Let's make travel brochures.

I was sick yesterday, so I really can't elaborate on what we did. All I know is that I have notes to copy and that it had to do with the Civil War.

Today we made travel brochures in the form of a very long scroll. It's like a ... troll. Hahaha, get it? Nope? Okay. We were split into two groups, one reading up on the battle at Gettysburg and another learning about Vicksburg. Once we answered all the questions using our devices, we inscribed them on our long piece of paper.

Let's watch Mr. Boyle get maniacal.

Yes, you read that correctly. Mr. Boyle is maniacal. He gets far too much enjoyment out of playing "devil's advocate" and setting us off on wild debates that ultimately lead to some greater meaning. Hm.

Why do I say this, you ask? Today, when we were talking about habeaus corpus, he hadus determine whether or not we would agree with it's suspension in different situations. That would lead to questioning - "And why did you choose that? Hm? HM?" - and a very involved class discussion.

The day before we were sent on a Scavenger Hunt to learn about the battles of the Civil War. We scanned them (which took a while, for us) and then found the answers as to which famous battle they were talking about.

Shouldn't the thirty day challenge be over by now? Hmm.

Let's rock some history talks.

If this blog post was an 1850's novel, the title would be "A Brief Summary of the Life and Times of Mr. Boyle's History Class." Summarized in my 'post title' as 'let's rock some history talks.'

Yesterday was dedicated to reading Lincoln's aunagural address, since before lunch we read it, and after lunch we discussed it. Mr. Boyle handed out some questions for us to answer about it, which he then asked us later in the period. They mainly focused on Abe's feelings, like any good therapy session should.

Today we took a field trip all the way down to the computer lab, where we divvied up a GoogleDocs presentation about the advantages the North and South had.  We will then use this to write an essay later in life. A week from now, more specifically.

Let's blog ... obviously.

History class has been same old, same old recently. Nothing really exciting to report. Which explains my same old, same old title, right?

Yesterday in class we recapped what we talked about at the end of last unit, how South Carolina and the rest of the south seceded from the union.  We read what Abraham Lincoln had to say about this. Fun fact of the day: he has the second-most amount of books written about him. Right after Jesus. Who would have thought.

Today we also read documents, this time being split into groups based on which ones we received. We all had to read the one that talked about why South Carolina left the union, and half the class had to read mine, which was Lousiana's reasons as to why the Republican party was conspiring against them.

Yup, I know you were enthralled by this lack-luster review of my last two days. Yup.

Let's marvel at the beauty of my timeline.

Here it is. Marvel at will.

Let's breck the ridge.

Let's mix it up a bit. Not a lot, mind you, just a bit. Rather than stick to the norm and go today yesterday, I'm going to yesterday today. I know. Scandalous.

Today was our EdCafe, an event everyone almost completely forgot about. All of us, however, were experts on our people after making our VoiceThreads, so it was all good. It followed normal EdCafe format, except to choose who presented he drew slips of paper at random. We then had to explain to our group why our person was the most important. This led to some great discussions.

Yesterday was devoted to learning about the election of 1860, with my man Abraham Lincoln. He ran against Stephan Douglas, John C. Breckenridge, and John Bell for presidency, and won the majority of the electoral votes. They managed to show all this information into one political cartoon, which we spent a lot of time talking about.

As for my thirty day challenge, well, yeah. It's fine. Per usual.

Let's read testimonies.

This is the, what, second time I've forgotten to blog in two weeks. And this time I have no excuse. Looks like I just have to summarize the past two days and my thirty day challenge and be done with it.

Thursday - gosh, it feels like a long time ago - we talked more about John Brown. The guy who beat people with machetes. Great guy, huh? His demise turned out to be during an attack on the federal armory, which failed. He was tried and convicted in Virginia, where he was found guilty and hanged. We were given some primary source documents to convert into chart form.

Yesterday we had a substitute, and were given packets to work on. Automatically, everybody clumped into groups to work on it, reading aloud and such. It's main content was excerpts from documents and questions, which didn't turn out to be that bad.

As for the thirty day challenge, there's not much to report. I've resorted to stranger compliments then usual - "You are a sunflower in a field of sunshine and butterflies" - but still, five a day.

Let's say what we mean, or nothing at all.

I didn't see Mr. Boyle for an entire week! The Monday after the long weekend we dropped, meaning it had been a whole seven days since we last met. That far back is hazy, so I guess I'm glad I don't have to remember what we did in History class that day.

Yesterday was dedicated to our slave friend Dred Scott. Our very hoarse History teacher gave us an article to read and questions to answer about his trial. Once he had completed this, we made sure we had a basic understanding of what we had read - that sounded really posh. In actuality, we just talked about how how the times effected his loss to his master.

At the very end of the previous class we started to talk about Steven Douglas and Abraham Lincoln. I guess you could call this foreshadowing, since that's what we were learning about today. We watched a scene from the black and white movie, "Abe Lincoln in Illinois" that showed the debate between the two. Once we got over the fact that, no, they were not the actual people, and yes, this was a recreation we were able to understand their arguments. Enough to fill in a sheet even.

What amazing adventures will transpire (I love that word, almost as much as 'autodrefrenistrate') tomorrow? Huh?

To add onto this enthralling (also a great word) blog post, I'm going to talk about my 30 Day Challenge, which, actually, hasn't turned out to be a challenge at all. It's easy to tell people what you like about them.

Let's discuss, discuss, and discuss some more.

Ok, let me start out with a formal written apology. Homecoming has been screwing me up, and I got confused as to what day it was. I swore I blogged on Friday, but I guess not. In order for my blogging days to remain the same, you get a triple blogpost today.

All the way back Friday we got our promised discussion on Uncle Tom's Cabin, the novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe. We talked about the Fugitive Slave Act and the basic plot line of the story, before he handed out copies of one of the chapters. For the rest of class, we got to read about the escaped slave Eliza (not my friend Eliza, another Eliza) and some everyday psychopathic slave owners who were trying to get her back without mauling her.

We got back on Monday for a Uncle Tom's Cabin refresher, yet it was postponed four fifteen minutes while we all went into MLA format overload. Mr. Boyle did his 'it's okay' thing and extended the deadline to the end of the unit. We could then resume talking about how the book had an impact on the upcoming civil war.

Yesterday we had History lunch period again, and the first half of class we read and answered questions about some articles pertaining to the Kansas-Nebraska Act and some violent actions that people did in order to get their point across - John Brown and machete-ing people to death, anyone? When we got back from lunch we went over them with Mr. Boyle.

Today, well, today we were notably history-less.

Let's make political decisions.

It feels like forever since I blogged ... not like, posted, since that was yesterday, but actually blog blogged. If you know what I'm trying to convey.

Yesterday we talked a lot about the Missouri Compromise and the Mexican War. At the very beginning of class, we all took out the worksheets that we completed last Friday. And then - voila! - the same map appeared on the projector, like magic or something. Or technology. Whatever. Mr. Boyle explained how they needed to keep a balance between free and slave states, and how they came to the agreement that the 36'30 line would represent the split between the slave territory and free territory.

I left class shortly after we split into groups to read what different textbooks had to say on the Mexican War, which followed the Missouri Compromise. This ;ed us into class today, where we spent the first half watching a video about the Mexican War, featuring a woman who spoke very quickly. Not ideal for taking notes. Follwing this was a quickie quiz (alliteration, score).

We got back from lunch and discussed the nation's problems some more, and we had to come to our own decisions. It some cases it looked like we had overestimated our founding fathers, as, for at least trying to decide what to do with the territory, they chose to do absolutely nothing.

What other great decisions lie in our nation's future? Stay tuned to find out.

Let's root for antislavery (like Lincoln.)

Once upon a time there was a girl, a girl who was trying to record her VoiceThread. She tried and tried desperately for her recording to work, but no matter what she did, it would not let her record an acceptable audio response to her pictures of Abraham Lincoln. Therefore, the sad girl had to type out her comments into VoiceThread instead so she could get it in one time.

Based on a true story. Those are the scariest, no?



https://voicethread.com/share/3695213/

Let's read about "Black Moses."

You can't think about slavery for more than ten minutes without getting depressed, and if you don't, then you must have some very good reason why the thought of millions of people forced into pitiful lives doesn't make you at least have a twinge of misery.

That was very poetic, was it not? It kind of sums up my thoughts on this unit. Yesterday we watched and took notes from another powerpoint, this time revolving around the Underground Railroad and how many slaves escaped to Canada for a better life. We were given excerpts from several different American history textbooks, about what they had to say on the Underground Railroad. Very different things, as it turns out.

Today, for a change of scenery, we walked down to the library computer lab to read up on the Missouri Compromise, using maps. Even though one of the worksheets wasn't map based ... hmmm ...

As for my thirty day challenge, it hasn't turned out into much of a 'challenge' surprisingly. It's so easy to just walk up to someone and say the first nice thing that pops into your head. Why more people don't do it, I don't know.

Let's vote (but not really).

It feels like just yesterday that I was blogging, but hey, time flies when you're talking about the cruel lives of slaves during the 1850's. Oh wait, that isn't the saying, now is it?

Yesterday - Election Day, for all of you living under a rock - we finished going over the people whose biographies we received. In those same groups, we were also given the task of reading through certain parts of the Constitution to decide whether or not it supported slavery, the same way Frederick Douglass did oh so many years ago. This took the rest of the class period, along with everyone voting for their candidates.

Over the course of the night, many of us realized that the paper Mr. Boyle gave us mentioned a writing assignment, causing several heart attacks. He started class by explaining it, and from there we moved into the roots of slavery in the South, like the start of the Industrial Revolution and the need for cotton. And cotton gins. Can't forget the cotton gins.

Insert more document reading and sharing notes here.

As for my thirty day challenge today, I complimented five people, at least. I lost track this morning when I complimented at least five people in a row. So ... progress.

Let's ramble about crackers.

I know, I know, everyone (meaning you, Eliza, the only one whose following me) must be devestated that I haven't blogged in, oh, a week. Between Hurricane Sandy and our integrated projects there just wasn't the time. And tech week. We can't forget tech week.

Since we finished our unit on the Revolution, it looked like on Friday we were jumping right into a new one on slavery. To mentally prepare ourselves, Mr. Boyle had us watch an enlightening Ted Talks video on a woman who photographed slavery in modern day. As Chelsea informed us, "a picture is worth a thousand words."

We were then split into groups based on whatever reading we received. You guessed it, we had to read and summarize, along with putting it in a storyboard. My group recieved "Childhood," a excerpt about the childhood of a girl born a slave. She truely brought to light that ignorance is bliss, since she seemed completely content with her childhood, her mistress, and spent a lot of the time going into great detail about her grandmother's cracker making process. Yes, crackers. Lots of crackers. You can even see my love artistic interpretation of crackers and cracker making on the storyboard.

Today we filled out a Ven (or Ben) Diagram about the three different readings from the day before, before getting split again into different groups, based on whose biographies we had. Lucky, lucky me, I got Frederick Douglass, someone who I had already been acquainted with - I'm reading his book, maybe?

On an almost completely unrelated note, Mr. Boyle is having us start a 30 Day Challenge. Exciting, right? I've decided for my challenge to be to compliment at least five people a day, for thirty days. You'll be getting progress on my challenge every other day (ish.)

Let's study art.

With everything due in History this week, I'm actually really surprised that I haven't started reciting the Declaration of Independence in my sleep and chanting that "the British are coming!"

Yesterday in History class, Mr. Boyle showed us a very informative video/slide show about art during the American Revolution. It introduced us to four artists who did paintings depicting scenes from the American Revolution, and showed us what they symbolized and how geometry and color were used. While I found it interesting, my only problem was how long it was. Some of the paintings though, were very interesting to look at or, in some cases, very famous. My favorite fact of the day: Thomas Jefferson bribed a painter to paint his foot over the one of John Adams? Who thinks of this stuff?

When we came into History class today, we had to be prepared to write down the preamble to the Declaration of Independence. He gave us a few minutes to cram (and question our very existance) before we copied it down onto a half sheet of paper. The latter half of the class we finished going over the very end of the Revolution in time for our test tomorrow.

Which of course I am so looking forward to.

Let's post about timelines some more.

Lo and behold, here is my timeline. Before midnight.

Let's finish up our civic values.

Yup, that's what I'm doing. Please enjoy this informative VoiceThread on how Gabrielle Douglas shows honor, and Barack Obama shows justice.

Let's get ruthless.

Before I enlighten you about the events of today's bloodbath history class, it looks like I'm going to have to summarize the day before.

We walked in to class that day ready to whine and complain about our "Crisis" reading that had rendered us stumped the day before. Before we jumped into what we had planned, he went over the main ideas of the article and asked us once again; "are these really the times that try men's souls?" Most of us who had said 'yes' originally were reconsidering.

The rest of class we spent going over some of the important battles of the Revolution. We took notes on the Battle of New York and Trenton, watching the same online demonstrations that we used for Lexington and Concord. Am I really forced to reiterate how I feel about them?

Today, we went up the scale from normal to, uh, well, see the title. We had a scavenger hunt across the whole school, and we were split up into groups with the people who had devices. You would have thought we were in the QR-code scanning Olympics.

Once we got all the questions - which related to the battles, of course - we had to answer which battle it was, along with the date. First to turn it in with all the answers right got extra points.

The only thing that would have made us do it faster was if we got candy.

Let's contemplate "The Crisis."

For once - gasp - I don't have a compelling and interesting blog post, since History class the last two days has been ... well, not so compelling and not so interesting.

Due to the PSATs yesterday, class was cut short, leaving us with only enough time to share our findings from the previous class. We were split in half in order to share our summaries of each section of the Declaration of Independence. Eventually, however, it morphed into a giant game of 'Which Side Can Shout the Declaration of Independence Louder?' But we got the notes and a basic understanding of what the colonists were looking for while the wrote their Declaration, so I guess it's just a win-win.

Today, we were sadly Mr. Boyle-less. Even sadder was the fact that we were left with "The Crisis" to read, Thomas Paine's ideas on the Revolution. While it was informative, it was daunting, and on top of it we had to write an essay comparing his first line - "these are the times that try men's souls" - to our country and our problems today.

That, in a nutshell, was History class. Enjoy my lovely blog post.

Let's introduce our new best friends.

I'm loosing my mind. Very, very slowly. It's becoming harder for me to remember what I did a day ago, and let's not even talk about what I did last week. Everything has just become a big ball of info-y ... mush.

After thinking hard for a while, I finally remembered what yesterday's class revolved around - our people. Due yesterday was our flimsy Revolutionary War heroes. How could I forget that? I spent probably too much time slaving over Paul Revere, just for him to turn out less than four feet tall. How dissapointing.

We spent yesterday "introducing" everyone's paper person, aka holding them up the metal hanger on the back and rattling off some facts we looked up about them. Once we went over how they were important to the Revolution, we showed what we had placed in their pocket - for example, mine was dental equipment. 1700s dental equipment, to be more specific.

Today we moved on to the Declaration of Independence, first using the vocabulary we researched to pair up with someone with our definition. These eventually turned into groups of three, so everyone would have a device to read their designated part of the Declaration of Independence. Later, we would also use this device to create yet another fake tweet, summarizing our part of the Declaration in just 140 characters. Including spaces. Yikes.

By the end of this year, I betcha I'm going to be a project fiend. Make fake tweets? On it. Draw giant life size people? Gotcha. I just wonder if I'll be rendered incapable of taking notes ...

Let's meet Paul Revere.

Here is my VoiceThread on Paul Revere - enjoy!

Let's chant "location, location, location."

As the title implies, by the end of this, you shall be reciting that key phrase of real estate, as Mr. Boyle was so kind as to inform us. Apparently, they have a connection to Revolutionary War battle tactics. Who would have known.

Yesterday, once we were finished being confused about assignments and asking questions, we jumped right into a recap on Paul Revere's ride, and the events that followed. Yup, that's right, the battles at Lexington and Concord. We watched as a online model demonstrated the moves the British and the rebels made, from the British marching in to their retreat back to Boston. Now insert the phrase of the day ("location, location, location") as the rebels clearly had this. Always uphill of the British, it was pretty clear from the beginning that they were going to win. At least to me it was.

Watching this really helped me to get a visual of what was happening - there's a huge difference between reading something and seeing something. You could see that the militia had the advantage without anyone having to tell you.

Today we moved on to some of the key documents of this time period - the Olive Branch Petition, Common Sense, and Plain Truth. All had to do with whether or not the colonies should stick with Britain. Now we know that we didn't, but it's interesting to see both sides of the argument.

Let's time travel.

Yes, in this blog post we're going to travel back in time - all the way Friday, our last day of class before the long weekend. The desks were divided into pairs, facing each other. Maeve sat down opposite from me, and my best guess to what we were doing was a stare smackdown. Turns out, I was wrong. Go figure.

We went over the EdCafe we had done the day before, summarizing the events that we had covered, from the Stamp Acts to the First Continental Congress. Our main objective, however, was more like ... English class. We read Longfellow's not-so-accurate poem "Paul Revere's Ride." Not-so-accurate, you ask? There was actually three men who rode out to warn the people that the Regulars were coming.

Turned out our task was a sonnet that was my historically correct, easy until proven difficult. Not a lot of sensible things rhyme with "twelve."

Flash forward to today, when we did something completely different. Before reading through eye witness accounts of the "shot heard round the world" we watched a video on their reliability. Looks like we're left second-guessing whether or not the witnesses knew what they were talking about. Most people came up with one reason or another why their account couldn't be trusted.

Looks like that's it for now. However, due to the amount of stuff I have left to do, I would expect some minor mental breakdowns soon. Be warned.

Let's discuss the pre-revolution.

Yes, yes, another blog post dedicated to EdCafes. Yesterday, after dropping History the day before, we trekked on over to the library to research and create presentations on the events we had been assigned. Each group had to divvy up the work and create slides.

This was all well and good, since it gave us all a chance to look a little bit more into what we were going to be talking about tomorrow. Everybody got to do the work and such. The only thing that struck me odd overall was everyone's aversion to making the title page. Why? Do you have a tragic past with making title pages? I thought not.

Which brings me to the EdCafe itself, what we did in class today. Like the last one, we would move from discussion to discussion to learn about the different topics, these ones being the Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts/the Boston Massacre, Boston Tea Party, Intolerable Acts, and finally the First Continental Congress. It was all very similar to the one we did before, except there was a lot more teaching and explaining compared to discussing, which I can understand. How could we discuss something we were just starting to understand? I still liked how many questions we could ask, and how we could share our input. Very nice. I'll golf clap to that.

When will our next EdCafe be? I have a feeling there'll be plenty more in the future.

Let's "confront the French!"

Now that we've finished talking about the Constitution, we've moved forward (or backwards?) to the American Revolution. Once the bell rang after the quest on Thursday, we jumped with both feet into our first homework assignment - questions based around a serious of maps of the colonies.

To start off class on Friday, we went over it and reviewed which colonies were in which group. This turned out to be important information, seeing as next we we were put into groups to make a "voki" for a person from each section. However, once we realized that Voki wasn't working on iPods or iPhones, most of us ended up drawing them. Their personalities came complete with jobs, religions, everything that represented the people with lived in New England, the Middle, and the South. 

Today, we went more in depth in the very beginning of animosity between England andthe colonies with the French and Indian War. We read a loud the sheet he gave us and talked about why our friend George Washington wanted to move west.

It was to get more land for tobacco farming, in case you were wondering.

Let's make a comic strip ... again.

My first comic strip wasn't, well, very good. At all. So it looked like I had to go back to the drawing board to make a new (read, better) one.

Civic Values Talk Show by hanbanan

Let's educate each other.

Two days have come and gone, and it's time for another one of my (enthralling) blog posts, this time dedicated to our first ever EdCafe!

We all split into groups Friday, making sure to be with all of our buddies, only to find that this was not in fact a group project - we all had the same topic, yes, but we would all be leading a completely different discussion. Maeve's discussion on petitioning probably was completely different (and much better) than mine.

We've never done something like this - like, ever - so when we all come into class on Wednesday with our findings we're almost completely lost. Did I do this right? What if this isn't enough to lead a discussion with? I, at least, doubted myself.

Once we got talking, however, it was pretty easy to just blab on about this right or that right, my freedom is more important then yours, not it's not, blah blah blah. I liked this EdCafe more than, say, if we were all in a discussion talking or just taking notes, mostly because with five of us more people got to talk.

And now we have another coming up? Bring it on.

Let's timeline it up.

For your viewing pleasure, I present, my timeline.

Let's convict Madonna.

What's like the most addicting iCivics game, Do I Have A Right, but, well, isn't the most addicting iCivics stated previously? What we did in History on Monday, that's what. Mr. Boyle handed out a hypothetical court case involving farmer Roger Will and a pop legend, and we had to find the Amendments that supported their case. If these people has us for lawyers, they would totally be able to assemble on a Sunday to jam out to Madonna.

After we clarified the meaning of the word hypothetical, it was almost a breeze to identify what Amendments were violated. It's getting easier and easier to remember which one is which, at least for me. First is the freedom of speech and religion, eighth would include cruel and unusual punishments like stocks or the pillory.

Moving on, today we established the differences between the Democratic-Republican and the Federalist parties. I had an excuse to use my favorite purple pen to highlight the important parts of the handout and draw arrows connecting ideas into some sort of lopsided flow chart. Apparently, drawing them is NOT my specialty, but I got the idea all the same.

Thankfully, if you got the Federalist ideas down, then eventually realized that the Democratic-Republican ideas were just ... the opposite. Which makes sense, since they're opposing sides. But, for example, the Federalists were "loose constitutionalists" while the Democratic-Republicans were "strict constitutionalists." Easy enough.

Let's have fun!

You'd be surprised how many different things we can do over the course of the week in history. Yesterday, we were partnered with someone who shared the same document as us, the Anti-federalists verses the Federalists, and from there we found their arguments for their cause. Even though I personally don't agree that our Constitution was a bad idea (where would we be without it? Anarchist nomads? The horror) it was still interesting to see all the cases the opposing side could find about it. That guy Brutus - the same name as the guy who killed Julius Caesar, coincidence? - really knows how to argue. And make really long quotes.

Once I had enlightened Maddie on my so-called anti-federalist views, we got to work making our own magazine cover, for a magazine with an elaborate name that I probably can't pronounce. Our lastest headline: Bill of Rights, Yay or Nay? Catchy, no?

Today, we all tromped over to lab for some computer time, where we ended up with another assignment - and EdCafe on protesting, at least for me. And three other people. The rest of the time, the majority of us were sucked into some addicting game that claimed to be educationally stimulating us on rights. Rights. Yeah. That's what it was about. Mhm. Not making little Antoine run around trying to stop people from storming angrily into the elevator. Now if I could just remember which right goes with which amendment, everything would be just peachy.

Let's listen to the sound of my voice.

Hey, you get three posts in one day! Lucky, lucky you. This one is solely dedicated to sharing my Spreaker podcast.

Let's learn about government branches.

Two days ago in History - how I feel I will start most of these blog posts - was dedicated to taking notes on the powers of the Executive Branch. We all recieved copies a copy of the plans regarding the presidency debate and a grid, left to interpret the strange blanks in the document using only our imagination and context. Even though the three plans only filled up one side of the sheet, it took a lot longer to unwravel what they were talking about. Did they already talk about impeachment, or did they not mention it at all? To this day, I still have absolutely no clue what "resd." stands for, nor what "aforesaid" means.

Flash forward to today, when we take what we learned from the Executive branch and combined it with what we learned from the Legislative branch. Lots of cutting, glue, and coloring, which I was probably too happy about. In my defense, it actually helped me get a better understanding of how the different branches interconnect.

The next thing on the agenda was to make a infographic - which we had to do on good ole lined paper instead of Rachel's snazzy laptop. You can see it on the below post, can't you? The branches represent, well, the branches, and the leaves branch off from them, describing the powers that each branch has. In case you were confused.

Let's draw a picture.

Here's what we managed to generate in class today - coloring courtesy of Rachel, Chelsea, and Maeve.

Let's blog about the Constitution.

When I walk into class on Tuesday, I'm intercepted by Mr. Boyle handing me an important looking document and telling me to find people who share my group number. Little did I know then that this would lead to a two class discussion and some fake tweeting.

As a group of three we read through the article from the Constitutional Convention regarding proportional or equal representation. Many of the founding fathers of our constitution found a way to make their opinions clear, and had a lot to say on the matter. David Brearly and William Paterson spoke strongly for equal representation, while James Wilson and Madison advocated for proportional representation. What impressed me most about reading this article was how many arguments they could find against each other; and this was only a small portion of what really went on at the Constitutional Convention. Once we'd jotted down some notes summarizing each of the arguments presented, we had to get cracking making a fake tweet focused around their arguments. Turns out this is the hardest part of the class, even though at first glance it seemed to be quite simple. Converting eighteenth century debates into this day and age? Nobody's ever asked me to do that before.

The next class, we dropped the next actual day, we got to learn about everyone else's arguments for or against bicamaralism and legislatures voting in the members of the government. Once we were done with that, we compared the arguments for each one - and determined which was really used in our government today. It's interesting to think about what our country would be like if they came to a different verdict, isn't it?

And this concludes the history recap for tonight.

Let's hope my link works!

The link to my Rewindy essay is here!

Let's learn a little bit about me.

If someone - an archaeologist, a historian, anyone from the future - were to unearth three artifacts, which ones would say the most about me? Well, that's actually harder to answer than I first thought. Someone could dig up a stapler from the fossilized remains of my desk, and what would that tell them about me? I stapled things. I could be an office worker. Or a lawyer, a mathematician. Lots of people use staplers.

My first choice, the one thing I might actually want someone to find, would be my iPod. It would be extremely unlikely that any of our technology could work in an advanced, super electronic culture, but it's kind of nice to think that a complete stranger could look through every carefully selected song, the same way I do. Creepy to think about excessively, but still nice. I think that my music says the most about me, and its how I can bond with a lot of people. Some people I might never think about talking to - like this guy in the future whose digging up my old stuff - could love my favorite song. My iPod is like the documentation of that.

Next would have to be the pickle dish. The best pickle dish. A plate with more personality than something actually capable for having one. My brother painted it when he was just a toddler, completely new to the whole 'art' concept. He'd finished the whole thing in less than five minutes, but it remained in the heart of everyone forever. The only problem? I broke it. Nobody will ever let me forget the fact that I broke the beloved pickle dish, instead choosing to point it out everytime we say anything related to the topic. Since it was such a treasured possession, we couldn't just throw it away, so the cracked corners are just a monument to my eternal stupidity and klutziness. Just because it was me who did it, everyone tends to forget that the pickle dish meant just as much to me as everyone else. So, even though the infamous pickle dish belongs to my unsentimental brother, it describes me just as much.

The one place I spend more time than anywhere, the Newbury theater, holds another artifact they could dig up about me. I've been working backstage there since middle school, and one of my first assignments was to assemble to pieces into a shelving unit sturdy enough to hold part of our vast prop collection. Despite all the complaining of it being too tall, they haven't moved it since, maybe because they knew how fond I was of it. I've forgotten how many times I've tried to organize the individual drawers and shelves, always giving up halfway through. You can probably still find some of my masking tape labels stuck to the back, or my scripts wedged underneath a stack of a random set piece we'll never use again. Eventually, I just claimed one of the drawers for my own. Most people wouldn't find anything special about a shelving unit, specially one that wasn't put together very well in the first place. But, it does a very good job of connecting theater with everything and everyone else I love.