The Cav

Searching the Durham Academy for in style spring fashions while having fellow french exchange students show us there styles. People have been wearing all sorts of spring clothing, from bright dresses to sheer tank tops. Every student has their own style of clothing and shoes. We have seen all sorts sandals from rainbow flip flops to fergalicious sandals. Everyone loves a nice pair of shorts to go with their sheer tank top. This year, everyone has been wearing bright colored shorts and patterned belts. So head into your year off with beautiful spring fashion.

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One of my personal favorite series is the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. By now, all of the middle school students have probably read these amazing books. Also, the Harry Potter movies are one of the few series that are just as good as the book. I am going to write a review of each of the Harry Potter books and also the corresponding movies. First up, the Sorcerer’s Stone.

Upon opening the book, I was mesmerized by the way J.K. Rowling forms her sentences, and the overall plot was just as transfixing. I can just imagine how torturous living with the Dursleys would be for Harry, how horrible Dudley, Vernon and Petunia are, and how unusual these strange happenings are. Imagine if you could grow back the hair lost from a horrible haircut overnight, make glass disappear and talk to snakes! What would you do if you never got any letters and then suddenly hundreds were flying in through your chimney? When you read the letter, would you believe that you had been accepted in Hogwarts school of Witch and Wizardry? When Harry went to Diagon Alley, I could just picture the bustling full of unusual characters. Hogwarts sounds full of amazing characters, my favorite being the Weasley twins, Fred and George. The teachers were also thickly described with layer upon layer of adjectives and strange behavior descriptions. I know that it probably sounds like I am in love with this book, but overall, it isn’t the best book out of the series. If you are reading the Harry Potter series for the first time, I would still recommend that you read this book, but please don’t give up if you don’t think that it’s interesting!

You all know that most movies aren’t nearly as good as the books, and I have to say, I agree with this statement for the Sorcerer’s Stone movie. Although the producers mainly were true to the book when writing the script, the movie was a bit all over the place. The characters tended to jump around the school without an explanation of how they got there. The worst thing about the movie in my opinion was that they completely cut out Peeves the Poltergeist!  Another thing that bugged me was the absence of Hermione’s time to shine. In the book, there was a separate chamber enclosed in fire where Hermione solved the riddle that Snape left to protect the stone. Although the movies definitely got a lot better, the Sorcerer’s Stone was a rocky start to the series.

‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’

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I’m here to give you a few tips on starting out with makeup. Go for a simple look for your lips by using gloss. It’s simple and unique, you can express your own personality. If your bold, go with a bright red and make your mark. Even if your shy, take a light pink to lighten up your life. When using eyeliner you want to create an illusion to make your eyelashes look fuller and thicker. So, go for a natural looking style. When applying your eyeliner, use small dots along your lash line. This method allows you to smear the eyeliner making it look more natural. When you are choosing a color of eyeshadow go with something that brings out your personality but also goes with your skin tone. For example, with an olive-toned skin you might want use more browns or with light brown skin apply a light gray or brown with a little shimmer and dont run away from bright, vibrant colors. Express yourself when it comes to your own makeup. <3

Hello again, this time I will be doing my article on another favorite restaurant of mine, Cracker Barrel. While this restaurant doesn’t have the personality of Elmo’s Diner or other non-chain restaurants, it still provides high-quality food, and a unique feel. This is another restaurant with all-day breakfast, along with a fairly standard lunch and dinner menu. This restaurant goes out of its way to seem country, with the menu having stereotypical southern spellings for certain items, such as Fancy Fixin’s and Beverages n’ Juices. It also tries to provide an old-fashioned feel, with old advertisements and the like pasted on the walls. I generally go with my family, which generally takes around 2 minutes to be seated. After we were seated, it took around 1 minute to get our drinks, and 15 to get our meal. I had the open-faced roast beef sandwich with gravy, which ended up being very good. It was 4 thin slices of roast beef on top of two pieces of sour-dough bread, both soaked with gravy. This was also served with mashed potatoes and an additional side of my choice. The service was very nice, along with, as priorly mentioned, fairly speedy. I would recommend going to this restaurant, as it has good food and a nice atmosphere.

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      Have you ever wondered what makes snow up? I will tell you then. Most places haven’t received snow this year. What makes snow has to have a temperature under 32 degrees, like most people know. The air must contain mist, water. Snowflakes are basically tiny, tiny snow crystals that grow larger and larger as the fall down. Snowflakes can reflect the sun because of the white small snowflakes.Most snowflakes are about  one inch across. The biggest snowflakes are about two inches across.I hoped you enjoyed learning about snow.

Wouldn’t it be awesome to have your own iPad to take to school? Your backpacks would be almost a quarter of the weight they are now, with all the books gone. Some of the sixth graders got to experience this. When Mr. Schaefer rolled in that wonderful cart that held our ipads, our class was ecstatic. No one could believe that each of us were really going to take home our very own iPads. We each had different approaches to the transition from pen and paper to iPads, with some students discarding their binder like it was a dead rat, to others clinging on to it like the remains of your room after a fire. This was the general atmosphere of our classroom at the time, some waiting eagerly, others, still just as eager to explore this new technology, were dreading change.

The iPad is an amazing device, there is basically an app for everything known to man. Studying is so much easier when you use Quizlet or a flashcard app, you can have over a thousand flashcards all in one place and not worrying about losing one. My backpack lost some serious weight for three months. Those three months were bliss, but everyone knew that the day we would have to give our iPads to the next, lucky  class was drawing nearer and nearer. Finally, the day arrived. Saying goodbye to our iPads was hard, and so was transitioning back to pen and paper. Now, although we still have access to a cart of laptops at school, my backpack has gained more weight. Next year, I think that everyone should get their own iPad, and get their backpack into shape.

Image from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/smemon/7118767335/

http://www.ncslma.org/book-competitions.html

          Battle of the Books is an annual competition that revolves around students answering questions about a variety of books that they read. This year’s competition occurred on March 14th. Durham Academy’s team, which consisted of Anna B, Samantha B, Meg C, Jack D (Me), Kenise F, James FH, Carolina G, Lauren M, Osezele O, Haley P, Tristan R and Eilene Y, competed against the representatives of Saint Thomas More, Burlington Day, Greensboro Montessori, Immaculta Catholic School and Duke School. Durham Academy’s team ended up coming up second, bested only by Burlington Day. For those of you interested in joining the team, you are required to read 25 books before the competition and memorize information which you are tested on in a game show-esque competition. If you are serious about wanting to be on the team, I would recommend starting to read during the summer, as there is commonly significant competition for team slots, with selection based on experience and results of a written quiz. (There are only 12 team members, plus a back-up) The list of books can be found at http://www.ncslma.org/book-competitions.html, along with other miscellaneous information.

The Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling is the second installment of the Harry Potter series. Although the first book lacked certain qualities, the second was much better written. I don’t think that I could ever have even dreamed about the plot that J.K. Rowling has conjured up in this mystifying book. Who would have thought of a Basalisk slithering through the pipes near Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom! After reading the book for the second time, everything seemed to lock into place. It was almost like a mystery in that this book kept you guessing until the very end. Sometimes I wonder whether J.K. Rowling chose the name ‘Voldemort’ before ‘Tom Marvolo Riddle’, or whether she had it planned out from the very start. The plot of this book is indeed amazing, but it is nothing compared to the books further on in the series.

When the movie was first released, some might have assumed that it wasn’t going to be any good. The reason for this is that the movie that was made out of the Sorcerer’s Stone left a very bad impression on me. The Chamber of Secrets movie was, however, much better than the first. Still, if I had to choose between the second or the third, fourth, ect., the obvious choice would have to be the latter. Like the first movie, the producers definitely stuck to the book when writing the script, although there were a couple of minor changes. In the first movie, it felt like the actors were much younger and lacked some acting skills. This is still true in this movie, but it is much less prominent, and you can tell that they had grown. My favorite asset in the movie was the actor who played Gildory Lockhart, Kenneth Branagh. He was perfect for the part in my opinion. In conclusion, this was a much better movie that the Sorcerer’s stone, and I would definitely recommend this movie to any fantasy fans.

‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’

http://www.amazon.com/Harry-Potter-Chamber-Secrets-Rowling/dp/0786222735

One of our units in technology class with Mr. Schaefer is Gamestar Mechanic. Gamestar Mechanic is an online gaming network where you get to play games to learn how to make games. You have to battle your way through obstacles and enemies under a limited time. If you have the clock in the game you can add more time, and if you think it’s easy just by reading this article, it’s not! Sometimes you get to edit your game or build your game, but if you want to build your own game you have to know the elements.

The Elements are:

•  The look and feel of a game come from the design of its SPACE
• Are the parts of your game like your avatar, blocks & enemies COMPONENTS
• Are the actions in the game like jumping or collecting MECHANICS
• Players try to achieve GOALS to win the game
• Guide the player on how the game should be play RULES

Here’s a the main Gamestar website:

http://gamestarmechanic.com/

The trail is a tough trek and requires the most of these runners’ racing skill. The trails are covered with debris and roots sticking out of the ground, as well as rocks and unexpected holes. Along side the trail and through it, bends Dutchman’s Creek. The runners crossed the creek many times along the run, which means they had to be careful if they didn’t want to get their feet wet.

The Uwharrie Trail  is all trail, no roads. It is a very enjoyable run if you like running and the outdoors.

The upper school runners had a great experience on the run, had lots of fun, and were all quite tired afterward. They each got a medal though as a keepsake to remember their hard run race on a cold and misty morning.

Bibliography

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