Recently in History class we were learning about Egypt, but also power, trade, and culture, the main ingredients in civilization. So we did a project in which we each chose one of those ingredient, and an example of that ingredient in ancient Egypt. I chose the female pharaoh Hatshepsut as an example of institutional power. Here is a video of my slides:

 

Thanks for reading and I hoped you learned something. It was really fun and I’m proud of it because I got a really good grade on it and I felt like I did well on it.

Hello Readers!

In case you didn’t know, I play a sport called Ultimate Frisbee

Image from Wikipedia

It is a very fun sport. Many people don’t know about it though, and it is often confused for frisbee golf. The way it is played is one team bucks the disc to the other, then the latter tries to advance the disc up the field and into the end zone for a point. But they can only run without the disc in their hands, and they have to pass. Meanwhile the other team is trying to stop them by intercepting or blocking passes in the air. That is but a brief synopsis, but that’s all you need to know for now.

The main season is winter, but I play a league with two recreation seasons in fall and spring and one league that ends in a tournament in the winter. It’s very fun! This winter I’ve been on a team of 11 people. The thing I like the most is the diversity. People from ages 9-15 play in my league, and both boys and girls play.  I also love the teamwork and sportsmanship. I don’t know about other teams, but my team is great. We are all really nice and sportsmanlike, and we have great teamwork. We communicate great on the field. Some of the other teams we’ve played have been not the nicest, like the last team we played kept calling fouls when nothing happened, or faking fouls. And another team’s coach was yelling at our coach and our team, and their players were yelling at each other. But our team is great!

Here is our lineup:

Me/Ajay/Sonic (sonic is my frisbee nickname)- I am a receiver. I’m the fastest guy on our team and I probably score the most points. I run ahead of the disc and go for long advances

Atticus- Atty is the handler. He was with me last year at the tournament where we got third. He throws long hucks for me and the other receivers. He also throws short skilled passes in clutch moments.

Riley- She is also a receiver. She stays a little bit shorter though. We’ve had some great plays together, where one of us catches it 5-10 yards from the end zone, then the other one runs ahead and the former passes them disc for the point. Her parents both played ultimate and she’s a great team player.

Aidan- He is a handler and a great defensive player. He’s had some great hand blocks and has thrown some powerful points. He is really nice and pretty tall. He does it all with some catches. He is always the first one to volunteer for handler.

Keen- He is also a handler. He’s been at all of our games, and his dad is one of our coaches. You can tell how committed he is because he’s gotten so much better throughout the season.

Benson- Benson is a receiver. He stays short and gets those crucial passes so we can work our way upfield. Always improving, he is a great part of our team. We’ve had some plays together where he gets passed the disc, then I run quickly ahead, and he gives me a pass.

Victor-Vic is a handler. His fakes with the disc are amazing and you can tell how much he loves to play. He doesn’t get overzealous and through deep hucks that he can’t make,  he’s been throwing nice short passes to advance the disk. Everyone loves Victor!

Teddy- Teddy is not the loudest player, but he’s always out there giving it his best. And by that I don’t mean he’s not good. In fact he is very tall and is crucial in big passes. We also say he has fairy magic because he magically gets the disk whenever it’s thrown around him.

Livvie- Livvie has improved the most this season. The first game she had never played before, and by the tournament she had the disk as much as everyone else and was making great catches and passes.

Joey- Joey has only been at 4 games, 3 of those in one day at the tournament, but he still is great at taking feedback.

Archer- Archer is the tiniest guy on our team. He’s in 5th grade but he is great. He’s famous for catching anything, especially big passes into the air that come down really fast, and that no one else would go for. He’s also pretty low down and makes great sliding catches.

That’s my team! Recently we had our tournament. Sadly we didn’t win any games. But all the other teams had practice 3-4 times a week  and we practiced for 20 minutes each week. So thanks for reading, I’ll give you more updates when the spring season starts up.

Recently in LA we have been reading the Wisdom Tales. After we took a test on them, we each made a comic about one of the tales.  We used a digital drawing app and Comic Life 3 to create these. I chose The Prodigal Son from the Christian tradition. I also chose to modernize it. Enjoy!

Thanks For Reading

Be on the lookout for my next post, My Frisbee Team!

Hello READERS! Before we start this is a tribute to 30patricks so let me give you the link to his blog http://30patricks.edublogs.org.

Now if you read his blog, then you know his thing is rants. Now I write an article in a student-owned fake-newspaper at my school called Tinted Lens (I might write about that later) under the alias Enroh Yaja (don’t ask) and recently I wrote about Christmas for our Christmas special. It was basically a rant on Santa (a ranta) so I revised it and put it in here.

A Ranta

Santa Claus. The myth goes that he was an old Turkish man who put ORANGES in peoples’ SOCKS! Like what the heck? Ok that’s creepy, and who wants to eat their foot fungus? Then he meets some elves in the forest and “saves” them from other humans. Ok that sounds kinda sus…

I mean who’s to say he didn’t enslave them? And now they do Some pretty sus stuff for him, but we’ll get to that later. Now that we’ve gone over his history, let’s go over what he does today. Okay so apparently his elves work 364 days a year, and get to rest for one day. And the movies always leave out one thing. If I were working 364 days a year with only one payed vacation, I would quit (if I could) but that’s the thing; are they paid? I’ve never heard anyone talk about their pay. Maybe he gives them some cookies? I don’t even know. And what would he pay them? They’re stuck in the arctic circle, how could they use money. I hope he feeds them at least. Now while they’re working, what is he doing? Does he work too? I don’t know. I feel like if you want to make a convincing argument that someone this fantastical exists, you can’t leave gaping holes in the lore! Now let’s get to the creepier side of Santa. Where should I start? There is the popular point, isn’t he breaking and entering, how does no one know where he lives, or maybe something about the millions of mall santas. While those are all good points, I’ll get to them later. I want to talk about the elves. So, does anyone have an elf on the shelf? I do. And I know a lot of my friends do. And they all look like perfect angels. They all look like 10 year olds with their perfectly smooth faces, dimples, and good haircuts. THEY ALL LOOK THE SAME! And the elves can’t all be that perfect. So where are the others. Santa might not be the jolly old man we all know. He is probably ashamed of the non-homogeneous side of the spectrum, and makes them the ones that stay back and work. Here’s another problem with the elves. How do they get into your house? Magic or Mischief? Were they thieves before they were elves? How do they know how to get into the houses. All I’m saying is, when December rolls around, check your locks. Alright let’s talk about Santa. I’m guessing you’ve been waiting for my perspective on “how does he get into your chimney.” Ok I’ll acknowledge the elephant in the room. He’s fat. Like gigantic. I’m not going to deny it. I know a lot of you have probably been waiting for me to address the question of, how does he fit down the chimney? My thoughts exactly.  But take a step back, and what about him flying through the sky? He’s bound to have run into a few planes flying at those high speeds. And then he just parks on your roof and slides his big belly down your chimney. Now me personally, my family has a screen over our fireplace, and it’s always perfectly intact Christmas morning. And a lot of people don’t have chimneys! Me included! So what kind of “magic” is this “Santa” using? Lockpicks? Does he break your windows? I don’t know but this santa guy sounds like a fraud. Now what about the reindeer? Where did he acquire flying reindeer? Because I’ve never seen or heard of them in the wild. So did he domesticate them and then kill all of them except nine? Or does he just keep all the others in his basement. And what about when Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen die? Does he just name some other reindeer Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen? Now how about Mrs. Claus? It’s 2023 people! She doesn’t get so much as a cookie! And you expect me to believe that santa just eats millions of cookies in one night? Because I see crumbs on the plate. So he must have eaten the cookie instead of saving it for later.

Whoever this Santa guy is, I have a problem with you.

So thank’s for reading, and remember, I haven’t even talked about the other “magical” figures out there, so stay tuned for more, and remember to have a great holiday season no matter what holiday you are celebrating.

Happy Holidays!

Hello Readers! The date is October 31st and it is Halloween!

If you didn’t know, here is some history on Halloween:

The Celts’ New Year was on November 1st, and the day before Halloween 31st was the day they believe the spirits of the dead could roam the earth. They believed this helped their popes, the druids, tell the future, so they had big bonfires. The Celts would wear animal masks to the bonfire, and that is where our costumes come from. (From https://www.history.com/topics/halloween/history-of-halloween)

Every year around Halloween time, my family carves pumpkins together. On Halloween night, I have friends over for trick or treating, and my older sister goes to her friend’s house. My little sister either has friends over or just goes with my mom. This year I went with 4 other friends. We left around 6:00 pm and went around my neighborhood. It was really fun.

Here is a picture of me and the boys going trick or treating.

This year I was Peter Parker/Spider-Man.

This year I have braces so I can’t eat a lot of candies. But my favorite this year were the Nerds.

3-0 Ohio State faces off against 4-0 Notre Dame. Hello Readers!If you have looked at my word cloud than you should know that I am an Ohio State fan. If you didn’t know, Ohio State is a university in Ohio, USA. But I am an Ohio State Football (American) and recently they played Notre Dame Football (an Indiana University).  In case you didn’t know, in American football, every time a player either catches the ball in or runs the ball into the end zone, that team scores 6 points. They have a chance then to get an extra point, but that’s not relevant. What is relevant is that instead of scoring a touchdown (described before) they can kick the football between two poles to get 3 points. So in the first quarter no points were scored. It was a defensive and offensive struggle on both sides, and each side kept turning the ball over. In the second quarter, my team, OSU (Ohio State University) scored a field goal (three points between the two poles), and the score was 3-0. In the third quarter OSU scored a touchdown and earned an extra point. The score was 10-0. I felt good about our chances, especially because it was a low scoring game and it seemed like our two scores were just chances that they allowed us but we wouldn’t allow them. But then with 3 minutes left in the 3rd quarter, Notre Dame scored a 1 yard running touchdown. Then they scored a 1 yard passing touchdown in the fourth quarter. Score: 10-14 Notre Dame. I thought we could still score, but we kept turning the ball over. No one scored. Then we had the ball 10 yards from the end zone. But there were seven seconds left. We couldn’t do anything with the press defense they were playing. 4 seconds pass, and we get to the 5 yard line. 3 seconds left on the clock. No hope. We bunch up on the snap, and the ball is hiked, handed off and… …TOUCHDOWN OHIO STATE! 16-14 Ohio State. We score the extra point. 17’14. But there is still one second on the clock. So we kick off out of bounds, and they get the ball on the 35 yard line. They do some crazy play with lateral throws, but no use. Ohio State wins!

Hello everyone! A couple weeks ago in LA we did a project called the Backpack project. What was it all about? Well, over summer break we read a book called Finding Someplace by Denise Lewis Patrick. It’s about a girl named Reesie who’s about to celebrate her birthday when Hurricane Katrina hits her hometown in Louisiana, where the hurricane hit in real life. She stays at her elderly neighbor’s house with her neighbor, her friend’s brother Andre, and his wife.

So first we wrote an essay about who we thought the hero of the book was. I chose to write about Andre:

I think Andre was the hero. First of all, he was willing to do anything to help the others survive, and he always put them first. For example, when the soldier said that they were only taking elderly, Andre lied and said Ms. Martine (the elderly neighbor) was Andre, his wife (Eritrea) and Reesie’s grandmother.

Andre was also kind. When Reesie said it was her birthday, he sang “Happy Birthday” for her.

He was also a good leader. When the guy with the boat came, he called out because everyone else was scared. He also made decisions.

Lastly, Andre was brave. He broke the hole in the roof to help everyone else, and when the water was flooding in he told everyone else to go first.

After we wrote that, we filled our backpack. What do I mean by that? Well in the book, Reesie had to pack her backpack full of important stuff last minute. So we did the same. We took a picture of a backpack and drew all the important things we would bring.  Here is mine.