She blinded me with science!

Get it? Anyone? Hello...?

BOOM! Bout that science y'all! 
I know you all have plans to spend tonight looking up Einstein's theory of relativity, but I thank you for taking the time to stop by here for a minute or two. I hope it's worth your while.
I know we zipped through everything pretty darn quick today, but don't take that as an indication of how important scientific development is to modern history. It's pretty much EVERYTHING. I irony, of course, is that science seeks to answer questions and explain, yet we'll see that it has the opposite effect on so many people. Instead, science constantly undermines people's preconceived ideas and notions of reality. It is disorienting to say the least. Couple this relentless drive for scientific advancement with the 20th century's growing love of capitalism, and, as we'll see, things get a bit ugly.
Plus, disease yo.

Garafola won't be sleeping easy tonight.

Dwight. Just Dwight. 

Tomorrow, we'll explore one of the most impactful scientific thinkers in modern history... Mr. Kraft! No, wait, I meant, Sigmund Freud! This is gonna get weird. 

As we inch ever closer to the weekend, let's get funky with the Thursday soundtrack of old school hip-hop. Get crazy, y'all!

It is over. It is done.

Okay, you're work is over; now it's our turn. SO MANY ESSAYS. 

I don't know who Deb is, but I know exactly what's talking about.

Hee hee... this is funny. 

Let us leave this terrifying land of writing and venture forth to a glorious new world!

Alright, beginning tomorrow we're back into our actual curriculum. Next stop... the 20th century! Fascism, Cold Wars, atom bombs, existentialism... it's going to be so much fun! Seriously though, this is some great stuff. You might even recognize some of the names. Your short WHAP reading gave you a preview of what's ahead. Tomorrow, we start with looking at the modern world's growing belief in technology and science as the saviors of mankind. Look closely for parallels between how the modern world feels about science and how the medieval world felt about religion. 

Don't forget that you've also got a CE and ch. 13-20 due in Things Fall Apart. 

Now for some music

Our Wednesday soundtrack from the world of old school hip-hop is a certified classic. When De La Soul appeared on the rap scene in the late 1980's, they revolutionized what hip-hop and rap could be. If you liked what you heard from Arrested Development on Monday, well, De La Soul made that possible. These guys are still around today making fantastic music. This is one of their first big hits off of their debut album, 3 Feet High and Rising released in 1989. (the year I graduated from high school) This is Me, Myself and I. 

You stand on the precipice of greatness!

You're going to be okay... probably... we think... maybe... actually, we're not sure. 

ESSAY TIME IS UPON US! Across the land we shall rejoice. 

Are you ready to rumble? Yeah you are! We've practiced; we've talked, we've read sample essays; we've shared our deepest fears; we're forever bonded by what we've been through. No matter what happens tomorrow, know that we will always remember the good times. 

Whoa... wait... that got weird there didn't it? Sorry. 

I feel like this happens every time Virdin stats asking a CE question. Don't let it happen during your essay. 

All you can do now is believe in yourself. 

Look in the mirror and say this 100 times. Don't laugh; it got Stanton through high school. 

Get some sleep... we'll see you tomorrow for pwnage!

Tuesday's soundtrack will change your life on several levels. One, you might need to get your groove on to de-stress from essays and school and whatever. Well, this track has you covered. Two, I want you polishing up your wicked dance moves for Saturday's dance. Well, again, this track has you covered. Three, I bet you didn't know that mega-superstar actor Will Smith used to be a rapper. And, a pretty darn good one. He was (and always will be for me) the Fresh Prince along with DJ Jazzy Jeff. Here is my favorite track, Brand New Funk their multi-platinum album He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper. (fun trivia - when I played basketball for PSHS, this was on our pregame warm up mix-tape)

On and on til the break of dawn...

How you react when you go back and re-read your essay. 

It's 'bout that Essay Life, son!
Whoo! How's everybody feeling? I often worry that, for you all, prepping for an essay feels like getting prepared to face a firing squad. It really shouldn't feel like that. You know about this stuff than you realize and, oftentimes, you're better at this than you give yourself credit. I think we all get bogged down in worrying about "correct formats" and nonsense like that. Just focusing on answering the question in the clearest and most complete way possible, and you're going to be golden.
You've got to remember, however, if you don't know what you're talking about, all the fancy writing in the world ain't gonna help you.

Look to tomorrow's blog post for more tips on how to dominate in the arena of essay writing.

That's right! Bring it on! 

Here's how we do...

Here's what we're looking at the rest of this week:

TUES:  CE

             Ch. 10-12 of TFA

             Continue writing practice

WED:   IT'S ON LIKE DONKEY KONG... ESSAY TIME, SON!

THU:    CE

             WHAP p.760-761 due

             TFA ch. 13-20 due

FRI:     Cool stuff about science and philosophy 

            Practice sweet, sweet dance moves to dazzle folks at the Jasper Formal tomorrow night

I honor of all the amazing wordsmithing you're going to do with your essay on Wednesday and your need to practice your sick moves for Saturday's dance, I think we'll focus on old school hip-hop this week in our soundtrack feature. 

First up out of the gate is one of my favorite tracks of all time, regardless of genre. This was the lead single of the album, 3 Years, 5 months & 2 Days in the Life Of... by Arrested Development. It came out my junior year of college (1992). I pretty much wore out this cassette tape. 

Enjoy Tennesse: 

Masks, Models, and Mythology

Ah, creativity...you little gem.  How the shackles of academia keep you at bay.  Well, fear not, our first project of the semester asks you to individually (sorry, moochers) look into the Igbo culture and central themes of Things Fall Apart and create a product that reflects your understanding.  We've posted the instructions online and you have about a week to think about your strengths, interests, and available resources before we ask you to commit to a project type.  Will you lavish our palates with some yam fufu? Or will you bring tears to our eyes with your insight into the life of Nwoye? I guess we'll have to wait and find out.

We completed Current Event #5 today.  If at any point you want to check on how you're doing, please don't hesitate to check with your teacher of record.  We're almost at the halfway mark, so you don't want too many X's already. And while we're all read up on the situation in Flint, Michigan, here are some other headlines trending right now:

• The east coast braces for an anticipated blizzard
• The Taliban struck a Pakistani university earlier this week
• The "Affluenza" teen's mother was released from jail
• A new virus, Zika, is spreading around Latin and South America

And now for something uplifting...more Internet funnies.

Change it to brunch...and story of my life.

Everytime.

This is a classy blog; we use appropriate language.

Happy Thursday, friends! Keep warm.  We'll see y'all tomorrow to talk about either writing (9th) or the future (10th). 

I leave you with some #tbt...my 1st birthday. Bow game is strong. 

- Warrior Princess Siddiqui

I can see clearly now the rain is gone

Ah, finally, we can rest momentarily since our quiz over Unit 5B: Imperialism is over. Hopefully in our short and quick unit you were able to take away the following things:

• Western powers competed for colonies, creating a sense of nationalism among imperializing and imperialized countries, which in turn created some unresolved tensions
• Imperialism led to the gradual industrialization of other parts of the globe
• Industrialization will be equated with modernization, which in turn will be equated with westernization
• Basically, Europe and the United States have lots of colonies and lots of weapons they'll use to defend those interests. Oh, and Japan too, but we won't worry about them for a little while...

No need to cry...in front of everyone.

The next few days we're going to be continuing to look at Things Fall Apart and will get into some AP writing.  9th graders, you'll be introduced to the LEQ (Long Essay Question) this Friday, so if you're out (I'm looking at you, Band Clinic folks), please touch base with your teacher to get this instruction at some other time. 10th graders, we'll begin looking at the expectations of the CCOT (Change and Continuity over Time) essay on Monday.  No need to panic - our goal will be to have everyone comfortable with their respective style of writing for next Wednesday's essay. 

Don't forget, we have a Current Event tomorrow (it's already been posted)...a shout out to the people of Flint, Michigan :/ and we'll also be introducing your six-weeks project (the instructions are already online in the TFA folder).

And to help you unwind after a major-grade quiz, here are some Internet funnies.

Happy Wednesday! We're more than halfway through the week! Is anyone else craving a milkshake? It's because Mrs. Berends shared this with me. I cry. Should've been the CE. 

- Warrior Princess Siddiqui

Leo is relevant to everything

Hopefully everyone had a nice long weekend and you were able to catch up on sleep, school work, or TV.  But let's not forget the reason we had off yesterday - MLK Day. This day celebrates Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's birthday (January 15), a man who promoted nonviolent activism in the Civil Rights Movement. While we typically associate the movement with the 1960's, Dr. King's legacy lives on.  Here's a link to a recent NPR piece comparing the Civil Rights and Black Lives Matter movements. Or, see Mrs. Garafola post from last Friday for some other thoughts and things related to MLK.

So many feels in TFA today! Murder, locusts (hint: an important insect in the novel), just to name a few things.  Next up are chapters 10-12, so please make sure you have that read by next Monday, January 25.

First quiz of the semester is tomorrow!  This quiz over Unit 5B (Imperialism...5A was Industrialization & Nationalism from December), covers your knowledge over:

1. WHAP Ch. 32 (Imperialism and migration) and pgs. 685-688 and 693-694 (Latin America)
2. Imperialism Case Study: The British Empire (packet is online)
3. Migration (packet is online)
4. The Decline of Imperial China & the Ottoman Empire (the PPT is online)
5. Russia & Japan's attempts at industrialization (the PPT key for your chart is online)

I know it's been pretty fast and furious, but you have a lot of resources at your disposal to study from:

• Unit 5B Study Guide (online)
• Imperialism Q&A based on the questions some classes asked in class on Tuesday (online)
• Tutorials (after school today and at 8:15 am tomorrow) 

Remember, just being able to define important terms like zaibatsu aren't good enough in the grand scheme of things.  You should be able to place these terms into the larger context.  As Japan industrialized, they too will need the same financial instruments and witness the same economic growth that western powers underwent in the 19th century.  

Anyway, we haven't had a S.U.P.E.R. (Siddiqui's Unbelieveable and Prepossessing Eating Recommendation) recently, so here's one for you - The Filament in Deep Ellum.  This is a new Dallas restaurant that features regional cooking.  I highly recommend the cauliflower gratin and the gulf shrimp.  If you like Texas/Louisiana cooking, this is a cool place for you. 

Oscar nominations were released recently. Hopefully this will be Leo's year.  The Revenant was an excellent film, but it's a bit violent. And Pixar films seem to dominate the animated film category whenever they produce a movie, so I bet Inside Out will be a shoo-in (they won the Globe already).  On a side note, referencing Leo is totally academically relevant because he starred in Gangs of New York in 2002 (a film about Irish immigrants to the U.S.) and Blood Diamond in 2006 (a film that centers around the diamond mining industry in Sierra Leone...hello, Imperialism). 

Truth...I always cry at the beginning of Up

Happy studying!

- Warrior Princess Siddiqui

Humanities is where the cast of Friends invades Japan.

Humanitarians,

It is with heavy heart that I finish my week of blogging. Just because I'll miss blogging.

Today in class we wrapped up our fun(?) with imperialism by discussing Japan and Russia. What should you notice here? What goes down in Russia and Japan is better than what goes down in China and the Ottoman Empire, which is better (marginally) than what goes down in the rest of Asia and Africa. So we have our varying degrees of imperialism. Russia and Japan have a "if you can't beat them, join them" philosophy and BOTH practice government led industrialization. However, it works MUCH better in Japan than it does in Russia....as we move forward, remember that!

only relevant b/c crimean war :)

bahaha, why is this even a thing?!

Reminders:

Tuesday: Chapter 7-9 in TFA are due! 

Wednesday: Quiz over Imperialism!!! Tutorials on Tues pm/Wed am. 

Monday is MLK day, so I leave you with a little MLK things.

First, the "I have a dream" speech. You should listen to the whole thing, it's beautiful. Also, listen carefully for someone to say "Tell them about your dream Martin" right before he goes into the famous part. That part was AD-LIBBED I MEAN WHAT?! So beautiful and so brilliant.

My favorite MLK thing is the Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Read it all, it's beautiful. And honestly, with everything going on in the US, also very topical. 

Finally, educate on some of the other things MLK spoke on. Not only did he fight for racial equality, he also fought for income equality and to end the war in Vietnam. 

So what went down this day in history (besides being MLK's birthday!)?

• 1784: The US ratified a treaty with England, ending the Revolutionary war!
• 
• 1953: Josip Tito formally became the first president of the Republic of Yugoslavia.3
• 
• 
• 1963: George Wallace was sworn in as Alabama's governor promising "segregation forever".



this didn't happen

• 2008: Bobby Jindal takes office as governor of Louisiana, becoming the first elected Indian-American governor in the US. I asked some of my South Asian students in 5/6 about their feelings about Bobby Jindal. If you have any thoughts, I'd love to hear!

 And now, the last social media of the week to follow. This comes to us thanks to Mr. Stanton who pointed it out to me. Please follow Subway WWExperience on Twitter at twitter.com/WWESubway. It mixes your love of subway with class WWE gifs. WHAT A WIN!

when you become one with the sandwich artist pic.twitter.com/XkpxY0ctsR

— Subway WWExperience (@WWESubway) January 15, 2016

Have a fantastic three day weekend! See you on the flip side.

- cbg

or school :)

Sucker punched by Muhammad Ali

Humanitarians,

Today, after discussing the last Obama State of the Union America, we answered any questions you may have had over your reading on Latin America. It wasn't long, but there are some important take-aways from it:
1. the creoles, once they take power from the Spanish/Portuguese have no idea how to rule, and while they like democracy in theory, have no desire to share power with anyone else, especially the mestizos/mulattoes/indigenous/freed slaves.
and
2. the idea of a caudillo. These dictators, with total power yet unexplainable popularity and charisma, will basically become the norm in Latin America from here on out. When we come back here during the Cold War and we have leaders like Juan Peron, Auguste Pinochet, and Salvador Allende, they are taking their cues from the caudillos of the 1800's.

Pinochet

Juan Peron

After our discussion over the WHAP reading, we finished up our conversation on the decline of both Imperial China and the Ottoman Empire. By the end of WWI, both of these super old empires will be defunct; China will be embroiled in a civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists and the Ottoman Empire will become Turkey.

Tomorrow, on to Russia and Japan!

A few reminders....no school Monday! YAY! Tuesday, chapters 7-9 of TFA should be read. Wednesday of next week, Imperialism Quiz. Everything we've learned from the first day back through tomorrow will be fair game. Make sure you plan on coming to tutorials if you have any questions.

Sadly, this week has been filled with really influential celebrity deaths, so I would like to take a moment to remember David Bowie and Alan Rickman

First, Bowie

Ah, the great many faces of David Bowie. 

Please enjoy the following clips of the musician and actor:

And then some Alan Rickman, we love you, always:

That's all for today. Cancer sucks, and I want to go back to 2015, when we had these dudes. 

- cbg

Insert witty title here

Humanitarians,

I am so sorry about forgetting to post yesterday! We had some cat shenanigans at 3 am Monday into Tuesday and so yesterday was a bit rough for me. However, I am BACK and my self after a good night's sleep!

So Tuesday, we finished up Imperialism, for the most part. (If you weren't here on Tuesday, you do have a chapter 32 reading check you need to make up ASAP!) Things to remember about imperialism: this is the story of Europeans exploiting land, natural resources, and the people of various African, Asian, and Ocenanian (??) nations. Each European country does there thing differently; England likes indirect rule, the French rock direct rule, and who knows what the hell Belgians were doing in the Congo. Despite this, many of their motivations (resources, markets, racism) were the same and many of the outcomes were also the same. Finally, without the technological advancements that came along with the Industrial Revolution (like railroads, steamships, and telegraphs), none of these would be possible. I mean, basically up until this point Europe has been drastically behind the majority of the rest of the world; these technological advancements allow them to catch up and then overwhelm. The rest of this semester will basically be about (1) what happens when imperializing countries get salty with each other and (2) how imperialized countries get un-imperialized.

poor queen, she used to have an empire, but now just some islands

Today, we answered some questions on chapters 1-6 in Things Fall Apart, and did a TFA quickwrite (if you weren't here, you need to make this up!!). If the names are confusing you, or more importantly, the relationships are, PLEASE make a little bookmark/cheat sheet. Also, there is an index at the back if you don't know what an African thing is. 

After some TFA, we revisited China and the Ottoman Empire. When we last left them, they were on top of the world. 

But now, the are more like shivering, dying Jack and not Jack from the beginning of the movie. What WAS their Iceburg? While their are different reasons for each's downfall, you should notice internal strife and economic imperialism from Europe for both of them. We will finish with this discussion tomorrow, so come prepared.

Also for tomorrow....you have a CE over the State of the Union AND WHAP pages over Latin America due. Don't forget :)

This day in history....

• 1896: H.L. Smith took the first x-ray, a hand with a bullet in it!

• 1932: Hattie Caraway, from Arkansas, became the first woman elected to the US Senate. 
  
• 
  
• 1991: A divided Congress gave President Bush the go ahead in the Persian Gulf War. This is why Mrs. Garafola and fam don't live in Saudi Arabia anymore!
• 
  
  
• 1998: Nineteen European countries sign an agreement banning human cloning!

And as for social media to follow....

Check "texts from your existentialist" on insta. Extra points if you understand it all! (Sooooome posts are not totally appropriate, but most are and are pretty funny). Enjoy instagram.com/textsfromyourexistentialist.

Happy Wednesday, halfway through the week!

- cbg