Memories.

The earliest memory I can think of is one that I've been carrying with me for a long time. It is a random moment in my life where me, my sister and my mom are all alone in our house. I am three years old and there is a package. We open the box and take all of the Styrofoam popcorn out and throw it all over the place like snow. I don't know why this is my longest memory, nor do I know whether it was a real moment in my life or I just made it up for some reason. I've held this memory for most of my life though.

Mason Augustus Wheeler

My Pets.

I have four dogs and a cat. My dogs are two Lhasa Apsos, a black one named Bowen and a blonde one named Michael, a Miniature Pincher named Evie and a Boxer mix named Harleigh. I love them although they can be very rowdy sometimes. They like to bark really loud and rip things apart, which can be really annoying. They don't get along very well with my cat, Saffie. She hates them and gets just about as annoyed with them as we do. I love my cat most of all. She's the most precious thing to me and she's probably my best friend. I don't know what I'd do without her. I love all my pets a lot and I'm glad they are in my life.

Mason Augustus Wheeler

Thankful for the Good Days.

I am thankful for the good days that I have sometimes. Life sucks, but every once in a while I'll have a really good day. Just a day where I'm really happy and confident and carefree. I love these days and they are very important to me. They remind me that it doesn't all suck and that it is possible for me to be happy sometimes. So, if I had to choose one thing that I am thankful for, it would definitely be my good days.

Mason Augustus Wheeler

Tombstone.

Over the weekend I went to Tombstone with my family. It was really cool. I went a long time ago with my father when I was twelve, but I don't remember that much. I wish I lived back then, it seems like it would be a good time. With saloons and gunfights, that would be the life. 2011 is just so lame, the 1800s is where it's at. Nothing to worry about, except for maybe getting shot. Anyway, that's what being there made me think of, you know? I mean, the place we were standing was a big booming town just 100 or so years ago and now, it's just a tourist attraction. It's crazy.

Mason Augustus Wheeler

Turkey Day.

The tradition of Thanksgiving in my family is something I really look forward to. When everybody gets together at my Grandpa's house and we wait for food to be cooked while we watch the parade and the game. We can finally leave the front door open because the weather is so much cooler. It's finally fall. The best part of Thanksgiving, to me, is the leftovers. Sure, the feast is great, but the days after Thanksgiving when you have all that turkey, that's awesome. Sandwiches made from leftover turkey are the best, let me tell you. I absolutely love them. So yeah, that's what I look forward to every year: leftovers.

Mason Augustus Wheeler

Tails.

I was absent again yesterday. I'm always absent. If school didn't suck for me so much I would probably come every day. I have 14 absences in my second hour (which is my first hour), and I have 16 or 17 absences in my seventh hour. That's a lot. I've had more, but this is definitely too much. Especially since I'm a senior and this year doesn't suck as bad as other years. I need to start coming every day. I try my best, but it's really easy to just stay home because school is so frickin' stupid. I'll keep trying though. The good thing is that I have pretty good grades in my classes, all Bs. So, if somebody wanted to drop me, they really have no other reason than my absences. Which is probably all they need. Oh well. I'm sure I'll be fine.

Mason Augustus Wheeler

Seating.

I really hate this new seating chart. It separated me from all of my friends and now I have to sit next to people that I don't even know. I don't understand why every class had to get new seats. Is there a reason? Will we ever switch back? I hope so, because having to sit in these seats for the rest of the year would be the worst thing ever.

Mason Augustus Wheeler

Letter Experience.

I really enjoyed writing the letter to my teachers. Being able to speak my mind about all of the amazingly awesome things my teachers do was a great experience. I love my teachers and I'm glad that I got to write something that expresses the way that I feel about them. I hope that when they read it they feel good about themselves and their technique, because they should. I hope that they realize how much I admire them and how grateful I am to be taught by them.

Mason Augustus Wheeler

Dear Teachers,.

Dear Teachers,

I love the way you teach me and I don't think there is a single thing wrong with it. You all have your own way of going about teaching, and all of them are well thought out and amazingly effective strategies. You challenge me in so many different ways and, though I don't always do my work, or come to school for that matter, I still think that you are excellent at what you do. Everytime I go to your classes I am excited to learn and I'm excited to participate and do the assignments that you give us. Whether it's playing games, writing essays, having a class discussion or just telling us to figure it our ourselves, they all are wonderful ways to help us learn. I am glad that I have such great teachers to help guide me through my senior year of high school.

Thank you so much,
Mason Augustus Wheeler

What I Like About Me.

There are not many things that I like about myself. I annoy myself a lot. I wish I was a certain way and I'm not. Though I can find some things that stick out about myself that are nice, and I wouldn't change them for anything. I like the way I look, for the most part. I mean, once you get past the fat and acne, I'm a pretty decent looking guy. I like my personality, though it doesn't always shine through when I would like it to. I like the things that I do and the environment that surrounds me even if it's not the best. I can find a few things about myself that I think are great, and I am happy about that because a few is way better than nothing.

Mason Augustus Wheeler

Mr. Robinson.

One of the major points of Ken Robinson's talk was the way that we are teaching kids today, and they way that the education system is set up. We group kids together by their age, rather than by their learning levels. Slower students end up following behind when they are lumped together with students who don't need extra help and can learn on their own. If we placed students together by their ability to learn, instead of how old they are, the education system would be much better.

Mason Augustus Wheeler

Doing the GIF.

I liked doing the GIF project. I had a lot of fun. It was a little tough coming up with an idea, I mean, nothing can top Saveria's exploding baby, but I think I did a good job. I like it a lot when we work in Photoshop, versus working in Excel or Word. It's a lot more fun and creative. I hope we do something like this again soon.

Mason Augustus Wheeler

G to the I to the F.

Cold.

I love to sleep. I'm so glad that it's cold now and I can bundle up under a nice comfy blanket and sleep all the time. It's so nice. When I go to school I can just throw on a big, warm, comfortable jacket and not worry about anything. I love that. I'm just so happy that the weather has finally changed and it's nice and cool. I love this time of year.

Mason Augustus Wheeler

Gross.

I feel so self conscious. I keep throwing clothes on before I leave the house because I'm cold and then regretting it once I get to school. Today, I put on an ugly black long-sleeved shirt and threw a gross hairy red t-shirt on top of it. I'm disgusting today. I just want to go home and sleep. On top of all of that, I feel sick. I'm sick to my stomach and I feel like I'm going to throw up. I just want to go home.

Mason Augustus Wheeler

Smoking in the Bathroom.

So I was sitting in the bathroom at lunch today, like I do sometimes when I have nobody to sit with and don't want to look like a loser, and I could clearly smell that somebody was smoking in one of the stalls next to me. I didn't think much of it, but after they left I heard a teacher call security. A few minutes later I hear a loud noise. It turned out to be that fat security guard kicking in all of the stalls. He got to mine and was like, "Are you almost done in there?" I said yes and he was like, "Don't bother flushing those cigarettes." I realized that I was going to get blamed. So I came out and said that I wasn't smoking but I could smell that somebody else was. He still took my I.D. and wrote my name down. What an idiot.
Anyway, it doesn't matter. If they call my mom or something she'll pretty much know that I wasn't smoking.

Mason Augustus Wheeler

Technology.

If I could change one thing about the world it would be all the technology that exists today. In today's society, though we have a lot of very useful technology that helps do a lot of important things, technology has grown at an unnecessary rate. All people care about is their phone or iPod or what have you. Nobody has face to face conversations anymore. The old days were so much more intimate and happy. People played together and they laughed together. Now, they LOL together. It's just a little too much. So, I would decrease the amount of technology. Not all the way, but just make it less advanced than now. Like in the '90s or early '00s. We had technology, but it wasn't all over the place and didn't consume our lives the way it does now.

Mason Augustus Wheeler

Night of the Living TED.

I watched a talk given by Carolyn Porco, a planetary scientist. She was showing images from the Cassini voyage to Saturn, focusing on its largest moon, Titan, and on frozen Enceladus, which seems to shoot jets of ice. It was very interesting and I learned a lot.

Mason Augustus Wheeler