Daisy

"I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious" - Albert Einstein

Category: Humanities

A Head for a Tree of Liberty: The Diary of a Fervent Parisian Revolutionary

March 23, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Struggling from an impoverished, starving Parisian worker all the way to an astute revolutionist that proposed innovative laws to bring more equality and rights to the French commoners, this is Dieudonné Babin. Throughout the French Revolution, he, as an apprehensive and zealous juvenile, had internal conflicts of uncertainty, hesitation, and trepidation. Through the conflicts, he grew up, worked hard to fight as a soldier, and was able to gain more benefits for himself. He recorded his bravery, brilliant wit, self-reflection, and the fall of absolutism and unfairness in France.

The French Revolution was a 10-year-long gory and dramatic abolishment of monarchy and prerogatives to embrace a republic with equality, liberty, and fraternity. Was it successful? Are the great efforts that Dieudonné Babin put into the revolution worth it?

Although the French Revolution resulted in 17,000 brutal executions on the guillotine, drew France into wars, inflation, and starvation, and didn’t eradicate the corruption and poor administration of the government, the revolution was successful because there was more equality, access to education, secularism, freedom, and rights of the French commoners. In addition, a sense of nationalism fueled after Napoleon had a series of military victories. There was no more state religion, monarchy, feudalism, and France became a republic!

Over 17,000 Severed Heads: A Dramatic and Radical Embrace of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity

March 10, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Welcome to DJ (Daisy and Jasmine) Blogs! We made a common craft video about a brief introduction to the French Revolution (We each wrote half of the speech). I (Daisy) drew the contours of the images and colored a half of them and did the editing, Jasmine colored the rest of the images and provided the music and sound effects for our video.

 

The French Revolution is gory, dramatic, and entertaining to delve into, with the Sans Culotte peasants organizing an overthrow against the corrupted royalists, over 17,000 brutal executions on the guillotine, and France turning from a monarchial country into a republic. The Tennis Court Oath, taken on June 20, 1789, was the key event that set off the revolution. Pre-revolution France had an absolutist king (Louis XVI) and was constituted of three Estates, the First and Second Estates (very rich) took up only 0.1%  of the French population and had privileges like not needing to pay taxes, but the Third Estates had to pay lots of taxes and had many less rights than them. When the First and Second Estates outvoted the Third Estate in the Meeting of the Estates General, the Third Estate people went to a tennis court, held their meetings there, and created the National Assembly. The second key event is the creation of the Declaration of the Rights of Man (introduced by the national assembly), which was originated from the Enlightenment and promised more equality in the society and more fair rights between all French people. The third key event happened in 1791, Louis XVI and his family were put in jail and he was convicted of treason. A newly established Convention chose to make France a republic, so Louis was executed on the scaffold in January 1793 (and later Marie Antoinette). The fourth key event resulted in 17,000 heads chopped off––––The Reign of Terror. A committee led by the Jacobins (Committee of Public Safety) passed two unfair and unethical laws that allowed convicting, imprisoning, and beheading anyone that was suspicious of being a counterrevolutionist or was alleged by someone. So many people, including the innocent people and poor peasants, died on the guillotine. Later, people got tired of this committee, so they beheaded the leader of the committee.

 

What big ideas did I learn about this revolution? First, it is a radical and violent grass-root movement that overthrew the monarchial governing system violently to embrace a better system: Republicanism. The Russian Revolution is similar to it, because it is also a grass-root movement and Russia also had a bad absolutist leader (Tsar Nicholas II), bad economy (widespread inflation), unfairness in social classes (the nobles and the rich had much better lives than the peasants), and food shortages (bad harvests) before having the revolution. Second, a revolution cannot change everything in the society. Because, even though there was more equality, education, nationalism, secularism, democracy, and freedom among the French people after the French Revolution, there were still wars (the French Revolutionary wars), government corruption (the Directory), and Roman Catholicism (many French people were still very religious). Enjoy watching the video, have a nice day!

My Notes about the Book “Trapped”

January 18, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Recently I read a literary nonfiction book called “Trapped“, written by Marc Aronson in 2011. Its main topics are mining, accident rescue, and late-stage imperialism. The book started off with a mine called San José that collapsed and trapped 33 miserable miners down in its shaft, which is 2,000ft below the Chilean Desert. Comapaninges and organiztions like NASA and Cementation Inc. of multiple countries came to Chile to try their best to rescue the trapped miners. Throughout the author’s descrption of the rescue, readers could learn the importance of hope and teamwork and people discovered an astounding reason of why the San José mine collapsed and trapped the miners : late-stage imperialism that existed in mining.

 

In this notebook page, I came up with a significant central idea about late-stage imperialism. The pages I cited show how the mine owners of San José opressed and exploited their workers, only caring about making money. I also putted this central idea in “Failure of Risk management” in “Issues” because it jeopardizes the society and is one of the reasons that caused the San José mining accident.

 

In this notebook page, I figured out another central idea in “Trapped”. It is the fact that people tend to believe more in religious things when they are in a desperate situation, because people can comfort themselves more with positive beliefs. I also wrote about the most crucial theme in this book, which is “The really great teams are the really bonded ones“, and embedded a text evidence to support this theme. It is about how the trapped miners cooperated and helped each other to survive in the collapsed mine.

 

I drew a mind-map about three connected themes in “Trapped”, they are related to the fact that tough situations could bring people toger, how teamwork makes a good team, and always having hope. By making this map, I relfected on and learned a lot about how to stay positive and collaborative in my life. I also wrote and connected some text evidence with the topic and main themes of the book. The sentences I highlighted or underlined in the same colors are connected too.

 

This notebook page included how I understood a section of the book after re-reading it and connecting it with a new idea in the book. At first, I did not understand why the miners were very imporverished and poor. But after reading more, I discovered a piece of evidence that revealed the cause, which is about the mine owners being very nonchalant and uncaring to their workers, so they exploited them and paid them very less.

 

I highly recommend this book, because it has many common sciences about geology, geography, and mining that we should learn more about and has many informative and frank languages that help you to read quickly. This book also teached me how important teamwork and hope are and how they can make my life more successful and positive.

Am I a Humanist?

October 14, 2022 / / 0 Comments

Personally speaking, I deeply believe in the ideology of humanism since I rated myself with 92% of a humanist.

I think education is really important and powerful, because we should study humanities, art, literatures, and philosophy to better know about the past, our ancestors ideas, and how to get smarter.

I believe that rediscovering and improving classical cultures (For example, studying ancient Greek and Roman writings and architectures and trying to make them better.) not only can help us to learn about what our previous world was like but also implementing the old ideas (whether improved by us or not) to our modern world to make it better.

Civic virtues are also important because we should all be good, helpful, caring, and citizens, not just caring about our own good but also others. If everyone is a good citizen, our society would be much better. https://www.worldhistory.org/Renaissance_Humanism/

I think we should often question the things in our world because  we could find mistakes or problems in them, then we could rectify them to make our society a better place.

Furthermore, I also believe that our individual achievements weigh more than our social classes that we are born with. Because, a peasant could be great if they managed to do something great that other peasants could not, and a noble would actually be awful if they were not competent, no matter how rich or powerful they were. This idea emphasized a belief that I support: Individualism, which means to be dignified and free. file:///Users/daisy.zheng/Downloads/Ch%2028%20Humanism.pdf

“Thank You Ma’am” (Internal Conflict)

September 11, 2022 / / 0 Comments

This is my blackout poem! I drew a pocketbook on it, which relates to the story.

 

file:///Users/daisy.zheng/Downloads/1124_001%20(1).pdf

Above this sentence is a direct link to my blackout poem, below this sentence is the direct link to the story I blacked out.

https://www.commonlit.org/en/students/student_lessons/12081319

 

The explanation of my work :

I did a blackout poem for the realistic-fiction story “Thank You Ma’am” by Langston Hughes in 1958. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langston_Hughes

The internal conflict is the thief boy, Roger, was struggling and hesitating to choose either to run out of the house or stay with the woman that he had tried to steal a pocketbook from.

Now let’s sum up the story. I think the protagonists are the boy named Roger and the woman, Mrs. Jones, but there are no absolute antagonists in this story. The exposition started with Mrs. Jones walking back home with her pocketbook to make dinner as usual, then Roger suddenly dashed to her and tried to steal her pocketbook (because his parents were not at home, and he wanted money to buy a pair of new suede shoes) but failed as he lost balance and tripped. The rising action is Mrs. Jones caught Roger and dragged him all the way to her house, then she told Roger to wash his face (in which he did it reluctantly) and started making dinner. The climax started with Roger hesitating to choose either to run out from the door with the woman’s pocketbook, be free and hungry, or stay with the woman, get his face washed, and eat dinner with her so the woman could give him money to buy a pair of blue suede shoes. Finally, he decided to stay with the woman and eat dinner with her. The resolution is when Mrs. Jones told Roger about things like what she did when she was young when they were eating dinner, giving Roger 10$ to buy shoes, and allowed him to leave her house.

https://homework.study.com/explanation/what-is-the-main-conflict-in-thank-you-m-am-and-how-is-it-resolved.html#:~:text=The%20main%20conflict%20in%20%22Thank,Roger%20expects%20punishment%20from%20Mrs.

My poem started with “Roger, go to that sink.”, which is a dialogue I made for the woman, to show that the woman wanted Roger to stay and wash his face.

Then I highlighted “Roger looked at the door, the woman, the door, and went to the sink.” (Paragraph 23) and “The door was open, he could run.” (Paragraph 32), showed Roger’s hesitation. Roger wanted to run out with the woman’s pocketbook and be free, but then he knew he will be hungry, mistrusted, and could not buy new shoes. At the same time, even though the woman trusted Roger and he wanted to be trusted by her, Roger was frightened and kind of reluctant to stay, wash his face, and eat dinner with her.

In my blackout poem : “The woman ‘trust’ him, he ‘want’ to be trusted.” (Paragraph 36) shows that the woman trusted Roger and he wanted to be trusted by the woman, and he also wanted to show that he was believable. Roger would feel guilty if he ran away from the woman. He was having a contradiction to choose whether to leave or stay, which is the internal conflict.

There is a section of my poem (Paragraph 35) where I used the word “I” instead of “He” (Though there is no “He” in that section of the text) : But I did snatch the pocketbook, I have not “eat”. This is the thought of Roger; he was hesitating to whether stay with the woman or run out of the house.

There is an illustration of a beige-colored pocketbook on the page of my found poem, it represents Mrs. Jones’ pocketbook, it supports my poem because it is a part of the conflict, since the conflict started with Roger trying to steal Mrs. Jones’ pocketbook and when Roger was having his internal conflict he thought of running away from the house with the pocketbook.

**Le Noël**

December 16, 2020 / / 0 Comments 
“God rest ye merry, gentlemen...... Let nothing you dismay...... Remember Christ, our saviour was born on Christmas day...... To save us all from Satan’s power when we were gone astray...... Oh, tidings of comfort and joy...... Comfort and joy...... Oh tidings of comfort and joy......” the carol halted, we went silent as our teacher snapped her fingers.

I was peeking directly at Karry, who was still singing alone and carefree, not noticing kids who curiously darted their glimmering eyes to him.

“Hush, Karry, halt it. I know it’s beautiful.” the teacher gave Karry a serious look and he ceased, seeming to be startled.

“I’m sorry.” Karry apologized and lowered his head, some kids giggled at him.

The teacher turned to face us, “Well done, kids. I think you guys are ready to present it in front of all the kindergarten kids and their parents tomorrow in the big theater!”, she said, we all signed, feeling dull.

Actually, I didn’t even really understand what the lyrics wanted to tell, it was a bit weird for kindergarteners, I bet.

BTW, Karry couldn’t understand them either!

“Ah, come on! It’s almost Christmas! Aren’t ye guys excited about your gifts from Santa?” she said, breaking the boredom, the kids shook their head.

“Nah, I don’t believe in Santa, he is made up, unless someone is dressing like him.” I replied to the teacher, it reminded me of one Christmas Eve I was staying up till midnight to see if Santa was visiting our house.

“Gosh! How come you kiddos think Christmas is boring!” our teacher gasped.

“However, I’m not having any present this year, Mum said I’m gonna be a grown up.” Karry chirped in our conversation, our teacher seemed to be more shocked, I widened my eyes.

“DING-DING-DING!!!”, and that was the bell for the-end-of-this-class.

“Ok, guys, class is officially over, let’s get goin! See ye! And don’t forget to bring your lyrics unless you’re super confident.” our teacher shouted, since our class signed up for presenting the carol, kids suddenly rushed out like a bunch of crazy bees.

“Oh yeah, Karry, are you going to join the Christmas Party tomorrow?” I stopped him and asked him excitedly.

“Umm, maybe, just maybe, but mostly not, I bet... I have an important swimming competition in Tianjin......” he told me deeply.

My heart sank, and I walked away with a sad smile hanging on my gloomy face.

I had a feeling that Karry wouldn’t be able to come and he was just trying to make me feel better.

*

       It happened as I thought, out of any hope or possibilities...

Bright stage lights hitting directly on our face, I squinted and looked around, no sight of Karry...

I swallowed, the second time feeling really nervous without him. ‘Maybe he thought his big, big swimming competition was more important than me!’, I thought.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to our Christmas Show!!!” the host yelled and clapped, the entire audience was cheering excitedly.

“Tonight, which is Christmas, our dearest, cutest kindergartners are going to perform their prepared carols, dances, and dramas!” the host howling like a madman, more clapping and stomping echoed in the theater.

I peeked through the dark curtain, bright stage lights pinning my eyes, I saw my both parents waving at me.

“Now, everyone! Let’s listen to our cutest kidos chanting the “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”!” the host smiled and went down the stairs, the audiences becoming happy freaks.

Right then, bright stage lights hit directly on my face, I squinted and looked around, no sign of Karry...

I swallowed, suddenly feeling really nervous without him. ‘Maybe he thought his big, big swimming competition was more important than me!’, I thought, shaking my head, trying to hide my tears.

When I finally opened my eyes, the rest of the kids were already singing, so I joined in, but I suddenly realized I forgot the lyrics!

“God rest ye merry......uhm...hmmhmmhmm. Remember our saviour? ...was born on...whatwhat...day......TO save us all from...

blabla’s...power...” I stopped, a few kids frowning at me, some even giggling, I felt embarrassed, even more humiliated in front of cameras and people.

       I waited till the carol stopped, we bowed then left......

       That was my worst singing moment ever!

*

       After the show, all the kids went into the giant party room, eating cane shape candies and running around, knocking off Christmas trees. 

I just sat there, on an empty couch, reading the picture book version of “Hamlet”. I signed every time I peeked at the happy kids, jealous because they still had friends to play with.

       “Hey, Daisy, are you ok?” a sub walked up to me and asked nervously, “Aren’t you going to play with them?”

       “Nah, I prefer to stay by myself.” I answered absently, the sub seemed to know my true feeling.

       “I bet you missed Karry, right? Let’s call him.” the nice sub took out her iPhone and called him, my eyes suddenly glittering with hope, I dropped the heavy picture book and my eyes darted onto the screen.

       “Hi! OMG, DAISY?! I missed you so much! Guess what? I won the first place!!! I’m on the train now!” Karry’s voice echoing, I freaked out and screamed.

       “Wow, congratulations, très-bien, Karry! I thought you were coming back after winter break...Good to see you!” I whispered, trying to hide my happiness.

       “I remember the party ends at 11:00pm, and now is 8:37, but I think I can’t come and see you today......” Karry sounded deeply and sad, “My Mum’s phone is almost out of battery! Bye! Au revoir, Daisy!” then he hung up.

       “Bye.” I tried to give a smile to the sub, and I went out.

       I saw a line of kids waiting for presents given by teachers, so I joined in.

       “Hi sweetie, what gift do you want?” another asked me kindly.

       “Can I have a greeting card and two stuffed animals? Because I’m keeping one for my friend.” I whispered to her, to make sure no one else could hear it.

       The sub nodded nicely, I received a stuffed snake for myself and a stuffed squirrel for Karry; I also wrote a long message on the greeting card and left it on his desk.

Well, this was the last Christmas I had with him, I missed Karry.

       Pause right here, reader, actually I just wanna share with you a true, short, but heartwarming friendship between Karry and I.

       Do you have best friend(s)? If yes, are you willing to tell me a bit about him/her/them?

 

 

 

 

 

 

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