-- Blogmeister

Columbus Day

Should we or should we not

Right now, the US is debating whether we should celebrate Columbus day or not. Of course we should celebrate it if we want to. My family really does not do anything for this holiday except for taking advantage of the no school day and go away for the long weekend. We should celebrate it because we are just celebrating the fact that Columbus ventured to the Caribbean and traded with the natives and started the age of exploration.

Columbus Day should be celebrated for many different ways. He brought over and spread Christianity and lots of Christians would say that was a very good thing because he made them worship a single god and not many gods. He also brought over the horse which for the Native Americans in the great plains is an awesome thing because some living creature that is trainable and fast is good for killing buffalo on. If Columbus had not sailed over, we probably wouldn't have wild horses in the great plains and the southwest. He set sail in 1492 for the Far East of Asia. He was looking for a rout to the exotic spices by going west and not east. He had started the age of exploration and the Colombian exchange. This trade brought over corn and potatoes. Potatoes became a staple crop for the people of Europe.

If you don't want to celebrate it than don't, but we have been celebrating Columbus Day since the 1890's. We can't stop celebrating it now. It is apart of our history and changed the lives of people forever. We celebrate it to remind ourselves of the past history and the stories of explorers. Columbus helped us see the world and it's people. There can be bad things about the finding of the Americas from the Europeans but see it in a good way. He sailed all the way from Spain and sailed for months and risked his life to see the world for the people. Let's keep it that way.

Collapsing Memories
By: NHKA

Metal arms reaching out of the water,
Arching; connecting with each other,
rolling steamers and hunks of iron
painted peeling and rusting.

Old wisps of memory's of shining steel
and bright bronze paint and new transportation
news all over and now coming to an end
human arms reaching out to help

The Higgins Armory Museum

Imagine strolling through a castle courtyard's cobblestone streets filled with the hustle bustle of servants, knights, and king's men. Produce is being sold, the jousting tournament is very lively and men on horses are flying every were. You could also be walking down the dusty dirt pathways of the small village but not now. This was what life would be like for a man or woman living in the middle ages. This time period was a time of hardship with sickness and plague but also a time of war and the improvement of armor and weapons. One of the most perfect places anyone could go to learn about the changes and improvements of armor is the Higgins Armory Museum in Worcester, Massachusetts. There, you can see and learn about the massive collections of shining armor ( and some not so shining) from pointy toed boots from the early middle ages of the 1400's to the ancient Etruscan helmets rusted to a greenish color.

Right when you walk through the wooden double doors you learn that the rich loved to show off so much that they even dressed the family dog in a smaller suit of armor. You will notice that when the fashion changes, the style of armor changes and as time goes on, you will notice that the need for armor was not very strong. The 3 major periods of armor were military, sport and fun, and for decoration in rich manors and estates. Armor in military improved and went through ton of changes to reduce areas that are "out in the open" and to promote flexibility. Combat armor usually weighed from 45 to 80 pounds. A heavy undergarment of chain mail was put on underneath. Mail is thousands of tiny metal rings strung together to make a tightly woven and flexible shirt. Over time, pointed tipped shoes faded into rounded ends and mail turned into plates of metal. When the fashion changed, the armor changed and that meant that you had to be wealthy to buy all of that armor.

Tournament armor was needed for foot tournaments and jousts on horseback. Joust armor was different from battle armor because of the weight. Battle armor was a lot lighter because knights should be able to run, walk, jog, sit, and jump. The jousters just had to sit on the back of a galloping horse in one position holding a lance. Joust armor could get up to 90 to 95 pounds. You might have thought that the horse wouldn't be able to go very fast because of the 90 pounds extra on it's back plus the saddle and all. That's why they bred heavy draft horses with thick muscles. the average light horse wouldn't be very happy. Joust tournaments were only friendly games played by friends but they were still very dangerous. Lances splintering, horses at full speed charging at each other and the force of a thick wooden pole against your chest. This sport probably wouldn't appeal to anyone today.

The very rich nobles and kings loved to show off the wealthiness by displaying suits of armor in their grand manors and castles. This armor at the time could not be worn because the armor was for show and not for use like a china doll. The china doll is not for play, it is for show. The rich did not just buy them for show, they also bought mini suits of armor for the son as if to say " we are so rich that we can afford to buy a suit of armor for our 7 year old boy and our little dog. Yes, dogs could were armor too, if you could afford it. Parade armor was popular too because it again could show off how wealthy you were and could have a little fun parading down the street or going to costume parties with your favorite suit of armor.

As you can see, the three periods of armor were very different from each other and as time goes on, the need for more metal armor slows down and eventually stopped all together. Now, soldiers were bullet proof gear and hard helmets, not heavy metal plates with a style change every so often. Combat armor was light and flexible enough to run, jump, and sit on a horse. Tournament armor was the heaviest and was not flexible and very stiff. Decoration armor was not for battle because they weren't the same quality of real battle armor. They sat in mansions and manors to show off how rich you were. The invention of armor in metal plates definitely helped armies in the middle ages but they wouldn't help us today.

NHKÆ's Surprising Stocks

For my math stock market project in math class, I chose Apple, TJ Max, and Ebay. We had to follow our stocks for 24 weeks. I picked Apple (APPL) because my dad invested in that company for real and because Apple seems like they are very popular and always comes up with new technology and new products involving touch screens. I picked Ebay because I always check the website for items I would like to have and it seems like it is a very popular site, but it not do very well. I also chose TJ Max because I had know idea what else to pick so I went with one of the stocks that the teacher bought.

I would have changed a lot of my portfolio now that I have more information on stock. I would have bought more shares of apple so I could make some more money because you times the number of shares you bought by the price of one share. I would have changed TJ Max into something I picked for myself and not go with what the teacher picked. I would have picked Panara Bread or Royal Caribbean cruise lines. I would have not gotten Ebay because it did not do very well.

If I could go back to the beginning of this project and I was more serious about it than I am now, before I plan to pick my favorites, I would have researched more on the companies and made sure that they were reliable. I also would have tried to get closer to the metaphorical 1.250.000 Isk ($10,0000) by buying more shares of Apple so maby I could have made more money that way.

Before earth day, we had a visitor visit our classroom to talk to us about the process of making stuff and how the stuff gets thrown out and were it goes when it breaks of we don't want it anymore. We watched a series of 3 movies on adds and advertizing to kids and even babies. I learned that companies take a food, or home idem and put a cartoon character on it and the kid would want to get it and or would say that (for a food idem) it tastes better even though they have not tried it or it could just tastes the same.

We also had a small assembly in our cafeteria about trash at lunch time and about composting and recycling. We took two days worth of trash from the 7^th grade and dumped it all out on a tarp on the floor. The total trash before we sorted it all out in different piles, it weighed 87.5 pounds. And than after we sorted to trash into piles, we got 51 pounds of compost, 9 pounds of recycling, and 25 pounds of landfill trash.

This is my LA project. We were soposed to read a medevil book and find thingd to represent the book. We scaned them in the copier. I used some knights' horses, a feather, a leather pouch, and some hrbs and seeds. Read this book if you would like a quick read.

This is the story of how I got Baxter.

This is part of the stock market unit we did in class. We used spreadsheet to make a table of how much money we made. This is not updated.