I have one strange passion: I love to read about, watch movies about, and learn about World War II. I don’t really know what started this obsession, but almost every book I’ve read since about fifth grade has had to do with this major war. It’s normally historical fiction books, because I find them more interesting. Also, they’re easier to find, as many people that went through the war do not want to share about the trauma that they had to go through.

I’ve read from the perspectives of American Jews, Polish Jews, German Jews, American soldiers, English soldiers, Nazi soldiers, British and Polish civilians, and more. Right now I am reading from the perspectives of Jews and Arabs in Palestine right after Word War II. I love the action in all of these books. Every once in a while, I read about other wars, but World War II simply interests me more. My favorite book is called Resistance, and it is from the perspective of a member of the resistance of Nazi Germany. She was a Jew who did missions to help other Jews who lived in ghettos, so that they would not die. She also fought in a ghetto against Nazi soldiers, and beat them using only homemade and smuggled weapons.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34739995-resistance

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”  -Albert Einstein

This is a very short and sweet quote, but it has a lot of meaning and truth. This reminds me that without imagination, there would be no need for knowledge. Everything that has been made in by man needed imagination to be come up with. We could have all of the knowledge in the world, but we would not have been able to do anything with it without imagination. If we had imagination but no knowledge, it would be hard to do things, but we could learn. Also, knowledge is not always needed if you have imagination. Therefore, I believe that this quote means that without imagination, we cannot do anything.

https://weheartit.com/articles/299741008-10-best-albert-einstein-quotes-for-imagination

There are a few new humanities class in the middle school this year. These include Kiva, Genius Hour, and Problem Solving 21. I am in Genius Hour right now, and will be in Problem Solving 21 in the next quarter. Genius Hour is actually a lot of fun. We are supposed to come up with our own individual projects, and we can make them however we want! Mrs. Kessler, the Genius Hour teacher, suggested that we use our project to better the world in some way, shape, or form.

The project that I came up with will help children in Africa who are in poverty to get at least a little bit of an education. My friend, Claire, also wanted to help African children by learning Swahili, which is a common language along with English in Africa. So, we decided to join our projects together, even though they are technically supposed to be individual projects. We decided to try to make reading, writing, and math lessons for these children who are in poverty. Our end project is supposed to be a website where people from our community can learn about this cause and donate money, children’s books, school supplies, and anything else that we may need. We might also have fundraisers and similar events to be able to buy such supplies. We will then mail these items to Africa so that these children can get some sort of education, because I believe that it is important for people to be educated.

I am very excited to start working on this project, because I believe that I can make a difference in somebody’s life through it. That is what Genius Hour is all about: using our minds to create something of our own that may just help to change the world. Below is a video that explains Genius Hour in more detail.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/470837336038109450/

http://www.funnybeing.com/55-crazy-friday-memes/

27 Funny Friday Memes That Anybody with a Job Will Relate To

I am so glad that we have finally started our fiction unit in English. I enjoy fiction a lot more, and I thought that the short story that we read, “Lamb to the Slaughter,” by Roald Dahl, was very interesting. The setting of this story is in England, in the 1950s, in the protagonists house. The main character, Mary Maloney, murdered her husband using a lamb chop. That isn’t the main problem, though. The real problem is that she now needs to try to get away with the murder, which makes this conflict man vs society. In the exposition, Mary is thinking about how much she loves her husband and how wonderful he is, so it is a real plot twist when she murders him. That is just one of the many parts of the plot that are strange. In the rising action, Mary is making and following her plan that will make it look as though she did not kill her husband. Roald Dahl used a lot of characterization to show us that Mary is very clever and, at the same time, kind and sensitive. For example, we could tell that she was clever because she was able to convince the police that she was not the criminal. This short story is making me very excited for the rest of the quarter in English.

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2Foriginals%2F67%2F51%2F9a%2F67519aa2ed927fa9b43b25c288fdda5c.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.pinterest.com%2Fpin%2F38632509282180707%2F&docid=yhb-fxAcIGoFHM&tbnid=efiwKLZYplXY3M%3A&vet=10ahUKEwik_Kqf6pTlAhViUN8KHdeABQEQMwhPKAAwAA..i&w=640&h=640&safe=strict&bih=625&biw=1366&q=volleyball%20memes&ved=0ahUKEwik_Kqf6pTlAhViUN8KHdeABQEQMwhPKAAwAA&iact=mrc&uact=8

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Flookaside.fbsbx.com%2Flookaside%2Fcrawler%2Fmedia%2F%3Fmedia_id%3D1194228753960386&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FTrollVolleyball&docid=NgHBXUT-NM2GbM&tbnid=WawV8UeA9Br-xM%3A&vet=10ahUKEwik_Kqf6pTlAhViUN8KHdeABQEQMwhTKAQwBA..i&w=400&h=300&safe=strict&bih=625&biw=1366&q=volleyball%20memes&ved=0ahUKEwik_Kqf6pTlAhViUN8KHdeABQEQMwhTKAQwBA&iact=mrc&uact=8

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fpics.me.me%2Fgo-play-volleyball-they-said-it-hurt-they-said-wont-3235570.png&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fme.me%2Fi%2Fgo-play-volleyball-they-said-it-hurt-they-said-wont-1848618&docid=p_rw0S41R3E_bM&tbnid=LLvdanfi49pk6M%3A&vet=10ahUKEwik_Kqf6pTlAhViUN8KHdeABQEQMwhcKA0wDQ..i&w=500&h=743&safe=strict&bih=625&biw=1366&q=volleyball%20memes&ved=0ahUKEwik_Kqf6pTlAhViUN8KHdeABQEQMwhcKA0wDQ&iact=mrc&uact=8

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fthenvl.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2017%2F03%2FThe-Best-Beach-Volleyball-Memes-Compilation-4.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fthenvl.com%2F2017%2F03%2Fbeach-volleyball-memes%2F&docid=P6YR-1-8Q64zTM&tbnid=ziJJdW1V_24UbM%3A&vet=10ahUKEwik_Kqf6pTlAhViUN8KHdeABQEQMwh4KBwwHA..i&w=200&h=196&safe=strict&bih=625&biw=1366&q=volleyball%20memes&ved=0ahUKEwik_Kqf6pTlAhViUN8KHdeABQEQMwh4KBwwHA&iact=mrc&uact=8

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgflip.com%2F1o53gw.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fimgflip.com%2Ftag%2Fvolleyball%3Fsort%3Dlatest%26after%3D1oqp2t&docid=e5wCmuzugNoUMM&tbnid=4O-2M-SMa7fY5M%3A&vet=10ahUKEwik_Kqf6pTlAhViUN8KHdeABQEQMwhaKAswCw..i&w=551&h=380&safe=strict&bih=625&biw=1366&q=volleyball%20memes&ved=0ahUKEwik_Kqf6pTlAhViUN8KHdeABQEQMwhaKAswCw&iact=mrc&uact=8

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fpics.me.me%2Fwhen-you-smell-your-kneepads-even-after-puttlhg-them-in-51016845.png&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fme.me%2Fi%2Fwhen-you-smell-your-kneepads-even-after-puttlhg-them-in-a85a60e126424d08b5ebb4091fd55e12&docid=Dvf_qBX6R_-iWM&tbnid=gy6EXhJvf-Rr-M%3A&vet=10ahUKEwik_Kqf6pTlAhViUN8KHdeABQEQMwh5KB0wHQ..i&w=500&h=775&safe=strict&bih=625&biw=1366&q=volleyball%20memes&ved=0ahUKEwik_Kqf6pTlAhViUN8KHdeABQEQMwh5KB0wHQ&iact=mrc&uact=8

For the last few weeks in social studies, we have been learning about the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and Constitution. I have learned so much information about them this year, and I find it fairly interesting.

Mr. Martin, my social studies teacher, taught us how to write “breakup letters.” We were supposed to be breaking up with whoever we were pretending was our boyfriend/girlfriend. All of our letters sounded pretty harsh, but then he taught us the correct way to do it. He used this activity to teach us about the Declaration of Independence, because the United States was “breaking up” with the British. They wanted to be separate because King George III was not giving them their rights, and they found the government unfair.

Once the Revolutionary war was over and America was a country, some of our founding fathers came up with the Articles of Confederation. Instead of the government having all the power, the people/states got all of it. That sounds reasonable, right? Not exactly. The states couldn’t make any agreements or amendments, because they would have all had to agree. Also, the government had no power, so their country was very, very weak. That’s when they came up with a new idea.

The Constitution was then formed by our founding fathers, which worked and still works way better than the Articles of Confederation. They split the government into three different parts, and gave half of the power to the government, and half to the people. The people still have all of their rights, the government can’t gain too much power, and it has worked fantastically so far. This is what I have been learning recently in social studies.

The sunshine is a metaphor that, to me, represents good, life-giving things. The shadow is a metaphor for gloomy, bad things. This quote is telling us to be optimistic and keep looking toward our goals. It is explaining that if you keep looking at good things in life, the bad moments won’t be as bad and they will, “fall behind you.” Remembering our goals helps us to keep moving forward, past bad things. I like this quote because it reminds me that even if something terrible is going on, it is good to look forward to the positive times to come.

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fi0.wp.com%2Fwww.success.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2Flegacy%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2F1_7.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.success.com%2F21-of-the-most-inspirational-quotes%2F&docid=Yv2PnEPOTmDhzM&tbnid=vwhPHGPE5nV0pM%3A&vet=10ahUKEwiboOSbzvHkAhXGxlkKHdNZATkQMwh4KAEwAQ..i&w=2048&h=2048&safe=strict&bih=625&biw=1366&q=inspirational%20quotes&ved=0ahUKEwiboOSbzvHkAhXGxlkKHdNZATkQMwh4KAEwAQ&iact=mrc&uact=8

My passion is playing the trumpet. I love to pull out my shiny, silver trumpet and play songs with the band and jazz band. I hope that next year I can be in the marching band, and I’m pretty sure I will be. I love playing the trumpet in band because we usually get the complicated, fun parts of the song. My hope is that I will know how to play for the rest of my life. Below is a trumpet that looks almost just like mine.https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ebayimg.com%2Fthumbs%2Fimages%2Fg%2F79AAAOSw359chV0k%2Fs-l225.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fb%2FKing-Bb-Trumpets%2F16214%2Fbn_3121293&docid=DmousUTRfe8Y5M&tbnid=Ptv1InLUHrWmmM%3A&vet=10ahUKEwjUtIOQ_9_kAhVJn-AKHZp2C6IQMwhCKAIwAg..i&w=225&h=225&safe=strict&bih=625&biw=1366&q=silver%20advanced%20king%20trumpets&ved=0ahUKEwjUtIOQ_9_kAhVJn-AKHZp2C6IQMwhCKAIwAg&iact=mrc&uact=8