Month: February 2016

In humanities we did a project called “Who the Heck are You”. In this project we got to interview someone of our choice. After the fact you write a paper on this person. This process is not as easy as it may seem. It consist of five steps….

Step one: Choose five people you want to interview. Then narrow it down to one. The people I had on my list were, Peter , Jeremiah, Rohan, Margret and Van. I chose Van because I talk to him almost every after school when I go to the school basket ball games. So it would be easy to find him after school.

Step two: Once you have narrowed down your person you write them a letter asking for their permission to interview them. I tried to make my letter ask blunt as possible to keep it simple. I pretty much explained the project and then said availible dates. The hard part was not really writing the letter as much it was delivering it. I searched to the ends of the earth for Van but I could not find him anywhere. The one week I needed to interview him, he just vanished. So I finally came to the conclusion that I should just give it to Ilene. I gave it to Ilene who gave it to Mary to give to Tracy, to give to Van.

Step three: After you have done all of this you must come up with questions for your interview. I tried asking broad questions so that I can get big answers and then zoom in on the details and opinions. If I could go back in time I would ask questions with more detail and then zoom out on the bigger picture. It was very hard to think of what I was going to say next because I had to listen very closely to what he was saying. It took a second to form the of the question grammar and what the purpose was going to be.

Step four: Now it’s time for the interview. During the interview its pretty straight forward since you have been preparing for it all of this time. I just asked the questions and then did what I thought about in step three. Which was not just to think about the question but to think about the answer/purpose too.

Step five: The paper for me was the hardest part because it was my natural instinct to have the quotes be the whole interview. Then I realized I need to have my opinions in there too. That’s when I started to run out of ideas. I looked at Gus’s piece (my writing partner) and saw something inspirational. He did not use quotation marks HE JUST REWORDED THE INTERVIEW! That’s when I realized instead of having to weave my words in and out of the quotes I could just make them my own words. That way there wouldn’t be any thought into putting the quotes together. If  were to give someone advice when they were just starting their final heck I would say don’t just copy and paste the interview, make them your own words and your opinions too.

August 6, 1350

 

Dear Cousin,

 

I have done no sin. Though I have a friend named Samuel who has sinned a great deal. We have been living in a paradise for too long. The devil is upon us, he has made a consequence for us when we sin. I know you have not sinned but the devil travels from sole to sole. By now you probably already know about this deadly disease. But if you haven’t run, run faster than you could ever before, or the devil will find its way inside you. Do not quarrel I am fine. For the king has sent to my health. After all, he owes me his life. Never buy anything from this kingdom, or from this town or the town before this one. God had given us this golden era but we did not give back enough to him. He has turned his back on us.

 

By now you definitely have children. You are twenty years of age. I hope I will get to see them before they sin or…. if they sin. Out here there is someone who is working on a cure for the Black Death. His name is Guy de Chauliac. The King is paying a great deal of gold for this man. He worries me. Nobody in their right mind would want to be in the same room as the devil. This town used to smell sweet and I could sit anywhere and feel the soft grass. Now all the grass is stained with blood and stiff. When I sit down to enjoy the village there is always a dead person in front of me. I don’t like this town.

 

The king wants to entrust this land to me because he is going on a pilgrimage to Saint Santiago de Compostela. It is said if you kiss one of his bones you will be reborn as a better person. I’m not actually sure why he wants to go but I know one thing for sure. I would be damned if I take over this disgusting Kingdom. Everytime I walk into anywhere there are twentie beggars at my feet. I feel bad though, has god not sent to their health. If I ever rule a kingdom I will make sure there are no poor.

 

I was talking to Guy, he says there is actually a whole science behind the Black Death. Although I try to stay away from that guy he’s actually very interesting. He said something to me the other day about how he found something out about the miasma. I actually still don’t understand that. But the only thing that I wonder about is his methods. I know that you have to let the sickness flow out of your body. But that should only take a few cups of blood. He sometimes slips up or maybe he does this on purpose. Anyway his study is coated with blood. The worst part is though that since he works right under the king he works in the castle. All night all I here are the screams of his patients. But it’s better if you can hear their screams though, because if you don’t it means his patient died. Don’t get me wrong he’s a blessing to be here and on top of that, finding a cure to the devil’s curse. It would have been better if his study was not next to mine.

 

P.S I will only tell you this if you swear your loyalty. I think the king is dying. The other day I heard him coughing. I can’t tell for sure if he has the Black Death but it’s bad.  

Sincerely Henry Feathercave

Yesterday for three hours we have our first guild meeting. We learned about different layouts of medieval Architecture. As we learned about it, we made blog post. For the first hour or so we worked on developing our back story. In the future we are going to make a medieval village.