The 2023 Donnelly Stock Simulator

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In Language Arts this year, we had a stock simulator. We did this simulation because of one of the characters in the book we were reading, The Westing Game. We spent up to $20,000 on publicly traded stocks on the New York Stock Exchange. I invested in Visa, JP Morgan Chase, Berkshire class B stock, IBM, General Electric, and Amazon. Visa was by far the worst stock I invested in. I calculated that if I had invested in the other stock I was considering for that slot, investing the same amount of money, I would be at about $2,300 dollars profit. I instead ended up at $-85.76. This project did open my eyes though to how volatile and luck-based the stock market is and why.

My Ted-like Talk

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In Language Arts this year, one of the final assignments was the Ted-like Talk. This was a project where we( Mrs. Donnelly’s students ) talked about a topic we are passionate about for roughly 5 minutes. My topic was chess, a game I have been playing since kindergarten. I originally was not interested in this project. As it went on though, I realized that I had to put some effort into this project if I wanted to not mess up the end of my year.

The Process:

As I started to make this presentation, one of the things I realized very quickly was how much I needed a script. Making a 5 minute speech without having a script memorized or in front of me would be a recipe for disaster. After a few days of work, I completely pivoted my focus on my slides to my script. This was pivotal *Joke not intended* in my process. I did kind of improvise based on how I was feeling the day of the presentation, but the script kept me concise and on track. The other plus of having a script was testing, as with a script I could accurately test some components, such as the time length of my script. 

The Presentation:

The day had come, I could no longer put it off. On the 22nd of May 2023, I presented my Ted-like Talk. I had barely prepared beyond writing my script. I slowly trudged to the front of the classroom,  and after a deep breath, gave my speech. I was initially disappointed, as there was limited interest from the audience and because I panicked towards the end, and  rushed through, or skipped, or improvised the whole end. I quickly realized though, that I had a lot to be proud of, and that this project improved some skills that can be used in many ways, such as public speaking. Overall, I think this project, even though it came at a busy time in the year, was a good improvement and learning opportunity, if taken.

Some Major 6th Grade Projects

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In Mrs.Donnelly’s 6th grade class this year, we did activities. A few of which I will talk about today.The first task I will talk about is the book The Last Cuentista and the importance of stories and sharing. In the book, Earth is no longer habitable, and the agency that brought the main character’s ship to a new planet wiped all memory of culture, stories, and anything not of us scientifically. 

Except, they failed to do so with Petra, the main character, and she tries to keep stories going. While not being caught by the memory-wipers with a misguided view of humanity. This book tries to give the message that stories bring us together. That is a precious thing.

Another activity we did in class this year, was writing about our ideal world, you can see mine in a previous blog post:   https://29cyruspo.edublogs.org/2023/02/23/my-ideal-world/

My ideal world tried to get the maximum pleasure out of life, by taking out anything that would take away from pleasure. It involved robot servants, customizable houses, and a lack of violence, or firearms. I think this was a good way for some to see how they could change the world for the better. I was one of those people, even though my ideal world included a lot of ideas that are impossible.

The third thing I will talk about is book-making with Peg Gignoux. Ms.Gignoux is an artist who came into DA and helped us 6th graders make books to fit with our Ideal world projects. To be honest this was not my favorite LA project, but it seemed to be delightful to many, so I would recommend the experience. The first step in book-making was to print colors onto old scraps of paper with a leaf in between the ink and the paper. This caused some crazy designs! Next, we folded some paper  so it would be in a book format. We then collaged the inside of the book a lot,  And got a great book, once we glued our covers onto the book.

From all of these projects, the conclusion I got was that stories, art, ideas are precious components of human civilization, and using them, we can get a better understanding of the world, us, and everything in between.

Persian Recipe

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My favorite assignment in the 2022-2023 school year was the Persian recipe. This assignment was in history as a learning check for the Persia unit. I liked this learning check as it helped me use my knowledge in a way that was creative and fun.

The assignment was simple. You write a ‘recipe’ where the ingredients are things that made the Persian Empire successful. I think it wasn’t only fun, but gave me a good challenge in exercising multiple parts of historic thinking. The recipe I used was invented by me. It is titled “Persia Glop”and includes many delicious ingredients. Such as holy relic M&Ms, liberation salt, and hierarchy candy corn. We are yet to do the final part, in this part we make an elevator pitch to the class, so we can present our recipe in a concise way. This was my favorite assignment only by a bit, slightly beating the electric house assignment from science. In conclusion, this was a fun activity that I enjoyed greatly.

 

My Ideal World

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Welcome to Earth But Better! This planet is just like earth! Except for a few things! Both minor inconveniences and major world problems are eliminated! This planet has not yet developed guns or any other way to kill people. Money also has not been created yet. People are immortal, with the ability to opt out. People can’t get bored of the many pleasures offered. Foods that are decadent, delicious, and insanely unhealthy all have their Earth qualities, but are the healthiest options if hungry.

All houses have whatever included to the preference of the owner. If the owner likes basketball, a basketball court will be added, if the owner likes gardening, then a garden shall be added. Additionally, all houses have a large yard In both the front and back. And robots dwell in houses as servants and chefs. These houses also have built-in garbage disposal systems that purge the trash from existence. This doesn’t violate the rule that energy cannot be destroyed, because the energy is used to power these energy-consuming houses. Houses are built and then given to young people who have not yet been assigned a house, but are old enough to take care of themselves.

Jobs are very different from Earth jobs, because of the lack of a monetary system in this society. Jobs on E.B.B are chosen by people in their final year of college. And a part-time job starting at age 16. There are quotas and limits for each job, and there is a complex process for switching professions in the case of disgruntled employees who despise their job choice. But it is complicated and tough, causing a limit to the overall job switching. As long as a job has been chosen, it doesn’t matter what it is. As a result, the workers are provided food, water, shelter, and electricity. Jobs have some of the biggest differences from their earthly counterparts.

In society, appearance, height, ethnicity, and any other thing that cannot be controlled by a person are not a basis for any form of discrimination. This is tied to a bigger, more general improvement. The improvement is that humans are kinder on this planet. This is my ideal planet. In my opinion, I think that this planet would increase the happiness and prosperity of humanity. 

Field Trip

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Field Trip

On January 27, 2023 the 6th grade of DA went to the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.It started with the bus ride. It was not as quick as I thought it  would be, but there was no shortage of entertainment, with scattered time-killers, conversations and chants of, “71 bottles of beer on the wall.” But that all ended when we got to the museum.

When we got to the museum, the first thing was a lining-up of all classes. When we were ready, we went in. When I came in, the breeze of the air conditioning brushed past my face. I noticed the massive, majestic dinosaurs, the stuffed animal specimens, we toured those for about 30 minutes, then we went upstairs to the habitat exhibit.

In the habitat exhibit, we toured mountains, underground, Piedmont, and coast. But the most breathtaking thing was looking down at the dinosaur exhibit we had previously seen. We looked at models of animals hunting in their natural habitat. We also had our first but not last run-in with the Robbins’ group. We then crossed the bridge to the atmosphere exhibit. There were many simulation games, such as the climate change regulation simulation along with a MASSIVE screen showing environmental patterns of Mars. There was a window to a lab studying ants! We then went to the third level of the building.

On the third level, there were exhibits about meteorites, weather, and a lab open to the public. I was most captivated by the meteorites. We were supposed to write about the meteorites, but my group did not have pencils which took that responsibility off my shoulders. The lab was crowded so I did not get the opportunity to use it, but from what I have heard, it was an amusing experience. The weather activities were not as interactive as I thought it would be, which made it less interesting.

After that, we went to the RACE exhibit. On this one we had pencils to answer questions with unlike the meteorite exhibit. It was eye-opening in many ways. It had many posters addressing things that are rarely thought about for many, such as environmental racism. An important  thing I saw were the faces on the posters. It makes me more pensive when I associate issues with humans, and that helps me do that.

 

After that, we rode back. The bus ride back felt quicker than the first, but somewhat the same. When we got back, we dropped off our stuff in Ms.Stanbury’s room before going out to the playground for recess.

Overall, I think this trip was worthwhile and the 6th grade teachers should consider bringing next year’s 6th graders to the NC Museum of Natural Sciences.

Window or Mirror?

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My book, The Hate U Give is a window. A window is a book that exposes you to a perspective, experience, or setting different from anything you have ever done or seen before. Unlike mirror books which you can relate to on some basic to large level. It is a window as not only are the events things I have never experienced, but the setting is also not close to my experiences. For example, Starr’s friend, Khalil gets shot for talking back to a cop. I have never experienced anything close to this event, and that happened in the 2000s, when this book is based, an era that I have not seen, heard, or felt. I like window books more, as they both expose me to things I seldom do, and really make fiction more educational and imaginative from my point of view.

I started reading this book because Cayden was reading it, and I thought it sounded good when we went around saying the title of our book in Language Arts. The genre is fiction. The author is Angie Thomas.

Antlers

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The wisdom tale that I chose was called Antlers.

Antlers is one of Aesop’s fables. Antlers is a story displaying that nothing is useless. The main character is a deer that loves his beautiful antlers. But those antlers end up almost getting him killed, but his ugly legs save him. Showing him that truly nothing is useless. While I could have chose many stories that show this message, I chose Antlers as it has the most fun, concise and interesting way of displaying that message. The way that I made a project out of this story, is I made drawings in Sketchbook, I then put them in ComicLife3 to make a comic out of the story.

The 2022 Midterm Elections

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The 2022 midterm elections.

The 2022 midterm elections are a group of elections that include 35 senate elections, 435 house elections, and many other local and state elections. This is an overview of those elections.

Senate

The 2022 senate elections are very close. The Democratic party currently controls a paper-thin majority of 51-50 with a tiebreaker. They were seen as likely to keep this majority in late summer as anger over abortion fumed, but the Republican party was surging ahead of election day with an increasing focus on crime. But those two opposing forces have made this race for a majority a tossup.

These are the 7 main swing races, the party that gets a majority of the 7 is very likely to get a senate majority.

Arizona: Incumbent Democratic senator Mark Kelly was predicted to have a 73% chance of defeating his opponent,  Republican Blake Masters.This was a good campaign for Mr.Kelly, despite this being a midterm election which is usually unfavorable for congress members of the president’s party and the fact that Katie Hobbs, the democrat candidate for governor wasn’t polling very well. The race is looking like a democratic victory, but the race has not been called yet.

Georgia: Incumbent senator Democrat Raphael Warnock had a 47% chance of retaining his seat against Republican Herchel Walker. This race has been filled with the candidates not arguing over policy, but over each other’s questionable personal lives. The result was a runoff to occur on December 6th. A runoff occurs in most southern states when no candidate reaches 50%. No candidate was able to do that, as the libertarian candidate got 2.1% and neither Walker(48.3%), nor Warnock(49.6%) reached 50%. 

Nevada: This race had incumbent Catherine Cortez-Masto in an uphill battle to defend her seat against former attorney general Adam Laxalt. This race was seen as the greatest Republican opportunity to flip a seat. Harry Reid who had made a large democratic turnout machine was gone. The Culinary Workers union was weakened because of mass layoffs.This race was one of the last races to be called and the result is not known yet, but Adam Laxalt has a very slight lead.

New Hampshire: Incumbent Democrat Maggie Hassan who won her seat by a minuscule 1,000 votes 6 years ago ran for reelection against Don Bolduc, a far-right candidate. He was a weak candidate for a seat the republican party had high hopes for flipping. In the late summer this race was considered as an overwhelmingly democrat-leaning race but in the fall Republican surge, this became a fairly close race. But in the end, Maggie Hassan had a large victory of 10% to retain her seat in the senate.

North Carolina: Ted Budd was predicted to have a 81% chance to keep a North Carolina senate seat for Republicans as Sen. Richard Burr retired. His challenger was former state Supreme Court head justice Cheri Beasley. Ted Budd won, but Cheri Beasley was very close, following a larger North Carolina trend of republicans winning, but usually without comfortable margins.While Democrats were hopeful that they would get this seat, them losing wasn’t a major setback.

Pennsylvania: The TV doctor Mehmet Oz was fighting to keep Pennsylvania’s senate seat red, and replacing retiring senator Pat Toomey.

His challenger, John Fetterman was trying to change that with an emphasis on working-class voters. This race many considered to be the closest race in the whole senate. The result was a fairly large victory for John Fetterman. This race had big questions about both being able to effectively represent Pennsylvania. John Fetterman had a major stroke in May, and his performance at the senatorial debate only amplified those fears, bringing his chances from fairly high, to toss up.

On the flip side, Dr.Oz only moved to Pennsylvania in 2020, and many accused him of carpetbagging.

Wisconsin: Senator Ron Johnson was predicted to have an 83% chance of defending his seat vs. lieutenant governor Mandela Barnes, but this ( behind Pennsylvania) was seen as the 2nd most likely Democratic pickup. This race was a nail-biter, but Ron Johnson  came out on top with a margin of roughly 1%. This was the 4th last race to be called.

The overall senate result was: Well, we don’t know yet. The Georgia race is going to runoff, so results may not fully come in until December. But so far, the split in the 7 races is 2-2.

House

The 435 separate house races in the United States of America hinged on a few swing races, the latest redistricting made maps more fair, but restricted the swing races to only a few. Republicans were favored to win this race, but the predicted margin shrunk a lot. Coming into summer, Republicans had hopes of picking up a lead of 50 seats, but as the midterm year went, that hope shrunk. Now, 3 days after election day, the predicted lead for republicans has shrunk to around 10. In this coverage of the house, I will mostly cover why that matters, and not the specific races.

Republican Kevin McCarthy is the likely house majority speaker. But the midterm elections threw a jam in that possibility. The small lead has caused major problems for him, the house freedom caucus, a group of far-right congressmen and women are asking McCarthy to move to the far-right if he wants there vote for speaker.

This, ironically, has Democrats giving Far-right republicans MUCH more power.

Another strange thing going on in the house are races like the Montana 1st, Colorado 3rd, or many suburban districts in New York are close, or even flipped. And districts like those are traditionally partisan districts that were not expected to be close.

For example, the Colorado 3rd district was listed as a very very likely win for Rep. Lauren Boebert, but it is one of the closest districts in the country. This made the house very hard to predict this year.

As of right now, republicans have been called in 211 races, but Democrats are right behind them at 198. The control of the house rests on who can get to 218 first. As of right now, Democrats    are behind, but they have over performed in the other races, so they cannot be counted out yet.

Governor

In the 2022 midterm elections, 36 states chose their governor.

This was a crazy year for governor races.

Some had Republicans being competitive in states like New York, or Oregon, and some had democrats winning Oklahoma. But overall, (at least so far) only two states have flipped, and those states were both republican-held in blue states. As of right now, 3 races are still up for grabs, Alaska, Nevada, and Arizona. But a notable trend I think, is democrats keeping their states that they gained in the blue wave of 2018. Such as Kansas, were kept by democrats. So overall, Democrats over performed.

I think the main explanation for this has been Donald Trump’s major influence on the republican party’s candidates. Many of the candidates he has chosen  have lost, and even candidates he did not directly endorse tended to have more far-right views because of his effect on the Republican party.

 

Secretary of State

While usually an obscure position, the secretary of state has increased tracking this year, following Donald Trump’s claims of voter fraud. The secretary of state certifies results of elections, so in key swing states like Nevada, or Arizona, or Georgia, it matters who is in that position. Here are the results.

Georgia: despite HEAVY from Donald Trump, Secretary of state Raffensperger wins fairly easily. Raffensberger denied Trump when he asked to get the results in the Georgia presidential result overturned.

Michigan: Democratic candidate Benson easily wins.

Nevada / Georgia: Democrats hold slight leads but still too close to call.

Hopefully this guide has showed you the trends, patterns, and wins of the midterms of 2022.