Category Archives: Cattafi

Shabanu Culture News Post

Culture In Pakistan

By Marlowe, Oliver, and Olivia

Pakistan is a hotspot for culture. Visiting, you have chances to try new food, go to shops, buy clothes, and do many other things. If you are visiting make sure you bring Pakistani rupees because that is the common currency.  A dollar can be traded in for 164.69 rupees.

Above is a chapti. Chapati  is a common food in Pakistan. It is a flat bread similar to naan. It is a very simple recipe and it is very delicious. All you need is whole wheat flour, oil, water, and salt. But if you don’t want to make it, go to Pakistan and get it there! While you are there be sure to visit the shops, with clothes, and foods. You can find these at almost any street. Pakistan is drenched with culture!

Biryani is also a popular dish in Pakistan, there is also thariri which is the vegetarian form of Biryani. To make it you need basmati rice, chicken, fried onions, chopped mint leaves, sunflower oil, and strands of saffron soaked in hot milk.

Image result for shahtoosh scarfPakistan has a good sense for fashion too. Some common clothes you might find are, shatooshes which are made of fine underfur of the tibetan antelope. Shatooshes are very luxurious.

“I walk through the shop, looking at the woolen shawls stacked neatly, the soft colors mixed together like in and pull a woolen shawl from the pile.” Pg. 71 of Shabanu.

Shatooshes are extremely expensive. Some can be up to 15,000 dollars which is about 1,570,425 Pakistani rupees. This may be caused by the rarity of Tibetan Antelopes.

Pakistan is packed full of culture, so if you ever go there you should try their food, fashion, and be one with the culture.  

Phulan Blog Post

Marriage Doesn’t Always Work the Way you Want it to…

by Phulan

Tears came out of my eyes when I heard that the man I was going to marry was dead. I didn’t get to even meet Hamir, but his parents and family were so nice. Most of arranged Husbands and their families aren’t very nice, but I was lucky enough to meet a  family and a husband who was kind and Dadi said “Hamir is noble and strong and handsome.” (pg 146) Hamir’s family also owned a large piece of land. But one day when Shabanu and I went to the canal to get water, Nazir Mohammad a land owner at the village of Mehrabpur was with some other men. Nazir wanted some of our land, but we wouldn’t give it to him. Dadi warned us about Nazir, so after the group tried to attack us we ran and told dadi. Dadi said to pack all of our important things and go to Derawar and he’d meet us there. Dadi was going to fight off Nazir with Hamir and Murad. Then when we were almost at Derawar, a ranger gave a message to us that everything was fine and we should go back to Mehrabpur. Dadi and Murad were fine, but they said that Hamir got killed by Nazir and his men. I guess that Shabanu will at least have a good husband from the family, she is going to marry Murad.

 

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How to Make Chapati!

by Phulan

My family lives in the hot warm desert where we don’t have many resources besides a tiny bit of water and whole wheat. So every day we eat chapati. Chapati is a bread made from water and whole wheat, it is round and flat and cooked in a pan. Sometimes when we don’t have enough water from the toba, so we have to get it from the well. Unfortunately water from the well is salty, so when we make chapati with water from the well, the meal becomes more of a salty bread than a little sweet.

First you take some whole wheat flour and mix it with some water. We don’t have exact measurements… Sometimes you can add salt, but if our water is salty we don’t need to add salt. You can sometimes add salt for a little bit of flavor if you would like.Then kneed the dough and let it rise for 10 minutes. Once the dough has rised split it into pieces and pat it until the dough is thin. Once you’ve done that it’s ready to go in the pan, cook it until it’s brown and a little puffy!

Image result for chapatis

 

Poetry

I think that poetry is a fun and different way of writing, you don’t have to worry about punctuation and you can make your words in any form. I wrote a haiku about spring. A haiku is a type of poem that the first line has five syllables, then seven syllables in the second line, and then five syllables in the third line. Most of the time haiku’s are about nature and they have a kigo in it. A kigo is a word that indicates a season, like blooming trees represent spring. My poem was about spring, and in my haiku I tried to describe more about the scenery of spring than what you can do in spring. I think a strength I have when writing poetry is using describing words. A goal I have is to write poetry about something I may not write about that is hard to describe, instead of writing a poem about flowers or clouds. A challenge in poetry for me is to try to write a poem that makes a little bit of sense, not just random words that don’t really relate to each other even though they describe what the poem is about. This is my poem!

 

Beautiful sunlight

Bright colors of paradise

Blooming trees in sight  

 

Creative Writing Piece

This is another one of my creative writing pieces. This piece is about a first, I wrote about the first time at dance class this year. I like this piece because we got to describe how you felt because when it is a fiction piece you don’t really know how something actually felt. But since the piece is non-fiction I can actually describe how I felt. I am proud of it because I used a lot of descriptive language in it.

 

It was September 17. It was my first day of dance class at the Ailey school. After school, my mom and I went to dance. I kept on thinking about what would happen that day at dance . I had no friends there and I haven’t gone to an actual dance class in three years. When I did gymnastics we had thirty minutes of a ballet/modern class almost every friday. (Still no one knows that I didn’t really do ballet…)

When we got into the building I went into the changing room and did my hair. It was my first time putting on the royal blue leotard that everyone had to wear. I was used to having stretchy spandex leotards at gymnastics, but at dance it was more of a soft, not so stretchy leotard. I also wasn’t used to wearing tights with the leotard, but after a few classes I got used to it.

After I got changed, I sat down in the round chairs that are lined up against the wall of the stairway. I wasn’t sure who were my classmates, but when I saw more girls come from the dressing room with the same colored leotards, I noticed who they were. Most of the girls have been together for five years. The only new kids that came in this year was a girl named Miette and myself. I kind of knew her because we were both at the audition to get in and she was also friends with Emma D.

I decided not to do my homework while I was waiting for class to start because I was so nervous I couldn’t focus. Soon it was 4:30 and it was time to go into class. I walked towards the girls waiting in front of the studio. Then our teacher walked in with bright green eyeshadow and a long french braid, holding a big cup of coffee. “Come on in!” Our teacher Ms.Galache said. Everyone walked into the room and started taking out the barres. I decided to go to one of the back barres, I wasn’t confident going on one of the barres in the front because I thought that I wasn’t very good

Soon Ms.Galache told us a combination to do and the music started to play. Everyone was so good, so I felt like I was really bad. We did a few more combinations on the barre and then we moved to the center. I could tell the center was harder. (Center is with no barre) We did more jumping and turns. Ms. Galache also gave us stretches to do at home. We practiced them in class that day. Ms. Galache only teaches ballet, but we also have Character dance and Horton, which is almost like modern dance. Each level get’s assigned three or four different types of dance, next year I think that I get to go on pointe! (Getting pointe shoes)

This day was a little different because it was a half dance class. After dance class all the girls in our level went into a room for an introduction about the year with their parents . The director said things about what would happen if you’re late. They also said when our performance was, and that in december things would get more serious. My body felt so tight because of the strengthening exercises we did. We listened to the director speak and because of dance class I was really relieved that class was over. So I was just sitting on the floor, not really listening and being glad that the day was over.

Finally when the introduction was over and I got to go home. I ate dinner, but I was so tired my eyes were closing a bit. Of course I had to take a shower. Taking a shower made me feel a little more awake, which was good because I had to do my homework. After homework I brushed my teeth, and got into bed. It was only around 8:45, but I fell asleep right away.

Creative Writing Piece from November

I’m proud of this piece because I did a lot of editing. At first I just wrote paragraphs about my magic power, and how I would work with it. I didn’t have a story arc, so I had to change the whole story. It was hard but fun. It was cool how I got to make a story about a magic power, and the problems I had with it. This writing piece showed a lot of detail, which was one of my goals for the year, to be more descriptive in my writing.

 

I am Olivia and I was born with a magic power. I am going to explain how my day was yesterday. By the way, my magic power is to be able to snap and be anywhere in seconds. If I wanted to go somewhere halfway around the world, I would be there in a couple seconds instead of a 12 hour plane ride.

I woke up at 8:10 and I had to be at school by 8:15. When I got out of bed, I brushed my teeth, washed my face, ate breakfast, got changed and walked out the door at 8:14, just to be safe. How the power works is right after you snap your fingers, you zoom through many different invisible tunnels in the sky. You could end up going through different tunnels from different directions and collide into each other.

I said goodbye to my parents and snapped out the door. Unfortunately, I had a bad morning after leaving home. After I snapped, I zoomed through the tunnels and got stuck at a dead end. Normally that’s the tunnel that leads me right to school. Then I looked at the sign and underneath the sign there was another little sign that said “Sorry for inconvenience, the tunnel cracked so it is dangerous to speed through it. We will be opening the tunnel again tomorrow at 8:30am.” When I saw that note my brain was out of ideas. I had no idea how to get to school.

At least of what I knew, there was no other tunnel leading me to school. It was already 8:16, I was a minute late. I kept on snapping and snapping to different places, but none of them were bringing me to the right place. I was thought of calling my mom, but I would just get in even more trouble. Then I began to cry. I was really nervous because what if I was lost forever? I was stuck in the middle of nowhere. I couldn’t even figure out how to get back home.

Then I saw a blinking light on one of the tunnels, I started to follow it. It brought be to a blue and green tunnel. I thought to myself, “Should I take a risk and go into the tunnel? Or should I be safe and try to find a different way out of the tunnels?.” Then I thought, “No, I should go in, I’m lost right now so maybe it will bring be somewhere safe.”

I walked into the tunnel and I started to float. I felt butterflies in my stomach. The soft blowing wind was drifting me forward, I felt as light as a feather.

I was almost out of the tunnel when I heard a soft voice.
“We have saved you, when you need us we are here, but then we disappear.” The soft voice said starting to become silent.
“Who are you?” I asked
“We are the angels of the tunnel.” The voice said.
“Have you always been in the tunnels?” I asked with a scared voice.
“Yes, we have been watching over you and protecting you” She said.
“Oh, well thank you for saving me!” I said starting to cheer up.

I thought that she would say something back to me but the voice had disappeared. I was a little creeped out. I knew that since I had a magic power, weird things can happen to me.

Once I was fully out of the tunnel I saw buildings and trees. I felt like I knew where I was, and I did! I was so happy and relieved that I started jumping up and down. I was right across the street from school. It was a little weird because my friend came up to me and said “Hi Olivia, ready for school?” In my head I was thinking “What are you talking about? Aren’t I late for school?” Then I looked at my watch and it was only 8:14!

Soon I felt a soft breeze blow into my ear and voices started saying,
“We have set back time for you, now you may go to your school without being late.” Said the angels of the tunnels.
“Thank You very much.” I whispered quietly into the air.
“We will watch over you, so if anything happens we will protect you.”

Then I crossed the street and went into school, without being late.

Arabian Nights Story

Revision means to fix things like show don’t tell, run on sentences and using better vocabulary, not mechanics. You’re fixing details to make the story or writing piece better.

I think my story is good. I fixed a lot of big things in my piece like deleting a whole paragraph and adding more to another paragraph. I think my story reflects a lot back to Arabian Nights because I mention a few characters and objects from the stories. I revised a lot, fixing a lot of show don’t tells and vocabulary.

Cloisters Museum

On Friday we went to the cloisters museum. My favorite piece of art was the narwal tusk, I never knew that they might have actually exist. It relates to social studies because there was a lot of artwork from the medeval time period. Some sculptures of people had some diseases from the plague. Like there were some bumps on their legs called boboes. Normally I don’t like museums, but this one was pretty fun.

Humanities Reflection

I think that I have improved on editing and revising other piers work. It’s also a lot of fun doing it too! The challenging part of revision is to not make edit’s like mechanics and focus more on run on sentences, or description. I think I’m good at finding a place with less description, and then changing it. I’m excited to write more writing pieces, essays or more!

Creative Writing Piece

I’m proud of my creative writing piece because I think that it is really creative and fun. It’s a story about what happens to me with 100 balloons. I learned how to tell a story about something I didn’t have any idea of how to. It was challenging to find a story involved with 100 balloons, even though the beginning was easy. I wrote about myself floating up into the sky and landing in all different countries, it was hard to decide how to leave the country or what my story was going to be there. I think that I can improve on being more descriptive and say how I felt when I did something. Here it is!

 

It was a hot summer day, when I was going to get some ice cream with my friends. Right next to the ice cream truck, was a man selling balloons. They seemed very interesting because some of the balloons were in shapes of houses, animals, people and so much more. The man selling them seemed very hot and sweaty because his face was so red. I could see sweat dripping down his face, it looked like he needed a nice ice cold bottle of water.

“Balloons, come get colorful, joyful balloons!” The man said trying to get people’s attention.

I walked towards him because he started waving to me. I wasn’t so sure if I should go towards him because he seemed a bit awkward.

“Come my dear, buy some balloons! We have all different colors, shapes, and sizes,” The man said. Then he whispered something, I couldn’t hear it very well but I think he said “They’re magical.”

I was pretty convinced so I was about to pick one, when the man said,

“Can you hold these balloons? I just need to grab a bottle of water. It’s really hot out here, it will just take a second.”

“ I don’t know if I am heavy enough to keep myself down,” I said not wanting to let the man down. I knew he was thirsty, so I said “Okay.”

He put all the strings in my hand and rushed away. I waited with my friends, until they started to say,

“Olivia, can we go now?”

Then I said “No, I told the man that I would hold these balloons for him.”

When he was out of sight, I started to feel lighter and lighter, until my toes started coming of the ground. I was going tip toes to point and then off the ground. I wanted to scream the balloon man’s name, but I didn’t know his name. I started to make motions with my body so the weight would bring me back down, but it didn’t work. When the man came back, I was about ten feet high. I didn’t want to drop because that could cause to an injury. The man stepped onto the bench and tried to get a hold of my feet, but he wasn’t fast enough. I was almost as high as an apartment building. I started going into clouds, then I saw rainbows!

I went through some more clouds, and I started to see some mountains and some snow. Where was I? The balloons started lowering me down to the ground, but I still held tight to the balloons. “I know this place! It’s the Hotel that I stay in while I’m in Aspen.” I walked around the place, I was excited but nervous. I was thinking of why did the balloons bring me here? Was in some kind of adventure?

After I went to some of my favorite places there, the balloons started floating up again. I saw rainbows in the sky and then the balloons started going down again. I could see a little brown triangle from far away, as I got closer I noticed that it was the Eiffel Tower! Now I was very curious of why I was in these places. Then one balloon popped, I wasn’t very nervous because I still had 99 left. But then another one popped, then another until I had 80, 70, 60, then 50. I tried to lift myself back up, so the balloons would pick me up and bring me to the clouds. I wasn’t light enough anymore.

Now I was stuck in Paris. I took french class, but I don’t know how to say “I was on a journey with my balloons and they all popped. It’s kind of magical, do you know where I could find more of these balloons?” Then I overheard some people talking in american, so I decided to walk up to them.

“Hello, I’m sorry to interrupt, but do you know where a balloon store is?” I asked.

“Um… I can ask my friend here, she speaks french and knows this place very well,” The girl said, looking like I was a crazy person.

“ Ah, oui. I mean yes, there is not a store, but there is a man selling them. There are rumors saying that they are magical. Last time I saw him, he was standing around the corner.” She said politely.

Then I felt a little excitement, but I also felt a little confused. From what the girl told me, it sounds like the man on the street back in New York. But it couldn’t be, I was in Paris right now. As I walked forwards and around the corner, there was a man. I could only see his back, but as he turned around I noticed that it was ‘the man’. He didn’t see me at first, but then he looked at me, actually happy that he saw me.

“Hello?” I said quietly.

“Little girl!” The man said. “Don’t you remember I said that these balloons are magical? Since you were too high, I decided to take some of my balloons and find you. Well guess how lucky I was!” The balloon man said.

“Well, I’m glad that you found me. Half of my balloons popped and I can’t come up again. Is there a chance that you have extras?” I said nervously.

“Yes! I do have extras. Your balloons popped because of the pressure in the sky. Here, I will give you 50 balloons. Hold onto them tightly, and I set them to go back to New York. Goodbye!”

I guess that the man was magical because right after he said goodbye, he either turned invisible or disappeared really fast. I noticed that 50 balloons were in my hand. I don’t even remember him giving them to me. Then my feet lifted off the ground, I went through the clouds, into the rainbows, and started to float back down again. I was back where the ice cream truck was and where all my friends were. It was strange because the man was selling balloons, but I thought he was in Paris!

“Olivia you’re back!” My friends said.

“Yeah…” I said really surprised.

Then I looked back at the balloon man, he gave me a smile and a wink. Then I gave him a smile and a wink back.

 

THE END!

 

 

Beowulf Project

This is the Grendel Olivia B, Oliver and I drew

This is the Grendel Olivia B, Oliver and I drew

This picture is a scary monster that is in the book we are reading, Beowulf. His name is Grendel. We had to draw a picture of him so everyone would have a sense of what everything would look like from the book. I am proud of this project because it’s colorful and looks a bit scary. In the beginning when we were drawing drafts of Grendel it was looking more cute than scary. Also the slime looks really cool in the drawing and all his crooked teeth and blood dripping down his body.