Fenn vs. Dexter

success is not final, failure is not fatal, it is the courage that continues to count

-Winston Churchill 

          Everyone goes through a hard time. For me it was when my football team lost against Dexter in a very close game. We were up by a lot with the third and fourth quarter left, but we ended up choking the game in overtime. The team was very sad because we knew we could’ve easily beat them. It was a Friday evening and the team was facing Dexter Southfield  at 4pm, on the turf. We were very pumped and we felt like we were gonna win.We started off the first two quarters strong scoring two touchdowns. At halftime we were in full control and we knew we had the game in the bag. In the third quarter we slowed down our tempo, and we let Dexter catch up. They scored two quick touchdowns, and just like that they were back in the game. After both teams getting their opportunity and failing to score, we headed to overtime. We got the ball first, and we scored on fourth down, but unfortunately missed the two point conversion. When they were on offense they scored and they made the two point conversion. This lost was very devastating because we came so close, but fell a little short.Although the team lost to Dexter, we kept our heads up and we just looked forward to the next game against Dexter, which would end up being our last game of the season. In that game we played very well and ended up beating Dexter in a game winning touchdown and two point conversion. The final score was 8-6 and we were happy we ended our season on a win. Losing to Dexter the first time was a real heartbreaker, but the second time we played them, we made sure to make Dexter leave with their heads down. If it wasn’t for hard work, grit and perseverance we would not have beat dexter. I’ll end by saying if someone knocks you down, get up and knock them down.

My room

       The best dreams happen in your room

 -Unknown 

     Everyone has a place where they feel safe. For me, my room is a place where I rely on to  do homework, and have fun.  I love my room a lot, and I am in it for more than half of my day. I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t have a room. It is a place where I am most productive and I feel good when I’m in there.Everyday  when I get home, I immediately enter my room. I still remember the day as if it was yesterday. I came home, and rushed into my room and locked the door. I knew for the next few hours, I would have to be very productive if I wanted to finish my homework, and have time to study for a test. When I entered my room I immediately started doing my homework. Math was the first task I decided to do. After 30 minutes I was done with math. Next was Latin. I grinded that out in ten minutes. I decided to take a break, and before I knew it, it was 9:00. I was so worried because I had like 2 hours to complete an essay, study for ssat, and do science. My mom called me up for dinner but I told Her that the only way I’m eating dinner is if it’s in my room. She agreed, and I was so happy. After working hard in my room I finished my homework at around 11:50. I was very happy that I was able to do this. I don’t know how I would’ve done this if I wasn’t so comfortable and hardworking in my room. Everybody has that special place where they can do whatever, what’s yours?

Fru Nkimbeng

Literary analysis 

Mr. Fitz’s class

  11/4/18

New Beginnings

When Perrault's back was turned, he duplicated the performance the following day, getting away with the whole chunk”.

[The Call of the Wild, Jack London, Chapter 2]

       His  eyes opened up and his nose started tingling to the smell of the hot crisp bacon. After seeing Pike sneak a piece into his mouth, there was only one thing Buck could do. He waited for Perrault to turn his back then he swiftly made his move, moving so slick and quiet as a ninja. Mission accomplished, as Buck came back you could see the big pieces of bacon clinged onto his teeth. In the book The Call of the Wild, by Jack London, Buck has to unleash his primordial beast in order to survive. This was a great book to read, as it taught me many lessons I plan on using in my life.

         Your passion is something to die for

I would rather die of passion, than of boredom

-Unknown

              If your not having fun it’s not a passion.Basketball is something I love to do. Every single day of my life I go to the gym to play basketball. It’s something that I love and I find it very exciting, It was this summer, at the boys and girls club, where my whole basketball season ended because of 2 injuries. 

                                The time I got lost

                          Fru Nkimbeng

  Family is not an important thing, it’s everything- Unkown    

When times are tough, you look to your family to sweeten things out. It was my family that found me when I got lost at the soccer field. I will never take for granted what my family does for me, because I now know that when the world turns on you, they’ll be the only ones there to support you. When I was a little kid, i always looked up to my parents, and siblings. Everywhere I went my family was with me. The way I was brought up was that, when times are tough, and your friends aren’t there for you to lean on, you’re family will always be there to support you. In the year 14, I learned how important my family was when I returned home in Lowell Massachusetts, after getting lost at soccer practice with no way to communicate them. I arrived at the field at around 5:30 Pm. When my parents left I waved them goodbye, then I headed to the field. When I got to the field there was nobody there and I was so scared. Turns out practice had been canceled. Unfortunately for me at the time, I didn’t have a phone so there was no way for me to reach my parents. I went around asking people if I could use their phones but they all just kept on saying no. It was until about 30 minutes later where I was able to call my mom and she rushed over to the field to pick me up.I didn’t realize how much I needed my parents until something bad happened to me.When I got left at the field, I tried asking people for help but they all ignored me and didn’t respond. I felt really bad and I was sad. Although this day was horrible, coming home to my family made it better. For me it only mattered that I was back home, and getting lost was just an experience to remember 

Fru Nkimbeng

Literally Reflection

Mr.Fitz’s Class

10/15/18

New Beginnings 

“I am convinced that different people awaken different beast in you”

- Unknown 

At some point in time your primordial beast will be released. In the book, The Call Of The Wild, by Jack London, Buck unleashes a beast that has been inside of him all his life. When he goes through a hard time he is able to release that beast and use it for the better.

The Call of the Wild, by Jack London is about a powerful dog named Buck who is half St. Bernard and half sheepdog, and lives on an estate in California’s Santa Clara Valley. He lives a comfortable life there, but it comes to an end when men discover gold in the Klondike region of Canada and a great demand arises for strong dogs to pull sleds. Buck is kidnapped by a gardener on the  estate and sold to dog traders, who teach Buck to obey by beating him with a club and, shipping him  to the Klondike. While he is at the Klondike, he starts learning things he’s never known, and things that he wouldn’t even think about when he was at Santa Clara Valley. Over sometime he realizes that things aren’t given to him and that they are earned through hard work. This is when the primordial beast starts setting. “He watched and learned. When he saw Pike, one of the new dogs, a clever malingerer and thief, slyly steal a slice of bacon when Perrault's back was turned, he duplicated the performance the following day, getting away with the whole chunk”. (The call of the wild, Jack London, pg. 34. This scene explains how buck is learning to be independent and learning that you have to work for things. If he was back at Santa Valley, the bacon would’ve been given to him, and he wouldn’t have had to work for it.

When I started reading this book I was already intrigued, because the main character was named after one of my friends. Before we started reading I was warned that there will be lots of words I didn’t know but I just thought that since I already successfully went through the odyssey, how bad could this book be. Turns out there are a lot of words I don’t know, but I’m actually happy because since I learned new words while reading it helped me on the Ssat. One thing that I have learned which I can translate in to my life from the book is that everything will not always be given to you. You’re parents might be giving you things now, but when you go to college and start paying bills you will have to work hard to get what you want.

The longer you keep you’re beast inside of you, the better it feels when you release it.

                                                               The worst day of  our lives  

                                                                    By Fru Nkimbeng 

A clean house is sign of no internet connection- unkown

“Yo yo yo squad up in ten”

“Bet let me hop on, I’m bout to cook you”

“Ha funny”

“Yo we have a problem”

“What”

“Fortnite isn’t working”

“Oh shoot it doesn’t work for me either, the servers are probably down”

“Wait noo, google isn’t working either”

“What is HAPPENING?”

“I don’t know bro, but this is not good”

“How are we gonna survive without internet”

“Hunny the internet stopped working again”

“Ah I’ll get on it. Stupid WiFi, never wants to work”

“ um dear I think there’s something wrong with the internet. I’ve tried everything but nothing is working”

“ aw shucks, looks like we’ll be having to live old school for a while”

“Bro what are we gonna do with no internet”

“We could go outside and play football or basketball”

“Ya but I would rather play fortnite”

“Imagine how fenn will handle this, we could barely survive a half day imagine a whole one”

“They might have to cancel school”

“Big facts”

“Alright let’s play catch I’m bored”

“Ok pass”

“ oh my god no hands”

“Shut up buddy that was a horrible throw”

“You know what this isn’t fun, I NEEED MY PHONE”. NOW. Let’s go inside it’s getting dark anyways”

“I know right I wonder how the old people survived without internet”

“ lol im pretty sure they used birds, typewriters, and pens with feathers on them”

“ lol wait since we don’t have any internet does that mean we are gonna be living in the dark and have to use candles”

“I don’t know bro but lately I’ve been having dreams about ghost coming into my room while I’m sleeping and if there’s no power, Tonight is not gonna be a good scene.”

“Ha bummer, your a 14 year old who still has nightmares about ghost, what a nerd”

“Shut up”, they don’t always happen just sometimes”

“Bro I’m tired let’s go to bed”

“ agreed, this day has been crazy, when the internet comes back, we’ll look back to this day and think about the things we did and how miserable we were”

“ ya lol, “Living old school”

“ I like that, that would be a great title to a story”

“Funny”

 
An overwhelming summer filled with basketball, Netflix, and fortnite.

It’s not summer if your not having fun and living your best life-Unkown

what’s better than finishing a really good show? Finding an even better show. Over the summer watching Netflix was one of my go to moves. After I finished  basketball workouts I was tired and I just watched Netflix until i fell asleep. That was until I finished Hawaii Five O. I was happy but I was also devastated because now I needed to find a new show. I spent days looking  for a new show  until I found naruto. Best show ever by far.This summer was not only a summer to remember but it was full of tedious basketball workouts, action-packed Netflix shows, and back pains from carrying my teammates in Fortnite.

  Over the school year, when the Flash had finished, I was so useless and sad until I found Hawaii Five O Unfortunately I finished it so fast that by the start of summer I was left again without a show to watch. I asked everybody for recommendations, until I was finally told to watch a show called Naruto. When I noticed it was anime, first thing I thought, was there’s no way I’m gonna like this. The reason why I continued to watch it, was because my friend Will told me too. Turns out I love Naruto and it is without a doubt top three in my list of shows. Naruto is  a Japanese manga series about a kid name Naruto Uzumaki, and adolescence ninja who searches for recognition from his peers and also dreams of becoming Hokage.

Over the summer I did two basketball workouts a day with my brothers and his friends. We usually started around ten, and ended at twelve. These workout were atrocious. I was leaving the courts everyday drenched with sweat. The second workouts were the best ones and they were from 9-12. These workouts I still left drenched, but they weren’t atrocious. The first workouts started with a suicide, then we jump right into handle work. BOOM BOOM BOOM SWITCH, BOOM BOOM BOOM MIDDLE. These drills were very tedious and I hated them so much. My hand was literally crying when we were done. The next drill we did was a shooting drill. Tween tween shot. You take five shots and you have to make two in a row to move on. This drill would’ve been way more fun if my hand wasn’t  burning. The last thing we did was footwork. This drill was basically doing jump rope without the rope. By the end my legs and arms were killing me. To end the morning drill I did a suicide. The second workout was way more chill and it was just basically scrimmaging and king of the court with the other people. 

Over the summer when I wasn’t  playing basketball or watching netflix, I was playing Fortnite. I either played duos Wjruth, or squads with Harry, Cliff and some xbox players. Now in Fortnite, I’m known as a top dawg. I usually average about 5 kills a game  and like 10 at most. Not gonna lie my teammates who played with me were trash. Over the summer me and Will used to grind all night. 9-12 taking dubs after dubs. He’s better than me at Fortnite, but that’s only because he’s an xbox player. Over the summer my best Fortnite highlights was when I absolutely merked Harry in playground. I’m talking about 14-7. It wasn’t even close. If you know Harry you know he was making a million excuses about how he wasn’t trying, but that didn’t matter because I had the screenshot, and this game will be remembered and sent into the history books. Another big fortnite moment over the summer was when Harry was on fire over the summer and had 15 kills with one player left. “He’s a noblet, sixteen kills on the way” Harry says.

“Your trash and he’s gonna kill you” i said. First shot went to the noob-80 damage to the head. Harry was stunned he had twenty health, and was panicking, but it was no use because before you know it Harry was dead. I swear I’ve never seen Harry rage so much. He turned of his iPad and got off of FaceTime so fast, I was shook. I tried messaging him but he just wasn’t responding. This game told me an important lesson which is to not judge a book by its cover.

Over the summer I always had something to do. Whether it was playing basketball, watching Netflix or playing fortnite, I was never bored. The best thing out of those three was definitely the basketball workouts because I knew I was getting better and I love basketball. This summer I think I really grew as a person in ways of leadership, and communication. I was way more active then I was last year and I got more accomplished which is good.

When in doubt never judge a book by its cover, and never ever quit because something is hard,

                                                          By Fru Nkimbeng             

                                             First homecoming football game.

The moment I stepped on the field, I could feel the excitement and adrenaline rush up my body. 300 plus people were here to watch me perform on the biggest stage of my life. I could see all the fans excited, and cheering me on while the team was warming up. I could smell the juicy hamburgers and hot dogs, waiting for me. I could hear the kids screaming and laughing in the big bouncy houses. As soon as the national anthem ended, i couldn’t hear or smell any of that anymore. For this is homecoming, and it is my time to shine in front of these people.

On Saturday, September 22, at 7:40am, I arrived at the Fenn School, in Concord Massachusetts in hopes of achieving a win on the biggest stage of my life. When I got to fenn I took a quick nap, and at 8:30 I played basketball in the gym. At 9 I headed out to rite aid to get a snack, since I hadn’t eaten breakfast. By 10, I sprinted past the boll building filled with excitement and energy. When I entered the locker room everybody was in there, and we were getting dressed while getting hype with music. After getting dressed, the team went into the MMR, to hear a few words from coach. He told us what we had to do, and that he knows we will do well because of the hard work we’ve put in. Now it was our turn to turn our hopes, and goals into reality.

I’ve been waiting since 4th grade to come to homecoming, but I’ve never given my parents a real reason for them to drop me off, but now that I’m playing, this is a perfect homecoming debut. The game started with us getting the ball of of an amazing return by Alijah. Now it’s time for offense to come in. I was so nervous and and scared when coach told me the ball was going to me for the first play.  When ty called the huddle and said 27 sweep, I just kept thinking to myself that everything will go well, and that I have nothing to worry about. We’ve ran this play about 100 times in practice. I should be fine. As soon as Joe hiked the ball to Ty, BOOM I  ran as fast I could. Turns out I got like 7 yards, which is ok but I wanted more. Next play 47 jet sweep lead to Alijah— oh man that boy can run, as soon as he got to the outside I knew nobody was catching him. When he got in the end zone I was right behind him to celebrate. Fortunately for us that was just one of many more touchdowns to come. At the end of the half he score was 22-0. Now since we are 12-14 year olds, were super happy and we are already thinking that we have this game won, but coach told us to keep on the tempo, and that the other team could score 22 straight on us like we did to them. At the end of the game we won 28-6. It was a great game, and I wouldn’t want to go through that experience again, with anybody else except my teammates, because at the end of the day, their my brothers and we stick together. 

 I had a really fun time representing The Fenn School in football this year for homecoming, and I will be make sure this isn’t the last homecoming I attend. This game was a good team booster, because I feel like we are more as a unit now after this win, and I  can’t wait to achieve more as a team. Pool party at coach Ryan’s house.

Turning our hopes and goals into reality

Three days filled with fun, excitement and a little regret

                                   By Fru Nkimbeng 

”We didn’t realize we were making memories, we just knew we were having fun-unknown 

“  THERE WILL BE NO SNAPPING OR CHATTING, WHILE YOU ARE IN MY CABIN”. On September, 12 2018,I and my classmates went on a field trip to Camp Belknap. It was a great experience, and I gained memories there that I would never forget.

The bus ride there was amazing, and arguably the best part of the trip. I sat in the back of the bus and listened to music on Harry’s speaker, while talking to friends. Harry finally gave me the speaker after I begged continuously, and let me watch naruto on it for everybody to hear. Good times. When we arrived we unpacked our stuff, and headed to lunch. The lunch was great and I was already thinking this will be a good trip. After lunch we had orientation to get to know everybody, and then we had free time. For free time  i went to the basketball court, (which looked way better than I expected) and played a game of 3 on 3 with Buck, Rain, AliJah, Daniel, and a counselor. It was really fun, as I was able to get my first basketball game won at camp Belknap.

After dinner I experienced something that was probably the best thing I did at Camp Belknap. We played a game called beeju ball. I know it sounds weird, but trust me when I say this game was honestly the most fun game I’ve ever played. It’s basically like soccer except you can’t use your feet, and you can use your hands. We split up into teams by cabins. Now I’m not gonna lie are team was horrible the first time we played. Horrible as in we got one goal and we did the worst out of all three teams. You know a game is super fun, that when you lose you can still talk about it as if you won or did well.

STOP TALKING AND GO TO SLEEP NOW. I swear to god my heart stopped beeping  when he came in. At around 9:30pm our counselor told us we should start getting ready to go to sleep. From the start we all knew we weren’t going to sleep at 9:30. Like we are 13 year old boys who haven’t seen each other all summer and you expect us to just randomly fall asleep that early without talking and catching up. Before our counselor left me and Harry asked him if we could use our phones to call our parents before we lose it. Now I don’t know what our counselor was thinking about when we said this but he absolutely snapped. He was like “you think this is a joke, this behavior is unacceptable, you guys thing your going to be snap chatting in my cabin, well news flash,THERE WILL BE NO SNAPPING, OR CHATTING while your here. Our counselor left he told us that at 10pm the lights should be off and we should be asleep. From 9:45 to 10pm, we were just talking non stop, telling each other jokes and stuff like that. We also played an intense game of rated r 2 truths one lie. It was hilarious to hear what everyone’s  lies were. At around 9:29 we decided to turn off the Christmas lights since it was bright and it was in everybody’s eyes. “ why dont we just turn off these lights” says Heinze, we all agree and as he is getting out of his bed to turn of the lights, the monster Named Mack rushed in and said “why don’t I turn it off for you. I swear, if we got a video of how fast everybody’s heads just slapped their bed and went to sleep you would be amazed. After turning off the lights Mack screamed at us, and said “ GO TO SLEEP NOW”. BANG, as he closed the door behind him. Crickets, the room was dead silent, obviously there were still a couple chuckles from people like harry, but almost half of the cabin just wanted to go to sleep.

One the second day we did lots of activities and has lots of fun. There were three main activities we did that day, and they were canoeing, low ropes, and leadership. I liked canoeing the most because it was something I had never done before, and I promised myself I would push to do something out of my comfort zone, and that’s what I did. We played another game of beeju ball, and this time our team won. We made a boat with cardboard, 2 pool noodles, and one role of tape. Tomorrow we were supposed to see who’s boat went the farthest without sinking. We also sat around a camp fire and said our goals for this school year before we went to sleep. It was pretty cool to hear what everyone wanted to accomplish, because now I know their goals and can help them achieve it, as they can help me too.

On the last day, we did the boat competition unfortunately our team lost thanks to Peter (just kidding, actually not really). Even though we didn’t win, we won the sportsmanship award. Then we had lunch, and packed out stuff and headed out.

Coming to Camp Belknap was really fun as I was able to spend time with friends but, it was also a really good learning experience for what’s coming to me ahead in my life.