He said, "Of course, the more the merrier." That got me to remember that Christmas was right around the corner, but obviously nobody in the ghetto receives presents except for maybe bread rations, if that even counts as a present.

All in all today wasn't so bad compared to most other days, though I didn't get a birthday cake or presents I still enjoyed my time being with my friends and family. Another day living is something that I will always be happy about, and having fun in that day makes it even better. 

Good night diary.         

Daniel's Story Love Quote

“We must live, and when this is all over, we must work to make the world a better place.  And if we die, we will die knowing that it was not our fault, that we did our best, and we can go to our deaths in dignity… I want you both to live…And to remember...You must choose love.  Always choose love.”  

(from Daniel’s Story by Carol Matas, page 70)

In the book Daniel's Story Daniel's grandfather Opa Samuel (Opa means grandfather in German). Opa Samuel chose love when Oma Rachel was being taken away by the Jewish police to go on the transports to a different terrible place in Lodz for Jews. Opa Samuel chose love because he didn't want to leave his wife (Oma Rachel) because he loved her and didn't want to leave his wife to the dreadful Germans. Opa Samuel knew that the Germans might have done bad things to Oma Rachel, he knew he couldn't stop them, but at least she wouldn't have to feel and be alone. And at least Oma Rachel can have her husband by her side. Opa Samuel basically risked his life for Oma Rachel, he knew the consequences and he died for it, but this shows how he chose love over everything else that was left in his life. This shows how another character in Daniel's story other than Erika who chose love over everything else in the world.    

Sunday Soccer Games

On Sundays I go to my usual soccer games with my teams, I say teams because I actually play for 2 teams. 1 of the teams I play for is my club team, the other team is a side league I go to for fun and to play with friends and some of my teammates from my club team.  Today is Sunday, and I played soccer games obviously. Something special about today's games was that I scored a goal in each game. I scored 1 goal for my club team, and 1 goal for my side league. If my team and I play very well I usually score in each game and we get a win. But today was a good and bad day for wins and defeats, in my 1st game I scored a goal and my team and I won 3-0. But in my second game in my side league, I scored a goal but we lost the game 3-2. It was a very exciting game though, we showed the opponents that they were gonna have to fight hard if they wanted to win. In the end though they won fair and square, I respect them for that. I think the ref could have done a little better though for us because we weren't getting any calls in our favor. Still I always enjoy myself when I'm playing soccer whether that be with my club team or with my friends, and I always remind myself that I'm playing for the love for the game and to grasp my dream of becoming a professional player of the sport. 

Pshh! [Short Creative Photograph Blog]

Besides me always wanting to wake up and play soccer for the rest of my life, their was also another close interest I have always enjoyed doing in my spare time. And that is riding my bike. I have always loved riding my bike ever since I was 5. When I was 5 I rode a two wheeler with training wheels, then when I was 7 my dad thought me how to ride a 2 wheeler without the training wheels. I didn't learn very quickly though and I fell of my  two wheeler bike quite a few times before I got the hang of it, but eventually I was comfortable enough to ride a bike with 2 wheels. My dad was very proud of me and I was proud of myself for always getting back up after I fell down. Now I can ride really fast and feel the great breeze hit my face on a Saturday morning, and that breeze just feels great pshh!! Thanks for reading my Short and creative photograph blog fellow bloggers!!

Meiosis Alien Activity, With Picture!

In my science class, my class and I have been learning about meiosis and how it compares to mitosis. For this my meiosis activity we did partially in class and at home. In class we used colored strips of paper to represent chromosomes, and used them to show us meiosis right before our eyes.
 My alien has a square head, 2 toes, 5 fingers, big feet, knobby knees, a big belly, long arms, fat lips, eyelashes, a long neck, round eyes, short hair, little thumbs, little ears, eyebrows, curly hair, horns, a tail, and a halo above his head. In conclusion, this activity helped me learn that both dominant and recessive traits from your parents go express in the offspring. Which is you as the child or the baby.

Picture of My Alien Drawing and sheet of chromosomes
His name is Bob. Came up with the name myself, lol.  

I Like Vodka................Bow Tie Pasta

My favorite restaurant I like to go to with my family or in general just for dinner is, Grazianos. I like the restaurant Grazianos because it has the best pasta I have ever had, the vodka bow tie pasta. It tastes so good in my opinion and I could never get sick of eating it. There are also other foods I enjoy eating at Grazianos as well like, the jalapeno sausage pizza and veggie salad with the Grazianos specialty ranch. There menu basically consists of pastas, salads, hamburgers, pizzas, seafood, and soups. The drinks there are standard, such as, fountain drinks (sodas, free refills by the way), alcoholic drinks, and great juices. My family and I usually go to Grazianos for a special occasion or just to go to have a good standard dinner on a Saturday night. Also just being around the family (cousins, aunts, uncles, not just mom, dad, and brother) at a Saturday night dinner just feels great and we all enjoy each others company and catch up on how work and school is going for them. All in all these are my reasons for why Grazianos is my family and I's favorite restaurant to eat at for a good dinner or special occasion.


  Picture of the Front of the Grazianos Restaurant

Picture of the Vodka Bow Tie Pasta

                   

My Saturdays

My Saturdays consist of me having fun and enjoying myself, I'm going to tell you about what my Saturday consists of. On Saturdays I usually sleep in until maybe 12:00 p.m. in the afternoon because what I usually do on Friday nights is stay up late and enjoy myself. Basically I just party on Friday after school and soccer practice to kick of the weekend and that usually goes on for a long time. I also wake up late on Saturdays to catch up on my sleep because having to wake up at 6:30 a.m. or 7:00 a.m. 5 days a week to go to school isn't very enjoyable for me and probably isn't very enjoyable for you either. After I awake from my slumber I go downstairs and eat breakfast and since its already late in the day (remember 12:00 p.m. in the afternoon were talking about here) my whole family is already enjoying their Saturday, so I have to make my own breakfast since I woke up so late. I usually just pour myself a bowl of cereal and that's that. After I eat breakfast I take a shower, get some clothes on, and then brush my teeth. By this point its already 1:00 p.m. in the afternoon so I have to act fast and enjoy the rest of my Saturday quickly. I play video games, watch Netflix, and work out my body for soccer. After I do all of that its around 5 oclock'ish and then I start to do my homework that I received on Friday, that usually takes me about a hour. After I eat lunch which usually consists of a homemade turkey sandwich made by myself. Now it's 6:30 p.m. or 6:00 p.m. in the evening and it's time to eat dinner. My parents either cook something like fish, steak, pasta, or we all just go out to eat at a restaurant. Sometimes we call other family members to join us for the Saturday night dinner and go to Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Baker Square, Buffalo Wild Wings, places like that. When my family and I get home it's usually 8:00 p.m. at night and it's time for me to start getting ready to go to bed. I brush my teeth and get in my pajamas. Sometimes before I go to bed I might watch some more TV, but after that I hit the hay. Now your maybe wondering, why go to sleep so early on a Saturday since there is no school tomorrow? Sunday mornings I have soccer games so I go to sleep early on Saturdays so I can perform my best for the game the next day. And that's what my Saturdays consists of, that is how I like to enjoy 1 of my days off of school.                

Movie Review on October Sky

This is my movie review and opinion/thoughts on the movie October Sky. I believe that Homer had a lot to deal with in his social and school life such as being bullied in and out of school for becoming friends with a school nerd. Homer also had to deal with many more challenges in his life other then friendships and bullying. Homer has to deal with his dad not letting him build rockets to achieve his dream, Homer also didn't have any support from his family because his mom could have honestly cared less, his dad just didn't want him to do it because he thought it was dangerous and Homer was wasting his time focusing on things that didn't matter in life, and Homer's older brother just made fun of him for being a nerd. Homer and his rocket boys friends even got arrested for being accused of setting off a forest fire from one of their rockets they had built and set off. So the police just assumed it was them and arrested all four rocket boys. The rocket boys did end up saving themselves though by Quentin (one out of the four members of the rocket boys) and Homer doing the math on how that it couldn't have made sense that their rocket could have caused the forest fire, the rocket boys then showed the principal and the police which then took off their arrests. In the end Homer goes to the national science competition where different schools in the whole US compete to see who has the best scientific experiment. Homer ends up winning 1st place and is offered a variety of college scholarships for science. As far as the movie went for me I think it was a enjoyable movie and didn't have any boring parts that made you wanna turn your head away. Watching this movie will always keep you interested I believe and it is a great action movie for all ages. This was my movie review on October Sky.  

New Years Blog More and Less

Here are some of the actions throughout the new year that I would like to do/see more and less. 

Here are the actions/desires that I would 

like to do/see more during 2016.

• Read more
• Stay on top of big projects in school
• Eat healthy
• More A's in school  
• Longer holiday breaks 
• Way way way more sleep on school nights  
• See more peace in the world 
• Bigger school lunch portions 
•  Spend more time with family 
• See more FC Barcelona wins

Here are the of actions/desires that I would

like to do/see less during 2016.

• Homework
• Eat less junk food
• Drink less soda  
• Having tests in school
• Using phone 
• Playing video games
• Watching TV
• See bullying come to a end
• Oversleep less on the weekends 
• See less FC Barcelona ties and loses 

These are some of the actions/desires that I would like to see myself do/see less throughout the new year ahead in 2016. 

A gift I would like for Christmas

I have many gifts that I would like to receive for Christmas, but the one that I want in particular is a treadmill. It might be strange to many, but I would like a treadmill in particular because it will help me in the future and right now to improve my soccer ability on the field. With a treadmill I can improve my stamina and be able to run around more on the field without getting tired easily or to quickly. Now most kids would want video games, gaming consoles, shoes, phones, and clothing, but that's not me. I live for soccer, its my life, and I want to go as far as I can with it because I love playing competitively when it counts and play for fun when I don't need to try. So by getting this necessity and other necessities I will need to improve in soccer and can excel and keep doing what I do best and get even better at it.  

Marijuana Debate

My debate topic is on marijuana, kind of strange but it was a option my group and I wanted to do. There are two sides for our debate, a side for why marijuana should be legal, and a side where marijuana should be illegal. The side I choose was to stand against marijuana and have it be illegal. We had four people in each debate group. I had my 3 friend in my debate group, Jesse, Christian K, and Josh. Jesse and I were on the side we thought marijuana should be illegal and Christian K and Josh were on the side of believing marijuana should be legal. I think marijuana should be illegal because the most of the society just uses marijuana to get high and screw themselves over because they like the feeling of it, even though it may put their lives at risk. That is why people think it is bad because it can harm people who use it. Marijuana can also cause lung cancer and give your head migraines. Marijuana is actually used at good times because of what it is made out of and for its substance. Marijuana is used in hospitals to treat symptoms and other medical problems for patients, because of its high substance it is made out of it can accomplish that task. Marijuana is also used to relieve stress and treat 80HD, because of marijuana being made out of the plant it is made out of it can help people relieve their stress, however it is only a temporary stress reliever. And that is our group debate on marijuana and reasons for why marijuana should or should not be legal.        

A quote that describes me

These quotes are quotes about soccer that apply to me. "When you feel like giving up, remember why you held on for so long." -Antoine Griezmann (Professional soccer player for Club Atletico Madrid. This apply s to me be sometimes when I'm tired physically on the field from playing as hard as I can, I ask myself why do I do this to myself play a sport and make your body feel awful. But then I remember how long I've been playing the sport and never gave up, so it would be pretty pointless for me to quit when I have been working so hard in the past when I was young. The dream that I have wanted since I was 4 all wiped away just by me quitting because my body doesn't want to endure more of the pain, then I tell myself that I have to make come true. It may take time, effort, motivation, sacrifice, and most of all hard work, but in the end it will be worth it. This is my favorite quote that I like to say to myself when I'm going through hard times on the field and I'm not playing the best I could be. Or a time when I am not playing really good. Then I say this quote in my head to mmotivate myself to keep on going and not give up.