DSNO -- Blogmeister

My Columbus Opinion

For many years the topic of the celebration of Columbus day has been a controversy for some. It wasn't Christopher Columbus that changed to world it was his “discovery” that changed the world. Many people think that Columbus was the bad guy, but many people see him as a hero and not as the enemy. We should celebrate it, because we wouldn't be here if Columbus had decided not to explore the Americas. Many people say that we shouldn't have Columbus day, but we should continue to celebrate Columbus Day for many reasons.

The Europeans brought western European culture to the Americas, so if they hadn't, then we could be Chinese or some other culture and we wouldn't be who we are today. The effect of this is that we have our culture that we have now because of them. We also exploited the Americas natural resources, we may have stripped the Americas of them but we have used them to our benefit and that's what they're for. People say it's wrong to celebrate Columbus day since we destroyed the advanced cultures already there, but we won so we should have a right to celebrate. we wouldn't have been able to co-exist with them if we hadn't destroyed them just leading to even more deaths most likely.

So we should celebrate Columbus day, because we are who we are and what we are today because of the exploration of the Americas which is a thing to celebrate, not a thing to fight. People need to realize not everyone will agree, but it is how it is, we celebrate Columbus day because we are here today like we are how we are what we are today, no matter how many Natives we killed and civilizations we destroyed, it made us who we are today and that's reason enough to celebrate Columbus Day.

I can see it
in the distance
very very
far away
what is this bridge to
it is to the truth
but
for the truth
you need
to be able
to face what
is on the other side
it is a bridge
to all truth
and wonder
and freedom

The Higgins is the biggest self collection armory museum in Worcester Massachusetts. The collection was founded by John Woodman Higgins. The collection has about 1600 pieces of armor and weapons. The museum was founded in 1929. The museum consists of sections of armor of weapons of Gothic, European, Western, African, Islamic, Indian, and Japanese. Mr. Higgins died in 1961, the collection and building was given to the public. The building was upgraded in 1984 they raised 2.1 Million dollars for the cause. The collection is very extensive and has a lot of history and interesting tales to tell.

There are three major types and uses of armor, Combat/warfare, lancing/tournament, and decoration. Combat/warfare was the first use and type of armor. The armor was designed for easy adjustment, so the wearer could mount his horse with ease, so he could fight with very little set back. The armor weighed about 45-80 pounds. The armor was made for protection, that’s all. After a while the design became more and more precise, they were designed to protect weak spots or gaps in the armor. They were made from about 200 pieces of armor. The helmet always had good visibility, unlike many other types of armor, they had to be like this so the wearer could see their opponent and surroundings well. For weapons to go with this type of armor are combat lances which are usually 10-14 feet with a head that was shaped a lot like a spear, they also had a small sword that they usually kept strapped to their hip. But this type of armor soon went out of style.

The second type and use of armor is lancing/tournament. This type of armor was designed for very little movement, and very little visibility. It is the heaviest and thickest type of armor ever, the armor weighed 80-100 pounds. The game of Joust involves two mounted knights on opposite ends of a playing field called a tiltyard, they charged at each other and tried to unseat to unseat the other. The target of the knights was strapped piece of armor much like a shield attached to the left shoulder. The game of Joust was not made for killing, it was for fun and betting and winnings, accidents rarely happened and many precautions were needed, since cuts with infection could kill since times were very different, but death rarely happened and injuries were usually small. The horses were usually charging at about 20 miles an hour, and the knights usually endured an impact of about 40 miles an hour on his chest. The armor was designed specifically for this type of impact, and incase the lance splintered, which it was in most cases made to. In most cases if the splinters got into crevices in the armor or helmet it usually led to infection and sometimes death. Each knight wielded a blunted lance about 10-14 feet. Many knights bet another knight their armor even if it didn’t fit him he could sell it, maybe even sell it back to the losing knight, but it was a great way to get money. But this type of armor was swapped by the decorative suits.

The last type of armor for the medieval times was decorative. Decorative was not meant for battling, it was meant to wear to special occasions like parades, court events, and ceremonies. The suits were actually very weak since all the tampering it took to make it look good. The suit was not designed for protection, it was made for show, it had very intricate designs on it. Having a suit of armor was basically saying that you had money and could blow 75,000 dollars on a suit of armor you will probably wear small amount of times. These suits were for showing off you were stylish and rich. The cost of one of these suits was usually about a fourth of a knights salary. Sometimes people didn’t even wear their suits they would hang them up on their walls, sometimes they didn’t have the whole suit made. There were many ways to decorate a suit of armor, etching, embossing, engraving, blueing and gilding. People loved to have decorative armor but it was soon exchanged for actual armor used for battle.

The types and uses of armor have changed drastically over the years and centuries, Higgins really helps to identify in detail these things. Their collection has so many great stories to tell. The history of armor will just keep on growing and so will the collection and intelligence of Higgins Armory will keep on growing. Higgins Armory collection is so extent we saw only a small fraction but it was so informative. Higgins Armory’s collection is great and shows so much history in a great way.

Higgins Museum Essay

Evaluation

3 -- Outstanding 2 -- Ok, but could use some improvement 1-- Needed improvement 0 --- Missing

Introduction

3 Gave the reader background and general information about the museum --- set the scene.

3 Transitions to the body of the essay. (Three things that can be learned by a visit to the museum)

Body

3 Three topics were addressed, each with its own paragraph

2 Topics were clearly explained and used researched supporting details & vocabulary

Conclusion

3 Restated topic --- What can be learned at the museum?

3 Brought closure to essay (Summed up essay)

Structure

3 Essay format followed the directions for assignment

3 Spelling

3 Capitalization (Used correct capitalization)

Comments: Very good organization to the essay and excellent supporting details in the body. More research vocabulary would have added depth to the writing. introduction 7 conclusion are both well done. Excellent overall effort on this piece.

Everyone has been through some type of severe or semi-severe situation with weather. I was in May 2006. That May it was raining a lot, things were looking like they would never dry. Now, most people think that rain is no danger whatsoever, but they are wrong, rain can cause a lot of flooding, just like it did in May. It was around Mothers day when it began and that's where it got it's name, the mothers day flood, so, it was raining and everyone thought ya whatever its just rain, no big deal.

But after a while people saw just how bad it could get. It rained for almost two weeks straight, there was a lot of flooding, roads were closed, some power was out, and schools were closed everywhere. A lot of people like me had their basements flooded, we had to get a new carpet for our whole basement, and all the drywall from about 4 feet to the ground was not good so we ripped it out, we had to get new furniture, and repaint everything. Getting rid of the water took a long time, we didn't have school for days but we didn't have to make it up sionce the state had established a state of emergencey. The mother's day flood is a flood that no one will forget.

Your Stuff and Its Journey
For three weeks we had people come in and tell us about what was really happening beyond the garbage trucks. Do you really know where your garbage goes after the garbage truck takes it away? Most people don't even know where it goes because they don't even care, they only care that it's not with them anymore. New Yorkers throw away 50,000 tons of waste a DAY and that's only New York think about the whole world, and then factor in that less than 4% of plastic in the U.S. is actually recycled. We picked through trash and skyped with people to see what they thought of what we were doing. I really liked learning about what people are doing with our trash. Learning about what people are doing with our trash really saddened me, because people don't care where their trash goes and they should, because no one wants to show their child a picture of a tree and say this is what trees looked liked when we had them.

I think that personally people should pay more attention, since people complain that it's the governments fault, but really it's their fault. People don't realize that since they don't care where their trash is going they'll just complain when our world is destroyed but it's their fault. People should care more about their trash.

We all read books on medieval times and i chose The Squire's Tale. We all had to have 15 vocab words and sentences using them which wasn't easy since my book was extremely easy. After reading our book we had to choose 5-10 artifacts relating to the book, like one for the the characters and one for setting and one for plot, for artifacts, and we couldn't have computer images, we had to draw them or have real items. For my project i chose a shiny piece of cloth for swords and armor, a puffy crown for king arthur, a wand for Terence the main character since he's part faery, a feather since wearing feather was the fashion and for hunting, a stick since Terence meant Gawain in the woods and they spend a lot of time in the woods, a horse shoe since they ride horses a lot, and a green crayon since a lot of people wore green then. I loved the book!

We did graphs and I did mine on favorite sports. Our science teacher brought them to Belize with her and they added to the graph. The best was soccer, the least was lacrosse and football but all the others were moderate and no one from our school picked cricket or volleyball. It was really fun learning about what kinds of sports they like in Belize!