Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Leonardo Da Vinci - Characterized as a true Renaissance Man


Leonardo Da Vinci can be characterized as a true Renaissance man because he was many different occupations throughout his life. Such as a scientist, inventor, and an artist. He was also an engineer. Da Vinci's experiments with anatomy absolutely astonished his predecessors. He observed nature and asked very simple scientific questions such as "How do birds fly?" Then he analysed his theories in his sketches. And to this, he added a preternatural, even spooky determination. He paid attention to every detail and forms of small organs and hidden parts of the skeleton. He would dissect animals and humans to analyze it. Da Vinci was a great inventor. He adapted his drawing skills to the more well-paid fields of architecture, military, engineering, canal building, and weapons design. In search of a salary, he only briefly mentioned to the Duke that he could paint as well. Lucky for leonardo, he was very gifted in the engineering business. Throughout his life he had amazing ideas. Leonardo was an extremely talented renaissance man.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Brunelleschi Character Traits

I believe that creative leadership most prompted Brunelleschi to succeed in the construction of his masterpiece because Brunelleschi thought of the idea of having an inner-dome and an outer-dome. He had many more ideas besides this one and he had succeed most of them. The Actions and decisions of the people effect change because if Brunelleschi had never shown creative leadership then it most likely would have been much later on when people in Italy would discover more things in art and architecture such as linear perspective and the fact that they can build large domes.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Where do new ideas come from?

New ideas come from life experiences, an event that is taking place during a certain time period, and also through your imagination. Life experiences helps you to have new ideas because say for example, you are a little kid and you try your first lollipop. You can have an idea of how the lollipop taste because you have experienced it. If you haven't, you probably wouldn't be able to because you haven't experienced it yet. Events that take place during a certain time can help you have new ideas because in the story, "The Sniper" the event was the Irish Civil War. This event can help you think of something like a conflict between families or how the wars were so intense from all of the enemies. Lastly, ideas can come from your imagination. If you have a very creative imagination, then you can think of ideas easily. For example, if you are a very creative person, and you have to write your own short story, you would be able to have very vivid and interesting ideas. As you can see, there are various ways of where new ideas can come from. You can get them from experiences, events, and through an imagination.

Sunday, September 5, 2010

My Favorite Story

As I reflect over our short story unit, out of the three, my favorite short story was "Lamb to the Slaughter". Primarily, I was drawn to this story because of the way the the conflict was formed. I enjoyed studying how people formed different relationships and their conflicts (Lamb to the Slaughter-husband and wife that are splitting up, The Sniper-brothers end up going against each other and are opposing each other through war, Thank You Ma'am -"teacher - Luella" "student - Roger ")and how they dealt with their conflicts. Further, with an improved understanding of how society worked back in around the early 1950's, the story's setting. It was interesting about how Mary decided to deal with how her husband was going to leave her, the story's resolution, but I thought that making this type of conflict was a very effective way that the author communicated his message about this story.

Monday, May 31, 2010

This I believe - Essay

Pursue your passion

Lee Dewyze, Will Smith, Leonardo da Vinci. These are all famous people that were driven by passion. “Don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t do something,” my mom repeatedly declares. Wouldn’t you regret not following and pursuing your dreams because of a negative comment from someone else?

Lee Dewyze, American Idol winner (season 9), said that he wanted to live being a singer until he dies. He believed that he could do it. And he did. He didn’t let anyone tell him that he can’t do it. He is confident in himself.

I have a very strong passion about acting and singing. I’ve always dreamed of becoming a star. I want to be a star because I want to give people hope by showing how great you can be if you never give up and I will keep on striving for my goal. I can do this because I am confident in myself. I became confident in myself because there are so many models that I can look at and follow. Then other kids like me could look up to their hero. I have learned that you can’t give up and just throw your dreams away because then it is like you are throwing away your life.

I am just now starting to pursue my dream and I won’t give up because I know that I can do it and I believe that I can be whatever I want to be. I believe that you should pursue your passion. So if you really believe that you have a talent and you enjoy doing it a lot, then you should show it to the world and not be shy. Express yourself!

You should never let your dreams run away from you because it is you running away from yourself. And you should always stand up for yourself. You should always follow through with your passion, this is what I believe.

Friday, May 21, 2010

Matilda Bone Paragraph

The book Matilda Bone, by Karen Cushman is a historical fiction book. This book includes the themes lack of hygiene, religion, and medicine. A few moods in this book are loneliness, longingness, and appreciation. The book includes lack of hygiene because especially for the way the doctors prepared their “miracles”. Sometimes they didn’t turn out well because it wasn’t clean. Matilda Bone includes the theme religion. She is really religious and she is very strict with it. She prays to the saints all of the time and doesn't eat "unclean" food. It also includes the theme medicine. Again with the doctors, their job is important but most times it ends up that the patient dies. Although, some do get cured and live.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Battle of the Hastings game


The game Battle of the Hastings is about having a war between the three heirs of the next throne. You have to choose your soldiers and place them and make them fight against the enemy. You have to protect the base from the enemies also. I enjoyed taunting the most in the game because I learned many different taunts and the language that they would use. While playing this game I gained a better understanding about the battle and who won and more facts about the war because of the short clip they showed at the beginning and the end of the game. In the Battle of Hastings there were two wars. The first war was between Harold Godwinson and Harald Hadrada. Godwinson defeated Hadrada. Then the second war approached Harold and Duke of William although William conquered Harold. As I said earlier, I think that because the game sort of taught us what happens in this war and gave us an explanation, the style of the game has a valuable learning experience.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Band: ISKL Mission Statement

The International School of Kuala Lumpur provides (silence) an exceptional education that challenges each student to develop (silence) the attitudes, skills, knowledge and understanding to become (silence) a highly successful, spirited, socially responsible global citizen.

I put the silences where they are because it is where the readers are wanting to know what ISKL provides and the outcome of it. The void takes place when the readers are anxious to find out what they expect and what they provide. They also want to know what their children understand what to become.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Steve McCurry

‘A great photograph really needs to say something about a person or give some insight into their life or how their life is different than yours and mine. A good picture makes us curious and makes us want to know more.’
Steve McCurry is an amazing and very famous photographer. He was born in Philadelphia(1950), and he graduated at the College of arts and architecture. He is known for taking photos of war and the dead.

‘He captures the essence of human struggle and joy.’

The main themes in his photos are poverty and loss.
He would wait until everyone went back to their normal routine until he could take the photo. That makes it much more powerfull.

‘People will forget your camera and the soul will drift up into view.’

This picture shows a man that was in war lying in the lake hoplessly. I believe that McCurry was trying to emphasize the thought of war and death. I also think that he was trying to let people know that war shouldn’t be something that people don’t care about. For example if there was a war someplace, people won’t care about it because they are not in the war. This picture kind of makes people understand what it going on around them. That is why this picture is very powerful. The use of color highlights the mood becase there really isn’t any yellows or reds or oranges. There aren’t many bright colors in this picture.

I have learned that McCurry takes photos of things that inspire him are very meaningful. Like I said earlier, people will start to realize that there is war in the world. That is how his photography brings change. A great photo includes meaning weather it is in contrast, color, position, or even point of view. The color really makes the photo endure because the color kind of gives you the story. So I read the story by the different colors. His work reflects on a journey because he is going to different places where there is poverty and war so that shows that he is taking a long journey around the world to help people understand.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Holocaust- 10 questions

1: Click on 'For Students' under Education. Then click on 'Introduction to the holocaust'. In the first photograph, do you think the babysitter was Jewish?
2: What does the word 'Holocaust' mean and what language does it come from?
3: In the third paragraph, how many Jews did the Germans kill?
4: How many soviet prisoners of war were murdered or died of starvation, disease, neglect, or maltreatment?
5: Define: - ideological
- incarcerated
- ghettos
- exploit
6: What is the place called where they were murdered in specially developed gassing facilities?
7: Click on 'Death Marches' and explain where they are going to, how they get there (car, plane, ect.), and ect.
8: Go back to 'Introduction to Holocaust'. What is a 'Displaced Persons Camp'?
9: Scroll all the way down and click on Children during the Holocaust. Look at the first picture and read the caption. How do you feel about this?
10: Overall, what do you think about the Holocaust? Explain how you think that you could feel if you were one of the Jews.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Band: Power of the void

I would call this story 'The Lottery' because all of the tension is being caused by the lottery that happens towards the end of the story. I thought that they would stone someone. Some hints in the story are when it says 'the kids picked up a few stones'. I don't think that they would just be playing with the stones. I felt really angry and anoyed because when I read, I cant put the book down so I was really worried when the story taken away from me. I was worried about what would happen. I felt really excited when the paper was handed to me because I knew that it was the rest of the story so I really wanted to open it and check. But I read the rest of it at 8:00 pm that night. I like surprises so that is why I waited untill after 5:00 to read it. I felt really scared and I was also very quiet and still while figuring out who it was just like the people in the village. I felt kind of empty and sad because that it where the story ends. It seems like the auther would say more about after the death of her. The auther left these voids in the story so that the reader would continue reading it. The power of the void in this story is bery powerful. We weren't given a title, there was no ending for us to read (at the time), the clues and foreshadowing throughout the story made the void even more powerful, and the ending which was the end of the void.