Humanities

I woke up this morning and immediately I heard the grunting cries of the camels, slowly drifting over the dunes.  That is my wake up call.  Soon after, I wake Shabanu, Phulan, my wife, Auntie and my two nephews too the platform for the call to prayer.  After, my wife, Phulan and Auntie get the meal ready while Shabanu and I make sure everything is ready for the day.  Once we come back to the hut, we have a quick breakfast of Chapatis, goat milk and dried dates; Than we set off, out into the desert.

Once out of the inclosure, we Make our way towards the toba, since it rained a couple of days ago, the water edge has gone up about 8 meters[26 feet].  The wildflowers, trees and shrubs have grown magnificent, and now as I go to wake the camels; Shabanu takes guluband, many baskets and buckets and goes out to collect Figs, dates, Prunes and many other foods from the trees and flowering bushes; she then goes to collect water from the toba.  She does hat run a couple of times and we thank Allah from the bottom of our hearts; and start to sing, “Allah-o-Akbar, Allah-o-Akbar.”

As the day wares on, and the sun reaches its climax, Phulan Comes from home with cold chapatis, goats milk and Dried Figs, Prunes, Dates and other nuts.  We then go back to herding the camels, and Shabanu and I, pass the Indian-Pakistani border and talk and talk so much, that we find ourselves about 18 kilometers[33 miles] away from the huts.

When we arrive home, everyone is so worried because we were supposed to be home over two hours ago.  Even though we missed but they did the call to prayer, we do it again.  It lasts an extra 20 minutes, because we have to say our apologies to Allah, for being  late to the call to prayer.  We eat a quick dinner, and then go to bed.

Bright pink cherry trees

New born animals walk by

Beautiful days pass

This is one of my haiku’s. A haiku is a 5, 7, 5 syllable poem.  You can count the syllables in the poem, by feeling how many times your chin moves for each word.  When writing haiku’s you need to have comparison, contrast and word play/puns.  A Japanese haiku has a part called a kigo, the kigo, is a word or line that refers to a season.  See if you can guess what the season of mine is?  (right the answer in the comment section.)  When you are making a haiku, you first have to come up with a topic, and then find the specific amount of words and syllables.  I feel that the process for me was tricky, because this was my first ever haiku.  I feel that one of my strengths is being able to come up with ideas.  But I feel that a challenge I have, is being able to confine my words and phrases to the specific syllable count.

I like my pieces that I wrote this year in creative writing, because I feel that I can write about pretty much anything I can do.  I am proud of this piece the most, because it is the piece that I got the most creative with.

Magicians

It was gray and dull with a cold january wind whipping down the small one way street.  It was quiet except for mumble of people talking, munching and clicks of chess timers.  A door across the street from the small park starts rattling.  The door suddenly slams open.  Behind the door there is a huge golden lawn with flowers and trees, with golden sun pouring onto the lawn.  Out of the mist and dew a man walks out.  He is tall, about 6’3, dark skin and bald.  Straightening his suit, he walks onto the street, cautiously looking up and down the block.  He then walks across the street and when he is on the other side, he flicks his hand and the door closes.  He pulls a newspaper out of his pocket sits on a bench that is falling apart, but when he sits on it, it magically rights itself.  After a couple of minutes he looks up from his newspaper and looks around as if he can sense something different.  “Malorie, what is it?”he asks into his newspaper.  “George, it is happening, he is stirring.”  George looked up from his newspaper to see a lady in a close cut red velvet coat.  Malorie stares at him and grabs something from her pocket and stuffs it into his newspaper then she disappears in a swirl of leaves.  He opens the newspaper and sees a dead moth weighing about 20 pounds and 2 feet long.  Quickly he walks back through the door and from the opposite side of the bench where George was sitting a man in a thick coat, quickly walks away.
“Dude, come over here.  What are you doing sitting there alone?”  The voice came from a lady with deep black glossy hair, that was going down her back.  Bright red lips,  in a tight white belly shirt.  With a cigarette in her mouth, it was hard to hear her.  She beckoned to him (Quin) to sit on the couch next to her boyfriend and her.  Quin shook his head instead walked into his tiny little room.  WIth a sigh and a groan he layed down on his bed and took out a book, called: The Vartonlos.  The Vartonlos was a book about a magical wizarding family, they lived in a big mansion, around the 1800’s.  TO BE CONTINUED…

The reason I decided to interview Micheal Lipman, is because he is a relative that I am related to but do not know that much about.  I decided on my interview questions, by thinking deep into what he has done in his life, and what I think is interesting.

Revision is what you do after editing.  If you edit it, then you look over it again and look for CPSS (capitals, punctuation, spelling and sense,) that is what revision is.  You can do revision many, many times until it is perfect.  that is what revision is

REFLECTION

There are two brothers, Will and Horace, their parent gathered about 20 kingdoms under their strong reign.  These two brothers hate each other to the very last thread.  One day when Horace decides he has enough, he gathers a army, attacks the castle and leaves.  Then  —well read to find out—-…

Characters:

1. King Merek
2. Queen Alianor
3. Will
4. Horace
5. Sister
6. General
7. Random Kings and Queens
8. Servants

Sneak Peak(and setting.)

This story of great woe and battles take place a long time ago in arabia with a king and a queen who bore two twin sons that hated each other from the bottom of their heart.  But like most stories, there will be a nice ending.

The kingdom is in peril, the serfs have rebelled against their lords.  Kids have rebelled against their parents.  Worst of all the brothers of all wealth have rebelled against their rich family.  There is no way to stop it but one.  This one was is true love. Because most stories should have a good ending, this one will.  The two people who are in it are, we find our two main characters, Will and Horace in their home, a long, long time ago, in a land far, far away…

It was a time when the land of Arabia was blessed.  There was peace woven all throughout the kingdoms.  The serfs and peasants obeyed they nobles, lords, dukes, barons and kings.  In the center of the kingdoms there was one greater and more prosperous than all of them.  The kingdom of Corépash.  It was a combination of 12 kingdoms turned to one by King Merek the great and his wife Queen Alianor the great.  These two lovers had conquered all these kingdoms all due to their wits and perseverance.  The two great ones (as they were called) had two sons and a daughter, Horace and Will (the daughter wasn’t important.)  The two sons of the great ones, took little bits of each of their parents personalities.  The first born one, Horace, was the tough and brave person like his father.  The other was the kind, witty, easy-flowing, obscenely smart, wise, intelligent and a very handsome person like his mom.  These two brothers fought all of the time to win over their parents love and admiration.  When Horace was born he stood up and started walking around grabbing a spear from the side of the room and stabbing pillows.  When Will was born, he politely motioned for clothes, dressed himself and started singing for his parents, Alianor and Merek.  Will was the favorite of the two children and he was always the one to be praised, looked at or known first.  Poor Horace just sat out in the corner and skulked about everything that was wrong with him until he found a solution.  It took a lot to make this decision, but he had to do it.  Quietly for the next month, he gathered and recruited people to his small mini army.  A couple of months later, he walked up to the gates of the castle in full armor with 1,000 archers, 3,000 infantry and 1,000 horseback riders.  He attacked the castle full on with hundreds of instruments to break the 12 city walls.  The walls seemed to hold as if by magic.  They were, because Will learned how to do it in his thousands of scrolls that he read about magic.  But Will, Horace, the army, the King and Queen and even the townsfolk knew that, the magic couldn’t hold out forever.  One night, Horace snuck into the castle, under the cover of darkness with 20 other men and dispersed them throughout the castle telling them to kill anyone they find except, Will, the King, the Queen or the head servants and/or maids, if anyone bowed down to them they took them up in chains, in a procession behind them.  When all his men had gone, he went into his brother’s room, to find it all stripped clean, he went to the library(same thing), he went to the academy and every living space, it was all cleared out and nothing was left but a few curses floating around to get rid of Horace.  Then he went into the place where he was born, and found his parents sleeping soundly.  He made his prayers and then took up his spear and swung it down toward his father’s beating heart.  His spear was about to touch the flesh when his arm stopped in midair and his spear cracked.  Then as he turned around he saw Will red in the face and screaming, right before Horace got lightning blasted in the chest and face.

20 years later, Horace and Will had split up the kingdom what they had deemed evenly.  After Will had zapped Horace, he tied him up and killed all Horace’s soldiers roaming through the castle.  He then teleported Horace and his army to their new kingdom, after telling them the new deal that the two brothers had made.  All of Arabia soon learned of the splitting of the two kingdoms.  They sent out their huge armies on Horace, only to be killed and demolished by Horace’s unwavering army.  If they sent an army against Will, it would never make it past the boundaries of it’s own castle before being incinerated.  This is how the two almighty brothers went along, soon they married and had children but never did their hatred of each other end until one day, coincidentally, they thought of the same idea at the same time all across the forests, deserts and seas. WAR!!

These two brothers were long sworn foes of each other, they still went along.  Raising armies of great might and strength.  The Battle toughened warriors of Sir Horace and the wizened magical beings of King Will.  The two brothers met in battle on the fields of Asphodel(named for the fields covering greek god Tartarus.)  They met, sword to staff, knowledge to intelligence.  And the day went on…

When Horace’s army marched onto the field, all of the country men and/or other kings and queens who either were in the castle or watching through portals trembled for fear of the massive wall of shining metal and tough men.  These soldiers had been through many battles, killing many poor people who were not submissive to Horace’s now 38 kingdom strong reign.  But when Will’s army walked, flew, swam, glided, floated or whatevered onto the field of battle, sea of battle and air of battle, even Horace grimaced at the sight of the soldiers who had been fighting to make wills reign, 56 kingdoms strong.  Soon from the lines of the army you could see the two  brothers Will and Horace plus a close ranking or important person to them.  Horace bringing his first follower and Will bringing up his dad, Resigned king Merek.  The battle was gruesome for some and glorious for others.  Horace’s army led the attack by sending 32,000 horsemen and 70,000 infantry.  They clashed against the strong tough warriors known as vikings,  after the 10 waves came back there were only about 200 horsemen and about 70-100 infantry left.  When the Vikings returned, 79 out of the 113 of them were alive. Then Horace brought on the next wave and by the end of the day there only 30,000 of Horace’s troops and still Will had millions of creatures willing to fight.  Then Will raised a horn made out the horn of The Devil.  The horn was the deepest black and shone brightly a deadly glare.  If you looked straight at it, you would be paralyzed and if you weren’t treated within 10 minutes you would become a minion and follower of the owner of the horn.  After “The Horn” touched Will’s lips, a rich bellowing sound came out. From the ground rose thousands upon thousands of waves of the dead.  Then when he blew the horn again four times, they came to a halt, lowered their weapons and walked to the sides of the field.  Horace quickly rode up on his horse with 295 of the best and most experienced foot soldiers and horsemen.  Together Will and Horace in the middle of the field of battle and set-up a table for them to make a treaty on.  Exactly as they were about to shake hands, a song of the muezzin came floating through the air and wisped away the clouds to reveal sunlight.  Immediately, the carried out carpets and they all prayed, following the third pillar of islam, the Zakat.  After the negotiations ended the brothers did something they had never, ever done before, LOVE, HUG AND SMILE AT EACH OTHER!!!

It has been many, many years since the battle of Thoth (or so called) took place.  There is peace in the land the two brothers rule in harmony after their dear parents have passed.  One day their servant comes running.  His burden is a scroll and he carries a golden trumpet and a dagger.  “Sir,” he says, “Tremor has brought his armies into your territory….”

 We went to the cloisters on Friday, 1/15/16.  It was so much fun to see a life size diorama of a medieval cloister made into a museum by placing in artifacts from other cloisters and castles.  We went on a crisp winter day that was just the right temperature to eat outside.  When we were done with lunch we silently walked to the cloisters.  We spent an hour in the cloisters looking around at all of the artifacts.  WE learned so much and it was a lot of fun.

When I wrote my Parzival essay after reading the book for multiple weeks we had the assignment to write a 5 paragraph essay, one introduction, three body paragraphs and one conclusion.  I am proud of the way I wrote it again without a lot of complaints and I was also proud of the way I wrote within one hour and still got approved by my mom and an english teacher.  I learned a lot of different ways of how to write an essay in this project, it also helped me build up stamena and perseverance.  I think that it helps I have a goal to set.  this is my essay:

Parzival was a boy in the middle ages.  A boy in the middle ages, if they wanted to have a good life must have been born from a wealthy and/or royal family.  They needed to have sense in battle, be smart and/ or strong.  In the book Parzival by Katherine Paterson, it is clear that Parzival determined his own fate because he asked his own questions, he decided to become a knight on his own and he chose his own wife.

One of the ways that Parzival decided his own fate was by asking questions.  Parzival was a good question asker and he really had to be good at it or else he would have gotten nothing done in life.  When Parzival’s life was “full of joy” (as stated on page 100) he left his home to go out into the world.  Soon after he met a young maiden whom he asked a question that changed his view of things.  The question, on page 15 states the following, “Tell me lady, what is the matter?  Why do you have such a sad thing in your lap?”  He later finds out that the young maiden is his cousin, and when they meet again later in the book they pretty much save each others lives.  In the later stages of the book, Parzival finds himself after many hurdles of life, wandering lost in the forest surrounding the magical kingdom of, Wild Mountain.  There after many long months stumbling through the forest he stumbles into The Hermit, Trevrizent’s cave.  After settling down, changing and resting he has a conversation with The Hermit.  Parzival asks him on page, 102, “You were in the presence of the grail?”  He finds out that he and The Hermit have a lot in common, they both saw the grail and they find out that The Hermit is Parzival’s uncle, the King of wild mountain is also his uncle and a serving made there is his Aunt.  Sadly his mother died in the time when Parzival was away, but Parzival has to tough through it.  The thing to pick up is, that it is not bad to ask questions because it helps people learn new things and that is always important.

Parzival decided to be a knight because of his own decisions.  On page 8 Parzival is on the road and meets up with some knights traveling through the town on a mission to rescue a maiden.  After asking them a couple of questions he runs to his mother on page 9 and “tells his mother all that he and seen and heard.”  On page 27 after seeing king arthur at the round table he meets up with the red knight and insists on the knight giving him the armour on his body.  Ither the, Red Knight refuses after hearing, Parzival say, “The king has given me your mount and your armor.  And if you are wise, you’ll hand them over at once.”  Then Parzival kills the Red Knight and takes the armor for himself.  It was very important for Parzival to decide his own fate from the very beginning because he had a dream and wanted to follow it, part of his dream was to be a knight, the other part was to have a good wife.

Parzival decided followed his own dream by choosing his own wife.  On page, 33 after training with Prince Gurnemanz for “many months”, he turns down the offer “to marry his daughter” (on page 33) politely looking hopefully for a nicer princess or queen.  He goes to a city in the farther reaches of the Arthurian Kingdom and after defending it from enemies and two huge massive armies on pages 39-45.  Then the queen, Condwiramurs gets married to Parzival and has, “his two twin sons” showed on page 123.  This shows just how capable he is with women.

In the end it is possible to see that Parzival determined his own fate.  Along the way Parzival did some good and some bad. If read correctly, the book should show Parzival as neither a hero or a villain.  Parzival should be found like he is a river winding comfortably in between two cliffs.  Parzival teaches people good and bad, right and wrong, what and what not to do.  Parzival should be a strong role model because he like every human did wrong, then fixed it and compensated for it by doing something better.  That is the kind of person everyone should want to be.

When we read Beowulf this first semester, we had a couple of things that we had to do and one of them was annotation.  When we did annotation we had to underline important parts, symbolism and similes and metaphors.  We had to circle vocab and define it and at the end of a chapter we had to make a summary as short as possible while explaining the whole chapter though.  I think that annotation is important because it allows you to look back and focus more on the book.  I am proud of the well I underlined important parts.  I really want to improve on not reading ahead.

We did a lot of things at Ashokan, one of my favorite things was blacksmithing.  In blacksmithing  we had a choice to make three things, a heart shaped trivet, A fire poker or a plant hangar.  I made a plant hangar.  It was so much fun hammering 2,800 degrees metal into awesome shapes.  I learned at Ashokan, better friendships and how to play basketball.  Last year, I really did not get that much outside time because I played a lot of D&D this time I spent more time outside.

In this activity we were broken up into pairs and we had to look at this homework assignment to understand what to do:

Our #1 Goal: Using evidence in the form of quotes, we will create detailed drawings of characters and settings to better help the whole class understand the book.

Must haves:

• A list of both internal and external characteristics:
  • Internal= personality qualities (brave, timid, deceitful, etc.)
  • External= physical qualities (tall, brown hair, crooked teeth, etc.)

• At least two quotes from the text that directly related to your drawings (remember to cite your source!)

• Color
• Detail
• Evidence of effort
• Evidence of being an excellent collaborator
• Have fun!

DO NOT GOOGLE! You are forbidden to Google any images of these characters or settings. Remember: Anyone who has ever drawn anything from this book used the text and their imagination. This is your job too. Maybe, since you’re such good readers, you’ll even do a better job than some random person on the internet!

I am really proud of this piece more than a lot of others of mine, because I think in this project me and my group had a lot of fun and laughed a lot, unlike any other projects but we got everything down by the time it was due.

The thing that I found challenging about this project, was that we were not allowed to get anything wrong on the poster because we were getting all of the info out of the book.