Scurrying and scratching. Sounds I wake up to every weekend. I glance at my phone and the time reads eleven o’clock. I search for the sounds and find that my mom came into my room earlier and turned on a heat lamp for my lizard. Jack is his name and after being heated by the warm glow of his light he is excited and is running around his cage in a vain attempt to get out. I slowly get up, groggy from sleeping too long, and get changed into clean clothes. I peer down into the cage and Jack stares up at me with almost a smile on his face. I decide that I couldn’t leave him in his cage on such a beautiful day so I take of the lid and grab him in my hands. Jack, being all active, decides to use me as a jungle-jim and starts to climb all over me. He finally settles down on my shoulder as if he were a parrot.

            I open the door to the outside of my house and shield my eyes from the bright sun. I sit on my front concrete stoop and set jack down in the grass. I keep my eye on him to make sure he doesn’t run away. Jack sees the green grass and he start to eat. When he decides he is full of grass he begins to explore the large outside world. He glances up into the sky and sees a hawk. Thinking it will swoop down and take him away he quickly scurries into the garden where there is more protection. As he moves through the garden he eats any small moving thing he can find. Jack then happens upon a large grass hopper and begins to destroy it. I cringe to the crunching sounds coming from my pet’s mouth. Deciding that Jack has been outside for long enough I grab him and begin to bring him inside. He is upset that he has to go in and tries to worm out of my hands. I finally get him up to my room and put him in his cage and close the lid. He looks up at me as a little kid looks at their parents after they have just been grounded. I feel bad to leave him in his cage for the rest of the day so I get him back out and let him run around my room. I am not worried about leaving him alone because I know that he will just find a corner and fall asleep and that is exactly what he does.

Some things you just can’t learn by hearing and seeing, you have to practice them for yourself. When I was in elementary school, before we were able to join band, I already knew what instrument I wanted to play. I wanted to play the trombone and it seemed simple enough to learn how to play it. Once I joined band I realized that learning to play the trombone was not going to be as simple as hearing the notes and watching someone else play the instrument. Practice was necessary and I spent many nights practicing all of the different positions and notes. Some nights I would get so frustrated I would think of quitting the next day. As I grew older I became better at playing. I learned all of the notes and also how to march while playing in the marching band. Here I am now a senior in high school and when I get handed a new piece of music that I have never seen before I am able to play it very well.

My book is White Fang by Jack London. The book is about the survival and life of a dog named White Fang that lives in the Yukon. I have read this book before but I decided to read it again because it was a very good book.

Hello. My name is Cody Lamphere. I am 18 years old and am a senior in high school. I'm not in any sports, but I am in the marching band. I like to play videogames and to hang out with my friends on the weekends. I have many pets including a bearded dragon, which is a type of lizard, named Jill.

Having an open block is cool and it is also weird. It doesen't feel right leaving school in the middle of the day. My open this semester is on 3rd block so if I don't eat any lunches it can last for two hours. I guess I'm just not used to opens yet.