This is my Fabric Collage. I like it because it shows that I am in the Art Guild very well. It also shows my master work in my guild, which is Bookmaking. I think something I wish I could change on this piece is it shows a lot about my guild, but not that much about my character. My character is from Italy, so I showed it from the colors of the paint, but I think I could show more. Overall I am really proud of it.
I chose ragtime because it was really interesting to me as a style because I thought it would be a challenge for me to compose. Researching ragtime was hard because ragtime is often categorized as Jazz or Blues so I got more information on Jazz than I did on Ragtime. It was also hard because a classic ragtime song only uses the grand piano, but we had to use a lot of instruments. Ragtime also is usually played by very skilled pianists and is very complicated to compose. From Research I learned the main instrument of Ragtime is the Piano, most of the melodies are chord tones, and how to create a ragtime bass line. Composing Ragtime is really hard because it is such a complicated style of music. You also always have to go back and delete things because they don’t sound like Ragtime. It was also very hard for me to use the electric piano, and that was really hard for me. But then Matt told me I could change it to the Grand Piano, It was a lot easier for me to make my piece sound like ragtime.
I noticed that the amount of vegetables we ate went down, which is interesting because we already were not eating enough, and then it went down. I think that is because if we are trying to eat more of other foods, something else must of went down. Grain pretty much staid the same, but we ate more fruits. Dairy went up, and protein went down.
Recently, in class, we have been doing a project called Who The Heck Are You? In this project we have been focusing on interviewing someone either in this L.R.E.I. community or a family member. I chose Lizbeth, a teacher in the Lower School. She runs something called Early Birds, which is if you are in the lower school and you get to school early and you need somewhere to go, you can go to Early Birds. I used to go to Early Birds everyday. The first step of this project was choosing who we wanted to interview and writing a letter to them. I knew I wanted to interview Lizbeth, and went straight to writing a letter to her. I chose Lizbeth because I knew her well but didn’t know much about her past. In the letter I explained the project we were working on, and explained why I wanted to interview her. I talked about how I think that a lot of people wanted to know about her. I was right, considering that I wasn’t the only one interviewing Lizbeth. Click here to see my choices for people I wanted to interview.
Questions
Once I had sent my letter to Lizbeth and she had responded saying good times for us to meet, I started brainstorming questions to ask her. I mostly wanted to know about her life before she came to New York, and tried to make that the main focus of my questions. In conclusion, I focused all of my questions on just trying to get to know Lizbeth. Click here for my questions
Interview
I interviewed Lizbeth on a Wednesday, next to her office. I used my phone to record all of the things she said. I learned a lot about Lizbeth didn’t know before. Did you know she won volleyball championships? That she was born and raised in Lima, Peru? Do you know that she considers her job she has now her dream job? I didn’t know any of this walking into the interview. She told me interesting stories about her life before working here at L.R.E.I. that I didn’t know about before.
Step 2 Doc
The next step in making this Who The Heck Are You? piece was to get together my main ideas from our interviews. Dave, our teacher shared with us a document that helped us with exactly that. We started by listening to our interview, and finding the important parts and jotting them down as the main ideas. We then looked at that and created grabber statements, and closing statements. The hardest part for me was the grabber statement. I started with the grabber statement What is it like to grow up in Lima, Peru? but then with a little help from my writing partner, I changed it to Have you ever been to Lima, Peru? I am really happy with the way it turned out. Click here to see my Step 2 Doc
Final Piece
Finally after creating a letter, thinking of questions, conducting and interview and completing the Step 2 doc, I could start working on my Final Who The Heck Are You?piece. It took a while, but it was really fun. We also participated in a peer editing study. We edited our partner’s work and we were partaking in a study. Click here to see my Final Piece
Recently, we did a writing piece where we wrote a letter from someone in the plague years to another person. In mine, I wrote from the perspective of a Queen, writing to her lady sister. I tried to make the letter as realistic as possible. She doesn’t have the plague, but her husband, Sir Charles died of it. Here is my letter:
December 8th, 1348
Dear Sister,
Oh sister, how I miss your sweet smile. Has the Black Death come to you? I hope not and I wish you well, since it has darkened my step. How is Lord Henry, your husband treating you? I have not seen you since the funeral. Let me confide in you, and please do not tell anyone. Now, I must not lie, I was happy my husband, King Charles of France, died because he was a Sinner! How else would he have gotten that sick? And plus, it means that now, I am the Ruler of France, and I have say over everything! I even had a new window built in the solar that I used to share with the King.
Oh sister, what you have missed! Let me tell you. Once Charles died, and I was crowned Queen and the rightful ruler of France, I got the blessing of the Pope coming to congratulate me on being Queen! Oh, how I love calling myself that. The day he came, I was dressed in a lovely dress my maid sewed for me. It had silks from China, and only the finest material. When “His Holiness” arrived, my servants greeted him at the door and I let out a small cough. Before I tell you the rest, I must describe Pope Clement for you. I know everyone says he is the only person that can save us from this horrible sickness, but I think that that is just a lie to cover up how incapable he is in this time of Satan! I think he is the reason so many people are dying. Sinners are dying of course, but I know good people that are sick; why should the good suffer? If only women could be Pope, I believe I would make the best one, but we know, sister, this shall never happen. Let me tell you what he did. The Pope looked at me and declared “SINNER!” My reputation has been infected. I coughed, and only coughed once; I truly am not sick. There is talk of me being ex-communicated! Me! How horribly rude! Imagine me, a peasant? Why, that just sounds impossible. I still have command over all my townspeople, except for these horrible men that whip themselves and each other and make everyone stand and watch! Why, they must stop, for they are scaring people away! They say they’re doing it for God, but I do not believe it. They call themselves the Flagellants. If they were really for God, they would just stay inside or farm the lands! And their wives, rubbing their blood all over them, why they are the real Sinners! I should have them executed. They run in our churches, disrupting prayers. Disrupting Prayers! Tis as if Satan has taken a human form.
Our town is being polluted. Every time I look out that new stained glass window with dyes from India of course, I can almost make out underneath the shining blue glass piles of revolting dead bodies. Beautifully blue tinted, but revolting none the less. These people have bumps, lumps and scars covering their entire bodies. I can smell their vomit from my window. I can hear the kids screaming when they pass them. The glass is so clear tis almost like I can their boils from my window. Some have blood pouring down their stomach. Why, and their families left these bodies and never buried them! I would never think of doing things in this manner. I guess it just must be my royal blood.
I can not talk about this any longer. Maybe I should tell you about my new silver dining table, or even the gold plates I have acquired from the King of England. Maybe you’d like to hear about the new silk gowns I have gotten! Or at least, the new Cockatrice I taste every night. Or my lavish 22nd birthday that all the Queens and Kings of neighboring lands came to. But, I know it will make you sad, since you are only a Lady, you cannot acquire much of the finery I have. I guess your Bronze table will do. Let me tell you something, but do not repeat it to anyone, not even Lord Henry. The new window I had built in the solar? Well, the man who designed the stained glass window was Jewish. Jewish! No one told me, but once I found out, I had him executed. I smashed the window he built and had it rebuilt by all Christian masons. I was worried God wouldn’t forgive me for letting him design it, but he did. Well, after I also had the people who brought the Jewish Man in hanged. But, I fear he has cast a spell over my land. Please do not repeat any of this letter to anyone, because I fear it could be the end of me.
Oh my dearest sister, these are very black times indeed and would be so much more tolerable if I had your loving presence to guide me through these dark days.
Stella was waiting in another really long line for pencils. The cashier came back and said, “A pack of pencils is 150 pencils. I’ll give you 18 while your waiting in line.” What is the percent of the pack of pencils Stella was given in line?
Stella was was waiting in another really long line to get a pack of pencils. The pack of pencils was 500.00$. She was told she could skip the line if she paid an extra 8 1/2% of the pack of pencils. How much did Stella pay to skip the line?
Stella was waiting in line for a pack of pencils. The line was very long. A cashier came to the people waiting in line and said, “I’ll give you now in line 20% of the pencils you will get at the end of the line.” Stella was given 40 pencils. How many pencils is a whole pack of them?
Is fate real? It’s not. When you drop your pencil is it fate, or are you just clumsy? Sorry, but you’re clumsy. You get to where you are because of the choices you make. In the book Parzival by Katherine Paterson, that is not true. A young boy travels through the medieval ages following his destiny to become king. Like I said before, fate is probably not real but this is just a story. Parzival is a written character and who is not real. Katherine Paterson meant for this all to be fake and so for Parzival, every little pencil drop was fate.
Parzival rises to power because of the start of his journey. On page 9, Parzival runs into horsemen. He doesn’t understand who they are or what they are doing. Fate is when something peculiar happens that suddenly makes a change. The whole adventure would not of happened if he had not run into those knights on the street. It was fate for him to run into them. He would not be king if he hadn’t left his house that one day on that one moment. That is why it is fate. Fate helped him in ways that aren’t really noticeable. It wasn’t his own freewill to leave his house on that day. If his fate was to become king, and the knights started the journey to become king, the knights scene must be fate. Not only was Parzival’s journey started by fate, he also had fate help him in more ways.
Parzival became royalty because fate guided him throughout his journey. “Your mother and and mine are sisters.”page 16.The lector of this line was Parzival’s cousin. Isn’t weird to see your cousin that you’ve never heard of, didn’t know she existed, but she still was a major part of your journey. Think about this, what if everything was meant to happen? This is the idea of fate. Things like this don’t just happen in this book. If he hadn’t met his cousin, he wouldn’t of went the wrong direction, and everything would change. He wouldn’t know who his cousin was the second time he met her.He probably would of went the right way and maybe had a different approach on the scenario. Maybe Arthur would of then made him a knight and he would never become king. That is why fate happens. Not only did fate guide him through his journey, fate is also the reason that his destiny was fulfilled.
Parzival became king as a result of fate because his fortune was to become king. “You are destined to become to be the Grail King.” page 118. The orator of that line was Cundrie, a sorceress. Parzival’s destination was to become king. If he got to be king, that meant that fate won. If he had a different ending, that meant he used freewill. But he didn’t. He became king, and he wouldn’t of became king without every decision that he made. So all the decisions were fate! If that was true, then fate not only guided him throughout his full journey, what was said to become of him happened. Fate played out. Every small thing that happened helped him become king, so it was fate when he met his brother. It was fate when he met his wife, cousin and when he killed that lark. All those things played into him becoming king, so those things must be fate. That is why Parzival is royalty.
Parzival rose to power because of his destiny. Maybe that is true for everyone, but it is for him. His whole life is a series of unexplainable things happening to him. You work for things, and that is how you make you destiny come true. Not for Parzival. That is why Parzival drops his pencil, and why you drop yours too.
That is my Parzival Essay. We have recently been working on this in class. At the beginning of this project, I was 100% sure that Parzival got to where he was because of freewill. But, then we had debates. We were in teams of five, and had a debate over if Parzival got to where he was because of fate or freewill. I was hoping for freewill, but when they flipped the coin, I was on the fate side. Not by choice. We started our opening statement with some evidence, showing how this or that must be fate. When it was the freewill side, I heard their argument. “No one told Parzival what to do. It was his choice.” I listen to them speak and I try to think of a comeback, and it hits me. I was thinking about Percy Jackson, a book I read in third grade. In this book, Percy’s fate is to make a decision. The decisions you make can be fate! I let them keep talking, not even caring. I hear the dogs go off. It is my turn. “I got this.” I whisper to my team. “I noticed you said that no one told Parzival what to do. Are you implying fate is a person? Because it’s not. Fate isn’t something that tells you what to do. Your fate could be to chose this over that. Fate can be to make a decision.” I see the judges nodding their heads in agreement, “My fate could be to make this choice, which in Parzival’s case was 100% true. Those choices you used as evidence, well, those choices were fate.” I finish, proud of myself. I let my other teammates talk, and they bring up really strong points too. Once our time is done, I listen to the other teams point. “No one told Parzival what to do. It was his choice.” They were repeating points already proved wrong. I knew that moment that we had won, and luckily the judges agreed. From then on, I knew that fate was the answer. Now that I had proved freewill wrong, I couldn’t go back to saying it was right. And that is how I started my Parzival essay.
In music recently we have been working on a composition in something called Soundtrap. In my song, I asked Meadow and Io to record something on my piece and they recorded the beginning. The I added a drum beat and used Noteflight to make a melody. After that, I wrote a part for Dave to play on my piece. While waiting for him to play it, I added it to my song so I could work the rest of the song around it. Here my song is: