My favorite place

When I was young, I always hate school, because school is where you get all the pressure from, and teachers are all strict and they give us a bunch of homework. But now I realize that although sometimes school is annoying, but that's where I talk to my friends the most, and discover everything that I had never seen. Experiences are from school, and study is not such a boring thing to do. I found some interesting things in school, and I hang out with friends in school mostly, because we study 5 days a week, so school is kind of a place where me and my friends can communicate and hang out the most. We share things with each other in school, we met new people and see new stuff everyday in school. School is a place that I discover things and I think it is my favorite place for now. School Rocks!!! Yay!

Why do you think the novel is titled The Sun Also Rises?

I really don't know why the book was named "The Sun Also Rises", but I am just going to guess. Sun rises, and sun also goes down, but sometimes when people feeling down or facing problems, then it's just like the sun falling down. In the book, it describes about the bullfight fiesta. The fiesta is noisy and filled with laughters and dances. But when the fiesta is over, people just starts calming down and back to normal. The reason it is "The Sun Also Rises", I guess it's because in life you might be confused and lost, but the sun will always rise, so don't give up.

Nitrogen Passport Reflection Questions

1. Why didn’t everybody go to the same stations in the same order?
Because there are many situations that nitrogen will face, and when we roll the dice, the paper will tell us what we are facing right now. And the situation will send us to another station, maybe atmosphere, dead plant, river…etc. Every different nitrogen face different situation, so it will go to different station. Of course everyone didn’t go to the same station in the same order. There might be dew people that’s from different stations, but come together because of their situation.

2. Did you go to the same station twice? If so, what does this tell us about cycles?
I did go to the same station twice and more, and I think it really shows about cycles, because curtain kind of station can be repeated more than once, because there are many ways to get to that station.


3. Was there one station that seemed to have a lot of people at it? Why or why not?
Yes, once it was very crowded at the atmosphere station. I think the reason is because people had situation that all brought them to the station. Two people from different station could be brought to the same station. For example, if I am rainwater, then I can be dripping into the ocean. And you are surface water, you might travel through rivers and streams to the ocean. It shows that different nitrogen can come to same station because of heir situation.

4. What do you think the point of this activity was?
I think the purpose and reason we are doing this activity was because we want to know more about the nitrogen cycle or just cycles more. The cycle was just like the activity.

Feudalism

I was very confused about feudalism, and I did a lot of research on feudalism. Most of the websites, and books said that feudalism exist, even the video we watched today in class said that feudalism was a "thing". They also describe it as a relationship between hight class people and the lower class people, such as lords and the peasants, or vassals. The books, and websites describe the feudalism is like making a contract or like promise. For example: The vassals form own army, so he will promise that he will help the manor by using his army to support and fight the war or crusade. Also sometimes a knight has to make promises to lord too, they have to promise they'll fight for the lord no matter what. It also said that feudalism keeps people in order. But none of that it's true, feudalism doesn't actually exist in the Middle Ages. The word feudalism was actually invented by a scholars to describe a political system. The medieval people didn't think that they were medievals, they might just feel like they are just like us. The Middle Ages is also named it by historians in modern days. Feudalism seems not good, because it's like forcing people to give up for themselves and do something, or like taking profits from people from lower class. I am still a bit confused about the whole feudalism thing, whether it exist or not, but I guess as I read the article it said feudalism does not exist.

Benjamin Button TED talk

Behind the Benjamin Button movie, the oldness of the main character isn't showed by wearing make up. The movie production group make the actors face totally computer generated, so it looks more real than just putting on make ups. While making the old face of the actor on computer, they used the science method to slowly make the old face, and their goal is to let the actor to control the old face they made on computer. They first take pictures of Brad Pitt, and they try to get every kind of facial expression he can make, and they generated on a computer to make it look older, and then they will attach it on the actor that's acting it. They have this kind of technology which you put reflective marker on your body, and there will be sensors around you to capture the movements that you are doing. To capture the facial expression, they have this special make up, they put it on Brad's face, and he'll stand in front of a special machine that reconstruct someone's face, in this case they make it look older. They got a very good photographer and a good sculpture maker, and first the photographer took a lot of picture of Brad standing under the special machine with the special make up, and there were a lot of facial expression. After that, they started to transpose Brad's face into another model, then they make it look older. Later on, they start shooting, and they make Brad look at the image, and to act out the facial expression of the old man. They also break it into many specific parts, like mouth, eyes, and the head. The background was a important part too, so they put the face into different kind of places. It is a long process to make this man, and it really take a lot of different people and different technology to work it out. The old man's body is act out by other actors, and the face is a computer generated Brad face. I think it's pretty awesome and cool!

The Blood Red Horse-Chapter 5

William got a new warhorse called Hosanna, and its size isn't big, so his brother, Gavin joked and teased about it. William and Gavin were always in fight no matter what and where. William loves owning warhorses, but Gavin always tease about William owning little ponies. William hate the comparison between him and his brother, but Gavin always calls William his "little brother". Gavin wants to embarrass Will in front of everyone, so he invited Will to the joust field. He thought that Hosanna doesn't run fast, but he was wrong. They were gonna have joust fights, but Sir Thomas doesn't want either of them to get hurt. So they were racing for speed, look which horse runs the fastest. The race starts, first Hosanna stay still and silent while Montlouis(Gavin's warhorse) is sprinting to the end point. William starts begging Hosanna to run, but it doesn't really worked, suddenly he said "Oh, I should have worn spurs." After Will said that, Hosanna starts to gallop faster than a blink of an eye. Everyone was impressed, and Sir Thomas was surprised too. Gavin saw it, he started to compliment something about Will, and trying to be nice. He also tell Will to make a promise that he'll take care of Ellie if Gave is not coming back from the war, and to have the abbot or like the priest to say Mass every day for his soul if he died. They were all kind of friendly and nice to each other, it's like a peace between them.

The First Crusade-video reflection

The first crusade was formed because the Christians want to re-capture Jerusalem. In 1076, the Jerusalem was capture by the Muslims. It was difficult and filled with danger for the Christians to try to get to Jerusalem, so it really angered all Christians. Alexius I of Constantinople was scared that his country is going to be Muslims', because they are close to Muslims' territory. He called for help from Pope Urban II. Pope Urban II made the crusade, because they want to win back the Christian faith. The crusaders sewed red crosses on their tunic to represent their beliefs and royalty to Christianity. The word"croix" changed to "croisades", which is the word cross changed to crusades. There were many volunteers that wants to fight on the First Crusade, the reason they fight is because that they were told by popes that if they fight for god then he/she will automatically go to heaven. The first crusade was a pretty difficult and harsh journey for the Christians to get to Middle East, and many of the crusaders died because of hunger and disease. The war was pretty scary and bloody. The crusaders did won the war, but the capture of Jerusalem didn't end, they want to get rid off the Muslims from everything, so it led to other crusades.