Medieval Simulation Blog Post

Greetings. The name's Joan. I'm the local blacksmith here in this city; well there's the other old, fat blacksmith on the other side of the village but he hates me 'cause I'm of the female society. Oh boo, you Henry! Female blacksmiths are so in right now! And to think I studied the art of making things from metal from him!
Anywho, as a blacksmith, I'm pretty important to the society. I make all these types of weapons and armor for the knights and soldiers. I get a lot of customers from the noble lot, all wanting shiner swords and this and that. I make the fine swords used by the good and brave knights of our city. I also make keys if anyone wants to keep closets locked or doors barred. Also chains for the prisoners; the guards usually come in with a whole lot of orders 'cause their chains from the con-man Henry keeps rusting and bending. Heh.
As an artisan, I sell and make for my town and also support my family in our house above my shop. I must say, they complain so much about the "banging" and "clanging". But that "noise" is merely the sounds of my best friends hard at work.
You can probably already guess that because I'm so busy, I ain't got real friends. That's pretty true but I don't like people much; they talk a lot, complaining all the time. My friends are the anvils, hammers, rasps, files, chisels, and pincers. I absolutely love my hammer 'cause I made it myself. They help me get on in life and support the people I love. The hammer helps me flatten and shape metal. I bang it on hot metal when it cools a little after coming out of the furnace. My anvil is used as a template to shape the metal. I use the file to smooth out rough edges. I like this tool quite some too, but as my usual orders are swords, I can't use them.

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"Blacksmiths" 11 Apr 2003. 18 Feb 2009

Blood Red Horse

Two Main Characters of this story are Will and Gavin. Will is the younger brother of Gavin. He is the one that is trying to prove to everyone that he is prepared and a candidate for knighthood. He doesn't like this older brother, Gavin, but he likes Ellie. Gavin, Will's older brother, is the teasing type. So far, not much has been told about him, but we can tell that he too likes Ellie. Both sons are candidates or being knights because they are sons of a lord.

Will and Gavin are part of the nobles' society. Because they are the sons of a noble/lord, they live in a manor. The have a nurse that takes care of them, sort of like a baby-sitter. She probably belongs in the servants group.
If a lord/noble's son does not get picked for knighthood, they head off to to be monk or a bishop. Gavin hints to Will a lot about the local monks that are trying to build a monastery (where monks live and have scheduled times to learn and pray...etc) that he should go hang out with them to get used to the daily life in the future. Here, Gavin is simply competing with his brother and teasing him that Will will become a monk and not a knight, because Gavin will...


Author's Note: Doesn't that last line confuse you? Will will become a monk and not a knight because Gavin will...

Blog #5: Bull Fighting- Humane or Inhumane?

Do you think Bull fighting is a humane or an inhumane sport? Why do you feel that way? Please explain....

Bull fighting is a dangerous sport, true. There are many other sports that are dangerous like racing cars, or skateboarding, or gymnastics. But unlike those dangerous, I think that bull fighting is an inhumane sport. Bull fighting is in my opinion, a derivative from the gladiator fights in Ancient Rome. In the Gladiator fights, they put people in a "ring" to kill each other, just to see who is the strongest.
Bull fighting is similar except that they kill the bull at every fight. This is actually such a waste of bulls because nothing actually happens to the bull after it dies. Also, it is also not respecting animal rights because they bring a bull into a ring, anger it and kill it for entertainment. Would we consider it humane and a sport if bulls suddenly took over the world, use us in a fight? Waving a red cape in front of us, get us frustrated and angry and then eventually kill us while the herd of bulls celebrated around us? No. This is totally barbaric; playing with your food before ending its life.

Blog #4: The Clock of Life

"The clock of life is wound but once, and no man has the power to tell just when the hands will stop, at a late or early hour. Now is the only time you own. Live, Love, toil with a will. For the clock may soon be still." - Robert H. Smith

This quote basically tells us that you only have one life to live, therefore you have to life it as it's fullest.
The first line where it says "The clock of life is wound but once, and no man has the power to tell just when the hands will stop at a late or early hour" is a metaphor. The clock symbolizes our life and no one knows when our life will end, whether you will die at a young age or live many decades. The second line, " Now is the only time you own. Live, Love, toil with a will," means that you have to do what you want in your life and take risks because now (meaning your life) is the only time you'll get to experience many things. The last sentence basically tells us why we should "Live, Love, and toil with a will," and that is because the clock will soon stop. This means that life is short and yours might soon end.

SMASH Day Reflection

For this SMASH day, we did another mission scenario. This time, we were on a submarine under the water. We were trying to find out what the "treasure" was. The problem was that the treasure was in a box and our periscope was too small for us to see into the box. So, we had to make another longer periscope using cardboard and mirrors. Mrs. Smith gave us a piece of card board, some paper, tape, and four mirrors.
Our group modified our periscope twice. First we had the angles right, but we couldn't see clearly into the box. So we changed our design just as spy time started. We folded the tope part of the box so that it will be holding the mirror deeper into the box. In the end, we could see the items in the box without using angles but only one mirror.
Each of us gave ideas and listened to each other. I think that we communicated very well but we had so many ideas that we had to rush.

I would advise others to talk to their team carefully and to plan it out first, that way you won't have to rush in the end. Also, don't think so deep because our team didn't even need to set angles in the end. Plus it makes it hard to see the items when you're looking through two mirrors.

Blog #3: Mirror Image

When you look in the mirror, what do you see? Do you think others see you as you see yourself?

I think I'm a bit conceited and arrogant at times- or most of the time. I know that others see me as a little selfish sometimes. But I know that I'm not a bad person. No one is born a bad person but becomes one through experiences and tough times when growing up.
Yeah sure, sometimes I annoy my sisters and friends by being so selfish. I know that I sometimes only want to do my homework first before I help others. At times I can be nice when I want to.

A lot of people say I'm easy. I don't know why and I don't think I'm that but they do... which is weird because I'm selfish...not easy..

The Death Field

As we all know, serving your country in the military can be either a very harmless job like sitting behind a desk and reporting to stations or you could be doing field work. Field work in the military is like a big game of life and death.
In every scene, someone is saved and someone dies.
Recently in southern Afghanistan, two U.S. soldiers and three Afghans were killed while the soldiers were trying to disable a bomb.
While accompanying Gulab Mangal, a governor of the Helmand province, the convoy of soldiers came across two bombs stack on top of each other. After the soldiers tried to disable the bomb, one of them blew up and killed the five people.

The soldiers were part of a convoy of soldiers to go with Mangal to a village where they farm opium. Mangal was going to talk about alternatives to harvesting drugs. South Afghanistan provides two-thirds of the world's drugs, opium and herion.

Article: <LINK>

Free Food

As American falls more deeper into recession, some families have jumped on board with food stamp programs.
Before 52 year old Walter Thomas joined the federal aid program, he used to skip meals because his cabinets were emptying and his savings was running out. Walter was one of millions who have lost their jobs in this recession and now him and many others keep from going hungry by relying on food aids.

One in 10 people in the the U.S. depend on aids like these to get by in life.

In some cases, "need" is not the excuse for using food stamps. With the government setting up aids like food stamps and food banks, many people jump on the idea of free food given by their tax collectors. I think that those people should just take a look at the people around them that need the food and money. People shouldn't be so greedy and take what they want. Something should be done to tell the people that if you don't need to aid don't take it, because other people's lives may very well depend on them.

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Article: <LINK>
Image Source: <LINK>

Blog #2: An Effective Communicator

An effective communicator in my life is one of my friends Jean- and also Ariel. When explaining things I do not understand, both of them can easily explain it without using difficult words. I think they really possess this trait because they have the ability to communicate with me, even though English is their second language. They are also very good listeners because they understand pretty fast when others explain to them, too.
One example of them being effective communicator was one of the first SMASH days we had with Mrs. Smith's class. Both Ariel and Jean were in my group and we have to communicate to build something. Only Jean knew what the original piece looked like and only she could talk to Ariel without showing her the item. Ariel could not see the item but using the information Jean told her, she had to tell me (I was all the way across the room) and describe how the object looked like so that I could build a replica of it. This proves we shared effective communication as our replica was the exact same thing as the original object...

Reflections on Video Project

My humanities Research Report video took a lot of effort in piecing it together. I used some of the 5 Learning outcomes while working on it and presenting it.

I think being an effective communicator is one of the learning outcomes you can't help but use while showing this video. I communicated to the audience through pictures and voice-over. My pictures showed what I had to say and nothing was out of place (eg. wrong information with wrong picture). The pictures were clear and easy to understand. My voice-over recording also showed being an effective communicator because I spoke clearly and used strong adjective to describe each picture.
I was also an active learner because I went further and did more extra research and went deeper in the areas of religion, economy..etc. I compared the culture areas of both ancient Greece and Rome thoroughly and explained the details.

I most of the content knowledge from this research report video comes from the original research report which is a written report sharing my thesis of how Ancient Greece and Rome's culture was entwined with each other. I did most of the research for that paper then used the content and showed it through a video.
I learned how to effectively set the time of picture in iMovie to fit the voice-over. If not, the voice-over would not match up to the picture I'm describing. I also learned how effectively showing pictures are than just writing a picture. The audience can understand better as a picture tells a thousand words. Instead of just typing stuff up on keynote, it's much easier for the audience to understand if it was just pictures...