New Year's Resolutions!

My first New Year's resolution is to be less disruptive in all my classes. I think that I have a lot more listening to do and a whole lot of improving space. In band I need to stop talking and/or playing my instrument while Mr.Housego or another member of the band is talking. In Math and Science I just need to concentrate on not talking when we are doing work and stop blurting out. In Humanities I need to work on not talking to my neighbor when Mr.Fischer is talking and not saying inappropriate things in the middle of class. These things I think are important because if I do not improve I will get a bad work habit grade and not a very good comment in my report card.

My second resolution is to not eat candy and not drink any soft drinks.  This is important because I would like to become more fit and hopefully lose some weight. My dad also made a deal with me. If I don't have any candy or pop for the rest of the school year excluding birthday parties, then he will buy me a reward. If I complete the challenge I will get a new basketball, bball shoes, jerseys and shorts.

On Christmas Eve my family went over to our friend's house for dinner. We had ham and kumara. Mom and dad stayed back to talk with the aunties (our friends) a bit longer and Zarina, Robert John and I returned home. Mom and dad took forever to arrive home. Robert John wanted to get us to bed so he said "I will let you open one present, but then you have to go straight to bed" So Zarina and I opened a present, brushed our teeth and jumped into bed. The second we got under our covers the door knob turned and mom and dad pranced in. Even after our deal with Robert John we hopped out of bed to see our parents. Dad had agreed to let us open all our presents on Christmas Eve so I was so excited to see my presents. When I started begging to start opening presents, mom stated that we wouldn't be opening any presents tonight. Then she walked into her room. She came back with her hands behind her back. When she arrived back into the living room she placed three Apple boxes in our hands. We had just received fourth generation ipod touches!

One thing you probably don't know about me is that my brother and I do a lot of insane things to my sister. When my family was flying back to Canada, my siblings and I traveled in economy while our parents were in business class, so they didn't see anything we did.  When our meals came we got baked beans, eggs and sausages. The sausages were airplane food so of course they were oily and felt like rubber. Because of these traits Robert John and I didn't want to eat ours, so we decided to cook up an evil plan against Zarina. '1, 2, 3' Robert John yelled, and suddenly the sausages went flying through the air and were instantaneously rubbing against Zarina's cheeks. 

Collaborating Constructively! (with Mao)

1.The benefits of working with a classmate.
2. Challenges / obstacles which you overcame (tried to overcome).
3. New understandings that you gained about the novel.

I think that when we are writing our literature circles it is very helpful to do it with a peer. The benefits of working with Mao is that she is amazing at literature circles and helped me think of a miraculous question. Since we did the literature circle with a classmate we could get them to check it and add comments and suggestions to make your work better. One of the challenges I overcame was that on Monday night I had no time to finish my connection. I still finished because I woke up early the next morning so our work would be finished by first block Humanities. While working independently I only thought inside the box about some deaths and occurrences in the novel, but while I was doing my literature circle with Mao she pointed out somethings in her work about those deaths like for example the death of Zachariah. He could still be dead but who would know that.


Micah

Literature Circle Discussion #2-True Confessions

1. How your groups discussion helped you better understand the novel? Write about of some of the key ideas from the novel that your group discussed and how these were important to the plot of the story.
My group's discussions helped me understand the book better because some of our passages put together could create a whole new plot to the story. This is important for our own reading benefits because, then we had a whole new spin on the story and that helped me understand it better.


2. Describe some of the connections that you made during your discussion.
In our discussion I didn't make any connections but I made a reaction that also falls under the category of connections. My reaction is about when Captain Jaggery said 'I intend to crush this mutiny before it starts.' he unlocked his gun drawer and took out two muskets and two pistols for himself and similar for Mr.Hollybrass. I immediately thought 'Well what in the world is Captain Jaggery going to do now.'


3. What predictions do you have for the rest of the novel.
In our literature circle #1 we started think about the fact that it is possible that someone gave Charlotte the knife so that that certain sailor or someone else that knew about it could take that knife and stab someone. Then after he was done he would put it back under Charlotte's mattress so she would get accused of killing the murderer's victim. We completed that thought with more information on the previous discussion. 

Math-Blog Post of Symmetry

This is a picture of  the Menara Tower. It has one line of symmetry that goes from the top to the bottom of the tower, exactly through the middle of the plane. It is not exactly symmetrical because there is some satellites and lights on either side of the tower. (It is only the wrong way because I took it like that and I can't turn it around.)

Kelip-Kelip

In the water, the only noise is the tiny waves of the river. The smell is nothing but fresh air. Everything felt was the old wood of the canoe. The only light is the fireflies, still but alive. Their tiny lights flashing. On and off, on and off.

When the boat-man had stopped by a tree Kennedy, Anne, Ayaka and I had all moved over to the side to see the fireflies closer. The boat was uneven and nearly tipping. To be honest I was a bit scared from the fact we were in a boat that could possibility tip over. Although the fireflies were captivating, my eyes were almost closing and I was worn out from all of the things we had done that day so you could say I was tired. The fireflies all stop on leaves and stay for a while so when you are sailing past you see countless amounts of what seems to be Christmas trees along the river bank, the fireflies decorate the trees amazingly and the fireflies are like lights to illuminate the trees like you would never think possible without electricity.

Nevertheless the Kelip-Kelip(fireflies) were my favorite part of the field trip because it was really awesome and even though I had seen them before I did it when I was small so i didn't remember it. According to my mom I would ask her consistently about the fireflies and what they looked like, so she didn't have to tell me.

COURAGE-When I Got The Stiches! (in my knee)

From my point of view there is so many ways of defining courage, from trying a new after school activity to going on the scariest ride in Universal Studios or Disney Land. But the story I am about to tell show one of the many ways to define courage and it starts like this.

Auntie Lynn, Mom and I were hot and sweaty while walking up a hill to find my sister Zarina waiting a the top. She had just been to a friend's birthday party and was waiting for us to pick her up. When we finally got to the top we called a taxi to take us home but they person at the other end of the line told us it would take 10 minutes so Auntie Lynn and I decided to go to the big street at the bottom of the hill and flag down a cab ourselves.

Does everyone here like swinging around and around poles? I think you do. So there was a pole and a drain simple as that. I was getting bored so of waiting for a taxi so  I decided to swing around the pole. So there I was swinging around that 360 degree pole getting closer and closer to the drain that was obviously oblivious to me and my eyes. So down I went into that pole that was a meter deep

At that time Auntie Lynn was trying to get Zarina and Mom down to the bottom of the hill because she got a taxi. So then she turned around and couldn't see me. That caused me to start screaming her name. So finally she found me in the bottom of a drain and started helping me out. Then she realized that I had a massive bleeding cut on my knee. So she started shouting for Mom and Zarina to get down here. So we all got in the taxi. "Uncle, could we please go to Raffles Hospital". So he started driving.

When we got there we headed straight to emergency because Mom insisted we needed to get it stitched up. So I got in a wheel chair and they wheeled me to a room where they could x-ray my leg to see if my leg was broken of not. Thankfully it wasn't. So they said I only had to get stitches. But Auntie Lynn, Mom and Zarina were freaking out anyways. So in and out the thread and needle went 5 times leaving me with my knee closed but still healing. A few weeks later I got the thread taken out.

I think I showed courage because I was in second grade and was only seven. Because I was young I think I needed to be extra courageous to be able to go through many stitches and not cry.

What do the artifacts tell us about the lives of early humans?

The paintings that were found in caves and are still being found were painted by early humans and the paintings could have meant many things such as a good hunting spot, the shapes or animals could of had a special meaning in rituals, or it could have just plain been someone painting that an artist. But there are also sculptures and other 3D artifacts like spear throwers or painting tools that may have a carving of animals on it.

To understand the art of early humans we need to know how the made it, how they created it. So I will tell you, they used rocks to grind colored minerals into powder so then you can mix the powder in with vegetable oil or animal fat. Then for painting the early humans would use moss, fur or human hair. The early humans  may have blown paint through hollow bird bones to create soft textures for a painting of a horse to create softer texture for it coat of fur.

My favorite cave painting in the humanities textbook is a painting that was found in Argentina. It shows a small picture (symbol) that is a big circle with smaller circles in it forming a pattern, possibly a target . There is a spiky, red line. There is also several small hand prints either children's hand prints or the hand prints of adults because research shows that prehistoric people were much smaller than people today. There is also several blue blobs which I think looks like a pack of whales. Many scientists believe that hand prints were the way and artist signed his or her painting. It is also thought that geometric shapes had a special meaning in certain rituals. Some researchers tried singing in areas that were painted and discovered that when singing in those areas your voice was quite loud. They guessed those areas were used for special gatherings.