This I Believe

In class today, we had to listen to an essay on the website 'This I Believe' a site where people post essays on what they believe in. I chose to write about an essay called Pennies From Heaven. This essay is about how a man loses his wife to cancer and how he starts finding pennies everywhere. He believes his wife is still watching over him in heaven. I liked this essay because it's very paranormal, finding pennies at every airport he traveled to. Even his son, sister-in-law and best friend finds pennies around as well. I thought it was also touching that he has a story for every penny he's found adn that he keeps all the pennies he's found in a jar, instead of spending them.

Journey to Athens in 50 words

During Theseus' journey to Athens to meet his father he encounters Guardian of the highway, Sicron. He tells travelers to tie his sandals, and when bent down, he knocks them over the cliff. Theseus witnessed this and as he bent down to tie, Theseus threw the man into the ocean.

Greek Myths

On your blog, reflect on the Greek myths seen today in class.  Which story did you enjoy the most?  Why? Was it the characters or the story that you enjoyed?  In thinking of the themes in these stories, what do they have in common?

In Humanities, my class and I watched 2 Greek myths in the form of a movie; Daedalus and Icarus, and Theseus and the Minotaur. For some strange reason, I liked the Daedalus and Icarus story better than the Theseus and the Minotaur, even though it was twice as sad. I thought the story of it was more interesting than the characters, even though there almost wasn't any action in it at all. It's a sad story line, how the great inventor   Daedalus lost his son, Icarus, and blamed himself for it. If you ask me, this story is much more memorable than the other one; Theseus finds his father, kills a Minotaur and becomes the king (although it's actually much sadder than what I've just told you...much sadder). The two things that I noticed that this story has in common was the fact that someone (the main characters family members, mostly) fall to their death, mostly into water. Icarus flew to close to the sun, his wax of his wings melted off, and he fell to his death. The same with the Minotaur story, Theseus's father commits suicide of the edge of a cliff (into water) because he thought his son died fighting the Minotaur (which now make him king). I've also noticed that the story starts out nice and dandy, then turns into this very, very, tragic story; leaving the main character emotionally scarred (Daedalus blames himself for his son dying, and Theseus dreams of slaying another monster, but he just starts seeing the monster as himself).

The Bio Poem

Viet

Funny, Lazy, Short and a little bit Unhinged

Brother of Khoai Bui

Who loves doodling, The Internet and bacon

Who feels happiness when with friends or when doodling

Who needs family and friends, pens and paper and good books

Who gives friends and family joy (or not; depends)

Who fears the darkness, waking up to a world of zombies, ghosts and everyone disappearing from the face of the Earth

Who would like to see a monkey wearing a fez riding a unicycle with no support and an ant city, complete with huts and monuments

Who is 12 years old, the proud inventor of the Nose Person and the shortest person in my entire grade.

Who is a resident of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Bui

THE END IS NEAR!

1. What piece of work and learning are you most proud? Explain.

One piece of work that I'm most proud of is the first ever Tic-Tac-Toe project that I've ever done. If you want to narrow it down, I would say it would be the Fire Narrative, where my partners and I wrote a diary of what
a caveman would react to making fire and how it would benefit them. I was proud of it because it was funny. I typed in a caveman voice, with no grammer at all (ex. I eat mammoth, it taste good). I put a lot of effort into making it, thinking of what a caveman would have done and wrote if he discovered fire.

2. What were your greatest challenges? Explain.
Lit Circles would have been one of my greatest challenges. Like I said multiple times before, you need to do a lot of work, in such a small bit of time, that's why I would say symptoms of this assignment would have been, stress, stress, stress, more stress, loss of sleep, aging over time and grouchiness, since you had to do, questions, responses, vocabulary, importent passages, and connections, only in a short period of time. Plus you had to do it a few times a year. It was tiring.

3. Reflecting on your growth this year, what did you learn about yourself as a learner?
I learned that I liked to work with others, since at the beginning of the year, I tended to work with only myself, or my invisible buddy, George. I also found out that I worked much more better in partners, because I could count on them to help me if I need help.

4. To evaluate your work habits, choose 1 of the following from each category (and provide explanations):

a) Behavior

Could be improved
Satisfactory
Perfect - the model student

Explanation:
I thought my behavior in class was satisfactory because sometimes I talked with my friends while the teacher talked. But I rarely did that, and half of the time, I usually tell my friends to be quiet

b) Participation

None
Satisfactory
Actively participate in class

Explanation:
I participate in class most of the time, if I have to do something, I'll do it. If someone ask me to do something, I'll help them. If my group and I needed to work on something, then I'll help them do that, but only most of the time. If I don't have to do it, then I won't, which I hope to change in the future

c) Organization

Needs serious help
Satisfactory
I'm super organized

Explanation:

I am quite organized in humanities. I keep all my work organized within 2 different folders, one for reading, another one for social studies, although, there are some pieces of paper that go unorganized. I'm also really organized on the computer as well, separating my thumb drive into different folders, and even more folders within those folders.

d) Effort

Needs serious help
Satisfactory
I always go above and beyond what is required.

I can put quite a lot of effort into my work if I want to, but sometimes, I think that I could do better. With a project that I like, for example, making a comic book on cavemen, I can put a lot of effort into it, but with a project that I don't really like, for example, writing an essay, then I put an average amount of effort into it

5. Based upon your reflections, write two personal learning goals for Grade 7 next year.

Goal 1 - In Grade 7, I plan to...
...put a satisfactory amount of effort on all the projects that I do, even the ones that I don't like, and try to get a pretty good grade on each one of them

Goal 2 - In Grade 7, I plan to...
...listen even more to the teacher by not talking to my friends while the teacher is talking and making my friends quiet down so the teacher can talk

6. Is there any more information about yourself that you would like the teachers to know?
Not that I know of, no.

7. What was your favorite activity lesson in Humanities this year? What did you enjoy about it?
I would say the very first tic-tac-toe project, the one about the early hominids, and like I said above, my favorite one would be the fire narrative, second being the Mafatu movie trailer because we had so much fun running around the school pretending to be cannibals chasing Mafatu.

8. What activity do you wish we could have spent more time on?
There are lots of things I wish I could go back in time to redo but the one that I remember the most was in the last tic-tac-toe project, about Greece, Rome, China and India. It was our iMovie about Alexander the Great. Now, I know we got a pretty good grade on it, but we copied the same way of recording it as we did with the Ancient Egyptian rulers (Ramses II), using a big loud voice to talk about his achievements and such. I thought we could do it a different way but we were running out of time and had to finish it quick, we were stuck with it.

9. Finally, cast your minds back to the first few months of middle school (when you arrived in Grade 6 ) what "Words of Wisdom" or "Advice" could you pass on to the Class of 2018?

Now that you're in middleschool, you are given much more freedom than you had in elementary school. No longer do you have to wait in a line to go to your next class, no longer do you have to wait in line to get your lunch, no longer do you have to eat the food you see in front of you. But now you have to get to your own classes on time and to the right classes as well (I went to the wrong class in the begining of the year). That's why I suggest buying a watch to see when lunch ends and classes start.

Books!

Title: Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire

Author: J.K. Rowling

1. This book made me think about action and adventure when I first read it. Sure at some points it kind of drags along as the main character figures out a problem, but I find it very interesting because I feel like I'm trying to figure it out with him, and when I do figure it out, I actually start yelling at the main character to do this, or to do that, even though I knew he couldn't hear me :(. This book also made me think about how our lives would be if we had magic in our world, since the book was all about magic. I mean, just think, our lives would have been some much fun if we used our magical powers properly. I could just teleport to school or make the salt shaker fly right into my hands or I could play chess, where the pieces ACTUALLY MOVED AND SLICE EACH OTHERS LIMBS OFF WHEN WE CLAIM ONE OF OUR OPPONENTS PIECES.

2. This book challenges me by giving me words that I don't know yet, like inevitable, rhapsodising or yeuch (though I'm pretty sure what the last one is). This gave me the sudden urge to look them up, and I couldn't finish what I was doing until I knew the meaning of it. I always read just before I go to bed, and I just can't go to bed without knowing what an unknown word means. I thought that this increases my vocabulary, since I like the relief of knowing a new word that bugs me.

3. Don't read this book if you don't like, well, excitement, magic or mythical creatures like dragons, merpeople and house elves. I don't recommend this book to anyone who don't like reading small-ish parts of the book that don't have any action at all either or people that are afraid, after reading the book, that evil wizards, magical animals etc. will come into your house and eat you, or something similar to that. I also wouldn't recommend this to anyone who hasn't read any of the previous books.

The Giver

In Humanities, my classmates are answering question's based on the book, 'The Giver'

Q:Would you want you future to be decided by others? why or why not?

A: No, because if someone chose your future for you, you wouldn't have been able to choose for yourself, and eventually everything would become gray and boring.

Another reason why I wouldn't want someone choosing or future for us is because if we don't like that certain job, we would be miserable for the rest of our life. It read in the book that Asher heard a rumor about some one who was sure they were going to be an Engineer but got put as a Sanitation worker, he probably felt do bad he swam across the river that probably borders the city and joined another community.

You would have had to spend the rest of your adulthood training for something you don't like, but if you future wasn't decided by others, you could have gotten any job you wanted (if you were skilled enough) and if you didn't want that job, you could have quit and tried another job. Where as if your future was chosen by the elders, you would have to stick with that choice forever.