In science, we were given the task of creating a building for “Cav Town”(cavaliers are the mascot of Durham Academy). But, there was a catch. We had to fully electrify the building with circuitry, buzzers, lightbulbs, and motors. So me and my good o’l pal Patrick(he has a great blog, you should read it. Here is a link: https://30patricks.edublogs.org/)I fully expect him to be a New York Times bestselling author with his first book. If he wants to do that.

Any way, when we heard the words Cav Town, We did not want to be ANOTHER restaurant or apartment. So we were like, Cav town needs a ROCKET. And then Patrick came up with another Idea. ELEVATOR. And our project was born.

It was beautiful. At least, the elevator was. ITWASPRFECT. It even WORKED. The rocket was taped to the launchpad, but who was going to launch the rocket anyway. I mean come on, Seriously?? Why would anyone do that???!

It kinda fell apart right after we managed to get the whole thing together, but it was fun while it lasted.

Circuitry!!!

More circuitry!!!!!

The Inside!!!

Paper version of CIRCUITRY!!!!

Pictures taken by me

And last but best, our fabulous logo, created by Patrick

 

Welp, There you go. My least favorite project. So many learning moments and good memories though. Like when we realized that there was a short circuit and Elliot the electron was going to burn down the school!! ( :<

There you go!!

Have a wonderful life and good luck on whatever bananas you might encounter.

Peace

 

 

 

The Odyssey, the root of modern literature, full of stories, life lessons, and warnings, Full of mystery, fantasy, and wisdom, told by the poet Homer, who we don’t even know existed.

This book is completely shrouded in mystery!!!!!!

This is going to be a hard review to write.

I guess we’ll start from the beginning.

Odysseus had just won the Trojan war with the most famous trickery in the history of war. Concealing himself and several other soldiers inside it. When the Trojans brought it inside their walls, the men slipped out and unlocked the unconquerable gates of Troy. While sailing back home, they angered Poseidon,  who promised vengeance. Over ten years, the men battled the sea to get home. But will they make it back alive?

this is a thrilling tale of mythology and monsters, courage and cowardice, and a fight to return home that I recommend to anyone who is up for it.

 

In Language arts, we received an assignment to create a comic based off a Wisdom Tale.  We created these comics through comic life, a platform that allows you to design comics. I based my comic off “Feeding His Clothes” by Mulla Nasrudin.

 

Being brave doesn’t mean not being scared.

It means overcoming your fears

to do what you have to do.

-Alan Gratz

 

Frank McCoy lives Oxford island in Pearl Harbor while his dad is stationed there flying aircraft for the Navy. His best friend, Stanley Summers lives next to him, his dad also stationed there for the navy. On December 7th of 1941 while touring the battleship Utah, there lives changed forever and things get very bad for Stanley. Will their friendship survive it?

The first thing I think of when I hear the word Thanksgiving is turkey, stuffing,(especially stuffing) And the Adam Sandler song that goes like: 🎶Turkey for me, 🎶turkey for you, 🎵let’s eat the turkey in my big brown shoe,…

Such happy Memories.

One year ago, my cousin Ruby sneezed all over the turkey. My aunt then tried to wipe it with a napkin that turned out not to be a napkin, but somebodies slimy tissue. I didn’t have turkey that year. It was horrible.

Oh!! In second grade, my teacher brought in a pumpkin pie for us to eat. Then this kid sat on it. Thus the pumpkin pie comes to and end.

One year, my uncle secretly ate all the pumpkin pie a week before Halloween. There was that.

Fun Fact: A Turducken is a chicken inside a duck inside a turkey!!!!

Then there was the year that our uncle and aunt didn’t realize they didn’t order a turkey until the night before Thanksgiving. That year we had a bunch of chicken thighs. An abomination!!

So, out of the twelve Thanksgivings that I’ve had, one third of them have been a complete failure.

Fun fact: the world’s largest pumpkin pie was like 16 feet in diameter. Oh wait, it might have been 51. Or 12. I’m not really sure.

In the Fall of 1621, The indigenous people of the Wampanoag tribe celebrated the fall harvest with the first arrivals from England. Additionally, some fairy unicorns hitchhiking across the ocean joined the feast. Only they feasted on people. The legend of the fairy unicorns go like this:  the fairy is the most magical thing in the world, and the unicorn is the most beautiful. So, on very special enchanted nights like the one all those years ago, a fairy unicorn might come and give you a lucky horn kiss.( some symptoms of lucky horn kisses are extreme itchiness, and mountainous red bumps on your skin) If you haven’t gotten there yet, here is a hint: Spoiler alert: They’re mosquitoes. Aedes Aegypti mosquitos to be exact. The rode across the ocean in barrels of water on the mayflower, And they have plagued us with lucky kisses ever since

Anyway, The pilgrims and the Wampanoag tribe had a feast to celebrate the successful harvest, because the flood on the Mayflower kind of spoiled- not sure how they didn’t foresee that. But when the got to the completely discovered “New World” they were starving. And, they did not exactly know haw to farm the supposed “new world”. So, the Wampanoag, Helped them out and showed them all the nifty tricks needed to Make stuff sprout, Like berry rotten fish in the ground with your food. (Sounds Disgusting, but I guess it works)

So, They all partied and had fun and fried turkey(just kidding)- side note, The pilgrims, as a thank you gift, decided to attack them within a year. Interesting relationship. However, in the moment, everyone had fun and commingled with the help of a Wampanoag translator named Squanto(Tisquantum) And also, I lied, he was a Patuxet tribe, and he comes way earlier in the time line, and I kind of missed that. But I’m not going to just redo my blog right?

For 2 centuries Individual states and cities appreciated thanksgiving to celebrate the harvest. Then finally, in 1863, right smack in the middle of the civil war, President Abraham Lincoln🎩 decided, THIS SHOULD BE A HOLIDAY

And every one was like WHAT!?!?!?!?!?!?! and he said A HOLIDAY, and they said WHAT?!?!?!????!?! And he said A HOLIDAY, and everyone was like OK. Is this the right time!!?!???! And he said O’ COURSE IT IS, ITS THE MIDDLE OF THE DANG CIVIL WAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!…!!!!!!!!…!!!!!!!!!!!!

So then it was a holiday. And that my friends is my short summary of the history of thanksgiving.

Is it Turkey

From wikipedia

Or is it Turkey?

Huh? Huh?Huh?

Which one is it?

10 things I am thankful for:

-The moon

-The sun

-Tacos

-The great opportunity presented by myparents in our move from Vermont to North Carolina

-My Family and friends

-Lemurs

-Ted Lasso and Led Tasso

-Storks

-Chocolate

-Existence

 

 

✌️

There remains one question: Was the Durham Academy Middle school’s Makers Market Catastrophic or philanthropic? The answer is, my dear readers,

Drumroll please

Spoiler Alert: its anticlimactic

IT REALLY DEPENDS ON WHO YOUR TALKING TO!!!!!!!

Not that exiting

From My point of view It was a little of both. I donated 10% of my well deserved earnings to charity

I know, I’m so generous. Don’t read this-}( It was only 8 dollars)

In summary, I spent the entire time being screamed at by a bunch of people who refused to be civilized and make a line. Furthermore, I did not have a cashier, a distributor, a private servant, or and orthopedist. It was bad. Plus My Stuff seemed to be a bit popular. So, I did not get lunch until way too late. Actually, my sister brought me beignets before I even got lunch. Which of course is perfect. One principal that I always stand by is dessert BEFORE dinner.

The beignets were delicious, but I still did not have any lunch. So eventually, I had to leave the twenty seven people in line to buy myself a lunch from some food trucks. Unfortunately, all twenty seven people followed me, complaining that they had been waiting in the line for thirty seconds and they did not want to lose there spot. Big deal.

I sold Dark chocolate crinkle cookies that look like this:

And clay miniatures( someone actually took a bite of my eggplant which is the goal. )

All in all, the makers market was a big fiasco. For me. My customers hopefully enjoyed it though. Have a better day than I did!!

Bye!

Hello Dear Readers, it is nice to see you. Or not see you I guess. In the spirit of Halloween, I have been asked to wright about something related to halloween and its spooky, creepy, crawly, scary, scaly,(sometimes) spooky,(I think I might have said that already, but its worth putting it there again)… crazy, ghosty,…History.

Whew!

SOOO, Día de Los Muertos comes from the Aztec belief that on November 1st and 2nd, the barrier between the word of the living and the dead dissolves…

Creepy

Or is it?!??!

Ive always wondered if ghosts become vengeful creatures and go around ravaging there homeland searching for revenge in the form of peoples brains.(that might be zombies, I’m not sure)

But what if there nice, kind, grampy and granny ghosties who want to bake soggy muffins for everyone.WHAT IF?????!!!!!?!?!????!?!!!

Back to the topic, the Aztecs believed that the barrier between the living and the dead dissolved, and in the space of 24 hours, your deceased family could come to visit you. The time that the barrier broke was at 12:00 midnight on November 1st. For 24 hours, all the families deceased children would come back to visit. Then on the second day, the midnight of November 2nd, all the family’s deceased adults return. During the time these spirits come, their families dance, eat, listen to traditional music, and participate in other activities with their family members during the festival.

The Aztecs believed that after death, souls travel to Chicunammiclán, the land of the dead. Only once they completed 9 levels full of challenges did they make it to Mictlán, the final resting place. Certain rituals help provide the dead with food, water, tools, and aid for the journey, typically happen in august.

Families create makeshift alters, called ofrendas, and decorate them with marigolds, food, pictures, and other objects that were important to the deceased family members.(TEDDYBEARS!!!!!!!!)

The celebration is rounded off with bonfires and more feasting, and ends at 12:00 on November 3rd.

Although my family celebrates Halloween, I think that Dia de los Muertos is a super cool holiday.

Here is my Halloween Costume!

“I am yet another resource consuming kid in an overpopulated planet, Raised to an alarming extent by Madison Avenue and Hollywood, poised with my cynical and alienated pals to take over the world when your old and weak.”(-:   -“It’s a Magical World” by Bill Watterson.

(You could consider me Calvin, from Calvin and Hobbes, but the point is, I am describing a normal kid.)

Here is Hobbes!!

One tradition that our family has for Halloween is that we carve our pumpkins, and then make differently flavored pumpkin seeds with the seeds!!

Garlic, curry, cinnamon sugar, sea salt, salt and vinegar, apple, pumpkin spice, cookie dough, spearmint, peppermint, lemonade, pink lemonade, apple pie, cherry pie, taco, beef, potato, lettuce, carrot, sweet potato, lemon, lime, leather, chicken, dog food, and chicken are some of my favorite flavors.

(I might have been fantasizing about some of those)

Anyway, Happy Halloween!!!

On the foggy fifty degree morning of October 15th in Wilmington North Carolina, I jumped in the steaming 70 degree harbor at around 7:40 am, and started warming up for the 1.3 mile race in the harbor. The average age of the people there were fit, ready to kick me in the face 40 year olds. Yay. I’m 12.

SO, they blow the whistle at ten minutes to warn people, then at five minutes, but as it turned out they were two minutes late. So, with three minutes till the starting whistle, people got frantic, all scrabbling and splashing to be at the front of the pack. You would think all these 40 year olds were a bunch of kindergarteners. Finally,the starting horn blasted across the foggy morning harbor, and the whole beach where we started from erupted in foamy frothy, foam, and no one could see anything. I waited exactly one minute until most people had gone so I did not get kicked to death, then I swam out into the still dim bay.

There were problems immediately. About a quarter of the people in the race had the same idea, so I almost got kicked to death anyway. So far, so good. About half way through the race, jellyfish decided they wanted in on the race. Eventually, there were so many that I thought we were swimming IN them. Because they were moon jellies, they don’t hurt a lot, but once you have six dozen, you start to feel them a little. Just a little. (To give you a little perspective, I sounded like a dying rooster at the end.)

To add insult to injury,(literally) fate decided to add fish to the equation. Nice cute minnows right? NO NO NO NO NO NO NO…NO NO NO. When I felt one touch me, I jumped about a mile.(I admit I have an active imagination, but the jellyfish did not help.) Obviously, they wouldn’t let us swim if they even thought there was a slight possibility that there was a shark, but still, SHARKS!!! To top it off, the wind tripled in strength and I could barely get my arms out of the water for waves. Eventually, I thought I would die of dehydration because of the amount of salt water I was drinking. I probably had a couple gallons in my by the time I finished the race. Finally, I saw the finish line and took of like a sword fish, scorching through the last tenth of a mile, racing like my life depended on it, which it probably did.

I was shell shocked scared half to death, stung a couple dozen times by jellyfish, and I had a serious issue with chaffage. I though things couldn’t get any worse. I thought wrong. 50 yards from the finishing dock, I felt something odd. I looked up and I was no less then 20 feet to the right of where I was ten seconds ago. The tide had started to go out, taking me with it, moving alarmingly fast. I was about ready to throw a temper tantrum, but I thought is wasn’t quite the right time. I put my head down and swam as hard as I could. When I looked up again I was still 30 yards from the dock and about 30 feet to far right. I once again put my head down and swam as hard as I could, which at this point is about the speed of a dung beetle. I did not look up because I knew it would be demoralizing.

I swam head first into the dock.

YAY!! what a way to conclude my race!!!!

Finally, after what seemed like a millennium, I stepped out of the water, and on to the dock, a changed man.

Well, there you have it, that’s the story of my 1.3 mile swim in Wilmington, NC.

Here is the rout I was supposed to take through Mott’s Channel.

At least I was supposed to. I did plenty of zigzagging.( that Photo is from google earth)

Here is me warming up.

Here is me standing in front of the camera smiling, completely oblivious to the terror that was about to befall me.

So that is the eventful story of my swimming adventure in Mott’s Channel.

THANKS FOR READING MY POST!!!!!!

Over the summer, the sixth grade class of Durham Academy Read a book about a lot of water. A whole lot of water. This book about a whole lot of water is in fact called “Finding Someplace” by Denise Lewis Patrick. (Surprisingly not called A Whole Lot of Water). Anyway, In this book of a whole lot of water, 13 year old Reesie Boone is trapped in New Orleans, waiting for her godfather to pick her up before hurricane Katrina did. At her house, she had to decide what she had to bring with here, whether it was a few pictures, or an envelope of birth certificates, or one apparatus or another. So, we received the assignment of filling a paper backpack with everything we would take with us if we had to leave FOREVER…

Additionally, we were asked to create a hero essay about who we think deserves the most glory. Here is mine!

Here is a picture of the book about a whole bunch of water!

Here are some things I would bring…

 

1) I LOVE READING

-The Lord of the Rings series

-The Mysterious Benedict Society

-Into Thin Air

Thief Lord

-Book Thief

-Black Hawk Down

-The Splendid and the Vile

2)BLANKET

-Blanket

-Blanket

-Blanket

3) Communication

-Battery pack

-Things to charge including AirPods, an Apple Watch, and an IPad.

4) Games

-Exploding Kittens (lots of them)

-Taco, Cat, Goat, Cheese, Pizza.

5) Toiletries

-Comb, for combing

-Toothbrush

-Contacts

-Glasses

-toothpaste(can’t forget that now can we)

-Soap

6) Nourishment

-Freeze dried blueberries

-Freeze dried Mangoes

-Freeze dried strawberries

-Freeze dried Larabars(just yanking your ankle)

7) First Aid

-First Aid

8)Flashlight

-Flashlight

9) Family Photos/Journal

-Family Photos/Journal

10) Extra Clothes

-Hat

-t-shirts

-sweat pants

-Shorts

-socks

-Sweat shirts

-PAJAMAS(that’s a must have)

-An expandable French designed bullet from the civil war( not sure what category to put that in).

11) Two jade hippos from Africa

-Two jade hippos from Africa.

Here Is A Picture!!(-:

Pictures courtesy of me