I have been told I am to be the principal of my school for the day. First, I would make it Pajama Day. This is because who doesn’t like being comfortable and cozy all day? Wearing your pajamas to school also prevents you from having to get dressed in the morning. For me, getting dressed is very time-consuming. Secondly, I would make break and lunch longer. I feel like break and lunch right now are too short, lunch is 30 minutes, and break is only 10 minutes. If we have a longer break, we could maybe do some of our homework during break. We also would have more time to socialize and chat with our friends as well as eat. Another thing I would do if I were the principal of the day is I would make sure there is no homework. Homework just takes up more of your time outside of school when you could be doing something else. For example, your hobbies, like sports or hanging out with family and friends. If there was no homework, you would also have more time to just relax at home. When I’m principal for the day, I would shorten the school day by ending early and starting later. I would end the school day sometime around 1:30 pm and start school around 9:00 am. To make this happen, I would shorten the class periods. Since the holidays are coming up, I would make our winter break longer. I would also make us get out earlier so we wouldn’t get out so close to Christmas. This will give us more time to spend time with family. We could also help around the house to decorate. A final thing I would do if I were the principal of the day is let students pick their seats in all their classes for the day. This is important because some students only have a few classes with their friends and it’s important for them to interact with them. I understand if they are goofing off they shouldn’t have this opportunity but if they have behaved they should have this option. I would love to be the Principal of the day!

Once upon a time there was a monkey who loved to dance. Every day, he would perform a new dance for his fellow monkey friends. His fellow monkey friends however, weren’t interested in his dancing. Sometimes they laughed at him and made fun of his dancing. But the monkey didn’t care, he kept dancing because it was what he loved to do. One day, he wanted to show one of the other monkeys the new dance he came up with. The monkey had worked very hard on this dance but still didn’t perfect it yet. But the other monkeys just laughed and told him he looked goofy. He even told him he was really bad at dancing and shouldn’t do it anymore. The monkey was devastated. He had worked really hard on that dance. Dancing was his hobby and the other monkeys were making fun of him for doing what he loved. He didn’t like that and so he kept dancing to prove the other monkey wrong. There was no way he was going to let the monkey throw him around like that, he couldn’t quit. He danced for hours every day just so he could practice his moves. The other monkeys laughed at him and teased him day after day. But one day, when the other monkeys came around, the dancing monkey showed them his improved dance. Surprisingly, they liked it. They didn’t laugh or make fun of him. They just watched him dance. From that point on, the other monkeys never made fun of the dancing monkey ever again. Never let somebody else stop you from doing what you love.

In November, I read the book Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai. Inside Out & Back Again is a historical fiction book about a young girl named Há who has to flee her home in Saigon Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Há has only ever known Saigon where she has her very own papaya tree. Saigon is where her home is, her traditions her friends and everything she’s ever known is in Saigon. When Há and her family has to board a ship hoping to find a new home, she has to leave almost everything behind including her papaya tree. Inside Out & Back Again is written in a series of poems about Há and her family’s moving journey trying to find a new home.

I enjoyed reading this book as Há’s experience was similar to my grandparents. My grandparents also had to flee from Vietnam during the war and stayed in a Refugee camp, which eventually brought them here. It was interesting to learn more about that difficult time from somebody else’s perspective. Lots of the food Há and her family ate me and my family also eat. My family also celebrates Tết similar to Há’s family. During Tết we eat sugary lotus seeds and rice cakes. We also eat Báhn chưng and báhn cuốn. The imagery and descriptions make the items in the book come alive and help make a picture in the readers’ mind. The way the author used the five senses to describe what Há was experiencing at different times made me feel like I was experiencing what Há was experiencing. The author also did an exceptional job not only describing what was going on with Há and her family but also what was going on around them.

My favorite character is Há’s mom. Há’s mom is my favorite character because she always takes care of Há and her brothers. Even during rough times she always finds a way to support her children. One of her character traits is hard-working. A quote that proves this character trait is, “On weekdays Mother’s a secretary in a navy office, trusted to count out salaries in cash at the end of each month. At night she stays up late designing and cutting baby clothes to give to seamstresses” (14). This quote proves Há’s mom is hardworking because she is always working to try and make money so she can support her kids. On top of her job, she designs baby clothes trying to make extra money while having to raise four kids at the same time.

My favorite quote from the book is on pages 63 and 64, “Everyone knows the ship could sink, unable to hold the piles of bodies that keep crawling on like raging ants from a disrupted nest. But no one is heartless enough to say stop because what if they had been stopped before their turn?” I like this quote because it shows how everyone just wants to get to safety and even though other people know if more people board it could make the ship sink, they don’t want to stop them since if that was them they wouldn’t want to be stopped. I also like this quote because it shows the hardship of trying to feel from your home country.