Stress

Now let's think about it. What causes stress? Peer pressure? Family? Homework? Schoolwork? Take a closer look at it. About 90 percent of stress comes from school. That thing is the stress headquarters. Whether it's homework, studying, projects, different types of bullying or any other troubles, school can be the No.1 thing that factors or causes your stress. If your parents make you take special classes ( and I mean the academic ones that you don't enjoy at all), then you've got double the work. And due to those special classes your brain has to work hard all week with only a few hours of rest each day. Even when you come home from school and special classes and you just want to relax, the minute you start getting comfortable your parents will tell you to stop slouching and get started on your homework / tell you to go take a shower / send you on an errand / do something that prevents you from getting any rest. Sometimes we kids just need a break! Now, I understand exactly how that feels. The so-called "techniques" to help you reduce stress doesn't work for me either. Not evryone has bottles of lavender/rose scented oil just liying around to pour in a bathtub ( and on that note, not everyone has a bathtub ) or float rose petals in! And not everyone has the equipment/skill/TIME to make DIY schedules! Nor do the schedules work for everyone. Instead, I focus on a more simple way to deal with stress. Praying. Sometimes you'll feel like it doesn't help,or that God isn't listening... Ok, maybe a lot of times. But check out Daily Devotions. Anyway, if you really feel like praying doesn't make you feel better, just calm down. Tell everyone you know about it. At least, the ones you can trust. Then just relax, and try to deal with it any way you can. Hope that as helpful. Have a wonderful, stress-free week! - Ferny

My Very First Surgery

  Hi, everyone. Palm here. I wanted to apologize for not having anything new up for so long. Hopefully, it wasn't too long. I was in the hospital for about four days, because I had appendicitis. Let me tell you how it happened. On my birthday ( June 11th) , I went to school as usual. the first part of the day was fine. But at lunch, I started getting a bad stomachache. So I took a pill after my meal and just went on with my day. But the pill didn't help like it wasn't supposed to. In fact, it got worse and worse until, by the last lesson, it was almost unbearable. Mom picked us up a little bit later than usual, and then, when I got home, I told her about it. So Fern ate pizza while watching Frozen , and I had to lie down so Mom could give me a check-up ( she's a doctor). Then she said the symptoms were like appendicitis and she rushed me to the hospital. Without any dinner. Fern, of course, stayed behind and played on our new Xbox with Dad. When I got to the hospital, I had to go to three doctors, get an ultrasound, and a CT scan before they finally said, " Okay, it's appendicitis. She needs to get surgery. Pronto." So Mom called the surgeon, who she knew, and asked him to operate on me. At that point, 'an hour' was by eight o'clock. So then we called Dad and Fern and told them all about it and that they needed to come right away. And after that it was panic ( Fern ), sappiness ( Mom ), nonchalance ( Dad ) , and so-excited-and-nervous-she-can't-stop-smiling ( me) . Since Mom had done appendicitis suegery before, she requested to be in the room with me as part of the surgical team. The team wished me a happy birthday before giving me some..um..anaestetic or whatever they call it..to smell, and I woke up an hour later in the recovery room with an extremely sore throat and a wound near my hip that hurt awfully. But I was also nauseaous and super duper sleepy, so I went to sleep almost as soon as they wheeled me into my room and lifted me onto my bed. Did I mention my bed was remote-control and adjustable? Anyway, I had to stay at the hospital for four whole days and nights to recover. And after that, the doctor ordered a two-week rest from school. Two weeks! I don't know how I'll EVER catch up on all the work. Not to mention all that studying. But if I can make a quick recovery, I might be able to go back in just one week. I'm so sorry for ranting on like this, BTW. Anyway, I would really appreciate it if you guys would pray for me. Thanks!

Sincerely Annoying

So, here's a subject I never brought up. Do you remember Pretty Girl? Well, she's also Annoying Girl. Don't get me wrong, she's tolerable most of the time and kind of fun to be around but she's just SO ANNOYING! I'll give you a step-by-step example:
Step 1: Teacher comes into room and starts teaching. P Girl listens for a while then starts knitting.
Step 2: Teacher says something P Girl doesn't like, for example " You have two pages of homework today " or " P Girl, I think it would be best if you don't work with your best friend on this project since you two sometimes disrupt the class ".
Step 3: P Girl's eyes widen, before she takes a huge breath and whines " Whaaat?! But that's..not..fair! "
Step 4: P Girl continues whining and complaining, doing physical acts to go along with it, such as twisting or shaking her arms. The whine grows into a cry, then a yell, then finally an ear-splitting cross-between-a-shriek-and-a-holler.
Step 5: People start defending her, " people " as in some of her close friends.
Step 6: The teacher caves and lets Pretty Girl have whatever she wants.

And that is it. If it's something that only affects her, no one will say anything in favor of P Girl. But they never object, either. and so it always ends the same way. Is THIS fair? I don't think so. This particular procedure only works in favor of Pretty Girl and sometimes for one other person who I don't know what to name yet. Anyways, if there is a person like this in your school ( which there probably is ), please comment below and tell us YOUR personal story about unfairness! Or, you can send us an email. Our addresses are right..in this blog..somewhere. But it's there. Just in case, our email addresses are sirinpalm@gmail.com and ferny.2545@gmail.com So, I sincerely wish you a happy week and I hope you will survive school!

No fair!

That's our new theme for the week! For those of you who think we're copying, we're not. It's purely coincidental, we promise :). Expect posts about how people treat others unfairly, the unfairness of the social order, and other things under the topic " No fair! "! That's it for our announcement! Have a wonderful week!

HIFTBK: School

 School's started up again, and so far it's quite fun. I especially like my science teacher ( I'll call her Mary Poppins on this blog) and my social studies teacher ( I'll call him Young Santa Claus on this blog). Mary Poppins is really understanding and she makes learning fun. She makes science really easy to learn.Young Santa Claus is the only western teacher we have who is American. At least, I THINK he is. he could be Canadian, but I highly doubt it. Anyway, he let us play Hot Seat on our first day learning with him. It was so fun! now, enough of teachers. Let's talk about school in particular. By that, I mean the students. Now, there's only one rule to being popular in school. You have to be good-looking. Unfortunately, I am not. So I have to try to live up to the second rule. Be funny. Luckily, I've picked up some great jokes and witty punch lines through the course of my life, so this wasn't really a problem for me. Still, rule No. 2 can only get you so far. I decided that, to become popular, I would have to befriend popular.Good slogan, huh? Well, fortunately, I already have popular friends. Their names are Bouncy Girl and Pretty Girl. Bouncy Girl is only slightly less popular than Pretty Girl, which is surprising, because Bouncy Girl is a lot nicer and less annoying than Pretty Girl. But, then again, Rule No. 1 applies. Pretty Girl is prettier,at least by 7/1 standards ( I don't agree), therefore she is more popular. I've tried to find out and think up more rules for being popular, but all I got was this : Rule No. 1.1 You must be a 'rebel'. This basically just means that you must be a bad student who doesn't pay attention in class and breaks the rules a lot. Well, I'm not that, either. I'm probably the best-behaving student in the class, if not one of. Yes, I know, lame, right? But that's what you're supposed to do (behave)...isn't it?

A New Grade

Since school started, all of you are probably in a new grade. So I thought I'd come up with some helpful guidelines for new students at new schools starting a new grade ( It's hard, I know ). If these rules do not apply to your school, I apologize.

Rule No.1: Be open. Most new kids will choose to keep to themselves and act very shy, especially the girls. DON'T. This will not help you. Instead, try to talk to everyone in the class. Not too much, though. That's annoying. My point is, if you talk and interact with your new classmates, it'll be easier for you to find out where you fit, AND you might even get a new BFF!

Rule No.2: Pay attention. Yes, pay attention. To everything. Listen to your classmates. What's their way of speaking? What are their main interests? What are the social rules? Register all this in your head and adjust yourself accordingly. You don't have to stop being you. Just act acceptable and blend in.

Rule No.3: Be normal. If you have any weird habits, keep them to yourself and try not to show it until you have been accepted as a part of the class. Showing any abnormal actions will instantly make you the "weird kid" everyone avoids or makes fun off. Not a good way to start life in a new school. If that's hard, just try to not be the center of attention. This could lead to you being ignored, though.

So those are the 3 rules of being a new kid. I'm sure there are more so please leave them in the comments! I hope this was helpful!

HIFTBK: Body Language

 Have you ever read books or seen videos about body language? People talk about how we can tell what somebody is thinking just by looking at their body language. Well, some of them are true, but there are a few that just don't work for me. For example: Supposedly, if someone is lying, they are likely to avoid eye contact, blink a lot, or attempt to change the subject. Well, I observed this, and found out that these three things are only likely to happen to bad liars. And, unfortunately, we live in a world full of good liars. Secondly, life isn't a movie. Nobody gets shifty eyes or stutters when they're lying. Unless, of course, they really ARE terrible liars. I did realize, though, that lots of liars do add lots of unnecessary details to their story to make it seem more trustworthy. I sometimes do that myself (😛) and so does my twin sister ( sorry, Fern!) . Still, there are some great ways to spot liars. I just haven't found them yet. Oh, and the 'brings their hands to their faces when they're lying' thing? It actually works, for many people. Except for people who touch their face a lot already.
  All right, moving on. I'm not sure if people stiffen when they're nervous or inhales sharply when they're jealous or not. But I'm pretty sure people don't narrow their eyes when they're sly or something. I'm not sure people even do that in movies. Oh, well. Maybe I've just been looking in the wrong places.
  NEWS!! If you ask us something in our emails, we might publish and answer it! Hate comments will not be considered ( AND BELIEVE ME, THERE ARE PROBABLY A WHOLE LOT OF THEM JUST WAITING TO BE READ RIGHT NOW.) I'm pretty sure this announcement sounds pretty vain, because right one, we have practically no comments at all. Still, if you're reading this, please comment below. We'd love to know what you think! And there are so few we probably have time to say something back! Oh, that sounds vain, too. As if we think everyone wants to hear from us or something. We don't think that. We just thought it would be nice to let you know we appreciate every single comment. If your comment is too long, send them to us at sirinpalm@gmail.com or ferny.2545@gmail.com ! See you next week! Or whenever we decide it's time to write up a new post!