-- Blogmeister

Columbus Day has always been a day off from school on the Second monday of October that people take for granted. Everyone always just thinks that Columbus discovered the New World, blah blah blah. The truth is, that's not really the case here. He wasn't really as heroic as everyone thinks.

Don't get me wrong. He was the one who discovered the Americas and made it clear to everyone in Spain and Europe. If it wasn't for him, none of us would be here right now. He also established the Columbian Exchange, that helped all of Europe. He also spread Christianity all over America. These are all great acheivements. But I truly think that he did many more bad things than good things. First of all, all of the good things that he did had a bad side to them. He forced and threatened the Natives to learn Christianity. The Columbian exchange brought back thousands of slaves to Europe. The slaves were awful in Europe, because they caught diseases and weren't used to the enviroment, so most of them died anyway. Columbus never actually set foot on either of the Americas and brought death and destruction to the Native Americans living there. He didn't even know what he discovered before he died. Spain figured out what he really discovered fifty years later!

In my mind, Columbus is no real hero at all and the fact that he has a holiday named after him his pathetic. All in all, I really don't understand why we're celebrating Columbus Day.

My Summer Reading List

The Merchant of Death by D.J. Machale- Sci-Fi
Lockdown:Escape from Furnace by Alexander Gordon Smith- Fiction
Unwind by Neal Shusterman- Futuristic Fiction
The Lightning Theif by Rick Riordan- Fantasy
Crocodile Tears by Anthony Horowitz- Adventure/Mystery

Bridge Jumping

Bridge Jumping is fun
In the afternoon sun
It's always scary the first one
After you jump once you want to do it a ton
You feel like bullets from a gun
Until you're outdone
Even though it feels like you just begun

My Stock Project Write-up

The companies that I chose for my stock project were: Apple, Google, and Pepsico. I chose Apple because they make good products, and they invented the Ipad which increased their stock cost a lot. They also have good advertizing, and that always helps with stocks. They are a well-run company and are very successful, and pretty much everyone has on of their Ipods. I chose Google because they are a successful company that makes useful products. They came out with a new phone which I thought would be a good thing, and their graph looked very good (it costed lower than usual and was getting higher. I also chose Pepsico., because I personally love their products and I love to drink Pepsi more so than any drink. It also looked like they were making money and their graph looked like exactly what you would want it to look like. All in all, I thought I chose the right stocks
After a few weeks of watching my stocks, I wanted to make a few changes. I wanted to buy lots more Apple and drop Google, because Google was dropping like a rock and Apple was rocketing up. In the end, I made a ton on Apple and lost just about as much on Google. I think Google was definitely the wrong choice. I also advise that you should buy stocks on a low, because Google was up and it dropped. The opposite happened to Apple. You never know what to expect with stocks.
You should research a lot about companies before you buy them. If you just glance at the graph, that's never enough. Pay attention if the company is coming out with a good new product, and if they have good advertizing. If the company you wanted to buy is coming out with a well-known new item, it helps the stock out a lot. For example, when Apple came out with the Ipad, their stock skyrocketed. You also want to buy stocks that have good advertizing. This usually helps the stock out a lot too. The one thing that you don't want to do is to put a ton of money into one stock. If the stock goes down, you can lose an awful lot of money. Plan and research well before buying stocks.

For Earth Day, everyone in our grade brought in a disposable item that we use once and throw away. For example: plastic bags, plastic bottles, gum wrappers, etc. We talked and discussed everyone's items, and then we talked about the reusable alternative. I brought in one of those plastic bags you use for keeping things fresh in the refrigerator and in the kitchen. Our class thought about it and figured that you could use a tupperware instead, and you wouldn't have to throw it out. That would be much more green. We did this for everyone and now we can remember to use the greener, non-disposable version of each item.

We did a class project on medieval books. I read Crispin, and we had to do a write up and create "artifacts" on it. The picture above is my artifacts.

This is a picture of a spreadsheet that we've been working on as a math class almost all year. At the beginning of the year, we all chose three stocks. We then kept track of them and watched how much money we were making or losing. It has been a fun unit.

I did a speech in LA class about jumping off of the sagamore bridge in 3rd grade.

Hello. I'm a roman soldier named Aulus. I'm going to tell you about the Caledonians and us Romans. I will explain how our outfits and villages are very different from each other. I'll start out telling you about our weapons and clothing.
I'll describe the roman weapons first. For weapons, we had spears (or pilum or hasta as we say in Roman), and swords (or gladius). Our spears are really useful because when they hit their target, they bend and break so that our enemies can't throw them back at us. Every Roman soldier carries two of these, and they are 10 feet long. They are made of iron. Our swords are pretty cool, too. They are about two feet long and two inches wide. These swords are great for slashing and stabbing. What is really unique about these is that the handles are made up of shaped bones. They are shaped so that they are really easily held and used. The Celts had swords, spears, and iron chains for weapons. Their swords were just regular two-foot long swords that were used for slashing and cutting. Their spears were 10 feet long, and their design was incredibly unique and useful. If one of their spears hit you, you wouldn't be able to pull it out. They have ridges on them just like a snake's mouth so that if you try to pull it out, it's like giving yourself another wound and it just goes deeper. They also had iron chains that they could sling and fling at you. That is the description of our weapons.
I'll describe our clothes and defensive equipment to you now. For clothes, we wear a regular tunic (tunica in roman) underneath our armor. Then on top of that, we wear a cloak (sagum in roman) that is kept in its natural brownish color. They are waterproof, which is a big fighting advantage. On top of that, we have our armor (or lorica). It consists of a big breastplate which is its most important feature, and a lower chest plate. It is made up entirely of metal plates. Our helmets (or cassis) are big and bronze and lined with fur. They are very comfortable. Our shields (or scutum) are rectangular and curved. They are made of wood and they have a big, round iron boss in the middle that's good for stopping spears and sword slashes. We also carry kit bags for our equipment (or saccus). These can get very heavy and can weigh up to 60 lbs. The biggest advantage we have in war is, believe it or not, our shoes! Our shoes are very comfortable. They are made of cowhide and they are 2 cm thick. They don't wear out quickly, and we can cross a lot of terrain our enemies can't. That's a huge fighting advantage for us. I'll now explain all the Caledonian equipment that I saw them wearing in battle. The Celts do have shoes that are made of leather, but they are nowhere as nice as ours. In war, the Celts wear really colorful clothing that's really vibrant and bright. They also paint their faces, and a lot of them have huge beards. I personally think that they look really weird with those beards. You never really see any non-slave class roman with those. Their helmets look really uncomfortable. They are made up of metal and leather. They are kind-of shaped like viking helmets. The Caledonians are also really fond of jewelry. They all wear these shiny iron torcs around their necks. So that's my description of the Celts' clothing. My feeling is that us Romans have much better equipment then they do.
Now I can explain our villages. The roman village is much more advanced than the Celts'. I'll describe the Celts' first. There's really only 3 parts of a Caledonian village. Well, that's what the Celt that joined our camp told us. First, there's the Village area. The Caledonians are fond of animals and they have lots of them. They have large herds of cattle here. They also grow their two main crops here, oats and barley. They make carnyxes here, or war trumpets. They have about 2000-3000 people living in a village at one time. They also have short life spans. it's incredibly rare to have someone live over 50 here. The 2nd part of a Caledonian village is all their houses. They were round and had a really steep roof. Women worked hard cooking in here and doing chores. This is where everyone slept. The elderly people in the village were considered important and they always told stories to everyone here. The Caledonians didn't have salt, so they had to trade for it so they could cook. The Celts cooked in cauldrons that they made here. The third and final piece to a Caledonian village was the workshop. These were shaped like houses, but were much bigger. The Caledonians made everything they needed here, including jewelry. The Celts loved jewelry. They were obsessed with these shiny iron torcs. These are like necklaces, but thicker and they are open at one end.
The Caledonians blew threw bellows to keep all of their charcoal-fires warm to heat the iron ore they worked with. This method was very successful.
Now I'll describe our villages. On the outside of our gates, we have the parade grounds which we practice marching and worship our favorite two gods, Mars and Jupiter. On the left side of our village, we have the Commander's headquarters and the baths. I love the baths. You can go to the bathroom there and take different temperature baths. The slaves heat up the hot bath with a fire underneath it. There is also the cool bath and frigid bath here. It's really relaxing. We clean ourselves with olive oil, too. The Commander's Headquarters is where, obviously, the commander sleeps. He also gives us soldiers extra pay here, and he usually just reads and eats dates which are considered the best roman fruit. On the top right of our village is the barracks, which is where us soldiers sleep, cooked (our favorite food snails), and polish our kit bags. Then on the bottom right of our city comes the workshops, or where artisans make weapons, clothes, and building materials such as pickaxes, nails and hammers. On the bottom center of our village stands the headquarters, the most important building. Every soldier comes here twice a year to swear an oath of allegiance to the Romans. All of the extra equipment is kept here.
That is the end of my discussion about the Romans and the Caledonian villages and equipment. As you can see, these two civilizations are very different. I hope you learned a lot. See you later. ~Aulus~

Martin Luther King's “I Have a Dream” Speech

On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King gave his “I have a dream” speech. His speech was about getting black rights. The document was written for all of America. The reverend stated that “All men are created equal” and that “People shouldn't be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” This was a really important quote in his speech, because it kind of opened the eyes of the government.
He used a lot of repeated parts of other speeches such as “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” He wrote this speech because he wanted to free all of the black people from America and so that America would become an all-around free nation. Martin Luther King was an inspiration to us all. His dream has come true.

Foggy Homework

Fog is like arduous homework.
You never know when you're going to escape it.
Especially when you're stuck, you can't seem to make any progress.
It's annoying
It's endless
It can take away valuable time where you could be doing something worthwhile.
But you're still forced to keep trying at it.
It's constant
It's tedious
You can't get rid of it
The only good thing is,
You will experience lots of days without it.

The Two Robbers

Once upon a time, there were two people named Charlie and Jimmy. They went to college together, and were great friends. Charlie gambled and lost all of his money, so Jimmy wanted to help Charlie out. Charlie lost his job and his house got foreclosed so he had to move in with Jimmy. Jimmy was trying to take care of Charlie in his puny house, but he had little money and could barely pay for the rent and their food. After a while of living like this, both of them had had enough. They needed something to happen fast or they would both go bankrupt. They had given up on finding a job for Charlie, and they just couldn't live like that anymore.
Finally, they decided to rob a house to get money, but it wasn't going to be easy for them. Both of them took a day to decide what they would need to do to get away with the crime.
They had arrived at the house in the middle of the night with gloves, black masks, and the whole shebang. They decided to climb through the windows, but they failed so they tried the front door. What luck! It was open! They stuffed into their truck everything they could find that looked expensive and cool. They managed to obtain a very large diamond about the size of Jimmy's pinky finger, and they left without making a peep.
The next day, Charlie was watching Jimmy's TV (which was almost broken) and a “Breaking News” flash came onto the screen. A family had claimed that their house had been stolen from and their gigantic diamond that they passed down from family to family had been taken. Charlie yelled for Jimmy to come in and see the news. Jimmy got excited because they had actually gotten away with it and the police had no idea who had done it.
Charlie and Jimmy soon got excited and overconfident. They went and spent all their money but still kept the diamond in Jimmy's house. Both of them decided it would be fun to rob another house. So once again, they went and robbed another house, and they got away with it. It was also on the news. Soon enough, the two friends were wanted all over the state and had become master criminals. It was getting harder and harder to rob people's houses, because people were being encouraged to “lock their doors and windows” (as the news stations would always encourage).
Charlie and Jimmy kept finding new ways to break into peoples houses. They were completely successful for a while, but like all criminals, they made a crucial mistake.
One night, Charlie and Jimmy entered a house through the back window that lead into the furnace room. All of a sudden, a giant furry dog tackled Jimmy. Jimmy started screaming, and the dog started barking. The residents of the home threw a net over him, and the police came within minutes. The two friends were arrested, and everyone knew that the criminals had been caught. They were being interviewed nonstop by reporters wanting to know how what happened, and they were just sick of it.
The two friends ended up in jail for life, and they spent the rest of their life in misery. That's why you should never steal anything.

Artist Statement

My Collage theme is surfing. I just cut out cool pictures and put them on my canvas and glued them. Then I put a cover on it shaped like a wave and painted around it. I want the audience to see that there is a wave in my design, because surfing is my passion. I just basically followed the directions the whole time on the process, and my artwork was successful because I put a lot of work into it. Surfing probably motivated me the most during my time working on this.

Lunch Time in the Rye Junior High

I think that there should be a longer lunch break in the Rye Junior High school. It's only 30 minutes long, and that leaves 20 minutes at the most for lunch. That gives you almost no time at all to eat your lunch. That's why I think it should be changed.
I cannot argue with the fact that we most definitely will have to change our schedules if we do make the change, and there will be a little less time to have classes. The teachers would get more time to make tests and stuff for the class, though. There's also the fact that there would be less time for special events such as assemblies and the like, but we could get over that too.
First of all, having a longer lunch time would make the school much healthier for everyone. Eating slowly would be sufficient in getting the school healthier, and that could be achieved during a longer lunch time. Also, students wouldn't have to rush eating like we have to do now. This would overall make the school a much better place.
Second of all, having a longer lunch time would allow students to focus more in class. The students would focus more if they got more nutritious foods to eat. This would mean better scores on tests and more attention during class when the teacher is talking. There would be more overall participation in class, because the students would have more time to exercise and run around, and get more healthy food. The school would then get to be a better place.
Finally, there should be a longer lunch in the Rye Junior High because that would give everyone more time to socialize. Everyone would just get more time to hang with their friends and that would just be a good thing overall. That would also allow more time to be enjoyed by students and that would make the school an overall better place.
For all of these reasons, I truly believe that this school should have a longer lunch period.

Our grade went to project Safeguard last week which is a one day program where we learn how to communicate and talk to our friends and family when a conflict arrives. It was a really good experience and everyone learned a lot. Our parents came in and we had Moe's Subs for lunch. The program was held at Rye Congregational Church. There were 4 different classes available in the morning, and 2 classes where we separated the parents and kids in the afternoon. It was a really fun day all in all, and everyone learned a lot and had a good time.

This is a picture of Basalt from Nasa's moon rocks. The moon rocks were given to our 7^th grade science teacher through NASA. They are rocks from the moon. There were 6 different samples including Basalt (above)

3 Things I Learned at Strawbery Bank

How to make dolls out of corn husk and string: you first fold the biggest piece of corn husk the hamburger way, and tie it together in the middle so it looks like an hourglass. Do this to the other piece too, and stick the smaller one inside the bigger one and tie it together.
How to string beans: get a string and tie it to a pin. Then slide all of the string beans down it and hang it over the fire.
How they cooked a long time ago for Thanksgiving: string beans, mashed potatoes, turkey, e.t.c.

Dear Mom,
This is a summary of the things I've done in math class this year. Here's some of them.

First off, I learned about patterns and how to find their rules. In class, we were looking at finding how the term number was related to the sequence number. We made up algebra expressions for them. For example: if a term was twice the term number, the equation would be T=2N. That was a pretty easy unit.

Second, we learned about the order of operations. Mrs. Harte has this song on a CD that was about the order of operations, and it was really weird listening to it. There's a word called “pemdas” and it is for the rule for the order of operations. P stands for parentheses, E stands for exponents, M stands for multiplication, D stands for division, A stands for addition and S stands for subtraction. We used it for finding out difficult problems such as [(3+5)x10-5]-39/3 (which equals 62 by the way). This was my favorite unit so far this year.

Finally, we learned about probability. We learned the difference between experimental and theoretical probability. Theoretical probability is what's expected to happen, and experimental probability is what actually happens. We did a couple of computer simulations and mini experiments in class, and we did a big probability project. This was a pretty good unit.

Thanks for reading my letter.

Love, dhja

Hip-Hip Hooray.

Looking at this old picture
I realize today
That all those ball players
Were all happy and gay
Their field is well-played
and it's a bright sunny day
that's enough to make you say
hip-hip hooray.
after the picture
they then start to play
the pitchers start to pitch
and the batters start to spray
the pitcher chucks a fastball
and to his dismay,
the batter nailed it hard
could it go all the way?
The crowd goes so silent,
you could hear the horses nay
all of a sudden,
the crowd yells HOORAY!!!
and that is what happened
on that very day,
that's enough to make everyone say
hip-hip hooray.

I've learned a lot of things about space in science class. I've learned a lot about how the planets are very different sizes. A lot of the planets on the outside of the asteroid belt are usually bigger than the ones on the inside of the asteroid belt. Also, I've learned that there's a pattern to where the planets are located. The pattern is, Double the last first number, then add four and divide by ten and you'll get the amount of astronomical units the planet is away from the sun.

My Space Address

Planet- Earth
Solar System- sun
Galaxy-Milky Way
Cluster-Local
Super Cluster-Local
Universe