Category Archives: Blog Posts

Features Week: Oct 24

Features Week continues!! Thanks to all of you who have rated posts, voted on the Harry Potter Poll, and left comments! Of course, you still have all week to do so. Two of my posts have been rated so far; but I need more ratings before I can upload a new feature onto the sidebar. Keep rating! (I’m not asking for a perfect 5 stars, either. It’s your ratings that help me improve, and I need truthful feedback where it is due.) Five people have voted on the Harry Potter poll (I’m not counting my own vote) – let’s shoot for five more before the end of the week! So far, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the most favored of the seven Harry Potter books.

Okay! New updates to the site:

Journal tab – I have deleted the ‘Journal’ page because I don’t update it often enough, and I no longer think it is necessary. Now that I am writing true ‘blogs’ as posts, I don’t think I need a ‘Journal’ page taking up space on the site. What do you think?
Tags – Some of you might have noticed these already; but I am now giving almost all of my posts ‘tags.’ This means that I am tagging them with specific words so that, when searched, the particular post will pull up. (This particular post is not tagged, but if you scroll down to the ‘Wakulla Springs’ post, you will see my tags listed under the title.)
Categories – The second thing you’ll see in the left sidebar is the list of ‘Categories.’ I deleted the ‘uncategorized’ category and set up a ‘videos’ category instead. When clicked on, it pulls up the 4 videos that I have added to this site.

Again, leave comments! Quick question: What would you like to see on this website? What do you think would make it better? If you have a suggestion (and don’t be shy) please comment on this post to let me know. I’ll see what I can do.

– Brooke

Features Week: Oct 23

Hey everyone! Starting today, Saturday, Oct. 23, Brooke Harrison’s Features Week is in full swing. What does this mean? Well, I have decided that during this week (Oct. 23 – Oct. 30) I will focus completely on revising this blog. Already I have made quite a few changes to the sidebar, and I will continuously add new features and revise things where I see fit, so be sure to hit the refresh button several times while you are viewing the site. 🙂

Changes I have made already:

Sidebar (pretty obvious – just take a quick look)
Harry Potter Poll – I’ve already written a post about this, but I’ve only gotten two votes. 🙁 (And sadly, one of them is my own.) So vote now! This poll really interests me.
Ratings – I am really excited about this. You can now rate all of my posts and even my pages (links along the top). To do so, click on the title of the post, and scroll to the bottom. You will now see five stars with a message beside them: ‘Rate this.’ When you roll over the stars, it displays the rating. ‘Very Poor, Poor, Average, Good, Excellent’ are the five choices.

Please! Rate as much as you can (if you want to). Just explore the site and rate some of the various poems and blogs. When I get enough ratings, I can add a new feature to the sidebar displaying the best rated posts. That will be added sometime this week!

Thanks, guys. Comment and tell me what you think about the new features!

– Brooke

Harry Potter Poll

Hey everyone! I know I haven’t had much to post; but at least I can create new polls. I just posted a new poll (same location as the book genre poll) down at the bottom of the left-hand side-bar. ‘Favorite Harry Potter Book.’ Vote now!!

– Brooke

Poll

Hey, everyone!! I just added something new to my blog: a poll! I’m pretty excited about it…just scroll down to the bottom of the page, and the poll will be the last thing in my sidebar. Please vote on your favorite book genre. Hopefully I’ll come up with a better poll soon! 🙂

– Brooke

First Article

Hey guys!! I wrote a post earlier about being on the Leon High Life Staff, and I just recently finished my very first assignment! I’m really excited, and I was going to post the link earlier….but I forgot. So here’s the link to my first feature article: http://www.leonhighlife.com/?p=1953

If you have the time, go ahead and read it. 🙂 If you have even MORE time, check out the rest of the website! All of the writers are really great and really talented. If you’re a student at Leon High School, the website gives extra info about what’s going on at school that you might not hear about during the day.

Awesome!!!

Yours very sincerely,

– Brooke A. Harrison

Wakulla Springs

Hey everyone! I just wanted to tell you a little bit about my day at Wakulla Springs. 🙂 It was a lot of fun – and I actually went off the high dive 10 times!! A new record! It may not seem like much – especially because we were there for about 3 1/2 hours – but my old record (beginning of the summer) was 2. So I’ve definitely improved.

I’m telling you what – there’s nothing like pushing your limits and personal goals to boost your ego. That high dive did it for me. I stood there for about 30 minutes debating whether or not to jump, but later it made me think that the high dive at Wakulla is like every other situation in life.

You can stand there and think about it, or you can jump. That pivotal moment before you decide to spring off of the ledge (and it’s 13 feet down) is like…heck. It’s pretty important. But I realized that sometimes, you can’t think. You just go. You just do.

I had jumped off 4 times already, thinking that I was done, when another family climbed up the stairs and stood there wondering whether or not they should take the plunge. The oldest girl, who I learned was 13, was a lot like me. She would step to the edge, and back away quickly when she looked down at the water.

We tried to tell her how much fun it really was, and I pinky-promised her that I would go again if she would. I wound up jumping off twice more for her – 6 times. She still wouldn’t jump. I knew that everyone else had felt the same way about me, too, but eventually I jumped. This girl didn’t jump. She was up there with us for 30 minutes, maybe more, and then she had to go. Her parents gave her one last chance to jump, but she didn’t. She took the ‘walk of shame’ back down the stairs.

That frustrated me. From the moment I arrived in Wakulla, I resolved to jump off of that high dive. Even if I stood there for the entire 3 hours, I would have done it at least once. I wound up jumping 10 times, like I mentioned earlier. Point is: I knew that girl would regret it if she walked away.

I don’t know that for sure; maybe she’s glad she didn’t go; but I know I would have regretted it. If I hadn’t jumped, I wouldn’t have had a good topic to blog about. If I hadn’t jumped, I wouldn’t be able to sit here now and think about the other fears I might soon face.

Just saying.

Leon High Life

Hey everyone!! I just wanted to let you know that I am now on the staff of the LEON HIGH LIFE NEWSPAPER! If you don’t go to Leon, you can still check out the Leon High Life Online, which I will also be writing for. Here’s the link: http://www.leonhighlife.com/ If you DO go to Leon, the Leon High Life Online is still a great way to find out what’s going on at the school. We’re trying to update it every day! I got my first assignment today, so I’ll let you know when my feature article is online! I’m so excited.

– Brooke! 🙂

Check It Out

Okay, so I called this post ‘check it out’ because I really didn’t want to title it ‘FYI.’ I’m getting a little tired of those. However, ‘check it out’ makes sense too because I just updated the ‘Scharred’ page and I think you all should check it out if you’re interested!!

– Brooke 🙂

SAVE THE DATE!!!

Okay – I am EXTREMELY excited about this event!!! I am going to be having a book signing at Borders on Apalachee Parkway on August 7th at 10:00 in the morning. I can’t wait and I hope a lot of people show up to support me – that would REALLY make my day. Both of my books will be on sale, along with more info on Book 3, which I am still editing… 🙂

I’ll be available for questions and conversation; I’ll speak at a certain time to anyone who cares to listen! I really hope everyone is just as excited as I am; I am going to be counting down the days!! This is the sort of thing that I have always dreamed of!! 🙂

– Brooke