An Ice Breaker from 8th Grade

An Ice Breaking Exercise:

Who are you? Ben Compton

What are you good at: English, Writing, Playing Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd Edition, Zelda Video Games

What are you excited about this year? Being in 8th. Hanging out with Carter, Alex, and Ryan M.

What worries you about this year:

I’m afraid that I might be crazy. Because I only have three friends, when I came back to school this year, the Guidance Counselor made me take some big official test. Before I started my Dad sat me down and said “I’m just going to tell you this once, this test could really screw you up. Don’t mess around.” I didn’t want to disappoint him. It’s a little scary if you think about it. One wrong bubble and you’re marked as crazy for life. It started out ok, with questions about how I act at parties. I don’t really get invited to many parties, but so I pretended. It also said“The TV is real”, True of false? I mean I guess it is, but the things on it aren’t. How am I supposed to answer this? There was also this question on the test. “The voices in my head tell me to do bad things.” I think this question is pretty unfair, I mean I don’t even have voices in my head. Wouldn’t it be just as bad to have voices in your head telling you to do good things? So now I’m worried that other people do have voices in their heads, and I’m the only one who doesn’t. So that’s what worries me.

What are your goals for this year? Sometimes I think the other kids hate me I think they look at me and say “Hey, did you know that scarring acne is contagious?” Dale Carnegie says in How to Win Friends and Influence People that “If we think happy thoughts, we will be happy. If we think miserable thoughts, we will be miserable-Dale Carnegie.” With that in mind, I’m thinking that this year they’ll say “Did you know that scarring acne builds character? We should hang out with him.” Yeah. That’s it. POSITIVITY. This is the year I make friends! And Influence People! Like Dale Carnage

Dale also says when the “Negative Voices start shouting, you should change the radio to Positive-FM.”- Dale Carnage. So I’ll overcome my fears and I’ll conquer even the highest mountains. Just like when Sir Edmond Hilary’s crew all froze to death. When things were looking grim he said (via Dale Carnage’s How to Win Friends and Influence People: “The Mountain maybe big and I may be small, but man was created to destroy and subjugate nature.”

If you could say one thing to yourself at the end of this year, what would it be?

Great job and Go Highlanders! Ben

Rebirth

To Quote from Lincoln:

"I do not forget the gravity which should characterize a paper addressed to the Congress of the nation by the Chief Magistrate of the nation. Nor do I forget that some of you are my seniors, nor that many of you have more experience than I, in the conduct of public affairs. Yet I trust that in view of the great responsibility resting upon me, you will perceive no want of respect yourselves, in any undue earnestness I may seem to display.

Is it doubted, then, that the plan I propose, if adopted, would shorten the war, and thus lessen its expenditure of money and of blood? Is it doubted that it would restore the national authority and national prosperity, and perpetuate both indefinitely? Is it doubted that we here--Congress and Executive--can secure its adoption? Will not the good people respond to a united, and earnest appeal from us? Can we, can they, by any other means, so certainly, or so speedily, assure these vital objects? We can succeed only by concert. It is not "can any of us imagine better?" but, "can we all do better?" The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise -- with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.

Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We -- even we here -- hold the power, and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free -- honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just -- a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless."

Si Se Puede

One more encouraging piece of news

Obama just scored an upset in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire. For those of you who don't follow these things, Dixville Notch is the first place in the nation to vote. While polls open elsewhere at 7:00 a.m. Dixville opens at midnight. It's a town of 75 people, so the votes are tallied fairly quickly. The result? Obama 15, McCain 6. As small as this victory is for Obama, it may spell disaster for McCain, as the last time Dixville went for a democrat was when Humphry was running.