Category Archives: humanities

The Journal of Peter Francisco, a Hero of the American Revolution

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Peter Francisco, also known as the Giant of Virginia or the Hercules of the Revolution, was originally called Pedro Francisco. He is supposedly from a Portuguese Aristocratic Family who had many political enemies. He was kidnapped at a young age. Not much is known about the nature of this, but some think it was arranged by his parents to protect him from their enemies. Whatever the cause was, Pedro was brought to American, where he was taken in by Judge Anthony Winston.

The American Revolution was a result of many years of slowly building hate and mutual misunderstandings. In the beginning, the British put small taxes upon the American Colonies, which have never been taxed before, due to the huge debts the government had. After many attempts, the Colonies got fed up. They formed militias. Unfortunately, the British misunderstood the American’s defensive militias and sent troops to suppress the supposed “uprising”. After much confusion and further conflict, the revolution began. In the end, the Continental Army defeated the British regulars. A new government was established, still representing the image that the American Colonies hoped the revolution would create. The British crown no longer ruled. A new democratic republic was formed in its place. Contrary to the British parliament, which was mostly controlled by the Aristocrats, the American government was formed on the basis that all had some form of control, either by protests or by voting.

The War of two Georges (Sometimes also known as the American Revolution)

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The American Revolution in Plain English By Alex, George, Hanna

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” This phrase accurately described nearly every revolution. The American Revolution was a good example of this statement. It was also, fortunately, a revolution with fairly few deaths. The Revolution ensured North American prosperity and also began a huge wave of West Atlantic revolutions. In many of these revolutions, large amounts of people died. Unlike the American Revolution, the other kings did not let go so easily, and many bloody conflicts were fought as a consequence.

Have you ever wondered how a company like Google was created? You’d be surprised.

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I recently read the book Google It, by Anna Crowley Redding. Its theme is that success does not come from being normal or being rich, but from trying things noone has ever tried, and still have the determination to continue when others mock you. For instance, the booked discussed google’s nature as a untraditional company, meaning it does not follow normative “rules”. Google was also founded under interesting condition: It was a university project. Larry and Sergey stole computers to create Google’s server due to their small amounts of money.
I would recommend the book as it is a amazingly told story about Google and changing the world. It includes much information about the people involved with Google’s creation and also provided extremely entertaining side notes of anything from Google’s new inventions to tips on swearing in Klingon.

Why should we only look at history in a single way? (An alternative view on the Boxers)

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Did the Boxers deserve a bad rap?

The Boxers did not deserve a bad reputation as they were less educated and did not understand the goals of the western missionaries. The Boxers, which “was a secret society…consisting largely of people who had lost their livelihoods due to Imperialism and Natural Disasters”, were “made desperate by disastrous flood and widespread opium addiction.” They believed that these problems originated from the foreigners and, in a way, they did. However, with floods and droughts popping out whenever more foreigners arrived, the Chinese started to believe that the gods are punishing them for the Chinese Christians and the western missionaries. The Boxers, who only wanted to protect their country, decided to act and attacked a few German missionaries. However, this was only because the Germans were killing innocent Chinese citizens because their leader was afraid of the buff, strong Boxers (as explained by the tour guide). The Boxers never wanted to kill, but even the “most peaceable people” can succumb to immense pressure from other countries. A rebellion similar to the Boxer rebellion is the American Revolution. Even though America was not affected by many countries, its people were enraged by the high taxes set by the British government. Interestingly, the American Revolution indirectly caused The Boxer Rebellion by forcing the British to try and sell opium to China.

 

 

Mannaismayaadventure. “Boxer Rebellion – in China.” Mannaismaya Adventure’s Blog, 15 June 2011, mannaismayaadventure.com/2011/06/15/boxer-rebellion-in-china/.

Humanism…How Humanist Am I

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Currently, in humanities class, we are learning about the Renaissance. The Renaissance is an era where humans improved their way of thinking. In this project, we worked to explain the major ideas of humanism, a brainchild of many intellectuals of the Renaissance. In this infographic, I attempted to calculate how humanist I am and explain many parts of humanist belief.
I agree 4/5 towards their ideals Ad Hominem
I agree 5/5 towards their ideals De Religione, In Artis, and In Educatione.
Therefore, I am 95% humanist.

Time? How do we depict it in science fiction? Analysis of “The Sound of Thunder”

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George Xu

Humanities

Assignment 2

CER+ER+…

What is time, and how do we portray it? Nowadays, many science fiction authors depict stories regarding time travel. Paradoxes and changes in history are the most prominent among them. For instance, the story “The Sound of Thunder” depicts a futuristic franchise that can send people back in time to kill animals. The main character, two other hunters, and two guides were to kill a tyrannosaurus. Yet, the story is more than what it seems. It has deep philosophical ideas such as “there are consequences to your actions”, “better safe than sorry”, and “don’t overestimate yourself”. Ray Bradbury, the author of this story, depicts in this short story that even changing something of infinitesimal importance of what should not be changed can cause enormous consequences later on.

To first notice this, we could look at the beginning of the story. At the beginning of the story, the official told the main character, Eckels, that “If he [the guide, Mr. Travis] says no shooting, then no shooting.” (Bradbury 1). After that, the official warned Eckels that “If you disobey instructions, there will be a penalty…plus possible government action, on your return.” (Bradbury 1). This demonstrates the severity of the issue. One could infer that the government would interfere as they fear of consequences. Additional support would include a part of the sign: “Safaris to any year in the past” (Bradbury 1). The government might fear damage to the world as some animals might have become extinct or some other details might have been changed.

The guides are all very cautious about what happens in the past. Later, after the safari has left the present, Mr. Travis, the guide, insisted that Eckels to “Stay on the Path!” and that “If you fall off, there’s a penalty.” (Bradbury 4). When asked by Eckels to explain, Mr. Travis said that “We don’t want to change to future. We don’t belong in the past” (Bradbury 4). This also shows Travis’s caution towards their time traveling. They even sent Lesperance, another travel guide to “note the exact hour, minute, and second” (Bradbury 7) the dinosaur was killed, as to prevent drastic changes. This was made to find only the animals “with no future, that are never going to mate again.” (Bradbury 7). He then exclaimed, “Do you not see how careful we are?” (Bradbury 7).

Yet, even with all these warnings, Eckels panicked, and “He ran off the path” (Bradbury 12). Travis was enraged and threatened to kill him: “I’m warning you, Eckels, I might kill you yet. I’ve got my gun ready.” (Bradbury 13). It can be assumed that Travis is threatening him because “Who knows what he’s done to Time, to History” (Bradbury 12).

Consequences, consequences, consequences…Eckels’ sudden panic has changed the world for the worst, all because of “a butterfly, very beautiful and very dead” (Bradbury 15). All because of one butterfly, the entire language of a nation has been changed, from “Time Safari, inc. Safaris to any year in the past. You name the animal. We take you there. You shoot it” to “Tyme Sefari, inc. Sefaris tu any yeer en the past. Yu naim the animall. Wee taekyuthair. Yu shoot itt.” (Bradbury 1, 15). Additionally, rather than Keith winning the election with most people despising Deutscher (or Lyman, in the graphic novel), Deutscher was the one who won, with the official–who previously insulted Deutscher–complimenting him for the very thing the official despises in the original timeline. Eckels “heard Travis shift his rifle, click the safety catch, and raise the weapon. There was a sound of thunder.” (Bradbury 15). Travis shot someone, maybe Eckels, maybe himself. But what would happen next, what would the survivors do? Can they change history back? We might never know…

 

 

More Information:

This is my analysis of the science fiction story “The Sound of Thunder”. This short story is made by Ray Bradley, who is a greatly distinguished author and screenwriter who participated in the production of many films and an author of multiple books. Science fiction and time are closely related, and this is depicted in this short story.

Identity Problems (And a Crush Over for Christmas Dinner)

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This story is called Fish Cheeks, a story written by Amy Tam.

Amy Tam is a US citizen born to two Immigrants from China who lived in the San Francisco Bay Area. She wrote multiple stories like “My joy luck club.”

 

The story is about a girl named Amy, who is also the author, who has a crush on Robert, “the minister’s son”. Later, she found out that the minister’s family will be over for Christmas Eve dinner. Amy appears to criticize every single bit of the Chinese food her parents made, such as “A slimy rock cod with bulging eyes ” and “fleshy prawns”. She felt that Robert would feel “terrible disappointment…upon seeing not a roasted turkey and sweet potatoes but Chinese food”. However, this does not represent what she feels as she the foods are “all my [her] favorite foods”. She is afraid that other people would think that she is Chinese. For instance, When her father said ‘“Amy, your favorite,”’ and offered “me [her] the tender fish cheek”, Amy “wanted to disappear”.

The real conflict is that Amy has a cultural conflict where she is not sure whether she is American or Chinese. Her mother said “You want to be the same as American girls on the outside,…But inside you must always be Chinese…”.

My poem shows this by showing how Amy was unhappy that Robert would see her family. My poem also shows how Amy realizes what her mother meant when her mother told her that Amy should be proud of her lineage. It shows how Amy’s mother told her to be proud.

Citations:

Studiobinder, Team. “The Real Purpose of Conflict in Your Story.” StudioBinder, 10 July 2020, www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-conflict-in-a-story/.

Tam, Amy. “Fish Cheeks.” CommonLit, 1987, www.commonlit.org/en/students/student_lessons/5519409.

Tam, Amy. “About.” Amy Tan, www.amytan.net/about.html.

mesopotamia catapult simulation

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The simulation on the ancient Mesopotamian civilization is about making the secret invention by trading and designing buildings like temples. The secret invention was the catapult. we had to make our own language and trade without words and design a 3-story temple with many kitchens, living rooms, staircases, and other things.

During the simulation, my first job was to make the laws and then I moved on the temple designing when Takumi finished with his job. When we selected the jobs for each of our members, we had Takumi make our language while Emily was our trader, I was the law-maker and angel was the temple designer. Our biggest achievement was to be able to trade very well which caused us to win (a tie). Our weakest part was designing the temple as I’m not that good at making blueprints. If I could do this activity again, I would change the planning of the jobs so I was the trader, Takumi was the law-maker, Angel was the temple designer, and Emily was the language maker.