JRAS -- Blogmeister

Columbus Day “Should We Celebrate it?”

Columbus Day is the second Monday in October. That second week in October, Columbus Day, was made to celebrate the day that Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue and landed on the island of Hispaniola. The overall reason for this essay is that the question of “Should we celebrate Columbus Day in the Americas?”. There is a option for everyone who lives in the Americas, I think that we should not celebrate Columbus day with all these things about his voyages...

He was thought to have landed on the Americas because Hispaniola is right below the Americas even though when he came back he told everyone that he had landed in Asia. Asia was on the other side of the Americas was Asia, so he was wrong about where Asia was and where he landed with his crew. He didn't even set foot on the Americas, even though after his death everyone is saying that he was the one to discover the Americas and brought the British to America. He had no way to ever tell anyone they were wrong about what he discovered, but he didn't know so he couldn't even tell them they were wrong.

“He changed the world forever.” is what everyone says about what it was that Columbus did 400 years ago. Why are we celebrating someone who didn't discover what he is said to discover? Yeah, he did change the world, it started with him he was the first person to sail over that way in the world. It was someone else who actually found the Americas, he landed on the island of Hispaniola. The island of Hispaniola is in the the Cuban islands in between the Americas. From where he landed on the island too, he couldn't even see the land where Florida is in the Americas. He didn't change the world forever, he only started to change the world forever, with the help of other people they changed the world forever.

When he landed there, in Hispaniola, he started with the people there already living at the lands. From there he was trying to get on there good side so they can have the treasure there. He was there and spreading ways to get food easier, learn more, build buildings, culture also not all the things that he started spreading there was sickness that the Europeans are immune to because they have lived with them their whole lives, where as the Americans have not yet experienced these sickness's. With all these things that the English were bringing to the Natives living there, there was a thing that the Natives were giving to them food, culture, buildings, education, sickness and more there was a back and forth of giving things to the others.

Over all the question of this whole essay is to whither or not we should celebrate Columbus Day. With all the things that have been said in this essay I think that we should not celebrate Columbus Day in the United States of America as I said before because Christopher Columbus did not find the Americas, he spread a lot of sickness to the Natives living there, almost killed his whole crew being alone in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and some more things. He doesn't deserve to have a day because all he did was go out into the Ocean find Hispaniola for Spain and come back there wasn't that much to it.

Summer Reading Books!

Shiver – Maggie Stiefvater Romance/Fantasy

Wings – Aprilynne Pike Romance/Fantasy

Elsewhere – Gabrielle Zevin Fantasy

The Princess Diaries – Meg Cabot Fiction (series)

The Clique – Lisi Harrison Fiction (series)

If I stay – Gail Forman Romance/Fantasy

A Corner of the Universe – Ann M. Martin Fiction

11 Birthdays – Wendy Mass Fantasy

Fairy Tale - Cyn Balog Romance/Fantasy

The Juliet Club – Suzanne Harper

Romance

Bridge Reader

Plenty of Bridges,

Plenty of People.

Bridges are made to suit people,

Which they do.

People cross them,

Without even simple thought

to what has happened

to that bridge,

so that those people could cross it.

But, who would think

about that?

It's nothing but a bridge,

bridges don't have feelings,

they can't feel

even cars go over them.

There's nothing to think about

with bridges,

so why waste your time

thinking about them.

Some people are

scared of them.

Why?

They mean nothing

at all.

But there is someone

who feels for them,

hurts for them.

There's a person

who see's beyond

everyone else,

they see what the

Bridge's see.

How do they see what the bridges see?

I don't know,

your going to have to ask them

because, well

I love them

to much to tell

their secrets.

But, they probably

won't tell you

because

they don't know you.

They only know a few people

because the bridges

everywhere is what keeps

them, they can't help

but feel for them.

It's what they were

brought to this world for.

This person

doesn't talk a lot,

but feeling for the bridges

that takes a lot

so I do what I can

and telling you their secrets

would ruin me

because as I said

I love them to much

to do that to them.

Higgins Armory Museum essay

Mr. John Woodman Higgins (death 1961) was a avid collector of medieval armory. He traveled around the world buying armor from the middle ages. In the 1930's, he constructed a building where he put all the armor that he had bought. There are all kinds of armor that he collected: full suits of armor, decorated armor, even some of the most historically significantly suits of armor from the medieval time period. The museum is mostly just armory from the middle ages but there is plenty of armor to look at. If your curious about how much the armor weighed, how the warriors who wore this armor got on and off of their horses, or just what the armor looked like, you can learn about it at the museum. This museum shows you what it was like for the warriors who wore armor or even the nobles who wore armor in the medieval time period for fashion.

Armor was originally made for warriors in battles to protect them so they wouldn't get hurt or killed. The armor was a thick piece of metal and covered the warriors full body. The helm (helmet) had holes on the bottom of the it, so they can breath (though it was hard for them to breath because the helm was so close to their faces). The helms eye spaces were so small the warriors could only see directly in front of them. Soon the armies were making rifles and the armor had to be stronger so that the rifle bullets wouldn't go through the armor. Since the blacksmiths couldn't give a guarantee on the armor so it would be bullet proof. The suits were very expensive and most of the warriors (who were not that rich) couldn't afford them. The nobles would buy the suits to show off how much money they had. They would wear them to parties and public outings. These were the status symbols of the nobles and if you didn't have one or your child didn't have one you were not rich enough to be a noble.

The three major periods of armor were combat, tourament, and decorative. The armor in combat was very flexible,it had good visibility, it was good for defense, and the weight was between 45-80 pounds. The suit had over 200 piece's of plate steel riveted together. The wearer was able to move quickly and comfortably in the suit with it's articuled joints. On these suits there was a lance rest. A lance rest is on the upper right hand side of the breast plate. The lance's were around 10-14 feet long with a long sharp pointed tip on the end. In comparison the tourament armor was not very flexible, you couldn't see that well out of the eye spaces, and it was very heavy at 80-100 pounds. The important thing was that it was very good for defense armor. (Which was what it was!) This was the thickest and heaviest jousting armor that was made in the Renaissance period. The armor was made so it would take the inpact of the lance when it came to the person wearing it. Finally, the third kind of armor made in that time peroid was called decorative, it was very flexible, you could see out of the eye spaces very well, and it only weighed 20-70 pounds. As a result for making the suits for fashion and not protection they were a poor choice for battle. The people who made these suits used acid to burn away some of the metal so that it made a desgin in the armor. Mostly it was only rich nobles who would wear this type of armor.

Some interesting facts about armor are that early knights didn't have elbow, kneecap, shin, or ankle shields. The knights wore about 60 pounds of armor on the battle field. For fashionable suits of armor in the Glothic period, all the shoes had pointed toes. The Maximillion suits of armor had rounded toes in the shoes and rippled grooves in the chest plate. Mail armor is when there are metal circles attached to each other, formed into the shape of a shirt so a knight could wear it as his armor. People had armor made for their children to show how rich they were and what they could afford. (even though the child would out grow the armor in a couple years.) When armor was first invented, the armor covered the knights entire body. Then when armor became more for show and rifles were being used there was less armor worn by the knights. In modern days people in the army wear more armor than they used too. So it's coming back!

The Higgins Museum of Armory is a hands-on, fun place to go for a field trip. One can look through and try on helmets, which in most museums they don't let you do. At Higgins, you can make a art project by simply pressing hard on a design, thats on top of a piece of tin foil. This simple act replicates how they put the decorations on the decorative armor which was worn for fashion statements more than for protection. Overall, the Higgins Museum has something for everyone and provides an opportunity to see what it was like to be a knight in the middle ages. Who knows maybe it will inspire you.

For three science class's this year we got to watch three films. The films were Consuming Kids/The Commercialization of childhood, Trashed – This is the story of garbage...American style, and The Story of Stuff. They were very interesting because it taught us a lot about things we didn't know and isn't that the point of teaching anyways.

The film I'm going to talk about first is the Consuming Kids/The Commercialization of Childhood. This film is about how the commercials that air on television now are focused on children. When the Federal Trade Commission tried to create a ban on ads aimed at young children the government turned them down and wouldn't let them do it. Since commercials are allowed to focus on children so that they would want to look different and do different things. The commercials mostly focus on “tweens”. Tweens are the children that are in between the ages of 10 and 12, but since this all started the ages have moved and now it's the ages between 4 and 9. The words tweens was made up by the commercialization process, not the parents that just find that a good word for the age group. In the commercials the girls are pressured to pretty and skinny by wearing revealing clothing and tons of makeup. The boys are pressured to be very violent, to hurt people and always talk about killing people. Product placement is when there is an advertisement in a movie. When a “tween” see a certain person wearing something or drinking/eating something they want it too.

The second film we watched was Trashed – This is the Story of garbage...American style, it's about the food we buy, don't eat or just waste, and where it goes. Just New Yorkers alone throw away 50,000 ton of trash. A Landfill is an area that people just put there trash in to get rid of it, from those landfills there is methane gas that comes from the landfill which is bad for the environment. When people say “We put value in things we through away.” it means that when we through things away it cost money like everything else. We either bring it to the dump or have someone pick it up for us (that cost money), than someone else has to sort it into different piles, than it has to be taken away. So it really does cost money to through something away. A “freegan” is a person who searches through trash, picks out the food that is still edible and eats it. They eat the food that people through away because they think that it's gone bad or is the wrong kind and even more reasons. The “freegans” are able to just pick up the food and eat it, I don't know how they can do that, because some people would be totally disgusted with it. So it is a choice that they make in their life and it probably saves them a ton of money, but on other bad side they are eating the food that they other people are throwing away. The North Pacific Gyre is a waterway that is twice the size of the United States of America, it's filled with plastic. It's said that when your there you can't go 30 seconds without seeing a piece of trash. There was a experiment done to see if mothers breast milk was purest for woman living in urban landscapes, the result was very surprising. Woman living in a urban landscape the purest milk, the woman who live out in the forest with tribes and such get all the bad air that's filled with the carbon and everything from us that we're putting in our atmosphere and it hurting other parts of the human population.

“Laws change.......Men die..........The land remains.” that saying was from Abraham Lincoln in 1862. What he means when he says that is that the laws will change, we will have different laws over the years, people will die it doesn't matter what happens the people of the earth will die it's just never going to change, but the land it will always stay here, we can't live without it, it's not going anywhere, it will still be here when we're all dead. So basally what he's saying in the short run is that the only thing that's not going to change is the lands, so we better take care of it.

For Math class we bought companies and followed them for about 15 weeks. This is my spreed sheet for the 15th week, as you can see i"m not making that much money.

It was 2 years ago. I was in 5th grade, there was a micro-burst in my town. The micro-burst was only about 15 minutes, but I'm not sure because i was at my grandparents house. That's about 20 minutes away, so all we got at my grandparents house was a bad thunder and lightning storm.

Whenever my cousins come to my house there is always bad weather, rain, thunder, lightning you name it and it happens. We were all in a small house and there was about 13 of us there, so after the storm ended we decided that we were going to go bridge jumping since the tide would high. When we left on the way back to my house to get our bathing suits and towels we couldn't find a way home. There were six people in the car (that i remember) my mom, my older sister, my younger sister, my younger brother, my older cousin, and me, all squished in the car. (We have a small car.) My younger sister and i were sitting in the back of the car, it was one of those cars were the back sits face the backwards so we were watching the whole thing from the back. We also had a another car following us because our car didn't hold everyone.

When we got to my town and started seeing everything that had happened there and what had happened at my grandparents house it was amazing. This was the first big thing that had ever happened to my small little town. Since we saw that there was no way that we could go bridge jumping, when we couldn't even get to the house.

From the back it looked like the town have been destroyed, it was terrible. It was just amazing to me because i had never experienced something like that in my life. (nothing happens in my town) I remember there there was just everything to look at and everywhere i turned there was something new that i could take in. Trees cut in half, Power lines down in people's front yards. We were tying to find a way back to our house for 2 hours, but we finally did it!

"Wow!" was my exact words for describing what happened to my house in the storm. My neighbors had trees down in their yards and power lines down, just like the rest of town but my house was wow! My house looked just like it did when we had left. The toys on the chair in front were still there and they were as big as your small finger nail. It was truly something to see. The only bad things we got out of the microburst that year were no electricity and not being able to leave my house for a few days.

In Science Class we made valentines that had to do with science as in things about clouds and the stars. We made some cards to go with them too. So we just made regular valentines but instead of the gooey love sayings it's love sayings that have to do with science. Here are the sayings i did.

Your made up of plasma.

When you come in a room you always bring Low Pressure.

You aren't anything close to absult zero.

You are the bell Jar to my vaccum pump.

Did you like them??? I thought they were alright, but you may have your own thought. If you want to check out more please you to the other kids in my classes blogs to see what they have came up with for this project.

thanks,

Jras