day 1 posnvkcxvdsjgkregfc

yesterday in class, we had an ed cafe about the people we did a voice thread on.  We tried to figure out who was the most important.  We really just insulted each other's people.  It was very entertaining.  Some of us even continued the arguments at lunch.  I had to explain to Mackenzie in the hallway that while she was delusional at the time, it will get better as long as she acknowledges that it is a problem that must be fixed.  I'm sure that she will see the truth eventually.

Today we took a test. Meh.

Updated timeline. Meh.

timeline!

Day 5 Post!

On Friday, Mr. Boyle was not there.  We had a substitute.  Mr. Substitute-Man talked to us about food.  I learned that I have a suicide wish because I eat white bread.  Jokes on him, because I'm immortal.  We had a packet of things to read and answer questions about.  It wasn't all that fun.

Today in history, we looked at a political cartoon and talked about it.  The cartoon depicted some men tearing the country apart while others tried to glue it back together.  They had very little feet.  We discussed the cartoon and the issues that the country was facing during that time period for the whole class.  Before class, I asked Mr. Boyle about slapping people with sandwiches.  Sandwiches are actually nice for slapping, as some of us discovered last Friday.

Day 3 Post!

Yesterday in class, we talked about John Brown!  He was an abolitionist who attempted to use violence to achieve his goals and free the slaves.  Him and some of his followers attacked an arsenal in Harper's Ferry, VA.  It did not end well.  Him and his men were captured outside the arsenal.  Brown was later hanged for his crimes.

Today in class, we read eyewitness accounts about the incident with John Brown at Harper's Ferry.  These accounts were from John Starry, Robert E. Lee, and John Brown.  John Brown seemed regretful, but he still was convinced that he was right.  He seems like and odd guy.  He claimed that he didn't want to hurt anybody... so what did he want the weapons for?  To dress up have a tea party with?  Maybe he meant that he didn't want the people who he deemed innocent to be harmed.  Or maybe he didn't intend for himself to be the one who harmed anyone.

30 Day Challenge:
meh.

Day 1 Post! Oh, and 30 Day Challenge Update!

Hey would you look at that!  I finally set my blog to the right time zone!

Yesterday in class, we looked at the Dred Scott vs. Sanford case.  Scott, a slave, claimed that he should be free because his master had taken him to a free state at one point.  He felt that this should mean that him and his family were freed from slavery permanently.  The courts ruled against him because slaves were considered to be property.  If Scott had been taken from his master, then that would be a violation of the 5th amendment.

Today in class we watched a video about the debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas.  We then read some quotes from  each and answered some questions about them.  We read about their views on things such as slavery, the Dred Scott case, equality, and a nation divided over slavery.  They disagreed about many of these things.  The only thing that they really agreed on was that blacks were inferior to whites. 'twas a silly time then.  We also dealt with some biological warfare, but we survived.  By the way, why did the plane crash?  ...because the pilot was a loaf of bread.  ... ... ...    ^_^

30 Day Challenge Update!

It has been going decently I guess.  I missed a day though.  Ah well.  I did attempt drawing something on the computer instead of on paper.  Since I don't have to take a picture with my webcam for that, I shall post it.

He's a pretty simple little ponyta, but I have to say that I have improved my mouse drawing quite a bit.  Oh, and he's a vector drawing so I can make him any size I want to as long as I use the right file!  Yay! ...Ahem.

Not posting links for anything because shut up.  I mean, because shhhhhut yo' mouth.  I mean, because shhhh, quiet in the library.

Day 5 Bloghfdgvb,n,gfm

blog blog blog blog blog blog blog yesterday in class we did things.  We talked about Uncle Tom's Cabin and its significance.  We also discussed the author's intentions in writing it.  It seemed like she was trying to make the slaves appear to be actual people so that people could sympathize with them.

Today in class we talked about the Kansas-Nebraska Act.  We also talked about the violence between the pro-slavery people and the ant-slavery people.  We read some papers and answered some questions.

30 Day Challenge:
My 30 day challenge has been going pretty well.  I will possibly post proof of that eventually.

Is that enough? I want to sleep now.

Stephen Douglas Voice Thread

I know I said voice thread, but I have just typed out the comments at the moment.  I kept getting interrupted while recording and I got angry and ragequit the whole thing.  I came back later and just typed out the comments.  I'll update it with actual voice narration when I can escape the interruptions.

Day 1 Post

Yesterday in class, we went to the library!  We answered questions about the states in the 1820's.  To do this, we used an interactive map on the computer.  We answered questions about things like population and land area of the north and south.  I also determined the answer to a far more important question in class yesterday.  This question was "Which is sassier:  Arkansas or Massachusetts?"  You see, if you mispronounce their names, you can say "Arkansassy" and "Sassachusetts."  Mackenzie, Mr. Boyle, Emily, and I all said that Massachusetts was sassier.  Allie said that Arkansas was the sassiest.  Allie made a good point about that though.  She said that Arkansas is sassy because it looks like it should be pronounces are-kansas, but it is not.  I still feel that Massachusetts is sassier though.  Mr. Boyle said that I thought too much about this.  He has no idea what he is talking about.

Today in class, we talked about what we did in class yesterday.  Afterwards, we read excerpts about the Mexican War and filled in a chart.  Yay charts!  Then we watched a video about the war.  Yay videos!

On a darker note, I'd like to include a memorial to my spider friend.  I found him on a piece of the robot today.  He became my friend.  I left him unattended for a little while so he could have peace and I could get something done.  When I went to say hi to him again, he was dead.  Someone killed my spider friend.  I vowed to find the culprit and get my revenge.  Finally, one of the suspects confessed.  He will regret his decision to harm my spider friend.

30 Day Challenge Update

I'm a bad blogger, so we haven't had one of these in a while.  Time for a mass update of all of the songs I chose!  I've been trying not to double up on bands, but I did once.  Oh well.  i'm only going to post links and  explanations for some.  I can't remember which ones have sketchy lyrics or music videos, so i'll only post links to the ones I'm sure of. Oh, by the way, I take no responsibility for language or anything in these songs. Please don't sic the dragons on me if one of them is a little less than appropriate.

Part 1:

Wednesday the 7th: Steady, As She Goes - The Raconteurs

Thursday the 8th: Panic - Sublime With Rome

Friday the 9th: Bleed - The Smashing Pumpkins

Saturday the 10th: Sinnoh League Victors
This one is definitely the best of them all.  Yes, it is Pokemon season 13 theme song.  We watched Pokemon in the car on the drive to and from the robotics competition.  It was fantastic.
Here's the song (unfortunately the extended version didn't have an embed code, so I had to go with the shorter one):


Sunday the 11th: Conquest - The White Stripes
See, this is where I doubled up on bands.  I just couldn't help myself, okay?

Monday the 12th: Float On - Modest Mouse

Tuesday the 13th: Shake Me Down - Cage The Elephant

Wednesday the 14th: Heart In A Cage - The Strokes

Part 1 and a half:
I learned Seven Nation Army on guitar.  It's not quite perfect though.  My timing is a little off.

Part 2:
I'm not posting pictures yet because it's a big project that is still unfinished.

Day 3 Post

Yesterday in class, we used the storyboards we made last week to make venn diagrams about the slavery stories.  After we finished that, we were split into different groups.  In those groups, we read about a person who was either a defender or opponent of slavery and filled out a paper about them.  My group read about Abraham Lincoln. Then we split into even different groups and shared the information we took down about our people so we could fill in all of the parts of the paper.

Today in class, we compared the defendants and the opponents of slavery.  We found that the opponents were usually born into poverty and had little education, while the defendants were more wealthy and educated.  We also had a mock election.  Just like a real election we filled in ballots with our votes.  Unlike a real election, we could not write in candidates.  That made me sad.  Oh well.

30 Day Challenge

We watched a TED talk about "30 day challenges" where you do something each day for 30 days.  For my challenge, I have decided to find one new song that I like a day, and pick one or more each week to learn either all or part of on guitar.  I've been planning to learn to play guitar, but have never really gotten around to it.  I might as well force myself to now.  I also decided to draw each day, whether I draw something completely new, or just work on one of my half-done drawings.

Progress so far:

Today's song is Seven Nation Army, by The White Stripes.



As for my drawing, I decided to shade a drawing of Rei Ayanami that I did during chemistry one day.  Here she is (please excuse the poor-quality webcam picture cringe):

Day 3 Post

Yesterday in class, we had a quiz on the preamble of the Declaration of Independence.  Afterwards, we took some notes and talked about some battles.  On the board, Mr. Boyle wrote "Corn Cornwallis" instead of Lord Cornwallis.  How silly of him.  We then got really off topic.  Mr. Boyle said that we are all insane.  My sources tell me that that is a very Mr. Boyle-ish thing to say.  I mentioned the dragons again.  Take THAT, Mr. Boyle.  Your secret is out again! Muhahaha.. haha.. ha.. ha. ha.

Today in class, we took a test.  It tested our knowledge.  It wasn't an overly difficult or confusing test, which was nice.  I do not like it when taking a test feels like this.  I'm pretty sure that i mixed up two of the colonies though.  Ah shucks.

Updated timeline! Yay!

Civic Values Voice Thread! Yay!

It's time for my civic values voice thread! Yay! It's late and I'm silly, so bear with me, okay?  I got a bit weird near the end.. and the beginning.. and the middle.. Aaaaanyway, it was lot's of fun and I made up a song while doing it!  It goes "civic values, civic values, civic values, civic values, civic values, civic values, yay!"  Nice, eh?  Most of my songs are under 5 words long.  The words just repeat a lot.  Now, listen to my voice thread.  I expect full cooperation.  You'll know what I mean when you get there.

 

Day 1 Post!

Yesterday, we did a scavenger hunt with QR codes!  It was actually a sneaky way for Mr. Boyle to get us to answer questions about the American Revolution.  We saw through his clever plan, but went along with it anyway.

Today in class we watched a presentation about art from the American Revolution.  It was kind of interesting, I guess.  I made some silly faces Allie and drew a pretty picture.  I swear I was paying attention.  It's just that If I Didn't Have You ... sorry, my music slipped.  I mean, if I didn't have something to do while I listed/watched I would have gone insane.  It was just too much sitting silently without something to actively work on for Jess to handle.

Day 5 Post

Yesterday, Mr. Boyle was not there.  We had Woman as a substitute.  She makes me angry, so I refuse to use her name.  Woman was bad.  Woman talked for most of the class.  She talked and talked and we ended up not being able to finish our essays.  That made me angry.  The last sentences in my essay is  "Those were arghhhhhhh" then "I didn't finish :("  Woman shouldn't have talked so much.  Bad Woman.  She also let the dragons escape.  She left the door open and they left.  Mr. Boyle will have to go catch them again.  Silly Woman.  I do not like Woman.  I bet Mr. Boyle just did that so we would be forever scarred and never want to have a substitute again.  What a sneaky man.  Maybe he's still mad about the umbrella thing.  Silly.

Today in class we told Mr. Boyle about Woman.  Then we talked about the Revolution some more.  Who had the best navy in the world? Britain.  Who had the best navy in the world? Still Britain.  Who had the best navy in the world? Let me check.. Yep, still Britain.

Day 3 Post

Yesterday we did stuff (no, really?). We looked at the Declaration of Independence in groups and each had a part that we had to find the meaning of. I worked with Jolene and Luke. We then had to write a fake tweet about it. Ours was totally the best. It was absolutely fantastic.  I tried to put this guy:  (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ in, but we didn't quite have the right characters. We made it work with what we had though.


Today, we went into even. bigger. groups. and shared the information we wrote down yesterday. Then we talked about the debate and questioned Mr. Boyle's manliness because of his desire to drink drinks with little umbrellas in them. I think that he will do this someday. He'll say it is just to spite us, but it will really be because he knows we're right but still likes umbrellas. We also learned today that the closet leads to other countries. We were talking about what we can do if we don't like how childish and pathetic our government can be, and one option was to go to another country. Mr. Boyle said that if we don't like it, then "there's the door" and made a hand gesture towards the closet door. This led me to believe that if we go through the door we will get to another country. It probably sends you to a random country when you walk through it. Or Narnia. Or if you're lucky, you'll see the dragons. Closets are silly. So are presidential candidates.

Day 1 Post

On Friday, we read some articles that gave different perspectives on the issues with Britain.  We read these in groups and wrote some stuff about the ideas in them.  Then went into other groups and talked about their documents.  Well that's all I've got about Friday.  I was really out of it that day so I don't really remember too much about what happened.  Ah well.

Today in class we presented our Revolutionary Replica projects.  My "guest" was Patrick Henry.  He wears silly turtle necks and I don't like them.  Since his turtle-necks are so silly, I didn't fix his blotchy hand.  He also doesn't have any feet.  He kept trying to run away so I cut them off.  I accidentally called him George while presenting.  I don't know why.  He didn't mind though, because he's made of paper.
Another part of that project was to make a voice thread.  Here's mine:

Search Stories! Yay!

Heeeeeeelllo there, I present to you: "Search Stories"!

Day 5 Post

Yesterday in class we talked about who fired the "shot heard around the world."  We read things written by various people and they really just accused the other side.  There was one British guy who said it was the British, but he also said that he couldn't really tell, so he's pretty unreliable.  We also watched a ted talk about witnesses and how reliable they really are.  Spoiler Alert:  Not very.

Today in class we talked about the Battles of Lexington and Concord and the Battle of Bunker Hill.  We watched an animation about it with fabulous music that made it nice and intense.  We also found out that they kept cows on the hills.  I asked Mr. Boyle if the soldiers killed the cows and he said that if the cows got in the way then they probably died.  Thaaaaaaaaat makes me sad.  I like cows.  After we talked about the cows... I mean, the battles, we made a search thing about them.  That will be posted eventually, but it took a really long time to load.

Day 3 Post

Yesterday we had another EdCafe.  It was rather disappointing.  There was hardly any discussion, and when there was it was forced and short.  All we really did was talk about an event while everyone silently took notes.  It was not very interesting and I got bored pretty quickly.  I also ended up not filling the whole eight minutes even though I had twice as many preparation notes as last time.  I think that if we had gone a little further into these events in class before the EdCafe we could have had better discussions because we would have developed stronger opinions on it.  If we were to do the EdCafe tomorrow rather than yesterday, then I think that there would be a lot of things to discuss.

Today in class we talked a little about the events we did the EdCafe on.  We went over it in more detail.  It definitely changed my view on the colonists.  Whenever we hear about what happened, it seems like they were such admirable and brave people fighting for liberty.  Now it seems that they really just acted like sadistic children with weapons.  Some of their actions were rather disgusting, actually.  for example, they had no right to do such horrible things to the tax collectors.  These people were just doing their jobs, but what did the colonists do?  Hanged some of them and tarred and feathered the rest.  That is absolutely uncalled for.  The tea incident was downright irresponsible.  It's nothing more than overgrown children throwing temper tantrums.  Sure, I'm all for us winning our freedom, and I know that the British weren't all pure and innocent either, but that doesn't make these things okay.  Hmph. ...Afterwards, we read an irritating poem about Paul Revere's ride.  It was irritating because it had so much extra unnecessary detail and didn't even do anything artful or clever with it.  Now if it had done it well, then a lot of the extra detail would be forgivable.   Instead, it just doubled the length of the already painful poem.  It was so drab and dull and repetitive.  It wasn't even historically accurate!  That's where our class work came in.  We had to write a sonnet about the ride that was historically accurate.  Mine ended up being somewhat decent, I suppose, but I'm certainly not a great poet.  I lost a bit of respect for Paul Revere today.  When I first learned about him I thought he was a pretty cool guy.  Now I kind of resent him for being so cruel to that poor horse.  I mean, come on, man!  You have to give the poor thing a rest every once in a while!  Other than that,  I guess he's still a pretty good guy.

...I think I'm having an angry day today... ಠ_ಠ

Day 1 Post

Yesterday in class, we read about the French and Indian War in groups.  The font was very small.  I could have sworn that it got smaller at one point, but alas, I was seeing things.  My group never actually finished the reading, but Mr. Boyle filled the class in on what happened.  I would like to point out that my group had some spectacular commentary to add.  We also determined that Dinwiddie is a fabulous name.  Personally, I think that it would have been more amusing if it was Dinwiddlie.  Anyway, we learned that George Washington was a sneaky and talented man who got the French drunk to get them to share their secret plans.  More importantly, we learned the outcome of the war:  The British recovered from their initial losses and went on to defeat the French.  The king then made some silly decisions that upset the colonists and made them start to realize how much they disliked being ruled from 3000 miles away.

Today in class, we went to the library to work on getting out information for our upcoming EdCafe.  We worked in groups on Google Docs.    My group wrote about the Stamp act.  We split up the sections between the three of us, and each wrote about our parts.  Unfortunately, our Google Overlord was being very uncooperative and we were getting frustrated.  Exclamations of "I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!" and "HA! f5! Take THAT,  Google!" were heard all around the room.  Actually, I think that was just me.  Anyway, although Google was being a jerk, we got our information all typed up!

Comic 2: Justice

Comic 1: Honor

Timeline

Day 3 Post/EdCafe

Today in class we made our first attempt at an "ed cafe" where we took turns leading eight minute discussions in small groups.  We discussed the rights in the first amendment.  I think that this little experiment went really well.  It certainly could have gone better, but it was amusing and educational.  I really liked being able to hear all of our classmates ideas on these things, as well as to be able to express our own views.  The main issue that we had was keeping the discussions going.  In every group I was in there was a point where we ended up sitting there with nothing else left to say.  More preparation on our part might have helped prevent that.  I think that my problem with my preparation was that i had expected more discussion.  That didn't really happen because we all agreed on pretty much everything.  It was a little disappointing because of that.  Maybe if we end up doing an ed cafe with something more controversial it will be better in terms of discussion.  We'll just have to wait and see what we end up doing later on, I guess.

Day 1 Post

On Friday, we talked about the Bill of Rights and the conflict over the Constitution between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists.  As it turns out, their thoughts were heavily influenced by the influx of unusual alligators that were migrating down the coast during the infamous Canadian Alligator Scandal of 1785 that occurred just a few years before the Constitution was signed.  These alligators were of a special sort from northern Canada that emitted radioactive waves with mind control properties.  After they reached Florida, where they currently reside (they hide out deep in the everglades and try to avoid people, so if you weren't told they were there you would never know), they realized what they had done and used their telepathy to send a message back to the writers of the Constitution.  The message went as follows: "Sorry."  It was then that the Bill of Rights was added and everyone was happy (for the most part).
Actually, Friday was a half day and we didn't have class.  In the words of the alligators, "sorry."

Today in class, we actually did talk about the Bill of Rights!  We also talked about scandals! We read the amendments and then read a scenario where a man, Madonna, and some party-goers were all arrested.  We had to figure out which amendments were violated in the scenario.  There were a lot.  (Ex: searching property without a warrant, double trials, unfair trials, cruel and unusual punishments...).  Everyone ended up being freed! (We'll get you next time, Madonna!).  It was good fun.  It would have been even more amusing to incorporate all of the amendments.  Just imagine Madonna and a bunch of inebriated party-goers forming a militia and arming themselves with squirt guns and the police not being able to do anything (until they inevitably broke some law.  Rowdy and inebriated people do that sometimes, you know?).  Actually there was nothing to suggest that they had been drinking, but I like to think that they were because it makes the squirt-gun thought more amusing.  Madonna would lead them into battle screaming like an ancient warrior then little streams of water would start flying and landing a few feet in front of her.  Their facial expressions would be fabulous.  Oh my gosh, i am getting so off track.  The Bill of Rights is great, it gives the people.. well, rights, so Madonna and multiple party-goers aren't cruelly and unusually punished or any assortment of other things (and neither are the rest of us).  Well, that's what we did in class.

Day 5 Post

Yesterday in class we made infographics! Yay!  They were about the three branches of government.  I worked with Mackenzie and Emily.  The inforgraphic was about the three branches of our government which we spent some time learning about before starting the infographics.  We ended up not finishing ours in class (you just have to be precise with it, you know?) so I took it home and finished it since I had the least to do after school.  This infographic can even be found right here on my blog.

Today in class we read about Federalists and Anti-Federalists.  We filled out a paper with a partner about whichever group we got the reading about.  I got the Anti-Federalists! Yay!  I guess they were a little unrealistic about some things (we cant have every single person in the country say their thoughts on the government.  It would take forever to make decisions!), but they were totally correct in saying that we needed a Bill of Rights.  After we filled that out, we were assigned numbers that corresponded with someone who read about the other group.  We then filled out the other side of the paper that was for that group.  Afterwards we made a magazine/poster/thing (I can't remember what it was called) about one of the sides.  We were assigned the Anti-Federalists.  We ended up rushing towards the end so my drawings got progressively worse as we rushed to finish up.  It's okay though, they still get the point across.  That's really all I have to say.

My Friends Are People

I now present to you my lovely spreaker podcast.  I felt completely ridiculous, but it was good fun to make.  It did take at least nine tries for me to get it right though.  I just cant good do word stuff today like right syllable thing.  If I made another podcast made entirely of my reactions to myself messing it up it would be composed entirely of angry growling and a few semi-logical rambling sentences where I say ridiculous things (ex: civic values are good in people.. my friends are people..  It's great..) with long pauses in between and then told myself that I needed to start over.
By the way, my microphone is being a complete goon and having unfortunate zappy static-like background noises that really irritate me.
 

Infographic! Yay!

Day 3 Class Post

Friday in class we went over the syllabus and our upcoming assignments to eliminate confusion and prevent us from being angry with Mr. Boyle.  His plan worked, and (as far as I know) no one has any harsh feelings towards him.  Good for you, Mr. Boyle.  Anyway,  We're all clear on our assignments now.

Today in class we worked in groups to answer questions about different plans for the executive branch of our government.  The plans we went over were the Virginia Plan, the New Jersey Plan, and the Hamilton Plan.  Reading all of the different ideas brings up the question of whether our system is the best or if something else would be better.  When I think about this, I like to focus on the Hamilton Plan.  The plans all had their similarities and differences, but the one with the most striking differences was the Hamilton Plan.  It was rather similar to a monarchy, in fact.  The leader would continue to lead so long as he was doing a good job.  Now that's an interesting idea.  It makes sense because a good leader is good for a country, right?  But then again, aren't new people with new ideas good for it as well?  I feel that the answer to both of those questions is yes.  So would it be better to have a set number of years or unlimited?  With a set number of years, you might end up with a great leader who cant continue.  If the term is unlimited, that leader can just keep leading.  That seems like it could be a good thing, but then again new ideas can always be beneficial to the government.  There is also the issue of a bad leader.  Who's to say that a bad leader will give up power when you tell him to?  If you have someone to oversee him and stop his shenanigans then that hopefully wont be too big of an issue.  The concern is still there though.  Unlimited terms definitely have a few issues.  I was thinking of a way that we could combine the two and thought "hey, why don't we have an option to keep a good leader longer, but not indefinitely?"  Then I felt really silly because that's what a second term is for.  Our system kind of does combine the two types of systems.  We can keep a good leader if we want to, but instead of keeping them indefinitely we just give them a little more time.  Then they have to step down.  It's nice because it allows to have good leaders for a while and new people and ideas.  In the three plans that we went over, none of them allowed for re-election.  I wonder why that is.  Could they have assumed that they wouldn't have leaders they wanted to keep? Probably not.  They seemed to have high hopes for their lovely new country.  Maybe they felt that they would need new ideas coming in.  Or maybe it was so everyone gets the same amount of time to be president so it was fair.  Or maybe they were afraid to have a ruler for too long.  That could come from having a king for so long.  Many people wanted to get as far away from a monarchy as possible, so they could have wanted shorter terms to allow for the maximum input from the people.  Regardless of their reasons, it's really interesting how they came up with all these different ideas and managed to decide on one system that seems to work rather nicely.

Day 1 Class Post

Yesterday in class, we were broken up into groups to determine what different people at the Convention of 1787 thought about different issues.  These issues were as follows:

• Proportional representation vs. equal representation
• Bicameral congress vs. unicameral congress
• Election by the people vs. election by state legislatures

My group had the document for "election by the people vs. election by state legislatures."  We found out about the viewpoints of Roger Sherman, Elbridge Gerry, George Mason, James Wilson, James Madison, Charles Pinckney, and Oliver Ellsworth.  Out of these seven men, four supported election by state legislatures, and three supported election by the people.  The arguments for election by state legislatures included:

• People can be easily misled
• The state legislatures know more about government, so are more fit to make these decisions
• The legislature wont support a new government if they don't have a say in it

Those who supported election by the people backed it up with:

• It's the whole point of democracy
• A government is more stable with the people's support
• It's essential to a free government
• You get better representatives that way
• It's the only security for the rights of the people

Both sides made good points.  Personally I agree with the side that argued for election by the people.  I'm all for people having say in government.  A government is nothing without the support of its people.

Today in class, we started by taking a quiz on the preamble.  I'm pretty sure that at least half of the class was singing The Preamble Song in their heads while taking it.  I know I was.  Afterwards, we broke up into groups again to share what we wrote in class the day before.  This way we ended up with the opinions on all of the issues instead of just the one we got information on yesterday.  We then went over it as a class and then moved on to talking about the compromises that were made.  Compromise is great.  The government really needs to learn how to do that.  Instead, they're just like "Oh, you don't agree with me? Well let me say it again, only louder!  Or maybe I'll write it with fancier wording to trick you.  Oh, do you have an opinion?  Yeah, well mine is better, so shush.  I SAID SHUSH!"  Okay, okay, I made them sound way more childish than they usually are, but I think I got my point across.  Everyone is just so stubborn.  Things would actually get done if we could all talk things out and have respectful debates and compromise.  On the topic of respect, what is up with pretty much everyone in government just saying horrible things about their opponents rather than saying good things about themselves?  The voters end up with a thousand half-true reasons to not vote for any of the canditates, but hardly any reasons to vote for any of them.  Why do we all have to make it a choice between lesser evils?  Okay, I'm getting off topic.. uh.. just compromise, guys.  You can say why they're wrong, but say why you're right, too.  And please, please, just try to work together.  

Wow, I didn't realize that writing about today's class would make me feel so.. talkative. (bloggative?... actually, no.  That's a horrid word.)

Family Civic Values

Family Civic Values on Rewindy

Rewindy has decided to be quite the stupidface and only open up the text for the pictures when he feels like it (about one in three times).  If the text doesn't pop up on any one of the pictures, just reload the page once or twice.  It's there, I promise.

Artifacts

What three artifacts could someone find in the future that describe you the best?

I would say that the three things that would give someone the best and most complete impression of me would be my computer, my phone, and my fabulous case full of books.

My computer is the perfect artifact for someone to find since it contains a huge amount of info about me.  Now, we're going to pretend that they find my computer exactly as it is now, even though that's unlikely.  Chances are they would find Future Me's computer, which would undoubtedly have some different things.  Anyway, they can find out a lot about me from this thing.  The first thing they see is the desktop.  They see my wallpaper, which tells them that I like a certain tv show.  Nothing too big there, but it's still information.  They also see my desktop icons, which there are very few of, and those that are there are extremely unobtrusive, so they can guess that I dislike having things all cluttered up.  They also have access to my email, my files, and the internet.  If they were to read my email messages, they learn who some of my friends are, what volunteer group I'm a part of, what books I get from the library and how often I get them, what sites I have signed up for, and that recently those sites have been all history related for some odd reason.  When they look at my pictures, they learn what my hobbies are, what my friends, pets, and I look like, some tv shows and movies I like, and they either find out a bit about my sense of humor, or they take those things seriously and think that I'm really really strange and they'll probably feel very confused.  When they look at the rest of my files, they can find my entire music library, as well as many essays and stories I've written in the past.  You can learn a lot about someone from their writing and their likes and dislikes.  They now have a pretty decent picture of who I am.  There's still the internet left to look at.  Keep in mind that search/internet history is a very powerful thing.  The first thing they get when they click the internet icon is my homepage.  They will either think that I'm some wacko who is convinced that the almighty LHC is truly going to destroy the world, or they'll figure out a little more about what I find amusing.  They also have access to all of my bookmarked sites.  From the fact that in my bookmark bar there are only icons (they don't have site names with them) that have been arranged in order by color, they can see how I like to organize things.  Then they either find out more about my sense of humor and what I find amusing, or they just think that I'm an incredibly strange person who cant keep track of the days of the week and looks at blogs consisting entirely of pictures of toast because I am genuinely interested in nicely browned and perfectly crunchy bread.  From the other bookmarks, they find out just how much I like astronomy, and that I watch a lot of movies and shows online.  If they can access my internet history then oh boy will that yield some info for them.  By the time they get through all of this they will know my name, my face, and a whole lot about me.

While my computer gives them a pretty good image of me, the information it supplies is lacking something.  It  has very few records of my conversations with people.  My phone on the other hand, is full of these.  Again, we're pretending that it is my phone in my current state, so it has records of loads of text messages, and this allows them to just go and have a grand old time reading through my conversations.  They can find out how I speak, how my friends speak, what we talk about, and all sorts of other things.  This information can add to, confirm, and disprove things that they determined from looking at my computer (for example, I do, in fact, know what day of the week it is, okay?!).  They will also learn that I use "goon" as some odd mixture of an insult, a term of endearment, and a few other things that I can't remember the words for right now.  I also have pictures on my phone, so they will learn many things such as the fact that that I like dinosaurs and wearing silly hats (and they can infer that I like dinosaurs wearing silly hats as well).  If they take this info and combine it with the info they gathered from the computer, then they have a huge amount of information on me.  Probably not as much as our Google Overlords have, though.  Or maybe more.  I like to think that Google hasn't gained access to my files (or my brain, for that matter).

The third artifact was a bit more difficult to come up with.  I didn't really think that I have one other thing that I could use that would describe me.  My disorganization means that my sketchbook is empty and my drawings are all scattered about, so they all would become individual things, and just one doesn't make a good artifact.  We're only using Current Me's things, so I can't put Future Me's telescope since Current Me hasn't saved up enough money for it yet.  All that I could come up with that was singular was my fabulous case full of books.  Yes, I mean my bookcase.  But I refuse to write it as "bookcase" here because that would just be the case and not the books.  "Fabulous case full of books," on the other hand, makes it obvious that the books are in the case, so they can now be used as my artifact since a fabulous case full of books is singular, even though it contains multiple books.  This works that way, right?  Even if it doesn't, we can pretend it does, can't we?  Okay, let's get on with it.  Even though a decent record of what I checked out from the library is on my computer, the Future People would have an incomplete picture of what I read since it does not include the books I don't check out from the library.  I have books from when I was younger and books from now.  They would be able to get an idea of how my tastes have changed over the years.  Actually it'd more likely that they would think that I read at a 5th grade reading level then every once in a while whip out a nice big book to confuse people.  Or maybe they would think that I'm using the big books to look smart while I'm actually at a 5th grade reading level.  The possibilities are endless.  I sure hope they realize that they're from multiple times in my life, otherwise those poor Future people will feel unnecessarily perplexed.  Regardless of whether they figure this out or not, they can still infer a lot about me.  A book can tell you so much about it's reader.  They could find out all about my interests and possibly a lot about my mind and personality, but how much they figure out in the personality area really depends on how much they want to analyze these things.  Ultimately, the fabulous case of books doesn't add too much to their knowledge about me.  If they knew that I'm referring to it as my fabulous case of books then maybe they could draw some conclusions from that.

So that's that.  Future People can get a pretty impressive amount of information about me from only three artifacts.