Grace Ann Luna

Good listener

runner

active

caring

easy going

Amazing

nice

natural

Loving

upbeat

nurturing

academic

Dreams, Reality, and Nightmares

Reality is where you are now, what is real.

Dream aren’t real they are only visuals of what you want to happen

Nightmares are your worst fears of what could happen

You may want your dreams to turn into reality

or

your nightmares to stop being your reality

But in the end you always have to face what is real.

What is your reality like?

Motivation

What motivates you to get up in the morning?

Family?

Friends?

Fame or money?

What might happen if you don’t?

Or is it just the fact that you have to?

We all have something that motivates us,  

but what it it?

Summer

Summer starts once school is over

So celebrate with an apple turnover  

Summer is full of fun

And you get to spend time being a lake bum

What a bummer

when I have say bye to summer.

Fall

Fall starts once summer comes to an end

And all the leaves start to descend

Along with fall comes lot of  pumpkins

And some people act like  bumpkins

I might bawl

When I have to say bye  to fall

Winter

Winter starts once snow falls

And you can hang up the Christmas balls

It is  fun to play in the snow

And make some cookie dough.

What a killer

When I  say bye to winter

Spring

Spring starts once the weather gets warm

And soon the bees will swarm

It’s fun to dye easter eggs

And show off your legs

I will be glad to eat a chicken wing

When I say bye to spring

Running

Running is just the simple task of putting one foot in front of the other,

but we over complicate it with times, shoes, and gear

Really,

you just have get out and run.

Because when you finish,

You will feel like you have conquered the world.

Dogs

Not just man’s best friend,

but anyone with love and food to give is  best friend.

Not just a mess maker,

but a memory maker.

Not just a ball of fur,

but a warm hug on a cold day.

Not just a wet tongue,

but a face full of kisses on a bad day

Not just an animal,

but the best listener and motivator in the world.

Dogs are way more than you think.

They are your loyal friend for life.

Year-Round Schools

Are year round schools better or worse for students? Year round schools are starting to become more popular in schools across that nation. However are they better, or possibly worse? Last year there was a total of 3,181 schools that go year round in the United States. This number has increased a lot since 1987 when there was only about 1,731. Many people support the fact that school goes year round, while others think a solid two month summer break is best for children.

The differences at a glance are mostly the scheduled days, that school is and isn’t in session. Students with a normal schedule spend about forty weeks in school, middle of August until Christmas break. When students are back slightly after the first of the year, they stay in school until around Easter when they have a week off for spring break. Then another eight to ten weeks of school until they are out for summer break. Year round schools have breaks a lot more often compared to this type of traditional schooling.

There is three main calendar plans for year-round schools. There is  forty-five on/fifteen off( 45 days when school is in session and then a 15 days when it is not), sixty on/twenty off, and ninety on /thirty off. Year Round schools can also have different “tracks” that operate. This means that certain staff and student are in session while other are on break. Tracks solve the problem of overcrowding in large schools, and help them get the most out of their building.  

Some of the pro’s of year round schooling is that children don’t lose knowledge over the long summer break, a.k.a “The Summer Slide.” By eliminating the long summer break you can prevent the “The Summer Slide.” This also eliminates the need to reteach material in the fall, most teachers spend four to six week reteaching old material before they get to the new material Dropout rates are also three percent lower in year round schools compared to normal scheduled schools. The buildings that are used by year round schools are always being used and have constant use. The period of time that they are in school (six-eight weeks) the students  can focus on one main unit, and really get to know it without any interruptions. Having this kind of schedule provides a short break in between large units, so that kids don’t bored of sitting in a classroom.

While the schedule can work in great ways it also can be the biggest con. Childcare is hard to find, imagine finding a full time babysitter for only two weeks every six weeks. Family vacations, camps, and reunions are all normally planned in the summer. However when you are going to school in the summer it can be hard to set dates or attend these things.

Some other cons include having children in the same family on different tracks. In schools that have different tracks for students kids in the same family can be put into different ones. This means that one kid might be in school when the other two aren’t. This can create a lot of problems for parents.

Cost can always an issue in schools, year round schools tend to be a little more expensive than traditional schools. The cost of year round schools can also be an issue. Keeping the building running all year is costly. Lunches and bus drivers year round can get costly to.  The year round school would be ordering food off and on all year round . Bus drivers have a job for six weeks and then they don’t for two, some people don’t like that kind of work schedule.  

Athletics in year round school are the same as in normal schools. They still run normal high school seasons, which means football would still be in the fall and track  would still be in the spring. Practices and games could be hard to schuele, between others schools  that are or aren’t in session the same time as a year-round school. A plus side is that you could have practice during the day when school was not in session.

Year round schools are not something that is new to the United States. Year round schools  used to be very common in the United States. During the 1800’s when immigration was popular, year round schools purpose for opening was  to teach immigrant children how to speak English. Then during the early 1900’s year round school’s purpose changed, it now was used to fight overcrowding and underfunding for schools. In Bluffton, Indiana, one of their schools started the four quarter program.

The four quarter program meant four shorter learning periods with smaller breaks in between.  This program became very popular until World War II, then children  had to work on farms or in factories to support the war effort. Year round school didn’t really show up again until the 1960’s when Park Elementary School in Hayward, California, became a year round school. It is now the oldest year-round school, and is still in use today.

Now that you have heard the pros and cons of year round school, would you switch? Would you like going to school in the summer or does the thought of sitting at a desk in the nice weather make you angry? Whether you go to a traditional school or year round school, you are still getting an education which is important.

Broken Vases Lead to Broken Dreams Part 2

Ten years later, Harrison and I are applying to the Special Agent Academy to work for the FBI. Although we may never know what happened to our real parents, we can still follow in their footsteps to help the country.

***

When Harrison and I found out about the adoption, it took us a while to cope, but then we started to wonder if anyone else knew about our adoption. We went to the lawyers that helped our adoptive mom with the adoption. It took a month for us to get an appointment with the lawyers. In that month, though we were able to figure out what questions we wanted to ask and what we really wanted to find out.The lawyers didn't give us much information other than the names James Markham and Mary Guyer. James Markham was our parents’ other partner at the academy. He had had ideas of adopting us when our parents disappeared, at least that is what the lawyers told us. Mary Guyer was a name that I thought I had heard before, but didn’t quite remember. She turned down the option to adopt us quickly, the lawyer emphasised quickly when he said that. The lawyers also told us that there was a will and a next of kin agreement that stated if anything happened to our parents no funeral would be given, they would be cremated. We would be put up for adoption if something happened to them and we would find out that we were adopted when we graduated high school. Since we already knew we were adopted, they let us hear the rest. Included in the will was that if we we ever wanted to go to the Special Agents Academy, we would be accepted, and be enrolled free of charge.

We visited Mr. Markham a few weeks later. He didn’t recognize us, or understand why we were there. He took us to a very nice place for dinner, and he said some nice things about our parents. Everytime we tried to ask a question or get a straight answer from him he would dodge the question. Clearly he was hiding something, but I wasn’t about to upset a retired agent about my parents

The next person on our list was Mary Guyer. I thought that I had heard the name before a  quick Google search later I realized I was right. She was a teacher's aid at our school. She always seemed to move up the grade groups with Harrison and I, but I never thought anything of it. Recently I hadn’t seen her around school, but I am sure that she still worked there. Harrison and I went down to the school the day after we meet with James Markham. The secretary at the school was surprised to see us there during the summer, but thankfully let us into see Mary Guyer. She was on her lunch break, so we got twenty minutes to talk to her. She did the same thing that Mr. Markham did; dodged questions every time we asked one. However unlike Mr. Markham, she was clearly nervous about the confrontation of us and eventually broke down into tears. Reluctantly, she told us that she was paid to watch us at school, and did all throughout elementary. Our parents paid her “many zeros” to make sure no one but our “mother” got us to and from school. She also explained that she was occasionally given a face or a phone number to look out for. It was nice to know that our parents cared about us, but Mary Guyer wasn’t much help to us, or our little investigation. Eventually we gave up knowing that we would have to focus on schools.

After we found out about this, we began to think about what we really wanted to do with our futures. We could go to the academy and be like our parents, or we could find normal jobs and raise normal families. Harrison was reluctant to the idea of going, but after awhile he came around. I graduated two years before Harrison, so I got my college degree, and then he did. Then together we applied to the academy.

Within a day we got accepted  to the academy and were flown to Maine. The first day, we realized that we weren't the only brother sister pair, or the only daughter and son of a past agent. I quickly became friends with a girl Abby. She is apart of a long line of agents, kind of like me.  Harrison didn’t make friends as quickly as I did. Training wasn’t easy at the academy for Harison either. In fact, he spent a lot of time at the library. I wasn’t sure what he was doing, until one day, he left a note saying that I needed to see him in the library. Reluctantly, I went, and as I turned around the corner I saw him smiling like a kid on Christmas. He was surrounded by mounds of papers and files, all of which smelled like moth balls.

“What is all this?” I asked.

“This is all the old files I could find on Mom and Dad, our real parents! There is so many amazing things that they did. You have no idea! Spying on royal families, becoming pretending waiters for rich politicians, pretending to be a clueless tourist couple anywhere.”

He handed me some of the files.

“They were always in a different part of the world doing some amazing things,” he finished with a huge smile.

“Wow, how long have you been working on this? It's amazing, but how do you manage to focus on your studies?” I was shocked, but also confused

“I just get here early and stay late when I can. I have found out so much about Mom and Dad. In fact, that’s why you're here I found out something about them.”

“Okay. What is it?” I was still a little bit confused.

“I think I know why we never saw Mom and Dad again. There last mission was to capture a man named  Jeffrey Dahmer. The newer file on him says that he was never found. He was being questioned for capturing famous celebrities. I think he captured Mom and Dad,”  Harrison finished.  

For the second time in my life, my parents gave me the biggest shock of my life.

Broken Vases lead to Broken Dreams

We were just playing with a football in the living room. Then like all those stories in children's book we hit a vase. However this vase didn’t shatter on the ground it simply opened up, and a roll of papers came out. My brother wanted me to put them back, and forget what the papers said, but I wouldn’t forget. I wouldn’t forget when they said adoption across the top.

“Hurry and put them back! Mom will freak out if she finds out we broke her vase. Gwen just put it back together!” My brother was screaming now.

“Harrison will you please shut up. I need to find out which one of us is adopted, it is either you, me, or the dog.” I kept reading through the papers, you figure the name of the kid you were getting would be on the front.

“Oh my,” I was astonished yet relieved, “It's you, Harrison,you are the one who is adopted”

“No way Gwen, you are kidding, people say I look just like dad when he was younger!” Harrison’s voice cracked at the end like he was about to cry.

“Just relax,  a lot of kids are adopted. Maybe your birth parents are astronauts or spies.” I just tried to cheer him up now.

“Or what if they are criminals sitting in jail.” Harrison was bawling now.

Then I heard the garage open, and Mom’s car pull in. We had to put the vase back, but before we could pick up a piece Mom was standing in the doorway.

“What happened in here?” She raised one eyebrow which both Harrison and I knew wasn’t good. “You read the papers didn’t you. Harrison are okay?”

Harrison was still sniffling, and had a blank look on his face.

“I will tell you everything after dinner okay, you two are obviously old enough to know.”

Mom said this as she started to walk into the kitchen. We had spaghetti for dinner, which was both Harrison and I’s favorite dinner. There wasn't much talking during dinner we were both to worried about what mom was going to tell us. Something was wrong too, she said that “we both” were old enough to know. Did she mean that I was adopted too, or that we both could handle the truth about Harison? Finally we all moved to the living room where the sad broken vase was still sitting on the ground.

“This is what happened, when you father, and I got married we knew couple that lived across the street. There names were Dave and Jane Vano. They had a baby girl, which was you, Gwen” She continued, but Gwen interrupted her.

“Wait I thought Harrison was the one who was adopted ? Did we come from the same family?” I was shocked at what she said.

“Just let me finish what happened, and most of your questions will be answered.” Mom was trying to keep calm even though the kids weren’t.

“So the couple was very busy so we watched Gwen a lot. However when Gwen started pre-school they had another child, Harrison. We also watched him, and began to think of you two as our children. One day in November I picked you two up from school and daycare. Then like any other day I went over to the Vano’s home to drop you both off. When they didn’t answer the door I went in. Then I walked into the kitchen where they were talking loudly into phones, and typing furiously on computers. Once they realized I was standing in their kitchen with you two they stopped. They explained to me that they worked for the FBI as Special Agents, and that's why they were so busy. Then their phones and computer started to go off again, interrupting their explanation. Kate told us that I needed to leave with you guys, and she would pick you up later. That is what I did, I took you both home. I gave you guys dinner, and then let you fall asleep on the couch. Kate never came over that night, she didn’t answer her phone that night either, or in the morning. In the morning I went over to get you two clean clothes for school, and they were gone. Your parents took all there stuff, and their cars.” She paused and started to tear up. Harrison and I looked at each other. What are we supposed to do? Mom got up, and started to walk towards the kitchen.

“What happened after that? Did you find them? What happened?” I followed her into the kitchen. I had to know the end of the story, I had to know what happened to my real parents. However, what parents leave their two kids behind. Why wouldn’t they call? All the birthday’s and the milestones that they missed?

“I didn’t know how to tell you guys. That is why I hid the papers in the vase, so that you wouldn’t have to worry about it, until you were older and could handle it.” Mom had tears in her eyes.

“I understand Mom.” I said that to make her feel better, but in my mind I didn’t have a clue what to think.

I went back into the living room and got Harrison. We went upstairs, and I turned the TV on for a little while. We weren’t even watching the TV more like just staring at it,  trying to make sense of this mess. Finally I got tired of the boring reality show that was on, and turned it off. We both went to bed very solemnly still shocked at what Mom told us. I just laid in bed, in the darkness searching my brain for a logical reason.

When we awoke in the morning Mom was downstairs making pancakes. For a split second I wanted to pinch myself, and think that last night was just a dream. Then I looked at the pictures on my wall of our family vacations, the hope for new ones just seemed like broken dreams. When I finally rolled out of bed I realized that it was Saturday. Harrison would have a lacrosse game that afternoon, but Mom didn’t seem to remember that. She continued to tell us the story over breakfast about how she talked to the police about Kate and Dave. There wasn’t any leads about where they went, and the FBI said that if they were sent on mission they would be able to track them. She went on to explain that they tried to follow them for months, but never found anything.  Eventually she and dad decided to adopt us officially. It was very easy since there was wasn’t any other relatives that wanted to be parents of them.

“Did they ever find anything?” I hadn’t cried yet but was about to now

“No, they never found a trace of them,ever.” Mom was tearing up again. She told us to go get dressed for the game. We did go to the game, but didn’t seem the same anymore life didn't seem the same. After a couple days life got better, and after weeks life got back to normal for everyone.

***

Ten years later Harrison and I are applying to the Special Agent Academy to work for the FBI. Although we may never know what happened to our real parents, we can still follow in their footsteps to help the country.

To be continued.

A Shocking Surprise

A Shocking Surprise

Kelly stood at the front desk motionless. She had just named a puppy that might not live. Or that might already be dead. Kelly sat down though, on the awful waiting room chairs. Then she waited, she waited for three grueling hours.

“Kelly?” a nurse came out, looking around for Kelly.

“That would be me, I am Kelly.” Kelly stood up, and dried her eyes.

“Ok, let's take a set,” the nurse was talking in her soft talking to a child like voice again. Kelly knew that it wasn't good. “So this is what is going on. Blu has a infection that is spreading to his heart. But it has taken over his leg and we are going to have to amputate it,” the nurse paused.

“So you need to take him  back into surgery?” Kelly questioned.

“Yes, but I need you to fill up forms, and it can be risky. Are you willing to take care of the puppy through his recovery? It’s going to be very difficult, it will lots of time and money,” the nurse said in a

“Yes, I will take care of him. No matter what the cost is.”

Then the nurse walked away, leaving Kelly in a state of shock she had never experienced. Then something brought her back to reality, her phone. Kelly picked it up, it was her best friend Hope.

“Hello. Hello. Kelly, where are you? What are you doing?” Hope kept talking.

“What? What do you want?” Kelly snapped back into the phone.

“I wanted to know if you were still coming to the party. You know the one you planned, for Jessie’s birthday? You don’t sound okay, what’s  wrong?” Hope was starting to get concerned.

Kelly had completely forgotten about it the party, she had planned every detail of the event and now she wasn’t there.  

“I am sorry, I won’t make it. Everything is at my house, you can go set up. Wish her happy birthday.”

Kelly hung up the phone, and then continued to sit in the waiting room. Waiting, waiting for Blu.

〰〰〰〰〰〰

Hours passed until finally, the nurse came out, Kelly sighed for it seemed like her presence alway came with bad news. However this time it didn’t .

“Blu is doing okay,but you can't take him home for a while,” then she trailed off, “He is still asleep, but I think that you can see him. Do you want to see him.”

“Yes, I want to see him” Kelly replied.

“Okay, my name is Clara by the way” the nurse said in he “I am speaking to child very softly voice”

Clara then led her down a hallway to the back. Kelly nervously bit her lip the entire way. Then she was the door that had Blu written on it, Clara opened the door and they both walked in.

Poor Blu had been mostly shaved so only his head was covered with fluffy with fur. There was also many tubes pumping, and draining various liquids from him. It looked like something from a horror movie. She walked over to the table where Blu laid. Then she saw the stump, the little stump that was left of Blu’s leg. The sight came to such a shock that Kelly instantly started crying. She wasn’t just crying for Blu though she was crying for missing the party, and for being so reckless. All of a sudden Blu opened his eyes just a little bit so that you could see the blue. He looked at Kelly for just a couple seconds. She wiped her tears quickly, and started to pet his head. He closed them again slowly falling back asleep. That is all Kelly needed to see, that glimmer of hope from the little puppy. Just that little moment to hold on to.

Then the moment was over when Clara started to pet Kelly’s shoulder, and telling her it was time to leave. Kelly then walked back to the hallway, and back to her car. She checked all her mirrors almost twenty times before before backing out of the parking lot, and heading home. When she got got home went directly to bed.

Kelly woke up the next morning, to her alarm going off, and a pounding headache. She turned off the annoyingly cheerful alarm. There was a saw a missed call from the animal hospital. She knew that it was almost definitely going to be sad news, but she hope fully dialed the number anyway. While the phone rang she walked to towards the kitchen for some ibuprofen, and some coffee. However within seconds Clara was at the other, and perky than she had ever been.

“Good Morning, We are calling to tell you that your dog Blu is doing very well however he still needs to be monitored for the next three days. After three days he may be able to go home, but he has to rest for awhile,” Clara then started to talk about money and what the cost would be to have him stay. “Okay, that's everything the total cost coming to $2,300.”

“What?” Kelly was definitely wide awake now. She started to run through all the money she had saved. She wasn’t sure if it would be enough.

“$2,300 is the total bill for all Blu care. Do I need to run through it one more time for you?” Clara said in her soft voice.

“It’s just a little shocking, but it doesn’t really compare to the last 24 hours, I will figure it out.” Kelly replied

“Well okay then. We will call you if anything changes of happens. Bye,” Then Clara hung up, and Kelly sat down in the living room. As soon as she started to calm herself down her boss called. She answered, but he just ranted about if she was going to be gone she had to call before seven. She finally just hung up, and started to get ready. Then she went to work, but the day never seemed to be over. For the next three days she felt like that, like everyday would never end. When three days was over she called the hospital.

“Hello, this is Kelly. I am Blu’s owner”

“I am sorry we don’t have any animals under that name.” the voice was definitely Clara’s and she had the right number.

“I am Kelly, I brought in the white dog. He had surgery and then you let me see him.”

“Nope. I am sorry, but there is another person calling bye” then the phone went to a dead tone.

What had just happened? What was going on? Kelly started to panic, but instead of crying she headed to the animal hospital.

To be continued again